We Solemn Few

Chapter Twenty-Three : Revelations and Reconciliations

"...son..."

He was sat upon a chair of sturdy spruce, the likes of which wobbled with legs that weren't quite cut to the same heights, but he hardly felt the discomfort of either. Not now. The feeling was... distant, almost, a memory half-lost. Something felt off. Something felt familiar. He was almost... amused by it all, as odd as that seemed. Everything seemed odd or off in some way, and just out of reach besides. Why did his own thoughts feel as if they were drifting away, or stuck deep with a pool of rich pudding? For that matter, why did he suddenly crave such pudding?

"...Sam-"

He was in a room. No, he was in a forest. No, the room was a forest. No. No, no, no! He was in a room. Oh, how the scar on his temple throb. He hardly recalled how he got that, hardly believed what Mrs. Helia had told him. He had... died, yet he sat here, alive. Sat... here? Where? A forest? A breeze fluttered through, spireleaf and others touched by autumn swaying as the cold touched his skin, soft grass feeling sharp against his thighs and legs. All bare, or so it felt. In the corner of his eye he swore he could see someone marching, see embroidered blue touching a fine coat, but then the breeze fluttered against his eyes and they shut to a darkness that was light, and he was in a room.

"Samson!"

He jumped in his skin as the shout pounded through his ears, the unsteady seat nearly sending him to a tumble had he not had the table to steady himself. He forced down the urge to press a hand to the newborn scar despite how it blazed, forced it down for it would only send him into a dizzy spiral should he grace it. That he learned quite quickly, and that it flared up whenever something was off with him, or so it had seemed. Something surely had felt off. What was that forest he saw? And why was his mouth still watering at the thought of some misbegotten custard? He might even think himself crazy enough to indulge such a sudden craving if those odd pink eyes open him didn't seem so cold... or concerned. By the Dawnmartyr's light, pink eyes of all things! And hair like a ghastly wig! If he could believe he had died - he didn't trust it, per se, but the scar... - then he could believe such hair, but scorn him if it wasn't odd!

"Have you lost your wits, farmer boy?" the woman asked callously, her face like smooth ice, "Were you even listening? If I have to repeat myself, I might just shake you until you remember."

"I remember..." Samson winced, steadying himself - or, really, shifting as to not fall - on the stool as he flattened the rather heavy "wolf" coat he had been provided. An odd thing, the clothing worn here, but rather uniform. He had heard of the Village of Sharp and Sly as it had once been called in a story which was perhaps more a far-off tale than really any truth, but what he had heard hardly seemed to reflect this modern day town of "wolves" and "foxes," if it ever did. He was crazy to think they actually once ate their dead, but from the way most men - and women, of all things! - handled their weaponry, he was not about to call them truly sane. He forced those thoughts away, though, for the very Lady before him was colder than nearly anyone in Djish Kirucha he had met, and she too hooked a sword to her hip. If she even thought for a moment he'd call her insane, she might actually shake him, and that was if she hadn't meant it to begin with.

As for remembering, though, he was quite afraid he'd been caught in a lie and an unintentional one at that. Those are the worst kind, he heard Veyha whisper in the back of his head, but in his jumble of thoughts he could hardly remember when she had said that. Not that he was trying to; he was most focused on grasping for what exactly the Lady Vyri had said. And, fortunately for himself, he managed. If barely, and if shambled of a thought was "managing."

"For some reason..." he began skeptically. Admittedly he did not quite like the pink-eyed woman before him; she was much too forward and demanding, thinking herself perhaps the Queen of Velandro or perhaps even the Mistress Champion of the Last Night when she seemed much more a soldier with much too high ambition. But all of the soldiers - those who didn't wear the odd clothes of the fox and wolf, at least - seemed to defer to her, including Mrs. Helia, so he would too. For now, at least; a noble must always know when to defer, and when to stand your ground. "...we" he also did not understand his place in all of this. He had been but a... corpse - he was not sure why he shuddered at that thought, he had handled it rather calmly the first time he was told - to them but less than a week prior, yet now he was needed? "must head to Ghantol's Hold to meet with a man you call the Gray Hawk. But you won't tell me why, will-"