The Twentieth Trial of Zi'da in Arc 718
Vhalar had gone out with the changing of the leaves and Zi'da had begun stripping them all from their branches; and with a vengeance it appeared. The trials had become much colder overnight, and the nights colder still. As much as Eliza enjoyed the outdoors and her garden, she'd begun spending more of her time indoors, working on a painting upstairs, or downstairs, curled up in a chair by the fire with a book, and her old cat Smudge, curled up in her lap.
Zi'da hadn't come in very gently and was pulling no punches. It was measurably colder than the end of Vhalar had been, and the winds that came with it could cut through multiple layers of clothing in just a few bits. But the dawn on the fifteenth trial had crept in gently, sunny and calm, and Eliza was granted a reprieve from her self-imposed isolation. She'd taken her easel, brushes and canvas outdoors, and found her a warm spot to work out in the garden behnd the house.
The morning light, muted, soft and golden, was always the best for the sort of work that she did. It was nearly matched, if not quite, by the light in very late afternoon. She'd only just started working when old missus Webber from next door called out. Eliza? Eliza! Where are you? Her usually calm and collected neighbor, if something of a stern and opinionated busybody, sounded distinctly bothered about something, and Eliza frowned and put down her brush. "I'm back here, missus Webber," she called out. "In the garden."
Phillipa was the old woman's mind, and Eliza was right, judging by the way her neighbor's brow was knitted together with some sort of worry, and her hands were wringing the tail of her apron into knots. "What's the matter?" Eliza asked. "Wolfert's gone off. It's been breaks now and he hasn't come back." Wolfert was the old woman's husband, and he'd once been a commander, one of the Lightening Knights of Rharne. That had been arcs ago, before the Webbers had retired to Caervalle Town. By the time she'd moved into her little house on the edge of the woods, they'd lived next door for decades.
The couple had shown up at her door just a trial after her arrival to welcome her to the neighborhood. Since then, Wolfert had brought fresh milk from his cow and tomatoes from his garden, and sometimes stayed for a break or more, admiring the wood ducks in the pond, or making up odd handyman projects to do for her that she didn't need doing. Phillipa on the other hand, particularly when she was hoping to fetch Wolfert home, would bring over herbs from her garden or a jar of mince jelly that she'd made herself. Eliza didn't like mince, not a bit, but had never had the heart to mention it.
Eliza had to admit that she'd never minded Wolfert's visits and she hadn't done much to discourage the old man. From head to toe, and in so many of his often eccentric mannerisms, he reminded her of Poppy, one of the many men over the past two centuries that she'd called grandfather. Of all of them, she'd been the fondest of Poppy. Wolfert's mind must be going, off and on, Eliza thought. But Poppy's had seemed to be doing the same, nearer the end. "If it's just been a few breaks, I'm sure he'll come back soon, missus Webber," Eliza suggested. "I've seen him go off like that every few trials."
"It's different this time Eliza. He's put on his armor and he got that look in his eyes." Eliza didn't need to ask. She'd seen that look in the old man's eyes before. As if he was a young man again, off chasing dragons. She couldn't imagine the armor fit very well either. In his aging trials, Wolfert was bound to have shrunk some. And she'd seen that plate armor. The shine was worn off in some places, rusted in others. "I need you to go looking for him, and fetch him home," Phillipa insisted.
Eliza was dumbfounded. "Me? Why not the authorities or the other knights?" she asked. Caervalle was brimming over with them, after all. Retired ones, though in her mind it remained a perfectly reasonable question. "There's no time," missus Webber insisted. "And besides, it's partly because of you he's gone off."
Her fault, Eliza asked? "All that time he spends over here...Why do you think he does that? And why do you think he calls you his little Tryn?" Nothing. Eliza had nothing and her expression showed it. "Missus Webber. I've told him dozens of times that my name is Eliza. But..." Sometimes old Wolfert seemed to get it, but only briefly. After a number of times, she'd simply stopped bothering to correct him and it had become such a habit that she'd begun answering when he called her Tryn.
"I'm sorry. Oh, I shouldn't blame you when it's as much my own fault as any. I said it to him myself after we watched you move in. You'd be the spitting image of her I'm sure, had we seen her grow up." Seen who grow up, Eliza was foolish enough to ask. "Tryn," the old woman snapped. "Our little daughter Tryn." Eliza's eyes widened, both in realization and from confusion. She'd gotten the impression that the old couple had never had any children at all.
The rest came out in a tumble. Tryn had been born just an arc after Phillipa and Wolfert had married, and they'd bought themselves a little place in the woods...Not far from where they were now, where she could grow up. "She was such a sweet little thing. So young. But oh how she loved and looked up to Wolfert, and how he loved her. It was my fault. I was working in the garden and had taken my eyes off her. She was always after some fancy and when I looked up again she was gone. Off into the woods. We never found her. We'll never know," Phillipa left off in a deep and mournful sigh.
But Wolfert apparently had never give up completely, even though decades had passed. Reason and heart were funny things. Sometimes they overlapped and the lines became blurred. And when she moved in? "He's been seeing her lately, at the edge of the woods. Just like when she was little, like she was that trial. Of course there's nothing there when he tells me to look. But this time it's different. I couldn't stop him thinking he'd seen her, and he's gone off to find and bring her home."
Old Wolfert's eyes weren't what they used to be. He wasn't the young and virile knight he'd once been. And more importantly, his mind wasn't what it used to be either. It wasn't her fault, and yet somehow, now, Eliza felt partly responsible. Phillipa wasn't being moved either. A quarter of a break later then after she'd stuffed some things in a sack, dressed warmly and gathered her short sword and bow; with her wolfhound companion Darwin trailing along behind her, Eliza hiked off in the direction that Wolfert had gone.
