Atharen, A Fantasy Roleplay Forum

After twenty years of not traveling at all, he had spent the last two months on the road. Midhir liked to think he was getting better at this, the whole vagabond lifestyle. He didn't stop to wonder if he was making enough progress or fast enough progress. In fact, he couldn't say that he had a set goal in mind other than to see what the world had to offer. It had offered him good and bad in about equal measure, and for the time being, at least, he was going to keep following the river west. At least he always had water to drink and to bathe, and ever since water had been his death and his rebirth, a nearness to it had been soothing.

There had been good advice at that first village, and so he was following some best practices, trying not to pass a settlement by without first resupplying in case it was farther than he expected to the next place. The wolf that seemed to have adopted him was nowhere to be found, leery of walls and people that walked on two feet except for Midhir himself. He supposed that was luck. The wolf apparently thought he was helpless, always bringing him freshly slaughtered meat to be charred on his campfire and consumed along with whatever else he had. He still wasn't much of a cook, but necessity was the mother of invention and practice made—if not perfect, then—better.

If his robes were strange, they had been augmented by other pieces as he had accumulated them against the growing chill in the air at night. And in these small communities, it seemed any outsider was strange. He knew now to bow to the Halamire guards and show undue deference rather than find himself in a fight he hadn't picked, or a dungeon for the night. That had been unpleasant, though now he could say he had been in a dungeon before.

The town did seem quiet, though, compared to others. Not all of them had the Imperial guards, but those that did were those with enough of a population to require more policing. This one's streets were nearly empty. Near the town square, he saw a man in a bird mask and one without. While he thought the bird mask might be interesting to investigate, he opted to follow the other man. Chances were better that he would find a supplier willing to barter with him. At least, that was what he told himself.

The monastery had been laid out so logically, or perhaps he was just so used to it that it seemed the logical way to place things. The towns of southern Daravin were each laws unto themselves, at least insofar as urban planning went. He picked up his pace to keep the man in his sight.

The man wasn't difficult to follow, though the streets were bare so that could hardly be chalked up to any skill on Midhir's part. Some of the monks were hunters, and some foodstuffs were traded and bartered for. 'Each according to their skills' was a tenet of the lineage, and he supposed magic had been accorded him because Sil'norai were famously more resistant to the negative effects of magic. In some ways, his life had been easier for his innate strengths; in others, it was more difficult. The lineage was a pathway littered in tests and he supposed this walkabout was just that last test before becoming a monk in fact rather than just in training. He was not well-rounded. He was not well-read outside of his bailiwick. He was not well-trained to survive on his own, and while nature had seen to his needs with his furry companion, he had yet to fall into a cooperative group. There had been farmers willing to feed and house him for a few days in exchange for labor, magical or otherwise. There had even been one who would have housed him indefinitely, but his path was forward, not to linger overmuch.

He startled out of his reverie when the man shouted.

The wolf hadn't entered the city limits with him, and if it didn't find him on the other side of the town, he might circle back before continuing on so it could scent him and follow if it chose to do so. Had the man been observing him before he approached Lucano? Perhaps he smelled of wolf. He had certainly cozied up to it when the nights got cold.

But it wasn't until he neared the opposite end of the town that the man rounded on him with venom in his mouth. Midhir wasn't an expert, but he looked out of place as well, a traveler who didn't belong to Lucano or Lucano to him. He smiled quizzically.

"Oh, I am not a prostitute," he said, cheerfully informative. "I was just following you because you seemed to know where you were going and I need more supplies for the road ahead. I apologize for vexing you." He offered a strange bow from a strange monastery in the mountains of Khadai. Murmuring something like a benediction—he had learned to be quiet about such things in the land of the Omen—he turned toward the few food carts that seemed to be open. Lucano didn't have much to offer the traveler save suspicious guards, bird-masked physicians, and empty streets.

"Never been to a brothel before," he murmured thoughtfully to himself as he went.

Midhir turned back toward the man when he kept talking. He offered a cautious smile now that the man was engaged; experience had shown that getting people talking, especially about themselves, was almost a surefire way to find their good graces. Midhir wasn't a manipulative person, but now that he had to rely only upon himself, he was learning how to avoid unnecessary violence. Of course, the guards would crack both their skulls if something were to happen.

"I didn't mean anything by it," he offered. Prostitutes were just working with what they were given. If he hadn't been raised in magic and physical pursuits, who knew what he would have found to do to survive?

"I'm Midhir. It's a pleasure to meet you, Jack." Again with the strange outlander bow, almost as if he actually respected the strange stranger. "I don't have a side, but I have found that to be an insufficient answer to many people's questions." It was an admission of naivete, of inexperience. He might have added a few local articles of clothing to his person, but he still had his strange way of talking, of observing, of existing, and people reacted to that. Many of them reacted poorly, though he couldn't know why.

"There doesn't seem to be much for sale, but I was going to get some food to take with me west. If you want someone to walk beside you for a while instead of behind you, I wouldn't mind the company." He paused, considering. "Are you a prostitute? I have never met a prostitute before so I wouldn't know how to recognize one if I had." He considered this for a moment, replaying various recent events to see if there was evidence that he had, in fact, met a prostitute all unknowing.

The world was, after all, strange like that.

Midhir mimicked his Badlander salute, bringing his fist to his shoulder. He smiled; there was no malice in it, but rather the quiet joy of discovery. He was like a child in that, though he was a man grown, and he spoke like an adult, surely. His accent was a bit off, but so were some of his clothes, and his manner more than anything. But he was alive, which meant he wasn't so stupid or ignorant that he couldn't take care of himself. Or he was just quite lucky—that was always a possibility.

He considered the food carts and nodded thoughtfully.

"Don't worry about meat," he advised. "A wolf started following me around about a month or so ago and it brings me fresh kills. I think it judges me for not eating them raw, but I am not a wolf." He glanced toward the gate. "It doesn't like to approach human settlements, but I don't suppose you will scare it off."

As for how Jack had prostituted himself to survive, Midhir only offered, "Life demands compromise."

And then he was considering how much to tell the man.

"I was raised in the mountains of Khadai. I don't know where I was born." He shrugged.

Midhir wasn't the only orphan in the Kullu monastery. Some of the children were the children of monks; others foundlings or coming from every other walk of life. The identities of his parents had been unimportant in the eyes of the monks and so it was not shared with him, if they even knew them, if they had even cared. But there had been kindness in his early years. There had been kindness in his later years, as well, though more was always expected of him. He assumed the most was expected of the abbot, whose responsibility the entire lineage was.

Balance. Balance. Always balance.

"I don't know where I'm going, either," he admitted. "West along the river until something makes me change my course, I suppose. Do you have a goal in mind?"

"They can be a nice change of scenery," he allowed, but he also enjoyed the endless variety of the natural terrain, as well. He had seen more in a couple of months than he had in the rest of his life. But human settlements were often where he ran into trouble, so perhaps he could learn a thing or two about navigating them from Jack, however long the man deigned to share his company. Midhir had been raised to believe in non-attachment, but sometimes there were things that were easier to do with help.

"Grakains," he murmured, learning the new word with his definition. "Scythe like to reap grain?"

But he stopped himself from asking more questions. Jack seemed to be working himself up to share some without prompting and that was, from what he had found, better. Words like desert stuck in his memory to tease out later if conversation allowed. Words like Amoren and doctor and bunker and Outpost-11. He knew intuitively, or perhaps with some experience, that direct questions would close the man off and that would be the end of that. So many of Midhir's questions in life had been deemed unworthy of answers that he was not discontented when someone chose not to answer him anymore; at least, it was a minor thing, easier to shrug off.

"Perhaps my course will take me to Amoren," he said. He had heard the name before, another word that stuck in the memory for later. Perhaps this was fate or providence leading him where he ought to be. He didn't know if he believed all that, but the world was much larger and more complex than he was so he didn't want to be premature and say it wasn't any particular thing. That seemed like hubris to him. "And you're welcome to make friends with the wolf. It will let you know whether it wants you near or not. Wolves are honest."

People weren't always.

"Oh. I don't think I have enough to make me worth the time to steal from..." He grinned. "But people have tried. Shall we go?"

He half-turned toward the nearest gate, but waited for Jack. Having a companion would be new, but he was here for new experiences.