Opal Wings

Chapter Twenty - Atempause

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There was something to be intrigued by when one stopped to consider the lengths a certain woman would go to remain unobserved, unbothered. The phrase "out of sight and out of mind" did very little to convey exactly how protective she was of her obscurity, her lack of ties to the world.

And perhaps that intrigued Obi all the more, especially following the sight of ruins and debris upon his return from a job out of the bounds of the city.

It was another routine visit to check on one of Clarine's forts, not unlike Fort Laxdo in fact. It was another fort in Zen's charge to observe, given rather recently it seemed, and considering its close proximity to another bandit group prowling around since the revelation of decaying, diseased forests, Zen was far more concerned with visiting all the forts to check on its occupants.

Needless to say, it was the group of four minus Shirayuki who left to check on the forts, and of course, there were bandit hunts while they checked. But none were as expansive as the slaughtered bandits near that lake, not as interesting as earning rises from the woman he knew responsible for said slaughter, and it left him feeling perhaps a little impatient to get back.

Needless to say, returning back to find naught but crumpled cobblestone, still-smoldering coals and that bag of coin nailed to a stake with a simple, albeit moderately hostile note was certainly not what he had hoped for.

The note and his returned coin was something he had honestly expected, and it pleased him in a sense that his prediction of her reaction was so close to what he'd received.

However, the fact that what was once a clumsily built, but rather functional house was now reduced to a pile of cobblestone rubble and chunks of embers and smoking charcoal beneath an exceedingly old oak tree was something he never expected. And while it disappointed him in a sense, it was more of a glean to the nature of that conundrum than he'd expected.

As he stood there, taking mental note of the fact that there was less rubble than the house should have left, he found himself recalling something that Garrak had told him. Or rather, growled at him in a bout of displeasure and irritation, more to the point.

She refused to say particularly much about Akazawa Saki, the former Maid as a person, but rather, reprimanded him on his so called behaviour towards her. It was peculiar at the time, enough so that instead of warding him away, it only sought to intrigue him all the more.

"Leave the poor woman alone, you great lout!" Garrak had ground out, dramatic in a sense as she practically tossed her quill and parchment to the desktop. "She's got enough to deal with on her plate without having you set off her anxieties for your amusement!"

At the time, it was the most insight to the woman he had within his grasp, and it prompted him to try and coax her into forging something, purely out of curiosity more than anything else. The thrown hammer alone was his only cue that she was liable to turn a sword onto him in the end, and while he certainly wasn't the least perturbed, he admitted to himself that he'd done enough prodding for one day and left it as that; He had to head back to the castle anyway, due to their departure for one of the nearby forts come morning.

But seeing this, made Garrak's snapped words all the more potent.

He'd riled her enough that she chose to relocate, ironically before he could get back and locate any sign of her.

He could easily find her again, given enough of an opportunity, but he found himself strangely reluctant to do so.

He wasn't necessarily feeling guilty, but he certainly wasn't denying the fact that he was at fault, for sure.