Varian of the Northern Isles

Here's to Hoping

Varian's POV
     I don't know how long we stayed before the dying embers of that hearth but it felt good to be there.
     "I'm so happy I got to come with you, Hypatia." I thought. "I'm sorry you have to go through this but I'll try my best to help." Hypatia didn't turn. She, a lone monolith and I the sailor clinging to her as to not wash out into the vast openness. Terrin dozed in the chair and I closed my eyes. Was she always this warm? Had she always smelled this nice? My arms were still linked around her waist when she moved. Her hands lingered in mine for only a moment before releasing herself from my grasp.
     She looked at me and reached up and brushed the blue streak of hair out of my face. She said nothing, lingering smoke still evaporating in her eyes. As she turned, she paused to kick a couple piles of ash over the remains of the fire and left. I got up and seeing Terrin comfortably curled up in his chair, returned to my own room.
     Morning came early in Leanna's stronghold and people were milling about early in the day. I got up and stumbled into the bathroom. Upon returning from my much welcomed hot shower, I wandered into the dinning hall. There wasn't a feast, but people were gathering and making their own breakfasts in the central hearth. No one noticed the mangled remains of the moonstone dagger, left overs from the night before.
     Conversation was subdued given the early hour, but there was a slight excitement. These people had hope, I realized, they had been
waiting on Hypatia or Terrin or someone to help them and now that the two had arrived, things were looking up to them. I joined Terrin as he was scrambling eggs.
     "Morning," he sighed, cracking an egg over the frying pan. I looked at the pan, briefly remembering Rapunzel used to fight with something like this.
     "Varian?"
     "Hm?! Wha-"
     "You looked like you were disassociating..." Terrin muttered, as he cut a couple of slices of cheese and laid them into the half cooked eggs.
     "Ah,,,don't worry, it's nothing. Just a little tired," I yawned. Once Terrin had finished cooking and I'd picked up an apple, we sat at a table near the fire to keep warm.
     "Last night was certainly...um....eventful; wasn't it?" Muttered a blond man sitting behind me.
     "What?" I turned.
     "We heard a bunch of clanging and-and stuff." The man said glancing between me and Terrin, "any news on what that was?"
At that moment, Hypatia entered the room. She seemed well rested and much more alert, but the ghostly veil of grief still hung over her.
     "Good morning," she said and plopped herself down in a seat. Later that day, Hypatia officially introduced me to the core leaders of the Rebel group.
     Maurice was in charge of gathering information and was the blond man from breakfast; Cathrine, a short woman of around thirty, specialized in providing supplies for any and all materials, Jaclyn was a spy in the castle and would be leaving in five minutes, her greying hair tied up in a tight knot; Leanna was reintroduced as the leader, and Caelix presented himself for the first time. Caelix was tall and slender with raven hair and equally dark circles under his eyes. He was in charge of weapons. "Now I bring to you Varian, the Alchemist from Corona!" Hypatia announced. The small crowd of people muttered between themselves. It wasn't the answer I was looking for.
     "Varian, you will be working with Catherine, give her a list of whatever you need and she will get it for you." Leanna said, Cathrine gave a small inclination of her head. I didn't exactly feel relieved.
     I was quiet for much of the unofficial meeting but gathered that the next course of action was to some how connect Hypatia to the throne and give her back the control she once had. The main focus was that somehow Helen has been killed but we didn't know who did it; plus we didn't want to expose Hypatia to the same person or people who killed her sister. Caelix was sent out to ready his people and Hypatia was whisked off to increasingly Queen like duties. "Of course they're queenly duties," I chided myself, "she is royalty."
Cathrine was assigned to lead me to my workshop. Some one has already set up most of my equipment and taken to replacing the parts that were broken from our journey over. A note on the table read:
     "You're welcome. -Terrin"
     Cathrine told me to have a list to give her by this evening and all the requests would be brought back by the next week.
     I set to work.

(A/N: I'll try to be writing here more frequently! Thank you to my readers, your comments and votes are appreciated!)