Morning News [Oakleigh]

[Hart]

"Speaking in Rakahi"
"Speaking in Common"

7th of Ashan, 718

It was a grim day. The sky was grey cloud. The temperature was frigid. Snow drifted down from above.

News had come from Rynmere to the Eastern Settlement. It had come at sixth bell. The news was that the guards stolen from the duchies season-last had been found. They had been found dead, strung up on pikes, in the centers of towns.

The duchies of Rynmere were in mourning. The people of Dewwich, who were a kind and sympathetic folk, were dressed in dark clothes. It was very quiet in and around the little village, nearly funereal. Normally sound rolled over the hills, echoes of birdsong or the rustling of grass or the clopping of hooves on cobbled roads. But today the snow fell in silence.

Hart ran the road from Dewwich to Tristan's Estate and back again. It was half past seven; he'd been running since he'd heard the news at three-quarters past six. It was terribly cold but the movement and his coat and scarf and gloves kept him warm enough.

Mostly he jogged. He could jog from Dewwich to the Estate in twenty bits. Sometimes he ran. If he wanted, he could run from the village to the Estate in half the time it took to jog. Every ten bits or so he sprinted. He bent forward against the muffled snow and cold and he ran, full-out, as if someone was after him. His boots tore at the frost-soft ground. His breath steamed in front of his mouth.

Running made thinking clearer, sometimes. This morning, Hart had been thinking a lot. About the news. About the guards who had been slain. About VII, and the RCA, and the king. And about the mages.

Someone had to do something. That was what he kept coming back to, as the thoughts swirled like the falling snow through his head. Someone had to do something.

Someone. Someone had to.

If there was one thing he'd learned from Sarah Dj'pyrj's execution in Cylus, it was that sometimes, that someone had to be him. But he didn't know what to do about it.

So Hart kept thinking, and he ran as he thought.

---

Sometime after eighth break, Hart knocked on the front door of Tristan's Estate. His hair was damp from sweat, collecting frost in the cold. His legs burned and ached.

The person who let him in was a member of the house staff. Hart said he wasn't here to see Tristan, he was in the area and he'd thought to stop by and retrieve his things. The staffsperson led him to the room that had been his. The bed was perfectly made with fresh blankets, pillows, linen.

Hart hadn't left much behind when he'd gone. His boots, mostly. They'd been put away in the closet. They were dusty, and he took them out. He tied the laces together and slung them around his neck.

In the closet was an old bag of dog food that he had completely forgotten. Hart had had a dog named Jack. The food must have been an arc old. Hart looked at the bag for long moments, struck by the dust that had gathered on it in a way that he had not been struck by the dust on the boots.

"We'll put it outside for the animals," he finally said.

He made to leave the Estate, the dusty boots the only trophy of the homesickness he felt being here. Then he thought again. "Would you mind taking me to Sintih?" he asked. The staffsperson led him to the room Sintih was in.

Hart thought it was a study, for the maps and books that lined the walls. A large table full of spread papers took center place in the middle of the room. Hart stood in the doorway.

"Sintih," he said, announcing himself to the guard. "It's Hart." As if Sintih might have forgotten him. "You've heard the news?" Hart asked. "Are you terribly busy?" Sintih could have been; Hart didn't know how the slaying of hundreds of guards in Rynmere might affect security here in Oakleigh. "I thought I'd stop by and get my boots," he explained, indicating the shoes slung around him. "And if it's not too much to ask, I wondered if you might want to take a run with me."

Hart wasn't done running. He wasn't particularly good at any physical enterprise other than sailing, but he was resolute and he would run until he could no longer stand to do it. "Or we could walk, if you would prefer," he amended. "Or ride? I was thinking of buying a horse sometime soon, and exploring Oakleigh."

"What do you say? The countryside's quiet this morn." In fact, it was almost eerie. "It's snowing and cold. Not the best weather for a run, but not the worst, I'd say."

[Sintih]

[img]/gallery/image ... ge_id=6091[/img]

o say that Doran had left an impression on Sintih was an understatement. After having spent a trial with the man, the first trial in over an arc, Sin had gone back to work the trial after. Between Tristan, the company and the estate, Sintih had enough things to do and work wouldn't agree with him taking more than a trial off of duty. He had so much to process, so much to work through. Handling information wasn't anything new for the bodyguard and advisor to the Duke of Oakleigh. It was the sudden amount of it that he had received that made it difficult for Sin to sift through all of it. His illusion sucked in a deep breath and released in a heavy sigh.

Sin put the quill aside and stood up straight behind the desk. He reached for the ceiling with both hands, stretching as best he could. He could feel the crystals pushing together and pulling apart as the illusion created a few popping noises to accompany his late night, or early morning stretching. Depending on ones point of view Sin was up early or working late this trial. He had tried to take a break from Doran by focusing on some work related things and before he knew he'd been neck deep in finances, mapping patrol routes and going over yet another certain death scenario for Tristan. It seemed that each trial he was here, he found another way for someone to get through his defenses and kill Tristan. While he was glad to find them before anyone managed to abuse them, it had caused him quite a few sleepless nights in the past few seasons. At least Yana understood.

He sipped from the cold water standing on a small table next to the desk, trying to keep himself a little more alert and awake. Business had been slow, apart from his standing assignment with Tristan, and Sin was trying to find new ways to get people to hire mercenaries for their work or to trust him and his company, or rather Shinra's company, enough to use them to find the right match for their businesses and needs. Every season, nels came and went and slowly but surely the deadline for his initial investment loan with the Rynmere bank was approaching. Did he have enough yet? Had he paid Argun and the others this season? When did Lisa ask him to repair that door again? Had he done that already? Sin began to realize just how important keeping accounts were when someone knocked on the door.

"Enter." Sin said, loud enough for the person on the other side to hear him. In his sleep deprived state, Sin thought Tristan walked into his room, being led in by a servant, a combination that didn't work in Sin's mind. It was only when he spoke and introduced himself that Sin understood. Hart? More potential problems had just stepped into his house. Sin smiled, a tired but truthfully happy smile. "Ser Hart. Welcome back." The last time he'd seen Hart the man had been in the custody of the Order of the Mantis after... whatever it had been that he'd been doing there. Sin had been a little too busy keeping Tristan safe from a stampede of scared citizens of Rynmere. He was glad to see the man had survived in one piece.

"Depending on the news you're talking about, I've heard about it, yes. Please, please, come in. I was just going over some numbers." He waved Hart further into the room and the servant left the two men alone in the room, closing the door behind him. It was true that Sin was in the known about much that had transpired in and around the estate. The big story on everyone's lips had been the guards showing up dead all over Rynmere. Reports were still coming in from the furthest reaches of the kingdom, the dead toll increasing with each one. "Of course, you haven't been back since the last time we saw each other?" It was supposed to be a question but Sin didn't really sound like he wanted to know the answer. Or as if he already knew the answer.

"I'm not the most physically fit of people around here. Perhaps you should ask..." Sin waved Hart's request away. He still had so many things to do here. Work just kept going and the more he was away from it, the more he ran behind with it. On the other hand, he was practically at the end of his mental capabilities, despite having trained for many a trial with Doran to resist the need for sleep. He knew better than anyone exactly how much his body could take, how long he'd last if he kept going like this. Perhaps some fresh air would do him good. "On second thought, I could use some fresh air. Let us take a walk." Sin stepped out from behind his desk, grabbing the short sword hanging from a corner of the desk and attaching it to the back of his belt.

He grabbed a thick coat from a hanger and wrapped a scarf around his neck before pulling on his gloves as well. Perhaps a little overkill for normal people but Sin had been living at the estate long enough that it had become an accepted sight to see the mercenary bodyguard leader all wrapped up whenever the temperatures dropped anywhere below a Saun's high noon. He held the door open for Hart and followed the man out. "I would suggest speaking with Thet before even thinking about buying a horse. He'd feel insulted if you didn't." Thet had been the resident stable master since Sintih and company had arrived at the Estate. Thet had found a willing student in Hart when the man had been present and, while he'd never say or sign so out loud, Sin knew he'd be disappointed to hear his advice on horses had been passed over by anyone in the household.

Hart hadn't been lying when he said that it was snowing and cold out. The early break of the trial didn't help Sin with that either. He pulled his cloak tightly around him, the illusion of his teeth chattering in the early morning weather. Sin walked down the few steps in front of the door and started walking. He could see a set of tracks coming down the entryway towards the estate from a singular person. He assumed they were Hart's since he was the only new arrival he was aware of. Despite Sin wanting to ask Hart how he'd been and what he'd been up to, Sin had to get some other things sorted before all that. "Does you being here pose any problems for Tristan's safety?" He was blunt and direct, straight to the point. Then again, the last time he'd spoken with Hart, the man had confessed to being part of the RCA and possibly even an agent for the Alliance. The last time he'd seen him he'd been arrested for public magic usage. Neither of this mixed well with being part of a noble household. Especially not one protected by Sintih.

[Hart]

"Speaking in Rakahi"
"Speaking in Common"
"Speaking in Common sign"

OOC: Really sorry for the delay!

He hadn't been sure how Sintih was going to recieve him. But the man seemed happy enough to see him. The smile Sintih gave felt genuine. Hart briefly smiled back.

Sintih looked tired, but despite the lines of exhaustion on his face he agreed to a walk. He got bundled up, and Hart followed him quietly outside.

"I'll talk to Thetfretr, then, before I leave," Hart said. "I've been practicing my sign." He thought for a moment and then, in Common sign, said, "I learn... okay, not great. More than before."

He had visited the University library a few times while in Andaris and had happened across a single book there on Common sign. The diagrams had been confusing, but he had made the most of what he had. He'd learned grammatical structure which, in general, was similar to Common, though a lot of the 'connecting words' --words like is, are, a, an, and the-- were left out of Common sign. He'd also expanded his vocabulary a bit. He had a handful of phrases he felt he could say pretty well, like the one he had partially improvised to Sintih just then, and he was working on the rest.

He found he rather liked Common sign. It was direct, sort of, in a way that spoken Common often was not.

And yet-- spoken Common could be used perfectly directly, if the person using it didn't want to blather.

"Does your being here pose any problems for Tristan's safety?" Sintih asked, and Hart let the Common sign in his hands fall quiet again.

They walked the drive in the morning silence as Hart considered his answer. They were moving at a slower pace than Hart would have liked, but the brisk, bitter air still felt refreshing enough, sort of like jumping into a frozen lake. Though it was wintry out, there was not much of a breeze. If there had been, it might have been just a bit too cold to go out. Hart put his gloved hands in his pockets.

"I don't think I pose any problems," he responded truthfully after a couple long moments of thought. Then he sighed. "Though I feel I don't know how to be sure."

"You saw me at the mage burning on the fifth of Cylus, so you know about that," Hart said simply. "I was arrested, though they let me go. Had they determined me to be a mage--" He smiled. "Well, I would not be standing here with you right now, would I?"

"But you meant the Alliance, didn't you?" he asked.

"I won't lie to you. Shortly after I left Welles in Saun, the RCA contacted me." His hands wanted to fidget with the shoes still slung around his neck, or with his scarf or his hood, but he kept them still. "They gave me an invitation to the king's wedding and demanded I attend. Were you there?" Surely Sintih had been at the wedding, if Tristan had been. And Tristan must have attended; Hart knew he had meant to.

"I was supposed to do something at the wedding. For the Alliance." He had never told anyone this, not even Tristan. He had thought about telling his brother, but he hadn't wanted Tristan to be angry with him. Even with all the mage trouble, Tristan might very well still consider Cassander a friend. "The Alliance said they had weapons hidden in the monastery, which I was supposed to use. If you-- if you understand." He didn't know if Sintih would understand, but he felt too chicken to say it aloud. I was supposed to kill the king. "But well, something went wrong and I didn't do what I was supposed to. If I had--"

He smiled again, humorlessly, and repeated what he'd said before: "Well, I would not be standing here right now, would I?"

"So there's that," Hart said. "After the wedding, the Alliance let me go." Stupid, that had been a mistake on their part. Perhaps they'd thought Hart would be too afraid to run away. But, as he'd shown in arcs previous, he was very good at running. "And I did what you said, I laid low."

"They haven't contacted me since the wedding." It had been more than half a year. "I've been moving around throughout Rynmere, on ships or in caravans or on the backs of wagons, even on foot. Never staying in one place long. Avoiding inns." Sleeping his way through the seven duchies one village at a time. Sleeping outside if he had to. "I don't think they know where I am."

He fell quiet again for a moment.

"So, to answer your question, I don't know if I pose any problems," Hart said. He shrugged. "I don't think I do, but I guess I don't know for sure. When is it all supposed to end? When is long enough? When the Alliance hasn't contacted me for a season, three seasons, a year?" Three seasons --half a year-- already felt like such a long time. It felt like too long, really. Tristan had told Hart he was depressed. And Ayla hadn't remembered him. And that had hurt. But Hart would stay away, or at least he would try, if Sintih said he must.

"I'm sorry," he sighed then, and looked over again to try and gauge the bodyguard's expression. "You asked a simple question, and I know that was a lot."