Yuragwyn: Ours

---Chapter 23

₰Traugott₰

                Our progress is slow and marred by small skirmishes here and there, costing us lives and morale.  Lord Cadfael and Lady Carys are silent and brooding, and they stay in their tent and whisper long into the night.  They speak often of Kaitra, and always in mournful tones.  Still, though, they do not say where she is or what she has done.  I wish I could speak with her again and make her understand, tell her that I didn’t realize she didn’t know about this world or that we existed in the first place. 

                But would she listen?  Or would she tell me the time for apologizing has come and gone and now nothing can change her bitterness towards me? 

                Regardless, though, I must continue to protect her, provide for her, and pursue her friendship, for that is what I’ve been called to do.  Master Hulderic, Lord Cadfael, they have asked me to be a support for her, like Hiltraud is for Lord Cadfael and Lord Cadfael is for Master Hulderic.  I must go after her and make sure she is safe whenever I can.

                When does my duty to Lord Cadfael end and my duty to his daughter begin?  Do I disobey his bidding to protect the Daughter of Yuragwyn?  Perhaps she will stay well away from the fighting and sit primly in Cordina until the war is over.  Even as the thought comes to my mind, I laugh at myself.  She’s out there, somewhere, trying to fight for Yuragwyn.  I only hope her inexperience doesn’t wound her.

                Or worse.

∞Kaitra∞

                We soar high above the forest cornered by the Rivers Yaywah and Rapha, but the height no longer dizzies me.  Instead I grin at the luscious sunlight playing on our faces and take deep breaths of the wind created by our steady beasts’ wings.  Maxen soars beside Calanthe and I, devilishly diving a bit and then climbing back up to us on the other side. 

                “I wish Briallen and Enion were here to feel this,” Calanthe calls out over the breeze.  “One is never so happy as when they dance through the air on a pegasus’s back.”

                “Ah, Enion, I remember him from quite a long while ago, ten years perhaps,” Maxen says, coming up on our right.  “He had the strongest, quietest eyes I’ve ever seen, and they were mirrors into his strong, quiet heart.  He was a good man, good soldier, and good friend to me, even in the short time we knew each other.”

                Calanthe smiles at Maxen, “Thank you for your kind words towards his memory.  I only wish similar words could be so easily put towards my sister.  She made few friends in this world, and in her last years she seemed to abandon niceties entirely.  Oh, I wish you could have known her before; she was not always as bitter and cold.”

                “I’m sure she was true to her name,” he answers. 

                “Her name?” I ask, not quite as ready to dismiss her betrayal. 

                “It means primrose,” Calanthe says.  “My mother’s family is from Port Town, a small city on the coast from which we export the most to Gormlaith and Talulla.  There much emphasis is put on the meanings of names, and children are called by the characteristic or attribute which their parents find most beautiful.”

                “Gormlaith? Talulla?” I ask.  “Are these other countries?  Why have I not heard of them?”

                “Every third year our three countries have a festival, and each time the host country rotates.  Other than at these celebrations, our neighbors are rarely mentioned, for we are on friendly, yet somewhat distant, terms,” Maxen explains.  “In fact, I was born in Gormlaith.  My parents traveled there for the festival one year, and I was born before they returned.”

                I think the idea of other lands through for a long slow moment; the idea had not even occurred to me to ask.  What other large, simple things am I not aware of about this place? 

                “When is the next festival?”

                “Next year, actually,” Calanthe muses.  “If the war ends, of course.”

                “All the more reason to make haste to Rite,” Maxen says, urging his pegasus onward. 

                I nod and do the same with Calanthe’s and mine.  Together we race towards the far horizon, and hopefully, victory. 

//•••//•••///•••\\\•••\\•••\\

                In the late afternoon, when the setting sun threatens to burn our corneas and melt us to the turf, we land for the evening on the far bank of the Rive Rapha.  In minutes we pitch our tents and begin a fire to warm our toes when the fickle early winter weather plunges. 

                “Gavril bites at our heels,” Calanthe comments, smiling wryly and already shivering from her quick trip to the river edge for fresh water. 

                Maxen smiles at her kindly, “And Amril bares its teeth.  Today is a peaceful day.”

                I start a bit at his words, remembering Hiltraud saying the same greeting when we parted ways a few days ago.  “What gives you the strength to say that?” I whisper.  I know not whether I will ever be able to say such words and mean them.  From the moment the dagger leapt into the air, my world has been steeped in stress and the stagnant fear that hangs over people’s heads when war looms imminent from feared foes. 

                But the idea of this world in peace time is a pleasant, almost exciting one, and I nearly forget the dormant ache for my home in the mountains.  If we can make it through this nightmare, the sunrise will be beautiful and welcome indeed. 

                Maxen thinks a bit, “I believe when you’ve seen enough of both the good and the bad, you learn that every day has its trials and its treasures.  Peace isn’t just a political state between two governments; peace is a resolve within yourself to not quail and scream at the fleeting discomforts but to find a measure of hope in every situation.”

                “Well said, friend,” Calanthe says.  “Peacefulness is an attitude, Kaitra.  It’s something you have to learn.”

                I make no move to answer, but smile at the both of them and lie back to look at the stars, which become ever night more and more familiar.  “I can’t sleep, not yet.  I’ll take the first watch.”

                “Very well,” Maxen answers, brushing the biscuit crumbs from his mouth and scraggly beginnings of a beard.  “Retrieve me when you find your dreams.  Goodnight, dear Daughter of Yuragwyn.”

                I blush slightly at his gallant words and nod my head, “Goodnight, Maxen of Gormlaith.”

                Calanthe stoops to hug me, “Some warmth for your loneliness.  A peaceful watch to you.  Until the morning.”

                “Goodnight, Calanthe of Lax.”

                She smiles, and her eyes sparkle with the joy that rarely ever leaves her.  “Goodnight, Kaitra of Cordina.”

A/N- Maxen makes an appearance over on the right :)  I shall do my best to find the others!