Completed The Reward of Loyalty

[Rhory Grimmere]

Rhory inhaled a sharp intake of breath.

The idea of either in such high power and influence did not sit well with Rhory. Her face fell into near defeat, knowing that they may very well succeed in such an endeavour whilst she remained a Private. Perhaps Kristen would have a better chance, but there was a misfortune to being born a woman in this world.

It became too easy to call upon a young woman and declare her inexperienced to even have an opinion.

Perhaps if Rhory had a lick of magic in her and trained to be a Dreadlord, she may have the power to work for change.

"Then we must do something, Kristen. War is already at our borders, and if we are to survive this... I want to return to a home that is safe for all."

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen looked to Rhory with a wistful gaze and a mouth made thin by reservation. Whether her sense was right or whether her sense was wrong, in Rhory Kristen could see something which she herself once had in pristine quality—something which had, inevitably, sustained some damage through her years in the Academy. Perhaps it was only because she was possessed of an ill mood in the wake of Garron's vile intervention. But in truth this could not be entirely the reason. Yes, Garron and his poison may have befouled and darkened her spirit for a time, but...she had lost something, going through the Academy, learning the unvarnished truth about an aspect of her country.

Vel Anir wasn't safe for all then, before the Revolution—for centuries, even, before the Revolution. And...

Kristen swallowed, for the thought which followed chilled her to the core.

And after a moment, she asked with all sincerity, and indeed, with all possible gravity, the weight of her words as if the very world pressed down upon them, "Rhory...do you believe in Vel Anir?"

Rhory Grimmere

 

[Rhory Grimmere]

Rhory did not answer straight away.

Her expression gave away nothing of her thoughts, or react to the delivery of the posed question.

Instead, she took in the quiet and serenity, looking out to the direction of where the stream flowed. The sound of the babbling brook filled her with calmness despite the riot in which her thoughts had taken. "No."

Her shoulders fell with such truthful admission.

"My family have always been in the Guard. I never wanted to be part of the tradition, but with all my brothers... disappointing your mother and father is a grave offense than to leave Vel Anir all on your own. I... used to wish I was a Dreadlord so I could forge my own path away from Grimmere traditions... Even more so now that there is a choice to leave. If a Guardsman were to defect..."

Death. Rhory wouldn't even make it back to Vel Castere without the order for her life to be given and executed promptly.

"So... if I cannot leave, then I must stay... but look at the conditions we must endure."

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen simply could not hide the hurt from her countenance when Rhory said no. Her eyes shut and she grimaced as though enduring a slow but deep wound. Yet, she would have it no other way. She resolved that she needed to hear Rhory's sincere answer (and everyone's sincere answer, for this question she would ask again of others), and that an answer founded in falsehood and flattery would have been far more hurtful.

She thought back to her moments with Henk, for then it had been the first time ever she had heard someone so clearly express their lack of love, their contempt, for Vel Anir—and to Kristen's innocent ears this had come as a great shock. And though amends had been made between them in Elbion, Henk's departure reopened the rift. But, gods, did she wish that he was here now; she yearned to hear what he might have to say here, and she yearned more to hear it with ears now made receptive.

And then, inevitably, it came to Kristen's mind, what Garron had said.

You are so incredibly alone, Kristen.

Kristen opened her eyes and said, "Your honesty, the truth of your heart, I value more than anything. Be not disquieted by my face, if you are so, for it is the pain..."

Kristen swallowed. Again. No tears welled in her eyes and her voice did not quaver, but her throat felt constricted, and it tightened slowly like a cruel noose.

"...for it is the pain of a hard coming to terms."

And there was a place where it had all started. Not in that tent with Garron.

But the Academy.

Kristen at last said, "It is good that you are not a Dreadlord."

Rhory Grimmere Henk

 

[Rhory Grimmere]

Rhory did not acknowledge that her honesty came as a surprise to her.

She did not even get to follow up with a "Maybe there is hope for the future." Not after seeing Kristen's hurt over her face. It made Rhory feel for her, as if she had shattered the painted glass around her friend and showed her the true colours of their world.

"No... you are right. I would be powerful and insufferable." She managed a weak smile.

Her face fell back into the pensive expression that plagued her. "Despite all I said... I want to make a change. I haven't given up. I wouldn't be fighting Olem's command to put me out there on the front lines with my friends to make sure they returned back to our new home. I wouldn't be left here waiting for news, maybe even crafting a letter to the family's of my friends. I would give up myself so that they could live... That is the Vel Anir I believe in..." One that only mattered to her.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

No hesitation nor reservation quieted Kristen's tongue here.

"And for your sake, and for Arn's, and for Felix's—for the good men and women around me, be they of the Guard, of the Dreadlords, or of any uniform pledged to the Anirian flag—I would fight and give all that is mine to give. This is a cause most worthy, for family need not be defined by blood alone."

And yet, while this sentiment both Kristen and Rhory wholeheartedly believed in, for Kristen it was not enough. It was not enough to only fight for the sake of those around her, admirable though such action happened to be. She knew, deep down, that she could not fight for something she did not sincerely believe in. The Republic—no, the very spirit of her homeland, the moral essence it embodied upon Arethil—had to be a thing worth fighting, worth bleeding, worth dying for, else, in Kristen's view, the enterprise was corrupted at its core.

The Republic had to be what she, what her House, believed it to be: the new dawn for Aniria. And this Kristen clung to dearly.

"Garron, in but some of that vile poison he spewed at me, would have me believe that Vel Anir sees you and I and anyone who fights in its name..."

Kristen shook her head, a small flash of anger at the memory crossing her features.

"...as disposable."

Rhory Grimmere

 

[Rhory Grimmere]

Rhory's face turned seething.

She got up from her spot, standing on the rock she had been draped over, but a fury upon her facade. "Disposable?" The Guardswoman laughed derisively, as if Garron were present and had said such a thing. "We are not disposable. We are living, breathing men and women of war. When will that end? Will it ever end? This fighting, this... bloodshed. When will Vel Anir stop making enemies out of ourselves?" Rhory looked close to tears, but she didn't allow the flood gates to open.

Shaking her head, she took a deep breath and turned to dismount from her perch. One step over the other, she stood on stone after stone, her boots dry despite the depth the stream travelled. Rhory made it to Kristen's side, not looking to her, but to the camp where wagons were filling back into the campsite, more supplies being delivered each day.

"I want this to stop. I want the chance to look back on this and think: Where can we fix this?"

 

[Kristen Pirian]

When will Vel Anir stop making enemies out of ourselves?

Gods, what a stroke of words, so deep and true. For what Kristen had seen of Rhory's face, she had seen enough, and knew that a similar pain, and a similar longing for their homeland's relief, was shared between them. Even now, as they prepared to march onto foreign soil, domestic woes plagued Vel Anir, and the ripples of the Revolution, rebellions and reclamations, tore apart Aniria at large.

What would Vel Anir do, if it claimed dominion over the whole of Arethil, and everywhere people called themselves Anirian? Would there be peace? Or would there be endless war, and Anirians killing one another on the grandest and most terrible scale of all?

Once, thoughts like these would have been impossible, inconceivable, for Kristen. But her faith in Vel Anir was undergoing a long and slow tempering, and by now this process had been going for years.

I want the chance to look back on this and think: Where can we fix this?

"I do not know," said Kristen. "But I do know this: that we must defy Garron's notion that Anirian life is cheap. And if this cruel sentiment of his is as pervasive throughout Vel Anir as he suggests, then it is all the more imperative that we, and those like us, live, so as to counter his darkness with sunlight. Culture is shaped by the people who carry it. We, too, not Garron and his ilk alone, are its torchbearers."

Merely saying all this aloud helped to elevate Kristen's sullen heart.

"Mayhap the day will come, when so great are our numbers—we who esteem and love Vel Anir—that such vileness as that which lunged from Garron's tongue will in the minds of the ordinary Anirian be impossible. Inconceivable."

Rhory Grimmere

 

[Rhory Grimmere]

Rhory looked to Kristen as if her words spoke to every beat of her heart, that it kept her alive as her thoughts came to understand what she was speaking of. To persist, to prove them wrong, that was in essence how Rhory wanted to make a difference. Granted, she wanted to be a spiteful thorn, but Kristen always had spoken with an eloquence that made Rhory pay attention. Never did she feel as if tje noble was talking down to her, but rather giving voice to her own thoughts and feelings to something more illuminating.

"Then we must survive this. Today and every day after if we want to show those that do not believe in us that we are the future in which they will be living through. As much as I would love to put an end to Banick with a blade, I think the satisfaction will be in him watching you become an icon, a flame that can never be extinguished." Rhory smiled, offering Kristen her arm to grasp with promise.

She, herself, was no prominent figure even out here in the West. Rhory was just another number in the ranks, but Kristen had a voice and authority that would shine a light on what they are to work towards. Rhory certainly had the fight, perhaps the comradery, but if she were to sacrifice herself, it would not make tidal waves amongst the masses.

"I pledge to be a fighter at your side, Kristen of House Pirian. A sister in arms. From this day and those to come, I pledge to be there for you, sword and shield."

The Grimmeres had never pledged to any of the Great Houses or their vassals. They had always been loyal to Vel Cirak and the lands surrounding, but coming out to the West had given her nee air to breathe, new lungs to speak her truth.

Rhory had made herself a new family out here. Arn, Sky, Felix. Even Owain could be considered part of it. And now, Rhory would have the pleasure of another sister to fight alongside with.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

Kristen could not help but to blush, and she looked up to Rhory with a glimmering awe.

Something like this was to her completely novel. Yes, there had been a ceremony in Vel Numera when her father Neil Pirian and her Uncle Tobias Pirian granted her the title and the Ladyship, and Mayor Caspian, Captain Rennil, and the Pirian-sworn men and women of Vel Numera swore fealty to her, but such was a case of established protocol, a formal motion for something already decided. But this? An Anirian, a Guardswoman, unaffiliated with House Pirian, pledging to her? It was as though Kristen's own nobility had leapt from ambush and surprised her, and especially so with her attitude of coming to Fort Etrich as "Lieutenant Kristen" rather than "Lady Kristen Pirian".

At last she came to grasp the arm offered to her, and she rose, for the occasion demanded it.

She smiled, a bit overcome, and said with some effort, "My, Rhory, I'm...afraid you've stilled my tongue!"

And with a certain giddiness, she laughed lightly at her own loss for words.

Rhory Grimmere

 

[Rhory Grimmere]

Rhory broke into a soft smile, a chuckle bubbling into laughter too as Kristen's joined her.

"Your support here has been appreciated, Kristen. Even Arn and Felix are now comfortable around you that you being a Lady does not make them worry they forgot to bow or address you correctly." She smiled, for happiness was easier to hold onto.

She remembered how both her friends had each pulled her to the side and asked her how the hell they were supposed to act before a Lady. Rhory knew that the Pirian noble would not have cared, nor carried any arrogance of her family name like some other Dreadlords the Guard have come across.

Rhory draped an arm around Kristen's shoulders, just able to reach and be comfortable as she steered her friend back towards the camps. "You're one of us now, Kristen. We are here for you because you fight alongside us as we get closer to the front lines." The smile was still there, present and unyielding for she was speaking truths, and she knew the future would be bright if she stood close with Kristen Pirian.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

You're one of us now, Kristen.

Nothing more did Kristen want than this. There had been a dread spike of anxiety which had slipped past all the defenses of her good-nature and pierced her heart when first her official orders to active service arrived. Would the Guardsmen and Dreadlords with whom she would be assigned to join accept her? Would it, Aionus forbid, be something like Bull's horrid greeting when she had come to the Academy? But now, fears allayed, Kristen could even rejoice in the damage Rhory had done to Garron's poisonous worldview.

"It will be an honor, I declare, to face the perils of war with you."

And so she walked with Rhory, departing from the stream.

She thought then of a sentiment she had once expressed to Alistair, this when they had gone to Ostia Anir at Councilor Berenger's request to untangle the diplomatic situation with Walter Banick. And it was this: I want to be a Dreadlord whose deeds my future children can be proud of. Something similar formed in her mind now, for she wished also to get Rhory's sense of the matter.

"Someday soon, Rhory, I shall be a mother; and when I am, I wish for the Vel Anir in which I raise my children to have no reflection of Garron's malice. It must be a Vel Anir my children can be proud to call home."

Rhory Grimmere

 

[Rhory Grimmere]

The way Kristen spoke made Rhory smile. It ignited hopefulness in her, that what was said would come to pass. A future painted before her, that she could get out of this alive and have a family herself. Never mind her family's pledge to the Guard, never mind that Rhory hadn't ever thought about having her own family before, never mind this war looming so close.

"Then that is the future we shall shape." Rhory shared a smile with Kristen. "We start today. Perhaps quietly look for those that have suffered under the reign of those that do not see our worth, hm?" Her smile turned encouraging, brighter and wider as her eyes glimmered with a mischief that promised so much. "I know plenty of hell raisers in the Guard, the kind that don't start fires, but nurture a seed of doubt."

Her voice was quiet, but no one could overhear the two young women. Not many paid them attention either, but Rhory did not wish to attract any sort of attention given the subject of which they were speaking.

"This war... by the end of it, I want the future you hope for become the reality for all of us. Sacrifices will have to be made, but I am ready to face the challenges ahead. Even Olem."

 

[Kristen Pirian]

If, with the help of Aionus and the Court of Stars, the very heavens above, a remedy could be effected for the woes which ailed the Republic, then what joy it would bring to Kristen's heart!

"There are many who cling to the old ways," Kristen said.

Yet, she smiled.

"But they have already been defeated once. And so may it happen again. And again. And again."

And in this way did the blight over Kristen's heart lift—for now. But this was enough, as the warmth of hope was soft and gentle, fitted for endurance through the dark rather than a sudden scouring of all one's despair. Mayhap, then, it would carry Kristen and Rhory alike to the downfall of Garron, Olem, and to the new dawn so promised.

Rhory Grimmere