Honour

Chapter II: Return

 "Impulsive," I mutter, shaming myself, "That wasn't very clever."

After calming down, with a clear head I cuss, realising it would take at least three days on foot to reach the capital and I am unfortunately without my horse. Against my better judgement I lent Malachi to my second in command who lost his in the war. Leave it to him to fall off his steed and survive with fractured knuckles. I sometimes wonder how I earned Commander Lyathro considering I don't make the best choices sometimes but as usual, I will manage. I scold myself as I head back walking the first few miles, contemplating on the matter at hand: The death of the king and the royal family's situation.

"I pray Her Royal Majesty is being patient." Doubting, I look up to the sky, feeling a mix of emotions but mostly hoping the deities would bless the kingdom regarding this event. A dryad like I should be under a god or goddess should I not? But not once has a deity come to claim or instruct me. I have no guide aside from these human laws and morals and they are incredibly grey.

My emotions had come over me earlier resulting in a breakdown and a mess of the grasslands which now, is more or less a forest with scattered carcasses, contributing in size to its surroundings. I have settled but the feelings flicker back to me occasionally. I was fortunate to have yet dealt with the death of a close friend, but now that I'm experiencing it I have no idea how or what to do with these feelings, and myself. Especially myself.

Considering I flourished the grassland and forest around the battlefield recklessly in my emotional collapse after the Knights left, all the creatures had been scared off. The field was left a forest surrounded by unnaturally large trees, the only marking of where the battle was held. Aside from the moss covered corpses of course. If there are any left on the surface.

It's another few miles until I reach an untouched, or rather peaceful forest with creatures and begin to look for a faster way to get to the kingdom. I am still in the northern outskirts of Brienne's land, so the temperatures are considerably low compared to the kingdom's capital. With this note, I look for mountable animals such as moose or elk. This wasn't that difficult to do since no one really comes to the outskirts, which makes the wildlife peaceful and comfortable. That battle aside of course.

I find a herd and lay down my pauldrons, faulds, and sabatons and helmet, leaving my cuirass, greaves, and leather gloves to be the only remaining unnecessary weight. Most animals run at the sight of any human, especially ones with armour or weapons, so I've learned it's best to remove all the loud heavy weights, but in consideration, they usually seem much less skittish with I, whose face and skin is wood. They seem far more confused than scared by my human-like appearance, and wary, reasonably so.

As the elks hear the sound of my armour past the bushes and trees clanking as I remove it, they run off. But at least I know where to. I reposition my belt so that my sword is now behind me instead of being visibly at my side and I begin to track the herd all the while picking wildflowers as offerings. With these, I hope to manage to persuade the herd in helping me return to Giev, the north city of Brienne

I find them scattered a little deeper in the woods. The elk are rightfully confused at the sight of me but are kind enough to let me approach them. I'm not sure which confuses them more, a person-like looking tree in some armour asking to be brought to a city or a tree in the shape of a person communicating with them. Either way I could not dally and dwell on the thought, I had to start moving. At this point I'm not sure if I will arrive before or after the returning soldiers.

There was some negotiation within the herd since none of the elk are willing to carry me all the way to the kingdom. It's quite the distance so I understand. They eventually came to a conclusion to which I agreed: I would meet up with another herd that they were familiar with, some of the members were offspring of this herd. Hopefully the other group has a member that would be willing to take me the rest of the way without meeting up with another group.