As Maura sat at the piano and listened to the final notes echoing in the chamber, she reflected on everything she had said to the priest and everything he had said to her. She had always discounted the pure power of words due to her experiences in the wild. Probably because there wasn’t really anyone to talk to and she had trained herself into silence.
The wonderful place she found herself in affected her mood as well. Geoff’s office had been reminiscent of her created hideouts but it was what she imagined a final version of one would look like. One that had been built and designed to last, not just to hide and rest. The storage area she now found herself in was also magnificent. There were many normal objects around the room, but Maura noticed several shapes that were most likely other instruments, like the standing harp in the corner.
There were things she had seen and done during her long journey that words could never fully encompass; especially the emotions, sounds, and smells of those moments. When it came to her feelings and ideas in regards to her mind there really was no better way to express them than with well thought out words and phrases to people that couldn’t relate to those moments personally. It was surprising to find a whole aspect of communication that she had never truly considered before, but knew subconsciously as a way to express difficult topics.
When she first met Geoff, she had been very high-strung, but her fear and sense of immediacy had faded over the hours that they spent talking. She had quickly summarized her life, skipping over certain topics, but giving a mostly complete picture. Geoff had listened well, occasionally asking questions for clarification or when she used a more archaic word that he didn’t understand.
At the end of their two to three hours of talking, he had turned the whole conversation from herself, to a general sense of the world, to her hopes, and then brought her back to help her realize she was doing exactly what she should be. He helped her realize that there was a lot to be grateful and happy about and that while the trials she had been through were important, she could use them to build into the future instead of allowing them to drag her down. She knew now that there were people that were trying to help her, and that she didn’t need to be so afraid anymore. That she could trust the future because there were people in her life now who would try to make it brighter.
It was only when they had been arguing about semantics and the philosophy behind religion that he had decided to bring her into the store room across the hall. He had been moved beyond words from listening to the music that she had programmed into herself.
The last half hour of their conversation, she had been playing music lightly using her magic and accompanying it with the piano, which had taken a little while to tune. She had thought it was background music and had been joyous to find herself able to play it, but it had been a deeply spiritual moment for Geoff.
When he showed her the piano, she shut herself down again, as if she hadn’t expected something so grand to be in front of her, which led Geoff to a bit of an epiphany.
Maura had seen, or at least had memories, of a much grander time and place. She was… unimpressed and saddened by the civilization she had found. It simply didn’t live up to the picture that she had built up in her mind. Her grand dream had been broken, and she was struggling to pick up the pieces.
She had expected to find something much closer to a utopia than what she had found in reality. It was a common dream of children to always think and hope for the best, but her ideas and hopes had been dashed rather spectacularly within a few days of finding a true society. She might speak eloquently and stalk like a hunter, but she was really a traumatized child without enough experience to even out the trials she had lived through.
As he was fascinated by watching her tune an ancient musical instrument, he pondered how to help her move forwards. He heard her grumbling while she plucked and adjusted the piano, but realized that the simple act of fixing something important from her past was part of therapy.
Geoff just needed to show her that while certain things were different, and possibly worse, there were many other grand things to be celebrated and that the future was full of possibilities. Maura seemed, at least to him, to have given up hope of finding or building something worth-while until recently and was still struggling with her role in forging a path forwards.
She had gone through the deep dark hoping to find the light, assuming that once she did that all of her trials would be over and she could finally rest. Life didn’t work that way - it continued and built upon itself, but it was hard to think that way when you were expecting a gentle rest and found that life continued onwards whether one wished it to or not. It was a common issue with new soldiers who had finally seen the blood and death of combat for the first time and realized it wasn’t nearly as glamorous as their dreams were.
Maura had no issues knowing about the smells and horrors of war, but she did have an issue looking forward in a positive light.
Geoff also found himself fighting against his own beliefs.
Here stood before him a relic from the past that had inarguable proof that the gods he worshiped didn’t exist several hundred to thousand(s?) of years ago. He was still fuzzy on the timeline as she was, but the fact was that she had never heard about any of the current gods before waking up and rejoining society. It went directly against the written word of his faith that the gods were immortal and had existed since the dawn of time.
As he sat in the dusty storage room listening to Maura tune the piano, he made a rather surprising decision.
He felt a call to stay close to this person, to learn more of history and to reconcile truth from dogma. He wanted to travel with her clan.
He felt that he had to.
He had never considered leaving his comfortable spot once he had found his calling decades ago, but that calling was being put into turbulence. Had he grown complacent? He didn’t know, and it was a shock to find himself questioning aspects of his life that he had thought were set in stone years ago. He felt that he had just realized that the solid bedrock of his faith and sense of self had been filled with cracks which were just now being pointed out to him.
It also brought the Khersi belief system and his own into direct confrontation in his mind. Arguably, Maura was a great spirit of magic, of the untamed wild, of life and death intertwined that had been brought into the world in the flesh. Arguably, Maura was a denouncement of not only one of their ‘god’ Arcanus, but their entire system of faith.
He had two clear paths he could follow with this new knowledge. He could believe it to be true, or false. All other roads began with that simple concept, and while he knew many priests that would rather remain ignorant and attempt to crush any voice that spoke against the ‘truth’, he was not one of them. He, as a devout priest that believed in the spirit of humanity being guided by greater beings, had to accept what was placed in front of him and confront his beliefs and broaden his horizons to understand the world and find the truth of the gods.
Not only would his faith and devotion demand it of him, but he also needed to find the truth of the gods and what had uplifted his own heart from the mulch of war. He was old. He had grandchildren. But this young old creature, that accidentally fell inside of the piano while she was trying to reach something and was swearing in a childish manner, held a secret that he was not only honor-bound to unearth, but determined to reconcile with his own beliefs.
When she had finally tuned the instrument to her satisfaction, she simply sat at the stool without a word. There was a moment of true silence within the cold and empty basement of stone before she took an almost inaudible breath in and then began to play.
She began with a slow, sad song in minor keys. Half way through the song, there was a major lift and she began to play slightly faster at a higher octave. When that song was finished, she played some songs that went into the full range and accompanied it with magical instruments he had never heard before, but held the warm and bold middle ranges strong. Finally, at the end of her set she went lower on the scale and faded back into the minor keys - somehow sad and hopeful at the same time, and stayed there for a while before finally fading away to silence.
They both sat there in the pure silence of the lower levels and the storage room and contemplated… something. Maura didn’t face him or move - she simply sat at the piano with her fingers on the keys and pondered.
It was that moment that galvanized Geoff’s mind to accompany her wherever she went. She was playing music that he might be able to find sheet music in some ancient tome for but had never heard performed, and she didn’t seem to think it was anything amazing, but something nostalgic.
Once he had decided to not only confront his beliefs in order to find truth, but to attempt to follow Maura, his mind began to work on the minutiae.
He would need to bring his only true apprentice with him on the journey because despite the fact that he was in great health, he was very old. He simply needed assistance with most things on a regular day. A small part of his mind that wasn’t overwhelmed was happily amused at the reaction the young man would have to his sudden journey, but it would do him good, he thought.
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Geoff rarely used any of his funds, usually siphoning anything he needed through the temple and spending any proceeds from his various investments on charities, but he would need to purchase a wagon of some kind and brush up on his Khersi literature to join the Frozen River clan.
He would need to talk to the chieftain, obviously. Maura had decided not to tell him any plans for the future, only ending her story after being attacked in the city, but Geoff was a perceptive soul and felt that he probably didn’t have a great deal of time before something changed and he missed this opportunity.
The temple provided, but he just now realized that somewhere deep inside of himself he realized that it couldn’t provide everything. He had a secret feeling deep inside that knew that the temple couldn’t provide everything he may need monetarily. What else could it not provide? It was a small fracture in his own belief about the church being all that was or could ever be necessary in his own life.
He would also need to figure out how to get the damned piano out of the storage room. He would hate himself if he didn’t somehow give it to Maura. She had so much darkness surrounding her soul, that he felt a deep call to bring her something that was beautiful if he were to join her. Perhaps he could keep it in his own wagon as a way to guarantee he would be able to talk to her? Yes, that could work. It was still going to be a giant hassle, however.
Maura only realized that she had been playing music for over an hour when Geoff stood up, breaking the silence, and said, “Well, my dear. I do believe we have done some work to help you today.”
Maura started at hearing the warm voice calling to her. She quickly hopped off the stool and turned to the priest with a light blush. She had been so distracted!
She looked to the kindly old man as he fidgeted for a moment. He sat to her right on a dusty bench. His old hands were kneading together slowly as he sat back with perfect posture and a contemplative look on his face. His whole body was so gray that it confused Maura a bit. Gray hair, gray eyes, almost gray skin… but he had more life flowing through him than most people she had met. He had conviction and passion in almost everything he did, but it was tempered by age and wisdom in a way she hoped she might some day meet.
The cool stone beneath her feet and the almost perfect silence of their surroundings, now that Maura had stopped playing the piano, created a strange atmosphere. It was as if the world was holding its breath down here under the heavy stone, but not in a bad way.
He continued, “I would like to set up a meeting with your chieftain in your camp some time in the next few days. Could you let him know? We have much to discuss, though I swear none of what you have told me shall ever escape my lips without your permission. I would like to have you present and to talk to them candidly, but that is your choice.”
Maura hesitated a moment with her eyebrows raised slightly in confusion, but she responded, “I’m sure that won’t be an issue, Geoff. I can tell Chief Carter about your request tonight, though I don’t doubt there are official channels you could go through..”
They spoke for a few more minutes, but Maura realized that something had changed and that Geoff was ready to call their meeting to a close. She didn’t understand it, but she instinctively knew it wasn’t a bad thing. She found that she trusted the old priest.
They finished their conversation and Maura went to meet with her escort again. She hadn’t realized how long she had been inside. As she was able to see the angle of the sun she realized it was hours past noon, but it seemed that everyone had been given refreshments and allowed to relax while she was talking to Geoff.
The calm atmosphere of her guards fell away as they began to prepare to walk back through the city. Captain Logan was still with their group and had been brought up to speed on the events of yesterday while they had been waiting. He had a thunderous expression on his face at the thought that something like that had happened in the safety of the city, but the Army and the Guard had ever been rivals and disdained the other.
Captain Logan had dedicated his life to protecting all peoples and his city specifically against exterior threats. The idea of people fighting each other wasn’t unknown to him, as they had occasionally fought against other towns and bandits, but every time he considered that there were people killing each other inside of the supposed safety of a walled city infuriated him. There were enough monsters in the wilderness to fight, why fight each other?
As they left the temple it was obvious that there had been several groups waiting and watching for them. When they saw the number of guards and an army captain in the group, Maura could hear some curses as a few groups sent them venomous expressions and left.
Maura was treading a line between paranoia and sense in the way she had dressed today. She barely had any actual clothes of her own, so the poorly fit clothing in many layers that covered her entire body meant she could be just about any child walking with a group of people.
Talking through her experiences with Geoff had helped in many ways that she hadn’t expected. Maura felt much more grounded knowing that while they were being watched, she was almost certainly safe.
Between Captain Logan, Eric, and her escort, she would probably be safe and could trust them to do their jobs. It was strange to hoist the responsibility for protection onto someone other than herself, but she knew this was part of joining society and Geoff had helped her realize that it was something she could begin to depend upon.
Yes, she was traumatized from her time alone in the wilds, but she wasn’t there anymore. She had people who cared about her and would protect her from things she didn’t yet understand.
Part of that trust was believing that she would be able to anonymously settle into the Khersi tribes, especially when she walked into town. There were many children in the tribes, and while glowing green eyes, brown hair, and a scarred face were rare she could hide the glow by wrapping her mana tight and her scars were barely visible.
Hopefully she would seem like a different child than yesterday and the watchers wouldn’t know who she was. They never got close enough to notice her facial scars, and she had light gloves or clothing covering the rest of her skin. She was slightly worried that there weren’t enough children in camp to be able to hide properly, but from what she gathered during last night’s conversation that wouldn’t be an issue moving forwards.
Only a single small group of people with annoyed expressions continued to follow them as they made their way out of the city, but they made swift progress and were entering the Khersi encampment soon enough. It was clear that someone wished harm upon the Khersi, but it was still unknown who was behind it or what their objective really was.
The large area near the river put aside for use by the Khersi was segregated into clans like usual with large ‘neutral’ areas and paths between them, but when they came close to the Frozen River’s claimed area it was a chaotic mess of people, wagons, animals, and goods.
There were three new layers of guards that they had to make their way through, none of which were Frozen River but an amalgamation of multiple clan guards that had a good reputation and were called for guard duty for councils frequently. There were probably still some holes, but the three-layer method of authentication helped to siphon anyone away from the main camp who wasn’t supposed to be there.
The party mostly broke up upon reaching the general camp. Captain Logan had walked with them until they arrived at the first trade post, and he had promised to look into the attack independently. Maura and Eric had been chatting with him and thanking him for the escort. He said farewell, and that he would call to visit in a few days after he could talk to the guard and see if there were any leads on who might have attacked them.
After making their way past the layers of guards, Eric ruffled Maura’s hair and left to find his wife while the rest of the guards left chuckling at Maura’s pout about how he messed up her hair.
Maura walked up to the main tent, which she would probably need to start thinking of as the chieftain’s tent from now on, and saw that there were a great many people around. She wasn’t in the mood to socialize, so she used her normal tactics of silent movement and diminutive status to move through everyone.
She forced herself to work with her dress to make it more presentable and attempted to be seen as a normal person as she walked up onto the tent and rapped quickly on the post out front before entering.
She pushed the heavy hides away from the entrance and had a moment to scan the environment. There were many more people in the tent than she had been expecting, but the voices weren’t loud or aggravated.
Maura was drawn up fast by two naked blades suddenly placed near her throat as she entered the tent. In her haste and distracted thoughts, she had almost accidentally slipped past all of the people that would have vetted her entrance because she hadn’t known it was necessary.
There were many strange and new people inside the tent, but Maura barely noticed them due to the two large and dangerous looking people on either side of the wood pile. They were garbed in very expensive and magically aspected or possibly enchanted armor. The two swords at her throat looked more like hers, with a pearlescent glow and magic pulsing underneath.
She didn’t recognise either of the soldiers or warriors or whatever they were, but they had dour expressions and not an inch of compassion in their gazes. They both seemed a little taken aback as Maura just looked like a young girl that simply studied them as her emotions bled out of her and her mind began to create contingencies. As she was about to pull the atmospheric mana towards herself and begin to create contingencies, her conversation with Geoff echoed through her mind and she was able to keep the hunter from overwhelming her thought processes.
Upon seeing and hearing (amateurs. Your sheaths should be silent!) the weapons drawn the room, which had been noisy with conversation, suddenly fell silent.
Maura was barely paying attention to the two who held the blades towards her. She was focused on her adoptive parents, who slowly turned to see what the commotion was all about.
The moment that she saw Amelia’s happy expression turn to rage as she saw the blades, she knew she would be safe.
It was the other people in the room that was worrying her. There were two mages… though they didn’t seem like arcanum magi. Chief Carter had been talking to someone that had more magical and enchanted items on his person than most high-tier wagons might have.
She was slightly confused, but she knew that she would be safe here.
It would be slightly challenging to keep up the facade that the carters had created if she had to kill the guards with swords near her throat, so she stayed perfectly still and waited.
If there was one thing that Maura knew about her new life, it was that she could trust Amelia.
Judging by her thunderous expression, she didn’t need to wait for much longer.