Chapter 24: Dear Hell
Seinerd was happy.
At least, in the few hours before he realized something was amiss.
He'd been woken up by the sounds of an early brawl. The heavy slurred voices of men cursing each other to hell was his morning rooster.
Despite his rude awakening, he found something to be happy about, he'd bought the best quality writing materials from the store his dear frenemy, Michael had introduced him to. He felt like he wouldn't set his hands on ink and paper of such good quality until he died and was reborn as a King. They were appropriately priced too.
As he'd woken up he immediately rushed to feed the courier pigeon he'd brought along with him. After his bath, he intended to head straight to work. The water was thankfully warmed up for him by the gracious matron of the inn, a woman he'd come to know as Aine. She invited him to breakfast at their table, mentioning that she would like to further know the man 'that sweet girl Dagena' travelled with. Clearly, she hadn't met the same woman he had.
He accepted the offer, sighting that a productive mind needed energy after all. It was at their table, with the woman's daughter, Agnes, staring at him wistfully that he learns he'd been paired together with the banshee Dagena in the matron's mind. After repeated denials and backing from the innkeeper as well as his eager daughter, the matron finally resigned from her fantasies, accepting that he was a simple servant and nothing more to Dagena.
And then the troubles began.
With silence in reign, the innkeeper was able to finish his breakfast, give thanks and offhandedly mention; "Oh, the driver and the carriage are still outback. He asked me to tell you he still awaited Dagena. Where is she? Still asleep?"
Seinerd's eyes widened as he realized he hadn't given thought to Dagena's whereabouts all morning. With a painful facepalm, he realized he simply thought nothing of her even when being interrogated about his relationship with her? Was he too focused on his denial to realized he hadn't seen her all morning?
As these questions and thoughts raced through his mind, he spared no time giving the innkeeper an answer to his queries as he had none. Instead, he bolted off, food relatively untouched in search of his noble tag along.
Barging into the room, frightening the pigeon in the process as it rapidly fluttered its wings about, releasing loos feathers around the room, he tapped the bed and screamed out her name, "Dagena?!" even going so far as to check beneath the bed itself.
She was nowhere to be found in the room.
Again, he bolted off to the stables, rushing by what looked to be the two roosters that had woken him from his slumber, cold sacks of gathered ice rested on their foreheads and cheeks. Swollen he could guess.
At the stables, he saw the driver, again covered up in hay asleep from the soothingly cold weather. "Hey! Wake up!" he yelled, giving the man's exposed legs a few kicks with each wake-up call. The man startled awake, his eyes red and questioning but Seinerd had no time to answer questions from anyone as his were yet to be satisfied, "Where is Dagena, hm? Have you seen her all morning? Did she go get something to eat? The food here most likely doesn't suit her tastes."
The driver stared blankly at Seinerd, as if not hearing or even understanding the words he uttered. "What?"
Taking a deep calming breath, Seinerd squat down to the man's laying height cupping his cheeks and then promptly delivering continuous slaps onto them until the man at last deceivably pushing him off. "Are you awake now?" he asked, irritated at everything and everyone.
The man nodded, scrubbing his eyes clean he looked up to Seinerd and questioned, "Is the Lady Dagena not with you?"
"No, she is not. I have no idea where she is. Have you not seen her since last night?" desperation laced his voice, his eyes looked onto the driver's holding out hope that yet his precarious situation can be redeemed if he just directed him to her.
"No, I hav…" his voice trailed off, Seinerd no longer listening past the definite answer to his doom. 'No' Repeating the fouling word in his head as he crumpled down and sat in the hay.
"Have you tried filing a report? That she's missing with the guards?" a voice pierced through, softly, soothingly with a hand on his sullen shoulders. He looked up and his eyes met hers, Agnes.
She smiled, "Let's exhaust all our options before lying in the hay, Ok?" behind her was the innkeeper, Lachlan and his wife, Aine; her parents. They too seemed to want Dagena safe as well.
Seinerd sprung to his feet. Wiping off the teardrops that began to fall as he thought his family ruined upon his execution. With renewed hope, he grabbed Agnes's hand and thanked her for her kind words.
"I'll go file a report now." He said, nodding on thanks and acknowledgements to the Innkeeper, Lachlan.
"Wait," Agnes spoke out, holding onto his slipping hand, "I'll come with you, perhaps you are not familiar with the filing method, you're new here, are you not?"
Seinerd paused to think, his eyes darted towards Lachlan who had lost his charming soft look of concern, promptly opting for a more sizzling glare. "AH…How about we all go together, hm?"
"Ah, I'll manage the inn, you three go ahead." Aine said, speaking for the first time, "Go get Dagena."
Seinerd wastes no time in jetting off away from the stables and off towards the gates. He hadn't lost all hope as of yet.
***
Much bickering, wailing and waiting had been done in the hours that followed. Lunch was had on the move, scouring the town for any sign of Dagena of her being present. There was none.
Seinerd and the family returned to the inn with dejected in their failures.
"Lady Dagena is just a young woman like myself, we sometimes dream of running away, I believe she'll be back once she realizes she can't hold it out by herself."
Seinerd wanted to believe Agnes' words and retain a silver of hope for his head and family. After all, she did come with him to Harsem practically running away from home. Whether she left a note behind he knew not. But not a single person in the town had heard or seen such a girl in the last night nor this morning.
He'd been seen by her servants. The driver too. They were seen last with her in Aville, and it wouldn't be long until her absence became suspicious. Right about now would be the time to ask questions. They would come looking.
If she wasn't at all in the town, she'd be somewhere else in Harsem, effectively widening the range he had to cover to find a trace of her. There are more of a chance of him being found by Aville than he finding Dagena. He couldn't abscond, he couldn't have his mistakes and misfortune silenced for another day. He had to take responsibility.
And so he sat. Quill in hand, ready to write the letter he never intended to write.
Sire,
I write to you in dire straits…
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