2010-09-30: Joy and Rain
A cooling wind had settled over the courtyards and archery buttes. The matriarch and steward of Britannia unrolled the freshly deliver parchment with unveiled adoration. Breaking the wax seal of farmer’s plowshares, Dawn was careful not to tear the edges.
The sun dimmed behind darkening clouds, and her heart lifted with the contents of the correspondence as well as the promise of rain.
Dawn smiled reading the slow, deliberate hand of her husband’s handwriting. The letter lifted her spirits as always. She had packed sparingly, knowing her visit back to the shared homestead would be a brief but welcome break.
The fence is holding up nicely after the patches last winter. I don’t think I can handle one more day with these ugly beasts without your face to look on. You smell so much better.
Dawn smiled. That was her Ors. Gentle and well-intentioned. He never failed lifting her spirits with his simplicity.
There was a row in the tavern a couple nights ago. A bloke named Miegen and me bashed a couple heads and the rest found they had better things to do somewhere else.
Dawn cringed. She hoped her dear Ors had not fallen in with a bad lot. He was the loyal kind who was willing to give you the shirt from his broad and capable shoulders or go so far as to sheer one of his own sheep for wool if you were bare. Over the years she had to take time to speak with more than a few merchants who would take advantage of his trusting nature.
What do you know about gambling? I know you played with your soldiers when away, but you never explained the rules. Miegen said something about filthy luck of a beginner?
Dawn sprinted from her chambers grabbing her bag, and letting the letter slip to the floor. Her cloak was on her shoulders before the page hit the floor.
Drops of rain hit the parched earth as her running steps pressed through the hallways.
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Ors tossed the dice against the stone wall. Fists and curses rose as the dark dots settled in the sand. Bets exchanged between the reluctant palms of the gathering. Backs were slapped, offering insult to sunburned injury in the heat of the early afternoon
Miegen cheered with his new friend’s fortune. “Seems your day and fortune are improving, Ors”
Ors shrugged off the praise focusing his mind on the task at hand. His skull ached with a slight fever as the din of the crowd jeered and faded into the distance. All Ors heard was the dull encouragement of a familiar rasp against his ear. He couldn’t place the timbre or resonance but he knew it sounded “fatherly.”
Had days passed since he crouched in this alley and been handed the tools of chance? He hadn’t gambled before. His travel from Yew had been uneventful. He’d spoken to one of the guards about uprisings against the Ophidian, and was suddenly surrounded by like-minded men and women. He’d found a brotherhood that seemed sorely missing these days. He felt accepted.
In a sudden rush, his mind was pulled back to reality and his head doused with a cool wave of ale falling on his shoulders. Whistles and mocking grumbles spread through the gathering. The crowd almost turned sour with the interruption until the news rose …
“There’s a game opening up the “Cane and Crutch!”
Ors and Miegen rose following the throng. Ors pitched the dice absently one last time into the still-parched sand. He wouldn’t be touching these particular dice again. The dust settled revealing the first losing toss in hundreds of throws. Miegen shrugged offering to his friend, “Oh well, at least it wasn’t for money that time! Let’s go.”
Ors nodded. His stomach turned, an uneasiness pushing through his chest, staring at the dice one last time. He shivered feeling a breeze slip through the alley, a welcomed and thrilling change to the weather of late. Rain?
Miegen wrapped his arm around the victor of chance. He grinned warmly as his forearm became exposed behind the farmer’s back, the mark of The Chosen unveiled briefly as they moved through the street.
The intermittent patter of rain fell through the street. Tufts of dust rising and immediately settling as the lanes darkened with the passage of the clouds … a separate set of footsteps headed away from the crowd, and was washed away as the clouds emptied in a torrent.
