![Flourish [Solo] Empty](https://2img.net/i/empty.gif)
THEY SAY THERE'S NO ETERNITY
SO WHY DO WE ALL FIGHT INCESSANTLY?
I TRY MY BEST TO LAUGH AT IT
and go live my life as i see fit
The stillness here was uncanny. It's as if this specific stretch of earth experienced time a little less restrained than anywhere else. There was no sense of wonder, only forlorn. She felt well and truly alone atop the slope, even before her caravan rode back into the forest from whenst it came. The mage clings to the material of her coat as she braves a resistance unknown to her, a foreign sort of falter that stuck to her boots like glue. It didn't make the climb any easier. But she scrambled up the path nonetheless.
A day's worth of blue yonder and grassy countryside is what others are likely to justify as the textbook definition of a holiday, though there was no day-off to be had within the vast lonesome that gave the Serene Cliff its serenity. Not for her - she only came under the pretense of a commission. Her wallet craved her wages, and she found purpose in magecraft. These conditions underlined a work ethic that derived comfort from responsibility; breaks were strictly indulgent, and she made sure to spoil herself in luxury to make it count.
Maybe it was a selfish philosophy. But she couldn't be bothered to lie to herself.
After a modest walk over a windblown plateau, Mari comes across a cottage that nestled itself unimposingly beneath a canopy of pine and redwood. A fire breathed smoke through the chimney, implying that the master of the house was present. As she drew closer, the finer details that outlined the house looked endearing enough to strike her where it hurt the most; even if she absorbed herself in her work, the homesickness never dulls.
She broke into a small sprint towards the door. It was left slightly ajar to let the breeze lift in the smell of grass and sunlight through the humble, single storied house.
"Hello? Mage service?"
A small, tired voice wavered from the living room. "Do come in, my back is taking the piss."
Mari slides the door open under her breath, somehow admitting to the idea that the peace that rested between these walls was best left undisturbed. She'd follow the audible groaning towards a sectioned space behind a divider, where her client laid back-first on a bed that overlooked the cliffside from a small window beside it. The old man's face, despite the numbing pain that climbed up his spine, seemed to brighten as he looked at her.
"Ah...you're here. I thought no one would come."
She eyes him with an emotion that quickly overtakes her heart. "You can always count on us wizards sir." she kneels at the foot of his bed, "We hardly leave any request untaken."
He grasps at the bed rails as she spoke, urging his body to sit up. The struggle is no less a feat even as she offered her shoulder to make the transition easier. He grumbles at himself.
"The climb wasn't too difficult, was it? Leaving is easier than arriving when it comes to the cliffs." the old man said. His head comes to rest atop the adjacent wall, eyes wondering over the vista beyond his window. It paints a picture of sadness despite the warmth in his bones.
Mari shook her head. "That was nothing. I've got the backings of prior work experience and peak youth."
Her client laughed. At first it rang hollow, but the sound ages into a warmth found in cups of coffee poured just at the crack of dawn. "I'm a strong man myself, even if the grays on my head say otherwise." he palms his shoulder in an attempt to recall only good things, "This body of mine got into an accident some time ago. Fell off one leg, landed on the other."
The man heaves a sigh so low it was on the verge of shaking his chest, "Everything below my waist is fine. But my back? Ah...blasted thing is broken. Can't afford more than light house work and bed rest." his hand dug into a bag that hung from a nail on the wall, producing a worn journal bound in leather, "You'll need this if you want to find everything. Locations, species, and methods of gathering. Not a hair out of place. Shouldn't be hard for a smart-looking girl."
Mari frees the book from his fingers, enchanted by the way the strap that held the pages together came undone at the flick of a wrist. The contents spoke of a world observed through bullet points and impressively detailed sketches; everything was as cohesive as it was a work of art. She hadn't realized something so methodical could also contain a semblance of beauty.
"Thanks. I worked hard on it."
She fidgets, ashamed that she'd fall prone to the lure of book. "Oh-! Sorry...err..."
"Haha, it's fine girl. It feels good to get some validation for your hard work." he pointed towards a small hallway to his left, "There's a few baskets stacked in the kitchen beside the pantry. Fill them according to their labels and be here before dusk. My...records should guide you through my usual route."
She watches the skin around his eyes crinkle as he sinks back down into his mattress, and for a moment, she wonders if it was improper to think of the geezer as she would her father - burdened by his mortal nature, he struggles to reject a vulnerability that he had no control over. They were the sort of men that deserved to reap the most out of every harvest.
Mari feels the thinning pieces of paper whimper softly beneath her fingers, jostled by the smallest caress. "Rest assured mister client sir!" she grips the journal with a firm hand, the other bent in casual salute, "If its menial tasks you want done, then you couldn't have asked for anyone better~"
The cheer that bounces off her spoken tone summons within him a weightlessness long forgotten, further reminding him that his age makes it no easier to stomach the lonesome he'd come to sow atop the wreckage caused by a wife gone far too soon and a child that was never conceived. Even lands as abundant as this spared not a soul when it came to ill fate.
He swallows a lump in his throat. "Hm? Dazzle me then."
"Order received chief. You won't be disappointed."
The solace in the smile she leaves him with lingers still even as she darts towards the kitchen, her steps trailed by pools of sunlight and sentiments he wished not to name.
"Over here? A-ha!"
Her figure dives through a thicket with an expectant grin, eyes fixed on the curious growth that poked their smooth, orange caps through moss and felled pine. Her lungs release a single anxious breath as her fingers circle the furthest cluster of mushrooms, a muted sort of reverence bleeding into the way she peels them from the ground and into a neat pile beside her.
"Aren't you precious?" she whispered, framing one mushroom between her fingers and the glassy sunset sky. "One of the several wonders of the gourmet world, the chanterelle~!"
She retrieves the journal from a neighboring shrub before deftly layering it across her lap. The pages drift softly against each other as she ravages through the contents, appreciative of the way the chanterelle sketches in her client's records match the little golden bulbs she'd come to unearth. Mari wasn't any smarter than the botanist that penned this cliffside logbook, but her fine-dining fancies would be put to shame if she couldn't recognize a culinary delicacy even if it were caked in soil. The chefs at the chateau would have their spirits quaking had they known.
There was gold to be found here. A trove of treasure gated by solitude and sea breezes.
Her happiness blooms in roses atop her cheeks as she spoons some chanterelles into the wicker basket, admiring the contrast against the darker oyster mushrooms and white, circular puffballs. only furthering the aesthetic. She braces the weight of her work between her calloused fingers, pleasantly satisfied at its heft in spite of it being the reason her journey back to the main path consisted of waddles and bruised ankles.
It wasn't any worse than how Mari's previous employments treated her however. Her legs may ache and her clothes might smell of dirt and damp, yet her heart has not grown to resent the cliffs. Mari laughs at the thought. It was unlike her to embrace rural life in this context. Mr. Rothe Alborn, to whom this commission answers to, clearly went to great lengths to archive the surrounding flora to a level of detail deserving of praise. If there was a necessity to recite reasons for a change of heart, then hers was sole credit to Rothe's outstanding work and how it paints a picture of an epicurean fantasy at the common man's disposal - flourishing beneath the undergrowth. Mari knows it could easily be an exaggeration, but there was no lie to be had when his journal blooms excitement within her as she consumed the pages in ravenous fashion.
She wonders, idly, how a man of his brilliance could make such a troubled face.
The sky that greets her as she ascends a slope is a slowly dimming one. At the end of the path she currently walks is Mr. Alborn's home, its windows now lit with warmth of a fully kindled fireplace. The redwoods seem bend their shadows in an attempt to embrace the structure as it sits there, timeless.
'Pretty.' she thought, a relieved tone of voice that surprises none. All she's ever known from the wilderness was cruelty, lifted from the words of other scholars. It was comforting to touch grass without monsters going rogue, or to lurk beneath towering canopies without the danger of an ambush. To have realized that the cliffside offered a sensible palate was a bonus she met with as much vehemence as she would towards edible gold shavings.
She nudges the kitchen backdoor with the edge of her shoe as soon as she arrived, lifting the basket into the pantry beside the others with a resounding thud. As slow as it'd gone, Mari did eventually assemble a sizeable collection of ingredients in a day's worth of foraging. The wild garlic that grew in abundance at the further end of a riverbed was a delight to collect, as it filled half a basket alongside a bundle of elderflower and mallow. Another basket seemed a little wet as the seaweed in its hollow began to dry.
The mage pokes her head into a third basket, adoring the subtle sweetness of blackberries and dandelion. Beside it, a clump of nettle sits unimposingly beside the hawthorns that she'd climb several trees for, the red bulbs peeping through the wicker. The chestnuts were portioned into a separate, smaller baskets, since their spines proved to be an ordeal she wished to end quickly as soon as they started hitchhiking on her twintails.
It was a shame that she didn't think much of the countryside in the past.
"...I see the birds were kind to you. They'd sometimes never let me near their prized seeds." came a voice from the hallway, the sound accompanied by Rothe's limping steps as he steadied himself with a walking stick. "I'm pleased that you've read my journal intently."
Mari laughs. "I've my ways." she spun to meet him in the eye, a toothy grin greeting him in return. "Couldn't have done it without your help Mr. Alborn. Your journal carried me all the way."
The old man pulls his thinning face into a smile. "It did it's job well, then. Splendid."
He shuffles his way back to the living room behind him, an unsaid gesture beckoning her to follow him. The wizard complies. She grabs her coat that hung from a hanger rack nearby as she leaves the kitchen, quick to discern the creeping darkness caused by the evening hours. Rothe hobbles a little more towards a coffee table, where he picks up a pouch that jingled as he limped.
She awaits her pay beside the fireplace, ever expectant. Though the night starts to dull her spirits.
"For your satisfying services." he said, his hand steady as he laid the bag of jewel before her. "An old friend of mine is a journeyman. I've already notified him that a mage might drop by one of these days, so he should be here soon to take you back to the mainland."
Mari slips the pouch into her pocket. It manages to dispel some of the weariness that clouds her thoughts, and she relishes in the endorphins that continue to breathe life into her addiction. But even then, she finds herself mulling over Rothe's emotional state, and whether it was advisable to leave him alone. The despondency that hung above his hunched shoulders was a cloud of gloom she'd seen over several accounts - one instance her own reflection.
Regret. Anguish. Curses thrown at time you couldn't turn back.
Her lips part in anticipation, but the words die in her throat as the old man voices them out of his own accord.
"...I think I know what your about to say. My friend asks the same thing." he sighs, seating his body in a sofa, "I choose to stay since this is where my late wife rests after she passed from a disease she'd been born with. Her grave overlooks the southmost cliff, where she spent the rest of her days painting."
As if compelled, Mari turns to the scenic paintings that littered the four walls of his home. The small worlds that his wife enclosed in each frame haunted her with a transience only seen through a dying woman's eyes.
"I tell myself it's best to return to the mainland and start life anew, just as she'd wanted. But this cliff...and this house, its all I have left of her." there's a laugh that he yearns to spit out, but it comes out as a cough and a defeated look, "She was terrible at reading maps. So if one day I do go, I'd want it to be where she'd easily find me."
Not a peep nor a soul decides to sunder the pause that both of them agreed to, and for a while the house only hears an elegy sung by the wind. In that moment she reflects - how could she tamper the pain of loss when she's yet to endure a similar affair?
The answer is she couldn't. This fight wasn't hers. Mari was dubbed the observer as soon as Rothe himself decided that there was no alternative.
"Did that come off too strong?" her clients asks, his eyes not meeting hers. "I'm sorry...it's not wrong to think I'm better off elsewhere. But I've had far too many a night mulling over my choice. This is one of many. You just happened to be here in place of my conscience."
His hands shoot up to his shoulder again, a far different sort of pain now clouding his head. "Maybe I'm going crazy. I don't know. Am I?"
"Crazy in love. I suppose."
The old man chuckles. She had no tact, but he admired her honesty.
"...Yes. I think that's the best way I'd put it." his eyes close, "I love her. I still do."
There's a hardy knock on the door that startles them both. Mari goes to answer it, and a towering man dressed in robes asks for her from beyond the doorframe. His caravan could be seen parked to one side, with the horses grazing pleasantly.
"You're the mage right? Ride's here. You ready?"
Mari's brows furrow. "...Give me a few minutes."
The outlander shrugs in return. "Sure. But don't take too long."
At his behest, the girl hurries to where Rothe planted himself. The intensity of red in her eyes is strange, but they nevertheless convey an intention as sincere as any other.
"My teacher is a legal advisor, but also a relational consultant." she said, dropping a folded note into his hands, "I'm not at expert at this, but if you can't entirely come to terms with your decision...then maybe it wouldn't hurt to ask for advice."
"And you're certain your teacher will have the right answers?"
She doesn't smile. But her face is gentle still. "Not the right answers. But maybe the right questions."
There's a spot in his heart that shakes as she spoke, smothered by the words that he might've needed all along.
"...Thank you."
Mari later leaves the Alborn house with a flourish of goodbyes and praise, unwilling to let the geezer pass without applauding the work hardly anyone else has seen. The journeyman snorted a similar remark in return, urging his old friend to reconsider a pursuit in academic botany. Both are driven off the slope by an old timer that haggled his walking stick at them, speaking of night terrors in a voice that betrayed his intention to scare them away. Everything decidedly ends before supper, where night falls too quickly in anticipation for the next dawn.
The forest that lines the inner slopes of the Serene Cliffs spares not a sound as the caravan rushes through the only road that leads to the station. There is no fanfare involved as she soon bids the outlander farewell once she approaches a train, too tired to look back as the caravan faded into the twilight.
As the train sounds its last chime, Mari realizes that her choice of role in Rothe's story might not be the catalyst for a change in course, but she hopes that her words were enough for him to revalue the cliffs and what it offered, just as he did for her.
A day's worth of blue yonder and grassy countryside is what others are likely to justify as the textbook definition of a holiday, though there was no day-off to be had within the vast lonesome that gave the Serene Cliff its serenity. Not for her - she only came under the pretense of a commission. Her wallet craved her wages, and she found purpose in magecraft. These conditions underlined a work ethic that derived comfort from responsibility; breaks were strictly indulgent, and she made sure to spoil herself in luxury to make it count.
Maybe it was a selfish philosophy. But she couldn't be bothered to lie to herself.
After a modest walk over a windblown plateau, Mari comes across a cottage that nestled itself unimposingly beneath a canopy of pine and redwood. A fire breathed smoke through the chimney, implying that the master of the house was present. As she drew closer, the finer details that outlined the house looked endearing enough to strike her where it hurt the most; even if she absorbed herself in her work, the homesickness never dulls.
She broke into a small sprint towards the door. It was left slightly ajar to let the breeze lift in the smell of grass and sunlight through the humble, single storied house.
"Hello? Mage service?"
A small, tired voice wavered from the living room. "Do come in, my back is taking the piss."
Mari slides the door open under her breath, somehow admitting to the idea that the peace that rested between these walls was best left undisturbed. She'd follow the audible groaning towards a sectioned space behind a divider, where her client laid back-first on a bed that overlooked the cliffside from a small window beside it. The old man's face, despite the numbing pain that climbed up his spine, seemed to brighten as he looked at her.
"Ah...you're here. I thought no one would come."
She eyes him with an emotion that quickly overtakes her heart. "You can always count on us wizards sir." she kneels at the foot of his bed, "We hardly leave any request untaken."
He grasps at the bed rails as she spoke, urging his body to sit up. The struggle is no less a feat even as she offered her shoulder to make the transition easier. He grumbles at himself.
"The climb wasn't too difficult, was it? Leaving is easier than arriving when it comes to the cliffs." the old man said. His head comes to rest atop the adjacent wall, eyes wondering over the vista beyond his window. It paints a picture of sadness despite the warmth in his bones.
Mari shook her head. "That was nothing. I've got the backings of prior work experience and peak youth."
Her client laughed. At first it rang hollow, but the sound ages into a warmth found in cups of coffee poured just at the crack of dawn. "I'm a strong man myself, even if the grays on my head say otherwise." he palms his shoulder in an attempt to recall only good things, "This body of mine got into an accident some time ago. Fell off one leg, landed on the other."
The man heaves a sigh so low it was on the verge of shaking his chest, "Everything below my waist is fine. But my back? Ah...blasted thing is broken. Can't afford more than light house work and bed rest." his hand dug into a bag that hung from a nail on the wall, producing a worn journal bound in leather, "You'll need this if you want to find everything. Locations, species, and methods of gathering. Not a hair out of place. Shouldn't be hard for a smart-looking girl."
Mari frees the book from his fingers, enchanted by the way the strap that held the pages together came undone at the flick of a wrist. The contents spoke of a world observed through bullet points and impressively detailed sketches; everything was as cohesive as it was a work of art. She hadn't realized something so methodical could also contain a semblance of beauty.
"Thanks. I worked hard on it."
She fidgets, ashamed that she'd fall prone to the lure of book. "Oh-! Sorry...err..."
"Haha, it's fine girl. It feels good to get some validation for your hard work." he pointed towards a small hallway to his left, "There's a few baskets stacked in the kitchen beside the pantry. Fill them according to their labels and be here before dusk. My...records should guide you through my usual route."
She watches the skin around his eyes crinkle as he sinks back down into his mattress, and for a moment, she wonders if it was improper to think of the geezer as she would her father - burdened by his mortal nature, he struggles to reject a vulnerability that he had no control over. They were the sort of men that deserved to reap the most out of every harvest.
Mari feels the thinning pieces of paper whimper softly beneath her fingers, jostled by the smallest caress. "Rest assured mister client sir!" she grips the journal with a firm hand, the other bent in casual salute, "If its menial tasks you want done, then you couldn't have asked for anyone better~"
The cheer that bounces off her spoken tone summons within him a weightlessness long forgotten, further reminding him that his age makes it no easier to stomach the lonesome he'd come to sow atop the wreckage caused by a wife gone far too soon and a child that was never conceived. Even lands as abundant as this spared not a soul when it came to ill fate.
He swallows a lump in his throat. "Hm? Dazzle me then."
"Order received chief. You won't be disappointed."
The solace in the smile she leaves him with lingers still even as she darts towards the kitchen, her steps trailed by pools of sunlight and sentiments he wished not to name.
◆◆◆◆◆
She'd never been the hardest person to understand, and that was mostly through choice. It doesn't take more than a handful of wit to figure her out; Mari at face value was at her barest, her secrets few and far between. The mage couldn't fault herself for being so candid when she hadn't anything to hide - yet, like her fellow scribes, she too had her moments of profound thought such as this one, where the cliffs continue to humble her city girl pride."Over here? A-ha!"
Her figure dives through a thicket with an expectant grin, eyes fixed on the curious growth that poked their smooth, orange caps through moss and felled pine. Her lungs release a single anxious breath as her fingers circle the furthest cluster of mushrooms, a muted sort of reverence bleeding into the way she peels them from the ground and into a neat pile beside her.
"Aren't you precious?" she whispered, framing one mushroom between her fingers and the glassy sunset sky. "One of the several wonders of the gourmet world, the chanterelle~!"
She retrieves the journal from a neighboring shrub before deftly layering it across her lap. The pages drift softly against each other as she ravages through the contents, appreciative of the way the chanterelle sketches in her client's records match the little golden bulbs she'd come to unearth. Mari wasn't any smarter than the botanist that penned this cliffside logbook, but her fine-dining fancies would be put to shame if she couldn't recognize a culinary delicacy even if it were caked in soil. The chefs at the chateau would have their spirits quaking had they known.
There was gold to be found here. A trove of treasure gated by solitude and sea breezes.
Her happiness blooms in roses atop her cheeks as she spoons some chanterelles into the wicker basket, admiring the contrast against the darker oyster mushrooms and white, circular puffballs. only furthering the aesthetic. She braces the weight of her work between her calloused fingers, pleasantly satisfied at its heft in spite of it being the reason her journey back to the main path consisted of waddles and bruised ankles.
It wasn't any worse than how Mari's previous employments treated her however. Her legs may ache and her clothes might smell of dirt and damp, yet her heart has not grown to resent the cliffs. Mari laughs at the thought. It was unlike her to embrace rural life in this context. Mr. Rothe Alborn, to whom this commission answers to, clearly went to great lengths to archive the surrounding flora to a level of detail deserving of praise. If there was a necessity to recite reasons for a change of heart, then hers was sole credit to Rothe's outstanding work and how it paints a picture of an epicurean fantasy at the common man's disposal - flourishing beneath the undergrowth. Mari knows it could easily be an exaggeration, but there was no lie to be had when his journal blooms excitement within her as she consumed the pages in ravenous fashion.
She wonders, idly, how a man of his brilliance could make such a troubled face.
The sky that greets her as she ascends a slope is a slowly dimming one. At the end of the path she currently walks is Mr. Alborn's home, its windows now lit with warmth of a fully kindled fireplace. The redwoods seem bend their shadows in an attempt to embrace the structure as it sits there, timeless.
'Pretty.' she thought, a relieved tone of voice that surprises none. All she's ever known from the wilderness was cruelty, lifted from the words of other scholars. It was comforting to touch grass without monsters going rogue, or to lurk beneath towering canopies without the danger of an ambush. To have realized that the cliffside offered a sensible palate was a bonus she met with as much vehemence as she would towards edible gold shavings.
She nudges the kitchen backdoor with the edge of her shoe as soon as she arrived, lifting the basket into the pantry beside the others with a resounding thud. As slow as it'd gone, Mari did eventually assemble a sizeable collection of ingredients in a day's worth of foraging. The wild garlic that grew in abundance at the further end of a riverbed was a delight to collect, as it filled half a basket alongside a bundle of elderflower and mallow. Another basket seemed a little wet as the seaweed in its hollow began to dry.
The mage pokes her head into a third basket, adoring the subtle sweetness of blackberries and dandelion. Beside it, a clump of nettle sits unimposingly beside the hawthorns that she'd climb several trees for, the red bulbs peeping through the wicker. The chestnuts were portioned into a separate, smaller baskets, since their spines proved to be an ordeal she wished to end quickly as soon as they started hitchhiking on her twintails.
It was a shame that she didn't think much of the countryside in the past.
"...I see the birds were kind to you. They'd sometimes never let me near their prized seeds." came a voice from the hallway, the sound accompanied by Rothe's limping steps as he steadied himself with a walking stick. "I'm pleased that you've read my journal intently."
Mari laughs. "I've my ways." she spun to meet him in the eye, a toothy grin greeting him in return. "Couldn't have done it without your help Mr. Alborn. Your journal carried me all the way."
The old man pulls his thinning face into a smile. "It did it's job well, then. Splendid."
He shuffles his way back to the living room behind him, an unsaid gesture beckoning her to follow him. The wizard complies. She grabs her coat that hung from a hanger rack nearby as she leaves the kitchen, quick to discern the creeping darkness caused by the evening hours. Rothe hobbles a little more towards a coffee table, where he picks up a pouch that jingled as he limped.
She awaits her pay beside the fireplace, ever expectant. Though the night starts to dull her spirits.
"For your satisfying services." he said, his hand steady as he laid the bag of jewel before her. "An old friend of mine is a journeyman. I've already notified him that a mage might drop by one of these days, so he should be here soon to take you back to the mainland."
Mari slips the pouch into her pocket. It manages to dispel some of the weariness that clouds her thoughts, and she relishes in the endorphins that continue to breathe life into her addiction. But even then, she finds herself mulling over Rothe's emotional state, and whether it was advisable to leave him alone. The despondency that hung above his hunched shoulders was a cloud of gloom she'd seen over several accounts - one instance her own reflection.
Regret. Anguish. Curses thrown at time you couldn't turn back.
Her lips part in anticipation, but the words die in her throat as the old man voices them out of his own accord.
"...I think I know what your about to say. My friend asks the same thing." he sighs, seating his body in a sofa, "I choose to stay since this is where my late wife rests after she passed from a disease she'd been born with. Her grave overlooks the southmost cliff, where she spent the rest of her days painting."
As if compelled, Mari turns to the scenic paintings that littered the four walls of his home. The small worlds that his wife enclosed in each frame haunted her with a transience only seen through a dying woman's eyes.
"I tell myself it's best to return to the mainland and start life anew, just as she'd wanted. But this cliff...and this house, its all I have left of her." there's a laugh that he yearns to spit out, but it comes out as a cough and a defeated look, "She was terrible at reading maps. So if one day I do go, I'd want it to be where she'd easily find me."
Not a peep nor a soul decides to sunder the pause that both of them agreed to, and for a while the house only hears an elegy sung by the wind. In that moment she reflects - how could she tamper the pain of loss when she's yet to endure a similar affair?
The answer is she couldn't. This fight wasn't hers. Mari was dubbed the observer as soon as Rothe himself decided that there was no alternative.
"Did that come off too strong?" her clients asks, his eyes not meeting hers. "I'm sorry...it's not wrong to think I'm better off elsewhere. But I've had far too many a night mulling over my choice. This is one of many. You just happened to be here in place of my conscience."
His hands shoot up to his shoulder again, a far different sort of pain now clouding his head. "Maybe I'm going crazy. I don't know. Am I?"
"Crazy in love. I suppose."
The old man chuckles. She had no tact, but he admired her honesty.
"...Yes. I think that's the best way I'd put it." his eyes close, "I love her. I still do."
There's a hardy knock on the door that startles them both. Mari goes to answer it, and a towering man dressed in robes asks for her from beyond the doorframe. His caravan could be seen parked to one side, with the horses grazing pleasantly.
"You're the mage right? Ride's here. You ready?"
Mari's brows furrow. "...Give me a few minutes."
The outlander shrugs in return. "Sure. But don't take too long."
At his behest, the girl hurries to where Rothe planted himself. The intensity of red in her eyes is strange, but they nevertheless convey an intention as sincere as any other.
"My teacher is a legal advisor, but also a relational consultant." she said, dropping a folded note into his hands, "I'm not at expert at this, but if you can't entirely come to terms with your decision...then maybe it wouldn't hurt to ask for advice."
"And you're certain your teacher will have the right answers?"
She doesn't smile. But her face is gentle still. "Not the right answers. But maybe the right questions."
There's a spot in his heart that shakes as she spoke, smothered by the words that he might've needed all along.
"...Thank you."
Mari later leaves the Alborn house with a flourish of goodbyes and praise, unwilling to let the geezer pass without applauding the work hardly anyone else has seen. The journeyman snorted a similar remark in return, urging his old friend to reconsider a pursuit in academic botany. Both are driven off the slope by an old timer that haggled his walking stick at them, speaking of night terrors in a voice that betrayed his intention to scare them away. Everything decidedly ends before supper, where night falls too quickly in anticipation for the next dawn.
The forest that lines the inner slopes of the Serene Cliffs spares not a sound as the caravan rushes through the only road that leads to the station. There is no fanfare involved as she soon bids the outlander farewell once she approaches a train, too tired to look back as the caravan faded into the twilight.
As the train sounds its last chime, Mari realizes that her choice of role in Rothe's story might not be the catalyst for a change in course, but she hopes that her words were enough for him to revalue the cliffs and what it offered, just as he did for her.
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3049/500 words | Job Link
3049/500 words | Job Link
