PreCursive

  It had been nearly a week since Azarus and I had arrived in Rhoscara at this point, and we were leaving soon. The other day, Azarus had joined Elysael and I for dinner and told us that he had finished his business iy. It was time to leave.

  The m of our departure from Rhoscara found me leaning up against a tree in the gardens, pting the horizon. I hadn’t slept well the night before, and so I’d given it up as a lost cause and came out here for some pead quiet. Somehow, I had mao wake up after sunrise every day since I had arrived on this p, and I was ied to see if it was any different.

  It had been a…strange week for me.

  After that hectic first day, the rest of my stay in Rhoscara had been pletely uful. I had spent most of my time either wandering the castle or holed up in the surprisingly public library that it housed. Once I had realized that Language Adaptation also exteo full-length books, I had been incredibly relieved. Irospect, kind of obvious if I could read the basic signs I’d seen since I arrived on this p.

  The library wasn’t some huge, sprawling plex like I had first thought it would be upon hearing about it. Rather, it was a small series of interected rooms that reminded me of a local bookshop from bae. Cozy, rather than colossal. I’d tried to use my time io good use. I’d beeing sick of wandering around like a clueless tourist, needing to have basic things to me like I was a child. I’d skimmed through a variety of books in the limited amount of time that I had, to the best of my ability. I felt like I had, at the very least, a better grasp on Vencia, Herztal, and the basics of the System.

  Herztal…

  From what little I’d read, the human kingdom seemed incredibly fractious. It seemed to be divided into numerous little fiefdoms aories, each with its own ruling noble of some kind. Small disputes and infighting were not unoween them, oftentimes verging on ht battle. However, the kingdom was set up in such a way that they all owed their allegiao a High King, which was advised by a House of Lords. Supposedly, this style of governance was enough to curtail ht war within the Kingdom, but I had my doubts it worked perfectly. Readiween the lines of the treatise I had found, it souo me like the House of Lords did most of the actual g, while the High King made the final decisions. Apparently, the current High King was Otto III, of the Eisenherz dynasty. The book hadn’t been new enough to tell me much about him, however.

  Other than burying myself in books or wandering, I’d been able to spend a surprising amount of time with Elysael. I’d fouo be a startlingly down-to-earth persoe her position. She’d seen how clueless I was in regard to most facets of Ven society and had taken it upon herself to educate me. Most of the time, those versations would veer into the dire of history, dwarven or otherwise. She had quite the passion for the subject, it seemed. At the very least, I was never bored when I was essentially hanging out with her. Iurn, I opened up to her about Earth, which she had been intensely curious about. Strangely, she had been fairly disied in my tales of teology from my homends, while deriving more enjoyment from the society instead. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that someone who was essentially a politi was more ied in that.

  Iween her duties, we’d taken almost all of our meals together, sans Azarus. I had seen little of him until the other day. We hadn’t even really had much of an opportunity to speak to each other. The oime that I had mao er him in order to speak about the developments with my Professions, he’d shushed me and said we shouldn’t talk about anything in Rhoscara. Holy, I think he was being a little paranoid. It’s not like there were people watg us all the time, or something.

  I was snapped out of my ption by the suarting in front of me. I have to say, I didn’t expect it to look like it did. Everything else fled from my mind as I watched, entranced.

  It was green.

  Rather thaypical progression of cool blue night giving way to warm yellow sunlight like bae, the light was green. Slowly, as the sun began to creep over the horizon, emerald green light spilled forth over the curvature of Vereden. It was almost as if the blue of the night sky was mixing with yellow of the sunlight. God, even Vereden’s star looked green as it began to show itself. It was beautiful and fasating and incredible all at o was also entirely alien, to my Terran sensibilities. I couldn’t help a small chill from rag down my spine.

  Over the fifteen minutes, I watched as the sunrise progressed. Slowly, the green tint to the light began to fade, shifting into the more familiar yellow shade of sunlight I’d spent my whole life beh. I had no idea what had caused that green light. Atmospheriditions? Was the star itself just weird? Actually just magic? Who knows. Before long, the star had fully cleared the horizon, to cast warm m rays down upon the p.

  I was snapped out of my sunrise viewing by the sound of boots behiurning around, I saw that Azarus had snuck up on me while holding two mugs of steaming hot liquid. “Hey.” He said to me tiredly, while handing me one of the mugs.

  I took it, nodding gratefully to him. Taste-testing it, I found that it was a local blend of tea. I’d gotten familiar with it over the st week and had grown a small taste for it. In the absence of coffee, it was the best I could do.

  I decided not to ask Azarus about the sunrise. I somehow doubted that, even if he had answers for me, he would be willing to talk about it while we were still within city limits.

  We sat and stood around in silence, respectively, for a few moments before I broke it. “Time yet?” I asked Azarus shortly.

  Azarus grunted and shotgunned whatever was left in his mug. “Yeah. Time to get goin’.”

  ……………………………………..

  First, though, we had to say oodbyes. Azarus had already collected our meager belongings and loaded them into whatever cart we were using to get home. I walked with Azarus through the halls of the patil we reached the same office where I had first been introduced to Elysael.

  You know, the orashed.

  Miraculously, upon opening the door, it had been pletely restored to its former state. To the best of my memory, it looked the exact same that it had before it had beeroyed. Guess that was the power of fuck-off royalty money.

  Elysael herself was sitting behind her desk, already knee-deep is when Azarus and I entered her office. She must have woken up far before either of us, because there were the remains of a breakfast resting upon a ptter off to the side and a cup of tea tht. At our entrance, she lifted her head and gave the two of us a tired smile.

  “Ah, Azarus, Nathan.” She greeted us, rising. “Is it that time already?”

  Azarus her. “Yeah, it is. I want to hit the road early.”

  Elysael nodded back at him, uanding. “I see.” She answered quietly. “Well. I wish you, both of you, safe travels. My uanding is that the scouts have reported no undue monster preseween here and Addersfield. It should be aful trip.”

  Azarus grunted. For a moment, an almost unfortable silence ruled the office. I was both surprised and a little fused, holy. But thinking on, perhaps I shouldn’t be. Maybe Azarus’d had business iy during our stay, but that didn’t fully expin his nearly plete absence from the pace. I had barely seen him at all. Perhaps there was some unresolved tensioween them?

  Probably not my business.

  I cleared my throat unfortably, causing Elysaels eyes to shift my way. I smiled at her. “Thanks for, you know, everything. I appreciate you lettiay in the pace during our stay. I holy enjoyed my time here.”

  Elysael’s smile grew a touch menuine. “It was no problem at all, Nathan. I, too, found myself enjoying your stay. I found our versations most enlightening.” She stretched one of her hands in my dire. “I truly hope we meet again, one day. Perhaps after you’ve solved the issue of your current circumstances?”

  I stared at her hand for a moment before something I had read this week clicked in my brain. Recalling the book on dwarven s, I stepped up to Elysaels desk and reached out myself. I firmly grasped Elysaels forearm while she did the same for me. The both of us gave a quick squeeze, before dropping our arms. I stepped back.

  “Goodbye, Nathan. May we meet again.” Elysael said, giving me a somewhat mencholy smile and ining her head.

  “I’ll see you around…Ely.” I replied, returning the smile. Her smile widened slightly.

  Azarus stepped up then and gruffly stuck his arm out too. Elysael gripped it as well and theed the ritual.

  “Goodbye, cousin. I hope you find a…way out of your current circumstances as well.” Elysael said evenly.

  Azarus’s brow furrowed slightly. “Ah, thanks. See you ter, then?” With a final nod to each other, Elysael sat back down while Azarus turned around and strode to the door. Opening it, he stepped outside. I followed him, and with one final look back at Elysael, I shut the door behind us.

  Turning in pce, I found myself fag Azarus. He was giving me a weird look, with a raised eyebrow.

  “What?” I asked him, baffled. He just rolled his eyes at me and shook his head. Pivoting in pce, he strode down the hall without answering me. I hurried to catch up to him. “No, seriously, what?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  ……………………………………...

  With a grunt, Azarus finished seg the st of the cargo in the cart he had rented. He had expio me that Gren had already left Rhoscara, and probably wasn’t even ba Addersfield either. As a traveling trader, he could be anywhere in the Principality right now. Azarus had told me that Gren was one of the only people with a wagon that he trusted, and so he had decided to just drive us back to Addersfield himself. The cart he had chosen wasn’t as nice as the one we had taken here either. It wasn’t as big and didn’t have a vas-covered roof like Gren’s. It was only a two-horse cart as well, so Azarus had told me to expect the trip back to take slightly longer. I was going to be riding up front with him, this time.

  Currently, Azarus and I were at the same iion station that we had gotten off at when we arrived at the city. retty much made a beelihrough the city, taking a much shorter and more direct route to the gates than the sie a week ago.

  Azarus had waved me off when I had offered to him help with the final checks to the cart. Which, you know, I suppose was fair. It’s not like I knew anything about the cargo he was hauling back to Addersfield.

  Hearing the etal-cd boots to my rear, I was surprised tnize who roag me. It was the dwarven captain I had met and e up with the disgraoble pn before we ehe city. Gastone, I think. He looked just as tired as st time and was carrying a steaming cup of tea, in a mirror of Azarus from earlier. Seeing that I noticed him, he me.

  “Taking off, are you?” He asked me casually.

  “Ah, yeah. Heading back to Azarus’s pce.” I answered him.

  “Hmm.” Gastoook a sip of his tea. “You know, that stunt you pulled in court really got the city whispering. Even started a bit of a trend with the younger, more romantic sorts.”

  I was taken aback by that. “What? How?” I asked him, startled.

  The captain smirked slightly at my fusion. “Well, some of them started prang about with decorative colrs around their necks and going on about ‘undying loyalty’. Well,” He paused. “Until their parents caught wind of them. They stopped that right quick.”

  I could feel my face go red at his words. “Ah,” I said weakly. “That’s…good. That they were stopped.”

  He took another sip and gri me. “Yeah, you could say that.” He sobered then. “It’s not really something to joke about.”

  Turning away from him to watch Azarus, I just nodded wordlessly. Now that I thought about it, this guy was the only other person thahat knew I was actually a sve.

  “Thanks for your advice,” I said, without turning to face him. “It…worked out. I got what I needed.”

  He was silent for a moment. “That’s good.” He said softly. “I’m gd it worked out.”

  The both of us grew silent then.

  Before long, Azarus had finished with his checks and walked over to the two of us. “Enzo.” He greeted the captain with audibly more enthusiasm in his tohan he’d had with Elysael. He thrust an arm in Gastone’s dire. The captain nodded back at him with a smile and they squeezed forearms once before dropping them. “What brings you out here?”

  “Oh, just seeing you off. All of your paperwork is in order, so you leave at any time.” Captain Gastone answered.

  Azarus nodded back at him before sighing. He shifted his shoulders. “Well, that time is now. It was good seeing you, Enzo. Take care of yourself, yeah?”

  “The same to you, my friend. Watch your back.” Gastone replied, with a small note of warning in his voice.

  “Hmm,” Azarus said, nonittedly. With one final pair of goodbyes from the two of them, Azarus walked over to the cart and jumped up into the driver's seat.

  “Goodbye, Captain,” I said to him, turning to follow Azarus. I was stopped by the Captain speaking again.

  “You should watch your bar. Hart.” I heard him say. Turning ba, I saw a serious look on his face. “It’s a dangerous world.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just nodded back at him and finished walking over to the cart. Climbing into the passenger’s seat, I was startled when Azarus handed me a wide-brimmed straw hat. Taking it, I looked at him questioningly.

  Azarus smirked back at me. “No fancy roof for you, this time. Yonna have th it out in the sun with the rest of us.” He pulled out an equally flopped straw hat and jammed it onto his head.

  I rolled my eyes at him but put the hat on anyway. I didn’t know if you could still get sunburns with an active Status, but there was no use tempting fate.

  With a shout and a snap of his reigns, Azarus got the wagon underway. As we left the city, I turned around o time to take in the view of Rhoscara.

  It really was a beautiful pce.