Chapter 67: Home
Jarod Rehall was a fortunate youth of 16 and a half years. His hair was a shaggy brown and his stature was slightly taller than average at 6ft tall. He was thin, but healthy, a rare occurrence in the decrepit village of Rehall.
He had just left one of many houses he would visit today, a wooden slate in hand. He was recording everything they needed to procure from the town of Stonemount, a few days north of here.
Jarod did not know his parents. Apparently his mother had died giving birth to him, while his father left to sign up for the mercenary recruitment in Stonemount when Jarod was still a babe, entrusting him to the women of the village and never returning.
His future would not have been a bright one, having grown up in the small orphanage for most of his youth and lacking any real prospects, but one day that changed. The headmistress had begun teaching him to read and write, and he gave everything he could to learn, eventually being taken in by and made the assistant of Chief Warner, the head of their whole village.
One day, he too would be Chief. Chief Jarod.
'It doesn't have the same ring to it.' He sighed inwardly.
On the wooden slate in his hands were not the words he had learned, but symbols that took up as little room as possible, depicting what each household needed from Stonemount on their next trip to town.
If it were ten years ago, Rehall would not be able to afford relying on Stonemount so much, having to acquire their needs themselves. But Chief Warner had received a great amount of money many years ago, along with the Soldier Arts and used those to improve the village, producing stronger and healthier men capable of logging the woods and processing the timber without needing to fear the mutants within.
Atleast, not as much as they had.
As Jarod continued his rounds throughout the village, he passed by the northern entrance. Of course they had no wall surrounding the village, but they did have a picket fence for as good as it would do them in case of an attack.
Looking past that fence now, Jarod caught sight of something unbelievable.
'Visitors!' He thought with surprise. 'There haven't been visitors in… in.,.'
Jarod wasn't sure if there had ever been visitors before. He excitedly moved closer to the opening in the fence, closer to the two figures approaching by foot on the old dirt path, eager to make out more details about these outsiders.
Jarod could make out that they were a man and a woman, and both had darkly dyed clothes, not the sign of a common man for sure. The man was quite tall and as he approached closer, Jarod could make out a crimson tunic covered by a dark jerkin, and long black pants. A thick black cloak was tied at his chest, featuring a furred collar but no hood. The man's hair was longer than those in the village, and stark black, as with most of pure Demian descent.
The woman, surprisingly, wore clothes very similar to the man's. She wore long, tight fitting pants rather than a dress, and also covered her tunic and jerkin in a cloak, though hers lacked the furred collar, replacing it with a wide hood she did not don. A thick and long black scarf covered the bottom of her face, and her hair was as dark as the man's.
Jarod felt a warning bell go off in the back of his mind. They were too out of place. Their clothes were all darkly dyed, with not one article of clothing being light grey or white, as the commoners wore. The man's tunic was even a rich red colour. But that wasn't enough to send warnings in his mind, no matter how unlikely visitors of this nature would be.
No, it was something else. Glistening on their chests were two badges each, flickering in expensive hues, one was like silver but brighter, the other a pure gold. And worse. At their waists, Jarod now caught sight of long sheathes brushing against their cloaks, mostly hidden by them.
Jarod gulped, the warning bells in his mind now screaming at him that something was wrong. People like this should not be here. This was not their place. What if they brought some disaster?
In the time he had observed and considered the visitors, they had gotten closer; close enough to wonder why he was standing there frozen.
Breathing out, Jarod stepped forward, placing himself in the middle of the fence's opening, and spoke.
"G-good afternoon, my lords."
He stuttered briefly, but it was very quick and he believed he had hidden his nervousness well.
"How can… How can we help you?"
'Crap, I repeated myself.' He berated inwardly.
The man stepped forward first, and Jarod finally had a good look at him. He was tall, standing at 6'3", but his muscular physique made him seem all the larger. His eyes were a vibrant blue, and his handsome face only furthered Jarod's suspicion that the man was some sort of noble.
'What kind of noble would be wandering out here with just one escort?' He shot down his own suspicions.
"You can relax, neither one of us is a lord. I'm here to see an elderly woman by the name of Helga, or Village Chief Warner if he's around."
The man spoke smoothly and smiled slightly, as if to placate Jarod's nervousness. It worked to an extent too, as Jarod's shoulders relaxed slightly, realising that they were indeed just people.
'But what could they want with Chief Warner? Or… the Headmistress.'
"I'll… umm. I'll take you to the Village Chief–If you want. He should be the one to greet you."
The man nodded with a short thanks, while the woman too stepped forward, pulling the scarf away from her face to give him a reassuring smile.
'By the spirits' He almost muttered aloud. 'Why doesn't Rehall have anyone like that'
Jarod found his eyes practically glued to the woman's face for a second or two, before noticing the daggers strapped to her body and the sword at her waist. Quickly, he tore his eyes away.
'Right. Just take them to the Chief, let them say their business and leave quickly. You don't want people like this in Rehall no matter how they look.'
Jarod turned to make his way for the Village Chief's house before looking back to make sure they followed.
The two stayed a few paces behind him, talking quietly among themselves as Jarod wondered what business they could possibly have here.
When he finally arrived at the Chief Warner's house, a wooden building larger than most, he knocked on the door thrice, shouting.
"Chief, we have guests. Visitors from outside!"
**
Lucian stood behind a young man roughly 16 years of age who knocked on the door of a house he remembered surprisingly well. It was strange how the most unimportant things stuck to his memory, while everything else faded.
There was a sound from within before the wooden door to Chief Warner's house opened widely. An elderly man with dark, sunken eyes and deep wrinkles emerged from within. His frame was so thin he could be called sickly, and the skin on his face drooped with age.
"What is it? What guests could we–" He stopped, recognizing the presence of outsiders, and pushed his right fist into his own back, straightening his posture.
"Oh. Good afternoon… Sir, Madam." He paused as he looked at the badges on their chests, focused moreso on the golden badge of a Knight.
"Is there something we of Rehall can do for the two of you?" Warner spoke slowly as his faded eyes lit with a spark of interest, while not so subtly inspecting the two of them.
"Chief Warner…" Lucian started in his deep voice. "I... Can we come in?"
"Oh, of course. Please, I meant no offense Sir, my old mind is not what it was. Jarod! Go fetch the tea leaves."
Warner stepped aside, inviting his two guests, and the young apprentice inside.
Lucian noticed the fur rug on the ground inside, something he had been amazed at when he was young. It was old and dirty, and Lucian could not feel it on his feet as he had all those years ago for he wore buckled boots now.
Taking a seat before the cooking pot in the center of the room, Lucian realised that Chief Warner had not changed his residence at all, despite the wealth he had earned all those years ago. The house still had but a single room, with shelves lining the walls and a fireplace in the center.
Warner groaned as he lowered himself to the ground, sitting across from Lucian and Tess who now sat beside him looking around curiously.
"So... How can I help you, young knight?"
Lucian did not reply immediately, instead looking intently at the elder's face. Only ten years had passed since Lucian left this place, and yet by Warner's appearance he would think it had been twenty, or even thirty years. To Lucian's senses, the man was at rock bottom. He was dying.
"Chief Warner. Many years ago, you reported a young metahuman in your village, a boy who healed swifter than should be possible."
Lucian paused for a moment, but Warner took this as his queue to speak.
"Oh. Yes, I did indeed. Did something happen to the boy?"
The old man's gaze dimmed at the recollection, as if saddened.
"No, Warner. He is fine. Ten years ago, before my name was Lucian, before it was Thirteen, I was an orphan, raised by a caring woman in her late years. Chief Warner, I am... "
He stopped, even as Warner's eyes went wide with realisation, Lucian frowned, thinking hard.
"I am…"
'You are Lucian' The voices of his instructors rang out in his head.
"I was… I lived here. I was raised here, for a time."
"Oh, by the spirits, boy. You're… Are you *****?"
Warner's voice cut off as he spoke the final word. Lucian read his lips that continued to move, but for reasons beyond him, he could not make sense of them.
"I am… Lucian." He said after some deliberation.
"I once lived here. You… sent me away, to be trained. I was Thirteen. I am now Lucian."
Warner was taken aback at the strangeness of his reply, and his expression became worried.
"*****, are you okay? You are ******, right?"
As the words kept avoiding his ears, Lucian could feel his breathing becoming heavy, so he forced himself to calm down within a second and a half, sitting straighter than before.
"It's Lucian. Please." He requested.
"Right… Lucian are you? I understand, you may not want to keep our name for you."
Chief Warner seemed genuinely downtrodden at his own conclusion, but it was Jarod who's reaction caught Lucian's fullest attention. The man was slack jawed, staring at Lucian like he had seen a ghost, the wooden tea cups still held in hand as he stood frozen.
"Something wrong?" He asked.
"You're… But…"
The man was making no sense, but thankfully Chief Warner spoke up with an expression as if just realising something.
"Oh, don't mind him ...Lucian. You may not recognize him, but this is Jarod, from so long ago."
Lucian looked at the man again.
'Jarod?' He did not know a Jarod. Not anymore at least. He had not been able to remember the names or faces of those he once called friends for many years now.
Lucian smiled. "Right! Jarod. It's been a long time."
Tess directed a sidelong glance at Lucian and he knew she'd seen through him. While he could proudly call himself a prodigy in combat and feel his words just, he could hardly say the same for all the skillsets he had learnt. He could lie to common people easily, but before an expert like Tess, he would surely fall flat.
Jarod's slack jawed expression smoothed after a moment, and he asked.
"So, It's really you? Where did you go? What did you do?"
"Alright Jarod, we'll have none of that." Warner said softly. "He has been working for the crown, that is all you need to know."
Jarod seemed as if he wanted to speak on, but Lucian ignored that look and turned to face Warner.
"Chief Warner, could I trouble you to have Jarrod lead me to Headmistress Helga? I'm not sure I could still find my way around the village after so long."
"Oh.
"Yes, I suppose you wouldn't know."
Chief Warner's expression became sad and solemn as he replied, and Lucian knew immediately why.
"Helga… she passed away, just two years after you left." Warners words were slow and lacking life. "She was sick… I hired whoever I could to look at her with the money… The money I got from sending you off. But none of them could do anything to help her. They all said the same thing."
Chief Warner paused for a long moment, taking the wooden cup from Jarod with excessively shaky hands and drinking from it.
"She was not ill of the body. Helga… She was a compassionate woman." Tears began to form in the elder's eyes. "She did not… take well… to your departure."
Lucian's eyes went wide as the old man spoke, and with every word, he felt something in his heart shudder.
"She was never the same after that. She no longer spoke to me, no longer looked at me. I thought…. I thought I was doing the right thing. You would have a bright future, and with the money we received, we could help the people of the village. Help the other orphans achieve something.
"Helga was too compassionate. She loved you. Not like an orphan under her care, you were her son. And I took that from her…"
Chief Warner inhaled sharply through his nose, preventing it from running as tears slowly trailed his cheeks.
"She was a good woman. More than I ever deserved."
By the end, Lucian was no longer listening to the elderly man before him. His mind was empty as he felt something wrenching at his chest.
He was losing something.
Something he did not understand. Something he did not know he had.
It was crumbling away, leaving him stranded.
He had lost his home.
He had lost his family.
Lucian's eyes were no longer wide, and his parted lips closed as Tess caressed his back with a soft hand.
He breathed in deeply, and with a long, drawn out exhalation, he no longer felt like staying here. This village… these people. They were not his home. There was nothing left for him here.
Chief Warner too recovered slightly, and apologised for the display. He seemed intent on recovering a formal appearance before the two knights.
"Why don't you let Jarod take you around the village? Get some closure, and meet your old friends."
Lucian closed his eyes briefly, regaining his wits and expelling the sadness he felt. He could not bother with that right now, he would leave it for later.
"That sounds great, thank you." He said with a fake smile. He had no reason to agree, and truly did not want to remain here. But, perhaps he would visit the orphanage one last time, and bid farewell.
Standing, Lucian held a hand out to Tess, pulling her to her feet with a genuine, real smile.
"Thank you."
"For what?" She asked.
He did not reply, but caressed her back with his hand as he followed Jared.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone