Lies and secrecy had been the way of the Theocratum, and none knew that better than their Tribunals. Taught how to spin a lie from the barest of threads into the most precious, holy silk, until those silken threads formed the garments of secrecy they covered themselves with. More than selling their own lies, though, they were lied to. Kept in the dark of it all, made to do the bidding of Heralds who had trained them to be useful as nothing else but what they were: infiltrators, torturers, liars.
Never had he felt more like a liar than when he had stepped off of that final dreaded boat and felt the solid ground of Scalvoris underfoot. The people around him were strange, heretical; they were whimsical and bright and kind above all things, even in the wake of tragedy. Not all of them, of course, but enough that it made him wonder just how miserable the people back home must have been if the people of Scalvoris were so different.
He felt removed from it. A mere spectator, observing a world around him that did not belong to him and that he had no true part in. How could he, when all he had ever done with his life had gone so against the principles of this place? It offered him refuge in that it did not outright reject his presence, and yet he still considered himself an infiltrator, worming his way into everywhere that he did not belong. So he hid himself away, as he was used to doing, beneath his hood and long sleeves. He spoke mostly to Celio, and let the boy do the talking when required.
It did not change the fact that he stood out like a sore thumb.
It should not have surprised him, then, when a letter was delivered directly to him, and yet he could not help his shock upon receiving something in a land he still knew so little about. Who on Scalvoris would write to him, if not to tell him that they somehow knew exactly who he was, and he was not welcome?
Vito opened the letter with a passive countenance, and yet he could feel inside the turmoil bubbling over and out. Each line drew more suspicion than the last; this sender had clearly received word about him, but he could not think of a good reason why they would reach out to help. For a trill it struck him that it could have been someone from Quacia as well, someone that intended only harm towards him, or else to draw him back into the old ways here on Scalvoris, despite all that they now knew about their faith – but as his eyes graced the name written there upon the page, all of his theories fell away.
“Woe?” he said to himself, earning the attention of the boy at his side.
“Woah what, Father? What’s it say?”
“No, W– Captain Morandi,” he revised, frowning down at the letter in his gloved hands.
He had not seen nor heard from Woe in arcs. It had been Vito’s assumption that either something terrible had befallen him, or he had made it out of Quacia with no intent to ever return. It appeared that the second must have been closer to the truth, and Vito could not blame him.
Still uncertain as to why his former mentor would reach out now to help, but more so unwilling to turn down his offer, Vito set about writing a short response to send back.
Lord Protector,
You have my thanks for your generous offer of shelter and conversation. It has indeed been a long journey from the southern continent, and I would be remiss to refuse the opportunity to see a familiar face after so long spent with the unknown.
I will travel to Egilrun and speak with you there, along with my ward.
Signed,
(There are two slashes here that appear to be in the shape of a ‘V.’)
On the ninth of Ymiden they arrived. The quiet of Egilrun compared to the buzz of Scalvoris Town did not go unnoticed nor unappreciated, yet the nature of that quiet was perhaps less welcoming in nature – he knew little of what had truly happened when the pirates attacked, and what he did know was gleaned from his rudimentary understanding of the Common tongue.
Why, he could not help but wonder, did Woe always find himself at the center of destruction?
He stood still at the door of the Lord Protector’s office, stuck somewhere between hope and fear. If Woe had other, more sinister motivations behind inviting him here, it would not have been the first time that he allowed himself to be caught off-guard by him. If Woe did not, on the other hand… he was nervous all the same, for how many arcs had passed since their last meet, and how little he had achieved since then.
Nervousness would do him no good, so he steeled himself behind a passive expression and knocked a gloved hand against the door. Celio stood plainly at his side, unburdened by the same anxieties. The only thing that Vito could feel at the edges of his buzzing tangle was an ever-present sense of curiosity.
