~Thorben~
The citizens of Farfield continued to have mixed feelings about Thorben. He had both been welcomed warmly, embraced by Abuela in a motherly hug, and yet he’d also watched as others rushed young protesting children into their homes after meeting his gaze. He shook his head, disheartened to be the reason that children couldn’t play in the streets. The village was recovering, but Thorben wasn’t sure how long it would take for the horrors they’d faced to fade into history.
With starvation a very real possibility, they enlisted a local farmer to pick up the needed food from the keep. He swore he saw a change in the eyes of the people who overheard the conversation between himself and Abuela. Their unspoken gratitude made manifest in their general demeanor towards him. Snippets of hushed conversations reached his ears. Saved us… saving us again…heard he rose from the depths of the hells to claim…living in the Duke’s keep…building a new settlement…hero…monster… Overall, it seemed to be more positive than not.
Thorben was no stranger to the current of gossip and hearsay, but the swiftness of its spread here left him speechless. He’d only been back in town for a handful of minutes. What was this new settlement they were talking about? The word monster felt like a gut punch. He’d never been the life of the party like his brother, but people hadn’t considered him a bad person. Unless you believed the words of Dorn. Luckily, most dwarves dismissed Dorn as a foolish youth.
After Abuela finished thanking him, she handed him a key and insisted that he and Charlie stay the night at the Inn. She even went so far as to rearranging a room to accommodate the unicorn. Before retiring for the night, they saw down at a table to eat a meager meal. Thorben knew times were tough but didn’t want to offend his host by rejecting her generosity. If he was being honest, he needed the experience more than the sustenance. A home cooked meal was a home cooked meal, and home-cooked meals filled the belly and spirit. As they headed to bed, Thorben couldn’t help but notice Charlie was smiling just as much as he was.
The next morning, Thorben awoke to a smell he had been missing. His feet seemed to float as his nose led him to the kitchen, where Abuela handed him a cup of caife. “Breakfast will be out shortly. I won’t let us leave without a full stomach,” she said as she shooed him out towards a table. He sat down and held the warm caife in both hands, holding it close to his face. The invigorating aroma nurtured his brain back to alertness.
As he sat there, a scuff of feet on the floor behind him caused him to turn around. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw a familiar face headed his way. He spun around, set his coffee down, and raised his hood. Relief flooded into him seeing Leah conscious and moving around. She sat down next to him and stared at the table. They remained in silence that was only broken by Thorben’s occasional sip of caife. Anxiety smothered his relief. He continued sipping his caife letting the silence stretch out as long as possible, knowing that his debuff would soon bring it to an unpleasant end.
“I remember you,” her soft voice somehow filled the room.
Unsure of how to respond, he opted to remain silent. Sipping from his Caife to buy some time.
“Your face haunts me at night,” she said. He strained his ears to hear her barely audible voice.
Thorben’s heart sunk into the pit of his stomach. “I’m sorry, little one. I never intended to scare you.” The tone of his voice threatened to betray his pain her words had unknowingly inflicted. He could feel his throat constricting, and knew not to say anymore. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Charlie enter the common room, and freeze waiting out of the girl’s sight. He remained oddly silent for a hoofed unicorn on a wood floor.
“Leah, those creaky old floor boards betrayed you!” Abuela’s voice said from the kitchen. “Get in here and give me a hand, please!” Leah stood up and her hands hesitantly reached for his cheek. She turned his head to face her. Her long black hair covered much of her face, but it couldn’t hide the flinch as their eyes met.
“Thank you, Mr. Thor.” Though her voice was as soft as a midsummer night’s breeze, it echoed in his mind long after she lowered her hand and rushed to the kitchen. Thorben wanted to scream in rage and pain. He focused on relieving his white knuckled grip on his tankard. Why was he the monster? She hadn’t said it. He knew she meant her thanks, but her eyes couldn’t lie. She was terrified by him. He couldn’t blame her, but what did it mean for his life when his very appearance put children into a state of overwhelming fear? Whatever system, or so-called game, had screwed him over with his debuff could rot in the pits of a hell of its choosing.
Charlie plodded over and settled himself across the table. “Sorry man. That sounded rough. Believe it or not, I can relate, if you ever want to talk.” Thorben acknowledged him with a respectful nod, but waited until he had reigned in his rage a bit before responding.
“After I got my class, and everything that went along with it, I knew there would be difficulties. I figured it would amount to the occasional hassle by fellow travelers, refusal of service, or maybe even the occasional misunderstanding with guards. I had prepared myself for that.” He set his tankard of caife down on the table, harder than intended. “It’s the children’s reactions I didn’t expect! A kid burst into tears and sprinted into his house as we came into town, just because he looked at me. Now seeing the look in Leah’s eyes, I guess I just don’t quite know how to handle that. I’ve always wanted to be respected, like my dad. Now I’m a monster. Who respects a monster?”
Charlie listened, and when Thorben raised his head to meet his eyes, he saw the look of complete understanding. “The brotherhood I belong to earth side is a bit of an enigma to most. I’m not sure how to draw a comparison to your world yet, but suffice it to say that most people view us with suspicion. People view us with suspicion and fear. No matter how many old ladies we help cross the street, toys we buy for sick kids, or other good we do in the community, they view us as criminals. People look at how we dress, how we adorn our bodies, and our mode of transportation and judge us as nothing more than evil hearted criminals.”
Thorben hated to ask, but he needed to know. “Are you criminals?”
Charlie’s eyes hardened as he thought about how to respond before softening. “No doubt that some of us are, but many of us are veterans, soldiers, who have bled for our country. Most of our members see the corruption in our leaders and see through the bullshit that ‘civilized’ society tries to shove down everyone else’s throats and we push back. We are the people that no one wants to be around until they need us for something. We are the one percent of the population that people view as criminals until the point we are their heroes. You learn to have thick skin, so that those who don’t can live in their fantasy.”
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
“How do you deal with the look in their eyes?” Thorben asked.
“Surround yourself with like-minded people and forgive people for their ignorance. Lean on your brothers and let them lean on you. There will still be times of pain, but the times of solidarity will make it bearable.”
Thorben appreciated the words, but still battled with being viewed as the bad guy. Charlie saw this. “Other monsters.”
“What?” Thorben asked.
“You asked who respected a monster. Weaker monsters respect stronger monsters. My advice to you is if you have to be a monster, be the toughest mother fucker you can be. Let your strength protect others, even if they’ll hate you for it.”
Before Thorben could dwell too much on it, Abuela set plates of breakfast down in front of them and pulled up chairs for her and Leah to join them. Thorben could already see an improvement in the cuisine based on the ingredients that they had brought.
After his conversation with Charlie, the meal passed with Thorben lost in a world of his own. He heard the occasional exchange between Abuela and Charlie, otherwise it was a silent meal. It wasn’t until Thorben heard Abuela say, “we will be ready in an hour, see you at the stables then,” that the fog of brooding lifted.
Charlie laughed as he asked for clarification after the girls had retreated to the kitchen. “What do they mean ‘we’ will be ready?”
“I figured you already knew!” Charlie said.
“Knew what?”
“I think you should just look for yourself,” he said before walking towards the inn’s front windows. He motioned for Thorben to look through the window using his muzzle. Thorben pulled the curtain back and damn near fell on his ass in shock. A crowd of people that he estimated to be half of Farfield’s population were waiting in the streets, wagons loaded with their worldly possessions. Some were wandering through the crowd, saying their goodbyes. Many were staring at their houses, as if lost in thought. Others were crying and grasping for comfort where they could. Still others were bouncing impatiently, as if on the precipice of an adventure.
He stumbled back to his seat, as his legs felt weak. His mind was spinning. “What is going on? Why are those people in the streets?”
“They…we… want a new start,” Abuela said. “We have been ground down. We have relegated the status quo to survival for far too long. Many of us want something new, something unknown, to spark the flame of our future’s potential. We heard about your new settlement and decided that we wanted to be a part of it.”
Thorben was beside himself. “New settlement? Why?”
“We have known brutality. Our community has been stuck in hopelessness. We were facing inevitable death, and your actions altered that. Most of us would like to see where this fresh path leads.” Abuela’s eyes sparkling with sincerity. “The real question is, would you have us?”
Thorben couldn’t believe what he was hearing. These people were upending their reality based on his actions. His mind locked up. He wasn’t a role model. He was a kid who had a history of making poor decisions, a kid whose example shouldn’t be a basis for anyone’s life decisions, major or minor. As he wrapped his mind around the situation, he realized he had no right to not allow these people to resettle if they chose to. They were their own person, and could do as they chose. Pushing his doubts and shock to the back of his mind for now, he met Abuela’s gaze. “It might be best to stay out of the keep for now,” he said with a quick glance towards Leah, “but there are plenty of empty buildings in the village surrounding the keep itself. I will travel the road ahead of you with Charlie to scout and ensure your safety.” Knowing that he would more than likely have to deal with a few random encounters, he wanted to avoid dragging innocent villagers into a combat situation.
He needed to clear his head, so he headed out the back to go through his sword forms. Leaving his hood up to prevent alarming any passerby’s, he summoned his Katana and began. He immersed himself in the forms, gliding from one into another in precise, smooth motions. At the beginning, he used exaggerated slowness to force his body to hold poses longer than normal, and as time went on, he gradually sped up. As he reached the speed where he would begin his cool down, he activated his advanced speed by using a trickle of his adaptive meditation technique, and on a whim went through an additional round. He released it after one rotation and as his cool down ended; he noticed a new notification.
New Skill Acquired: Perception Regulation
Through multiple instances of successful modification or your adaptive meditation technique, you have proven it is more than a fluke; it is a skill. This stamina based skill alters your perception of time at the cost of advanced draining of your intrinsic stamina pool. Use caution: when your inner stamina pool reaches zero, extreme lethargy will occur.
As Thorben turned to see if everybody was ready to leave, Leah was sitting on the ground near the door watching him. She flinched as his eyes met hers, but forced herself to maintain his gaze. “Teach me,” her gentle whisper demanded.
“What do you want to learn?” His breathing and heart rate returned to a more normal state, as the post work out calm settled in.
“To fight,” she responded, shifting her focus to his Katana.
“I…,” he started to tell her she was too young and not to worry about it, that she was safe now. Biting off his words, he took another look into her eyes. He could see the need to regain control, to reclaim a sense of safety that she would only gain through true confidence in one’s abilities. She had seen behind the thin veil civilized society truly was and knew how unprepared she was. Could he deny her this request? Could he force her to live with the fear of helplessness surrounding her? She couldn’t forget what she had gone through, which meant her life would never be what it once was.
Thorben warred with this tragic reality as he caught Abuela’s gaze further in the open doorway. Her body language, and the lone tear trail falling down her face, told him she had heard. Her look trailed from him to Leah and then to his Katana. She looked back into his eyes and gave him a reluctant nod. He nodded back, acknowledging her permission. Thorben looked back at Leah, suppressing a sigh at her slight flinch. “…will train you,” he finished. She thanked him again in a soft voice devoid of emotion and turned back to go inside.
He heard Abuela direct Leah to load her last few bags into the wagon. He entered behind Leah, and Abuela pulled him aside. “She hasn’t talked to anyone but you since it happened. She barely sleeps,” she fought back tears, “and when she does, nightmares plague her.”
Thorben dismissed his blade and gripped her shoulder. “I will do what I can,” he said. The weight of the promise settled onto his shoulders.
“She has no little skill in healing, but I fear this trauma will affect the development of her mystic gift. The sooner she regains a sense of control, the less of a long-term impact it will have.” Abuela said.
Thorben knew very little about the realm of magic, only what Jerry and Aldwin had taught in their limited time. “Charlie and I will head out now to ensure safe passage for everyone. We will meet back up in the village outside the keep and discuss it further. Safe travels.” With that, he headed home…was it his home?…would it become that?