The Rugged Edge

Grey Dragons - Chapter 2: Grey Cleared

Present

July 23, 791

.. .. ..

"Bye, Quin," said Geraint, embracing me.

"We'll see you soon," said Ise, and she hugged me, too.

I smiled and said as I mounted the wagon, "I'll miss you."

They all smiled back. It was a strange habit of ours, to smile when we ought to be gloomy. Still, it kept us happy, somehow, only by the small expression of joy, or at least of peace.

I'd said goodbye to Rosalie and to the rest of the Vereniva staff earlier that day, since today was market day and they were all in Vilia, selling flowers and pastries. Rosalie was always so excited to share her hard work's result with the people in the village. It was an art, I thought, what she did with the flowers. Ise recognized this, and ever since her coronation, when she started putting everything right again, the Vereniva residents had been able to share their various talents in the village. This didn't only include Rosalie. Corinne and Ebony took their baked goods to sell, and Nevaeh took her knitting and weaving. Even Mauve, Rosalie's twelve year old sister, had something to share: she was very talented with color sketching, and the villagers loved to buy the artwork to liven up their homes.

Ise had confided to me that she had thought of hiring some more servants to work at Vereniva, since there were so few there, but she'd decided against it because they did their jobs so well and loved it so devotedly. Why take the beloved responsibility away, only to put it in other, less capable hands?

I turned my thoughts back to the nearing village, which I would pass through, although I wouldn't go through the market so I wouldn't see Rosalie again.

I was going back to Runa to spend a few months with my parents, who had come to the wedding and helped for a while, but couldn't stay away from home for very long.

"Imagine the pile of dust I'll find if I ever return!" Ma had said.

But I thought it was simply because she was homesick.

I'd found in the month apart that I couldn't stay away from my Ma and Pa very long, either. I would miss Geraint every minute I was away from him, but I had been away from him before, and could at least bear it. I had never spent a day separate from Ma, however, and Pa barely ever. I missed them too much to stay at Vereniva for the month that Geraint and Ise planned to spend there. Besides, it was supposed to be their honeymoon, and they hadn't had a minute alone since the wedding.

The experienced horse that pulled the wagon had traveled this path so often that I barely had to lead it. It carried me down the dirt road, which Ise said she hoped to pave in the next few years to keep if from being slick when it rained. Around me were fields of bright green, speckled with dimples of color; wildflowers growing in the sunlight. Soon, I crossed the span of the Roken river, which glittered as it reflected the bright sunlight.

I thought about how it had changed. So much had changed, really. The Grey, as Ise called it, was gone.

"Silver cup with which she served her quite misdirected land: poured onto the hopeless hearts and made all green again," I sang from one of the verses of my song. "The greenest hue of loveliest tree. Not grey, not grey, but green. Not grey, never grey, but green."

My voice seemed small in the great world embracing me, but it seemed to part the silence around me.

I remembered the silence from before: the silence that lay heavy on every word I spoke, on every step I walked, and on every breath I took. It was the silence that had pressed so dourly upon the kingdom.