Arodus 19, 4719

Citadel Altaerein

Evening

I needed a break from organizing the repair work for the outer walls, so this afternoon, I stopped in at Cayden’s Keg. It had been a few days since I was last there, and I was missing the atmosphere.

When I first arrived in Breachill, it was where I spent most of my evenings because it’s the most comfortable for me and also fairly lively—almost bordering on bustling—which makes it a great place for music. It also didn’t hurt that it’s less expensive than the Wizard’s Grace, and less violent than the Pickled Ear.

At the slowest part of the day, the place is a mix of busy and subdued, and that’s what I was in the mood for. I just wanted to sit quietly at a two-top, have a drink or two, and watch and listen to people.

What I was not expecting was for Brynne to come out and sit down with me.

Cayden’s Keg doubles as a temple of Cayden Cailean, and Brynne is, for lack of a better term, the head priestess. It’s kind of a loose religion, mostly involving ale, and lots of it. I have visited several of his temples in the past couple of months, and they all look pretty much like this. Though Brynne’s is in better shape than most. Breachill even manages to make drinking earnest.

“I missed seeing you in here,” she said. Which was surprising, since I’d only been in town a few days before all this happened. I said as much.

“I could tell when I first saw you that you had some stories in you,” she said. “And I recognize a traveler when I see them.”

“I did walk here from Druma,” I said. “The long way.”

“Path of Commencement, along the rivers, then a right at Elidir. Am I close?”

I laughed and said, “Spot on. Though I stopped in Dustspawn and Saringallow.”

“Saringallow. That must have been an experience.”

“Almost as much fun as a bout of cholera.”

We traded stories for a while. Word had already spread about everything we’d been doing over the past couple of weeks. Without mentioning Alseta’s Ring, I told her about the Bloody Blades and chasing Voz. The latter’s arrest came as something of a relief to quite a lot of people, it seems. I guess Voz did not go out of her way to be liked. If anything, she did the opposite.

“You know, you should tell that here. Maybe tomorrow night. Only embellish it a little,” she suggested. “People are curious about the new stewards of the Citadel. Showing them you’re more fun than the last ones would go a long way.”

I smiled and said, “I would love to do that! Thank you. Though, hopefully, we don’t have to work to convince people we’re better neighbors than the Order. I am pretty sure they slot in somewhere along the cholera-Saringallow scale.”

“Not much convincing, no,” she said with a grin. “But as the Placard of Wisdom says: Good folk don’t need convincing. They just need meeting.”

Arodus 20, 4719

Breachill

Afternoon

My first, and second, impressions of the Wizard’s Grace were that it was too expensive, and too full of itself.

I was wrong about the latter, and I’ve made peace with the former. I don’t know why I had the reaction I did.

Or maybe I do. I think it reminded me too much of the Drake. Obviously, the town is different, and the people are different, but it feels the same. The food, the music, the atmosphere, the way it respects its patrons, and, crucially, the people those things tend to attract. I know now that the Wizard’s Grace, like the Forest’s Drake in Macridi, is Breachill’s common room.

I spent so long trying not to think about what I had lost that when I found something like it again, my first instinct was to push it away.

I was there late morning, before it started getting busy, and was able to catch the owner, Trinil, alone.

“I owe you an apology,” I said.

She gave me a perplexed look. We’d probably not spoken more than a few words to one another.

“For what?” she asked.

“I judged your establishment before I understood it.”

This took her aback, but then she half-smiled and said. “That’s a rather formal apology.”

“I practiced.”

Her grandfather was an adventurer, and apparently a well-known one. This whole tradition the town has of people eating that famous boar stew before the Call for Heroes? It was her way of honoring his memory. “Before setting out on whatever road called to him, that’s what he would eat. He loved it.”

I’d unknowingly been mocking sentiment. It’s the sort of thing that makes me feel like a heel.

We got to talking. Like Brynne, she enjoys hearing adventuring stories, but for a very different reason. Brynne wants the excitement they bring to a room, stories that will enrapt a crowd of patrons, or create a sense of camaraderie. Trinil listens because every one of them reminds her of her grandfather, just a little bit.

Most of the town knows something about us. Trinil had heard I came from Druma, and had traveled here on foot. She asked what started me down this path.

Of course, that is an uncomfortable story, but I could give her a kernel of it.

During that time in the Palakar Forest, I was so busy grieving that I never stopped to wonder how I was still alive. Not because of the attack, but because I was alone, in a fey forest, with no food or water, just a few arrows, and a dagger. By all rights, I should have died there. The fey are not known for their restraint—or their sympathy—and many are openly hostile to intruders. Yet somehow I stumbled into that place, desperate, alone, and grieving, and walked out again three weeks later.

It changed me. Not just in the metaphorical sense. When I left, I could see in twilight as though it were the middle of the day. The Forest had marked me.

That was the story I told. Something terrible happened, and I was forced to enter the Palakar Forest alone, with nothing to my name, and it accepted me. Adopted me. Treated me like one of its own.

She didn’t say anything for a while. Somehow, that felt like the right response.

Arodus 21, 4719

Breachill

Night

The first time I entered Lamond’s Lament, it was because I had no choice.

When I left Kerse, I believed I could plan my way through starting over. I budgeted every coin, calculated what I could afford, and convinced myself that enough discipline would keep me afloat.

In Macridi, I thought it worked.

Once I reached Breachill, I was forced to confront the reality that my plan hadn’t carried me far at all. Over and over, I misread good fortune as accomplishment. Then, in a matter of hours, I was back where I’d started, only this time with even less.

The norns gave me a destination and enough money to start the journey. They did not spare me from arriving broke and hungry. And that’s how I found myself standing outside Lamond’s Lament, trying to convince myself to walk through the door.

I honestly didn’t think I belonged there. I didn’t feel like I deserved to be there, because I believed I was simply living with the consequences of my actions. But Iskaryn was insistent, and I was too exhausted to argue with her, so I went inside.

Renatta didn’t ask me why I was there. She didn’t ask me what happened. She asked me my name.

Today, I walked into Lamond’s Lament because I needed to understand why.

Renatta saw me come in, and she knew. She smiled at me, handed me an apron, and suggested that I start by shadowing the other volunteers. I watched as someone new came in, looking every bit as uncomfortable and embarrassed as I’d been only a few weeks before.  Renatta did for them exactly what she did for me. She asked them their name. She served them personally. She sat down with them, and she listened.

I went in expecting to stay for only a couple of hours. Instead, I stayed all day.

As we closed down in the evening, she said to me, “Some people come through those doors because life knocked them down. A poor harvest. An illness. A lost job. They just need a little help getting back on their feet. Others have been down so long they don’t remember what it feels like to stand.

“The important thing to understand is that it doesn’t matter why they come in. What matters is that they come in.”

I’ve been so cynical about this town, but I think I finally understand why Breachill is the way it is.