Hunter policy #2022 (Updated):
Do not accept gifts, food, or drink from strangers. Many might seek your enchantments or uniforms, or more nefarious things from Hunters. Proceed with great caution.
“Now, see here, mister, my darlin’s no murderer. She dove and got it, fair and square!” The young man yelled at the finely dressed noble that stood coldly next to me. A light spread across his face and he pointed a shaky finger at the brooding gentleman. “You—You just want it for yourself, you do!” He snatched the smooth pearl from where it was nestled beside the young woman.
“Gerald, wh—what’s going on?” The woman named Laney asked in a quiet and hoarse voice.
“These thieves are tryin’ to steal what we earned, darlin’,” Gerald explained with a sneer. He enunciated the word ‘thieves’ with a hard ‘t’ that had me squinting my eyes at him in recognition. I didn’t know him personally, but I finally recognized his accent. He helped Laney to her feet and the two of them backed away.
“C’mon love, let’s go before they decide to finish what that foul monster started.” Arms around each other’s shoulders, they backed away from us. The gentleman in an eccentric mix of purple finery gazed at them with an ice I felt run down my spine. I was ready to jump to the defense of the civilians, but he made no move to stop them. When they moved beyond the perimeter of the trees, he sighed heavily. He looked at me with sad eyes that glistened softly with unspent tears. The man smiled broadly at me.
“Well, that was three hairs short of a raincloud. Care to sit with me? I have tea!” He proclaimed. I blinked rapidly.
“I’m sorry, what?” I retorted. I faintly dabbed at my head to see if I had suffered some head wound, as the man spoke utter nonsense.
“Oh, come now, you must be starving! Or thirsty. I happen to be feeling quite flipperjoppitous myself, but that is neither here nor there, present circumstances included.” The trimmed and tailored human nodded like he just gave me a perfectly sound answer and turned on his heel. He walked into the night without a care in the world. I assessed the clearing, suddenly convinced this was a trap. Because if it wasn’t, then that meant I was about to walk into the woods with a man three enchantments short of a ward.
“Ehh, screw it. I’m both those things,” I muttered and then followed my best approximation of where he entered the bushes. I didn’t catch a lick of his movement or visage for close to three minutes. Occasionally, I heard him whistle that odd tune he’d hummend earlier, or the faint odor of smoke, but that was it. I nearly turned and left when I caught the faintest sight of a crackling campfire.
“Ahh, there you are! I have bacon!” The man exclaimed cheerily as he stirred a teacup with one hand and used a fork to skewer thin slices of sizzling meat atop a pan. He had a handkerchief tucked deep into his collar, making him look childish as he crouched beside the fire in his finery. He held out the cup. “Just as you like it!”
“Umm, thank you,” I answered as I took the proffered cup. I took a tentative sip. I nearly spat it out. “Oh, that’s disgusting!” I yelled. He just chuckled and sipped from a cup of his own I hadn’t seen.
“Indubitably, miss Orion. May I call you Thea?” He asked in the same cheery tone. If I hadn’t seen the darkness in those emerald orbs of his just a few minutes ago, I would’ve dismissed him as a frivolous fool.
But I had. He was a warrior. He just posed as whatever this was.
My blood ran cold as his words registered on my belabored mind.
“How do you know my name?”
“Ahh, simple really. You talk in your sleep, Thea Shade.” His answer did nothing to help my mood or frayed nerves. I cocked an eyebrow and he laughed lightly, though I could see it was a tiny bit forced now. “I found your unconscious body by the bottom of the hill. I knew how excitable our noble nightguard get when they see things exist near their precious walls, so I decided to pull you into the forest so that you wouldn’t immediately become their target practice when you woke. Bit pretentious, though, saying your own name in your sleep. Speaking in the third-person is never wise. Trust me. I tried it. Nearly got me kicked off the triumvirate.”
“Wait, the Eldorian triumvirate?” I spat, gawking at his nonsense.
“Do you know of any other?” He replied way too calmly.
“Of the elves?! Their council of three?” I pressed.
“Yes.”
I sat down across from him so that the fire rose up between us. The meat he cooked smelled delicious, and I realized with some chagrin that I hadn’t eaten since that morning. I shook my head and focused on what he said earlier.
“And what were you doing at the bottom of the hill, so far from the roads? And with no guards, no less?” I pressed. Something about this man wasn’t adding up, even if I did feel a pang of guilt at his mention at being my alleged rescuer.
“Again, elementary question, Thea dear.” He leaned forward and I flinched. The smile grew more strained, but he didn’t waver. Instead, he flipped the greasy slices of bacon atop the pan that sat over several large stones.
How did he get all of this setup in this short time?
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“I was searching for words,” he eventually spoke.
“Searching for words?” I questioned again with a tilt of my throbbing head. I took another tentative sip from the tea. It was bitter, but had a strange aftertaste that was absolutely divine. It was like an experience in contrast, where the terrible first impression of the liquid transformed into euphoria by the time it was swallowed.
What on Eridia is this?
“Yes, Thea. I am a prolific ponderer, an avid acquirer of rare and mundane treasure the laymen refer to as ‘words.’” He raised his index and middle finger on each hand to gesture air-quotes, but the spatula and teacup he held made the action comical. I bit off a chuckle. Something about his answer stirred an old memory in me, but I couldn’t quite place it.
“I’m sorry. You collect rare words?”
“Yes! That’s it exactly! I love ubiquitous ones too. I’m not picky at all.” He grinned widely at me right before he chugged the entire teacup’s contents and threw the porcelain over his shoulder. I flinched and he gasped with delight as the odd blend of tea went through its full course inside of his mouth.
Then it hit me.
“You’re him. You’re Sir Sire!” I practically squeaked as the blatant truth smacked me across the face with a piece of bacon tossed in my direction.
“Tis’ I, little Orion! Sir Sire, at your service.” He declared dramatically. Even crouching, he managed a surprisingly deep bow.
“I—I love your books! They…” I trailed off, incapable of fully articulating just how foundational his volumes upon volumes of knowledge shaped my childhood.
“I know, Thea! Across the thin membranes of fate, I felt your adoration for knowledge.” He smiled paternally at me. I laughed. So much of his strange mannerisms crystallized. He wasn’t just some eclectic stranger. He was the Stranger.
“Is it true, Sir Sire?” I asked before my wits returned. “Do the governments seriously ban your books?” I had heard from various people in my school and at the market that the Valorian Empire and other nations tried in vain to get rid of this man’s prolific work, but none had been successful.
“Oh, yes. Those smug bastards will never learn the true secret to my trade. They focus on supply chains and paperweave factories, but they should really attend to my greatest power!” He stood and placed a neatly laced shoe atop a low boulder. I noticed that it was on the wrong foot, but the folk hero in front of me didn’t seem to mind in the slightest.
“What’s that?” I inquired with a wide grin of my own. He pinned me with a devilish smirk.
“All my books are free. No coins to trace. No ledgers to peruse. They are so used to following money that I am practically a ghost in their eyes.” He laughed heartily and took his seat across the fire from me. He pulled off the final few slices of bacon and split them evenly between us. “Alas, dear Thea, I must ask. Where did you acquire such a—unique—device?”
Some of the warmth gathered in my cheeks faded at his shift in mood.
“I got it during the entrance exam,” I offered sheepishly. I didn’t know why, but I felt a strange sense of shame now that I faced one of my childhood heroes. I wasn’t really upset by how I retrieved it, nor even that upset with the trouble it caused me. I had picked it up. I had used it. It wasn’t leaving me lest my arm be cut in twain, so I was pretty attached to it, even with my griping.
“Incredible! You must’ve been noble indeed in that bloodbath to warrant such a reward from your adjudicators!” He replied easily. I shrank back, a thin serpent of an emotion constricting my heart.
“Well, it wasn’t a reward, necessarily. It’d be more apt to say its previous owner had no need for it.” I smiled awkwardly across the crackling fire. The final vestibules of fat rolled off the pan and were eaten up in a mighty crackle by the evening flames. Through their illusory dance, Sir Sire’s face sharpened.
“Did you kill the person who once bore them?” He asked quietly. I bristled.
“What’s it matter?” I replied defensively. I leaned closer to the fire, suddenly grateful for the distraction so that I didn’t have to look at those vibrant green eyes that seemed to peer straight through me. “He died. I grabbed this, and it saved my life.”
I knew I hadn’t been the cause of the tall nobleman’s death, but a part of me felt like I was. I survived thanks to his demise. I was glad he perished, and the thought sickened me. Sir Sire picked up on something in my face, as he nodded solemnly.
“Ravens sometimes take shelter in another’s nest should a storm require it. It’s never comfortable, but it can be necessary,” Sir Sire said after a long moment. His eyes fell to watch the fire too. “Keep it safe, Thea. Its past is longer and more tragic than you might imagine.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You are aware of how enchanted items gain the classification of legacy items, or just legacies?” He asked suddenly.
“Umm,” I uttered while I wracked my brain for the information. “Doesn’t it have something to do with the object in question being passed down to at least two generations of users? And generally it's for combat-related equipment, right?”
“Right on all marks, Thea.” Sir Sire’s turned into a thin-lipped smirk and the flames between us reflected in his bright green eyes. “That legacy on your sleeve has been passed down for over a hundred generations. Few of them were passed on between two living users. All too often they were acquired in much the same way you got them. I take it the brother to this one is elsewhere?”
I nodded.
“Well, it wouldn’t do to leave it on its lonesome. Find it a new brother, would you?” His question confused me, but as I had every intention to fight with both fists one day, I nodded again. “Splendid! Now, how’s that ankle of yours doing? Quite clever of you to use a whipvine branch to isolate the joint.”
I glanced down at my handiwork.
“Whipvine? Is that what those willow trees are called?” I asked, though I felt myself preen a bit at his compliment.
“Indeed!” He barked with a boisterous laugh. “They are some of this world’s strangest and pettiest buggers I’ve ever met, and I once broke bread with an Archon!”
I tilted my head in confusion.
“Archon?” I asked with a cheeky grin. My mind felt soft, like the warmest wool blanket cocooned me once again and I was able to finally relax.
“Indeed, little Shade. Now, it’d be best if you got some shuteye while I go talk with some very temperamental Shardclaws.” The middle-aged legend rose to his feet with a mighty sigh.
“Shardclaws,” I mimicked with a giggle. He was so funny. My head soon found a soft blanket nestled right next to where I sat. “Such a silly name.”
“Rest well, Thea. Might not be for a while that you get to rest,” Sir Sire spoke softly, turning to leave the warmth and comfort of our little campfire. Something about his wording stirred a panic within me, but it was soon squelched by the sheer coziness of my environment.
What could possibly go wrong?