The King's Bargain.

A New Journey

As the priestess read aloud the final sentence of the rapport she tore it asunder as Lorcan merely watched in shock. 

"why destroy it? Isn't it valuable to us?" The king asked her, watching her drop the bits of parchment and begin leaving the ruin. 

"that damned scroll held only a meaningless warning! We know already how powerful that spirit is,  i don't understand why she would protect something so useless!" Myrna's pained yells rang out across the ruin, bouncing off of every bit of remaining stone. 

Lorcan stared sadly at the now torn apart scroll, calling out after her.

"Maybe she knew something you don't! If it was important enough to give her life over then surely something of value is to be found in it's warnings!" But she would not listen, the emotion of hurt, of even betrayal had set it's claws into her heart. Any words of wisdom and of reason were ignored, and set aside. The torn remains of the scroll began to be blown away in a sudden gust of wind as Lorcan followed the priestess to where ever she had gone in her anger. 

It turned out an angry priestess could go quite far on emotional turmoil alone. Myrna had walked all the way out into the field and scaled a small hill, behind which lay a lake with a great weeping willow standing grand and strong to the right side of it, it's long emerald leaves hanging like green locks of hair. Their outer ends dipping ever so slightly into the lake's clean blue water. She sat now, in front of that peaceful place, her hand clutching the pendant once more as falling tears formed ripples across the otherwise serene water. 

The king reached her soon enough, kneeling down beside her. Before he could utter a single word of comfort her shaking voice broke the silence.

"Why did she do it i wonder? I've thought about that singular painful question for nights on end, ever since it happened i asked it. And even now i have yet to find an answer. If Yenneva was merely protecting some long dead warning, spoken from long ago silenced lips by some captain who is now dead, then what was her death even for?" 

Lorcan sighed as he locked a hand with hers. 

"I've often asked myself such questions too, why did death have to find my people so soon? Why could i not protect them like a king should? But once an event happens, once it is over. Then these questions become meaningless, stop trying to explain what has happened already and look towards the future" 

She turned to him, eyes now red from her crying.

"How can i do that when the past pertains so much to the future? If you don't want what happened that fateful day to repeat itself wouldn't you want to learn from the past instead of ignore it?" The priestess sighed deeply, turning to look out across the pond, a large elevated stretch of land lay around the  lake, it was covered in softly swaying amber coloured flowers. The sight brought her some peace despite her pain. Lorcan  thought back to how she had helped him, how she had tended to his wound.

"It does not matter what you once were, what you are now is so much more valuable. And right at this moment you are a priestess who saved me from a wound that could have become fatal. And for that i will be forever in your debt" 

"You're right, of course. But that doesn't make what happened right, nothing ever will" Lorcan looked along with her at the great lake, the wind was soft and warm, grass still covered in rain from the past storm. Sometimes the king wondered if the gods were in fact real, if demons like the one he faced could exist, why couldn't they? But looking out at the beautiful nature that surrounded him he could almost feel a presence. If this presence was truly a divine one he could only guess at. Whatever the case it felt comforting and warm, and the king could've sworn that in the still reflection the water offered him Lorcan could faintly make out a golden glow sitting beside both him and Myrna. But once a small fish tossed itself around inside the lake to escape a predator the ripples broke the illusion, and the glow faded.