Children of the Earth

Curses From the Past

Curses From the Past

Vallor didn't dress up anymore. Not only was there no need, there was also no time. There wasn't even a surplus of supplies to create a stylish outfit for him. Everything he owned now was functional and sturdy. his personal tailor had died a few years ago now; Vallor had never replaced him. Instead, he just bought clothes along with his common people.

So when Talen of the Rhyanon clan arrived in his kingdom, Vallor had no choice but to meet him in his plain, common clothes.

Honestly, he didn't even really think about the need to dress up. A few of his council members had felt the need to do so and had pulled on their old, fine clothes. They fit oddly now after so many lean years and with no chance to really care for the fabrics.

Standing at the front of the group waiting to welcome the elven delegation, Vallor was getting annoyed and impatient. It actually took until Holith arrived for Vallor to realize just how under dressed he was. Holith, as his commons adviser inherited from his father, had put more effort into his appearance than Vallor had. While he didn't have access to the fine clothes that the aristocrats did, he had still done his best to care for his appearance. He had even brought his son, Rael, with him.

Rael had dressed up as well, but he had clearly put less effort into it than his father. He was glaring down at nothing, unhappy at being made to come along. He looked remarkably like a child, pouting because he had been forced to go somewhere.

Vallor had noticed that Holith had been bringing Rael around a lot lately. While it was usually for an innocuous reason, he was still dragging the young man around instead of letting him stay at home with his young bride and newborn child-

Oh. Right. Vallor had completely forgotten. Rael's son had been born early and caught an illness that had delivered his soul back to the earth before the young boy had seen his first month pass. It was no wonder Holith was taking his son around to keep his mind off of that.

And Vallor was beginning to think that Holith wanted Rael to take his place one day as the poor man's adviser to the king. It was a position filled with honor, if not immediate wealth. Though Holith had worked for the king for so long that, when he chose to finally retire and obtain the full salary owed to him, he would be a very wealthy man.

Holith bowed to him before taking his place with the rest of the council. Rael kept his head down and pretended not to notice his king so he wouldn't be forced to bow to him.

Vallor ignored the action. He wasn't offended by it. Honestly, he was beyond caring about the little formalities right now. He didn't even want to be here. He didn't understand why he had to come down personally to meet Talen, even if the man was the new, more official ambassador. He had a host of other things he would rather be doing at this moment.

His mind wasn't even here at the front of the palace. It was in the back where Finn was spending her morning planting and gardening her tiny plot of land. She was determined now more than ever to find a way to reverse the curse on his kingdom. And she seemed certain that the first step to doing so rested in the little garden she was going to grow.

That she was going to attempt to grow.

Vallor knew better than to think that anything would actually arise from it. Enral herself had tried earlier on in the curse, before everything had gotten so bad, and she hadn't been at all successful. This soil just couldn't sustain life any longer.

If a small part of him was happy that she remained here, it was tempered by the knowledge that if she kept doing this, no matter how powerful she was, she really was going to die. She would be just another shaman in his dungeon.