>>5367078For the last few days, you’ve done nothing but command others and fight. Corrine and Uriel are capable of getting the rest of the company ready to depart without your help. For now, some quiet alone time is what you need to ensure your sanity remains in check. Changing out of your battle-worn armor and into your comfort clothes, you plop down at the table Uriel was sitting at. You lean back and put your feet up, a bottle of wine and a small pipe near your reach. Echeverria’s book is in your hands. Once again, you vainly try to make sense of the scribbles within. Perhaps the writing is some sort of cipher? A secret code meant to keep outsiders from learning the book’s secrets. Or perhaps, given the book’s owner, what you see before you is a language unique to the Shapeshifters. If that’s the case, you’re out of luck. You doubt anyone at Derdriu would be able to read this dribble fluidly.
Sighing, you toss the book on to the table and indulge yourself in a small drink. You wonder how the Count is doing. You hadn’t heard much news from Rusalka, though given the current continent-scale war that was going on, no news was likely good news. You weren’t sure what the Count’s true motivations or loyalties were, but you hoped he was okay. The decision you made in your dorm room all those years ago wasn’t an easy one, and you’d be lying if you said otherwise. You often think about what could have happened had you stayed loyal to the Empire. Perhaps told the Count about your findings. Stuck by him and tried to enact change from within. There was no use in mulling over what-ifs, and you knew better than to dwell on such thoughts for too long. But you did miss him. After your own father died, he took you in and treated you as if you were his true-born daughter. He sent you to Garreg Mach, bought you an education and the finest military training in the land. And you repaid him by turning traitor and fighting against the Empire.
Was it any wonder you dreaded coming across Rex on the battlefield? He’d probably like nothing more than to tear you to shreds, and you couldn’t even blame him. Unlike the Count, you’d heard plenty of your Lord Brother. Putting a division of Knights of Seiros to heel. Slaying a Kingdom General. Executing a group of turncoat Adrestian nobles. By all accounts Rex had been busy and certainly enjoying life in his element. Though you knew it was a foolish thought, you sometimes wondered if he had heard about your battle with Jaswant. Would he be proud to hear you overcame a Warlord just as he had? Or would that just make you a more attractive target for him.
Finishing off your wine, you crawl into your bedroll and drift off to sleep. You dream of peach sorbet and better days.
