Smirking, Geoffrey leaned against the stone wall beside them, still keeping his eyes fixed out over the valley. He really hadn’t thought too much about his home since he had left, despite his nostalgia for the quaint village.
“Delshire…” he mumbled softly, though still crisp and clear in the night air. “Not many lads who run off from home return, you know, out in the west. I guess I hadn’t much planned on seeing anyone ‘til I’m good and ready to settle down, whenever that would be,” he finished.
Kehah had a vague memory of Maar’von saying the exact same thing when a fourteen year old version of her had asked him about his home after a particularly rough bout of blades training; she’d been with them for about 3 moon cycles at the time. They had been sitting on the grass in a clearing of the small forest they’d settled in for the night, and she began speaking about Zavach and Itzev for the first time. She told him about Yaar Tovah, and he’d exclaimed about how close their villages were.
”Really?” She asked, tilting her head so her long purple ponytail fell off her shoulder. “I haven’t heard of Delshire.”
“Not surprising, Little Steel,” He smirked, using his nickname for her; no one in the group would let her forget that her eyes were so abnormal, especially not Maar’von who, like her, coveted the Elves of the Forest. “While both our villages are rather similar, you weren’t looking to travel upon growing up; I was.”
“But we aren’t even a day’s ride from each other…”
“And how many in your village ride out at all?”She’d conceded to his point at the time, and they had talked through the night while the others slept a few feet away. When she asked about his tattoos, he explained every one in detail before demanding she get some too. She’d been shocked and went to protest, but the man explained that, though she was part of Yaar Tovah, she’d taken on the tradition of Delshire by leaving home and experiencing a different life.
She got her first tattoo the next day in a town nearby.
Shaking the memory from her head, she let out a small smile before saying, “So you look to settle down back in Delshire, but not for many years, yes?” She let out a laugh. “What partner will you find to put up with your rabble-rousing and insubordination?”
Geoffrey began chuckling, keeping his humor as contained as well as he could. “Ah, the ultimate question every man must face! Perhaps a woman with the temperament of an ox and the patience of a snake, who can smite my lust for adventure and merry-making, as it were,” he nodded with a deviant grin spread across his face, before bursting out with laughter. The echoes of his joy bounced across the faces of the mountains, and were quickly met with the deafening silence that had laid thick across the valley.
“Good luck on that front,” Kehah returned with a smirk. “A woman like that would sooner continue on with her own adventures until she becomes one with the earth again rather than settle down in a village to die peacefully.”
“Alas, I am doomed to wander after her ‘til the winds of time call for me to be one with the spirits!” Geoffrey pulled up his sleeve, revealing the arm that was bare of any ink. “How comical it would be for those who discover my withered body that beneath the tale of Grimm, there would lay the tale of a man’s endless stupor, drunken by the call of a woman he can’t catch!” He rolled his sleeve back down, letting a sigh escape his lips as Kehah did nothing but smirk back at him. The breeze suddenly picked up, pushing a frozen wind across the balcony, yet Geoffrey remained steadfast, his cold eyes fixed upon some invisible object deep in the valley.
“And what of you, Kehah Lahav? Have you family in a small village who you care to see? Or will you wander the world? Or, rather, join in the senseless slaughter of man?” Geoffrey’s voice turned as cold as the wind at his last question, his eyes fixing upon his companion, whose shoulders had suddenly gone tense.
“I’ve no one to return to but my band,” Kehah spoke up, studiously ignoring the last part of his question. So she's killed for money, so what? She survived how she was taught and she isn't ashamed of it; damn near all the people she's assassinated have been the lower parts of humanity, she'd made sure of that before following through. “And after this, should the war push forward, all non-military volunteers will be let off, not allowed to continue to the actual battles sure to rage.” Her eyes too have gone cold as she stared up at the moon.
Slowly, she let her body relax; if he was anything like Maar’von - and from what she has seen, he is a little
too much like him - then it was safe to share a bit of herself with him.
“After events of my youth and losses that occurred therein, I never expected to survive as long as I did. I’ve only lived this long out of respect for the Elves,” she shrugged. “Maybe I will have nothing else to do
but wander the world…”
Kehah trailed off, leaving Geoffrey to ponder what was spoken. The wind had died down, quieting the land about them so only the buzzing of insects could faintly be heard. After a few moments of silence, Geoffrey finally spoke. “I had thought that enlisting would give me opportunity to explore, to see the world outside of the farms that run along the endless woods. I never expected a life of
office work, of all things. And yet here I am, exploring somewhere nearly as mysterious as the forests themselves, though my wanderlust is far from satiated,” Geoffrey pushed himself off of the wall, beginning to walk back toward the hallway from which they had came, Kehah following along shortly after.
“We still have half a castle to explore by tonight,” Geoffrey finished, smiling back to his companion before turning into the darkened hallway. This Kehah seemed particularly unique, for certain, regardless of her logged military history. There was something about her that seemed distant and secluded, yet mystical. Perhaps there was some source of her love for the elves of old? Geoffrey set the thought aside, though it continued to pester at him throughout the night.
"Oh yes," Kehah enthused with a bland look. "I'm sure the rest of our half is just as interesting as what we've seen so far!"
The falsity in her tone did not belie her wary posture at the thought of unknowns around every corner they took.
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