I’m tumbling over my pride: I will be a fool for you
I stared dejected at my mud encrusted shoes, my feet sore and body aching. I approached a fire the soldiers had made, desperate to warm myself. Staking Daego out by a small outcropping, I smiled cheerily at the Hydronian guards, but was met only by condescending sneers and cold shoulders. A thin broth bubbled in a pot over the flame, but the closer I edged, the more they elbowed me away.
With a sigh of defeat I turned away. Camaraderie did not seem to be a thing able to be grasped among these folk. Finding my way to one of the few rocky outcroppings rising out of the sludge, I flung myself upon it, staring up at the darkening sky. How could something that had started so right turn so very wrong? Cursed queens and their cursed ambitions! She wasn’t soaked and miserable, with the knowledge that any moment could mean discovery. Nor was that blasted captain, safe in her camps. She didn’t expect me to come back alive, most likely wished against any homecoming. Even Daego didn’t seem fond of me. The horse snorted in agreement, as if reading my thoughts.
Reaching deep into my jacket I pulled out a worn wooden flute. I ran my fingers along its smooth surfaces, placing them with precision on each hole. The familiarity of the instrument was comforting. The thick aroma of old wood filled my nostrils as I lifted the flute to my lips. The first note I sang was long and low, like a nocturnal call in a still twilight. My fingers fluttered over the holes, my eyes closing as my head swayed in time with the music. The song was an old Gaian dirge, solemn and soulful, with the depth of a forest at midnight. Ancient trees bemoaned the dead, wailing like a funeral procession. The soil drank of blood unwillingly, murder on grounds that were made solely for life. Each note rang out sorrowfully, until the at last the song faded, as dust opens again to take its own. In a flash, I saw her face in my mind eye, but pushed it back to its shadows as tears welled in my eyes.
I opened my eyes and my breath caught in surprise. My resting place was surrounded by the Hydronian soldiers, their pot abandoned. Some were holding back tears as others let them roll unashamed down their faces. Their leader, a grizzled man with a thick scar running near his face stepped forward.
“Play us another,” he sniffed, “Make it cheerful this time, will ya?”
“What say you soldiers, brawn and steel;
To a ballad and a meal?” I rhymed, producing the two thin rabbits from my rucksack. I watched their eyes widened as I produced the meat. Scrawny as they may be, it is probably more than they had had in the last few weeks.
The guards hurried me over the fire as the constructed a spit for the hares. I smiled as the warm fire soaked into my very soul. Maybe Shaddai has not forgotten this poor fool after all.
Has it been over a year? All I want to do right now is watch the snow fall silently.