[Laurelyn]
Laurelyn had braided up her thick auburn hair, and accepted Geiren's old traveling cloak - the only one handy that halfway fit. Brion's was far too long, and Morrighu's was sewn for a far dainter frame. The cloak would protect her from the morning's chill, and the hood, if needed, would protect her from prying eyes.
The teleport put her on the road to Montfort and she made her way to the Dragon's Inn. As Laurelyn had hoped - the Inn was busy with breakfast, and few noted her passing as she made her way to the stairs. Not only had she been worried about trouble, but she had been concerned that the need for rooms might press Hugh and Judy to clean her's out, even though she had paid for another month. But she found things as she had left them - even dusted since Fawn did not have to worry about locks.
As the storyteller packed she tried to ignore
the memories that the room inspired. Memories of a young bard named Justinian,
who had come to her with a problem and an amulet.. A young man who now
lay dead in a dark forest, mourned only by his brother and a weary storyteller.
Though Laurelyn did not regret her involvement with the amulet and the
bard's problems - she would honor his memory, and she had made close friends
in Sa'Eve, Basha, and Librandt. -I will ask Basha to pass along my
farewells,- Laurelyn reminded herself;
giving up on ignoring the insistent memories.
Nor could she forget the desperate favor she had asked Aeschere when she had heard Thomis had been taken by the Church, nor how deeply her relief had shaken her when Brion came to tell her that the Oath-bound was safe and free.
Her memories traveled further back - to the night of Fran's exorcism and how Thomis had herded she and Drywen out of the packed square. Flashes of faces showed themselves - mainly of people who had sought her in hopes of joining a Resistence cell. Part of her wanted to stay and fight - there was now a flicker of hope with the rumors of the return of the ex-Deaconess, but the calls of the sea and of "The Star Dreamer" were too strong.
When she had finished packing she gave back
her key, shouldered her saddlebags, pulled her hood up, and stepped out
onto the street. And almost cried at how alone she felt; she had come to
this damned town with a cantankerous horse and a young Dalmation. Now the
horse was gone, and she could only hope that the pup traveled safely with
Alfred, the Faery Dragon. And she still faced her "good byes" with Thomis;
no sword could have wounded her more.
Laurelyn made her way through the town,
noting how different it looked, on her way to the partially re-built stable.
Her right arm ached from holding her bags on her shoulder, and the pain
reminded her of Javier and his concern that she have her wound treated.
She shoved thoughts of the Republic away for the moment - they opened up
too much of a chasm and again awakened her torn conscience. At last she
found the beginnings of a new stable.
The blacksmith came out and greeted her. Like most blacksmiths he was massively muscled, but he looked drawn and haunted. Laurelyn was afraid to ask what became of his son, who last she had heard, had been a Young Guardian. Instead she asked, "Do you have any horses for sale?"
He looked her over and asked, in a gravely voice, "Ya be the sterytell'r tha worked at the Bank?"
"Yes," Laurelyn answered, wondering if she should be prepared to run. She also remembered that the whole family were devoted Church-goers.
"Ya owe five geld pieeces for ya ho'rs," he said, holding out his dinner-plate sized hand.
Laurelyn gaped at him for the span of several seconds, and finally whispered out, "My horse....?"
"Yea," he said, "That will cover feed and roof, and treatment for hurts it got when the roof fell."
"Is she still rideable?" the storyteller asked, digging in her belt pouch for the coins.
"Aye," the blacksmith answered - his brown eyes showing indigation at her questioning his abilities. "Come," he signaled after she handed him the coins.
He led her to a temporary pasture, which was behind the half-finished stable, and there, grazing, was a big bay hunter.
The storyteller eased down her bags and took the dry apple the blacksmith offered her. Then she went out into the pasture.
The horse raised her head, and Laurelyn could see a healing scar down the animal's neck, marring the glossy bay coat. "You too, Beast?" she asked. She might have cussed this stubborn, irritable equine across most of the countryside, but now the sight of her moved Laurelyn to tears. She held the apple for the animal to lip from her hand. "The gods have strange senses of humor, don't they?" she asked while stroking the equine's neck, and the storyteller had the distinct impression that Beast was happy to see her too by how gently the horse took the apple. There had been no attempt to nip her fingers off.
When she had finished tacking Beast up, and settling her belongings behind the saddle, she led the horse around to the frontyard of the stable.
Before Laurelyn rode out the blacksmith stopped her. He looked up at where she sat, and said, "Miss...., did ya see me boy? Amengst the Yeng Guardiens, I mean.. He wes with them. He never ceme heme."
"All the Young Guardians made it safely back to the Bank," she told him."He probably went with the rest to the Republic." She didn't add that the son he had known and loved had been gone longer than that; tempered in a different mold by the Young Guardians' training.
The blacksmith nodded and Laurelyn rode Beast down the road to the forest. Once she had gotten far enough she pulled the thread in her hankie, transporting both she and her horse to the yard near the Politi house.
Then all she had to do was wait - and say "farewell" to Thomis.
[Thomis]
The storyteller had been gone when he had arrived, packs thrown across his shoulders (the horse he had brought with him to Montfort had been abandoned when the Mime had been forced to go underground after Kit Tvyvar's "capture" by the Grand Inquisitor). But Paul Rustin had assured him Laurelyn would return to Barnabas Portnoy's before departing finally from Montfort. Not that Thomis Parch had doubted it -- she had told him herself that she would not leave without seeing him one last time.
So Thomis took a seat in one of the rocking chairs Barnabas had placed on the wrap-around porch and propped his feet up on the railing. And that was where she saw him when she and her horse (about whom he had heard much dire muttering) flickered into the yard. Thomis ran his fingertips over the scar on his nose as his eyes met hers, but he did not rise to his feet. He wasn't quite sure what to say to her -- that if she were bound to hare off to unknown parts on a mad quest, he was bound to go with her? That with Drywen safely (relatively speaking) under Lanaera Koltke's 'protection,' it was best all around for him to absent himself, and with nothing better to do he had thought to take a cruise?
Mesani, if she had been there, would have smiled slyly and suggested that he say he could not bear the thought of being far from Laurelyn Hillrover's blue eyes. The very thought made him touch the scar his old friend had given him and smile to himself. And hope that Laurelyn could look at the packs stacked neatly next to his chair and figure things out without much prompting on his part.
[Laurelyn]
Laurelyn had been working at soothing a skittish horse; the skittishness surprised her - usually Beast was too hardheaded to be nervous, but she decided that like everyone else in Montfort the horse was battle shy. She started to say, "It's okay gi....." when she saw a lone figure on the porch.
She swung down from the horse, and took a few more seconds to quiet the animal and her own racing heart. She didn't want to say good-bye - to the point she would have fought the compulsion to leave. "Have to do it," she told herself, in regards to both duties, and ground-tied the horse. The storyteller slowly walked towards the porch, and when the packs by Thomis's chair registered on her mind she stopped and stared. Any words she had thought fled on the morning breeze.
[Thomis]
"That the Beast about which I have heard so much cursing?" he asked conversationally, and recrossed his legs at the ankle. Thomis' dark brown eyes studied the large bay from a distance, and eventually he added, "She has a fine form, even if her temper is a bit unpredictable." The Oath-bound turned his gaze back to Laurelyn, to study her in turn. "I hope we can manage to endure each other's company."
-The girl almost looks struck speechless,- he thought to himself, then realized he himself lacked proper words. To give himself time to think, he lowered his feet from the railing and rose slowly from his seat, crossing to the storyteller to take her hands in his own calloused ones. "You need a better traveling companion than a contrary horse," Thomis told her evenly. "If you would have me."
[Laurelyn]
Laurelyn managed to close her mouth, but that was the only movement she could summon. Her fingers closed over his, and her eyes drank his presence in. "I...," she started, stumbling over even that simple a sound. She tried again, "I had been thinking that it was going to be quiet trip - not even Jem's barking to keep me company."
Her hands held tight to Thomis's, and she said, "You would be more than welcome."
[Thomis]
Thomis had not doubted what her answer would be, he had known she would not turn him away. Still, to hear her say it made him smile, slowly, the smile moving from his lips to his eyes. And he squeezed her hands back in response.