Chapter 16
Angeline adjusts the veil of her small chapeau, carefully pulls herself up from her seat in the rocking open-topped coach, then steps up and over the lip before sinking down beside her companion handling the reigns. It had been three days since their fight, and during that time they’d exchanged a mere handful of words. Upon waking up the next morning, she’d told him that they were heading to the village from his memory, and he’d accepted that fact with just a nod. Then they spent the entire day with Gawain and Hilda, retired early, and set out the next morning at dawn…
The golden-haired girl frowns as she spreads her feet a little more to the sides in order to balance herself on the driver’s bench. With it’s damned spring-suspension, she was getting tossed far too closely against his side for her liking. But she needed to be in this spot as they crested the final rise before descending the sloping hill into Serenity Valley. Already the fields of ripening wheat had begun to dominate the landscape, though fighting against small copses of trees scattered around.
Playing her eyes through the dark-grey veil at the scenery all around, the blue-eyed girl starts to wonder just how many times that her confidant had run through the fields in his youth. All care-free and happy. Smiling and laughing alongside Adelay Elizabeth Shuemaeker. If they were even from this little hamlet, anyways. There were a few other little farming-villages near this one. Each with it’s own staple grain, traded to the others in consideration for theirs…
Issuing a soft sigh hidden behind the steady clopping noises of the old mare pulling them along, Angeline compares the imagined childhood of her driver against her own rearing in the Blue Fortress. At the age of merely four, her parents, whomever they were, abandoned her at the main gate with nothing but a sloppily-composed note calling her a ‘witch possessed by the Diabolical One’. Her entire youth was spent inside of the walls of that miniature-fiefdom. For years she thought that there was nothing beyond the grey stones that signified the edges of her world. Not that it really mattered. Within the confines of those supportive barriers, she had friends to play with, surrogate parents in the form of the instructors, and the allowance to test her magicks without worrying about hurting anyone…
But out here. Amongst the fields of wheat. With the absolute freedom to dream about what was beyond the infinite horizon. Any child that grew up in this environment was one that should definitely cherish their memories. Even if they’d been erased at least temporarily. Samuel should be able to understand that. No matter what awful things had happened, he bloody-well shouldn’t just throw all of those experiences aside…
The golden-haired caster peeks up through her veil to her companion as he stares distantly straight ahead, and watches his now-typical forlorn expression for a time before dipping her head down a little. At least he was thinking about it. Or at least trying to prepare himself for whatever was on the other side of this hill. But if this village held family and friends… then he didn’t need to worry. No matter what had happened three weeks ago, those people would take care of him. Love him. Help him.
If that was the type of place that he was going to be living in… then she wouldn’t have second thoughts about leaving him behind. He didn’t need to get killed fighting Daemon. He didn’t need her kind of lifestyle. Travelling around from muddy hamlet to dingy village, seeking out the worst types of evil that had ever befallen mankind. He wasn’t a mage that didn’t have a choice in the matter. He wasn’t even a Knight… let alone a candidate. He was just… Samuel. The man that woke up in one of the capital city’s dirty alleyways. Samuel of Serenity Valley… which was-
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Aegis and Order: First Light
Fantasy"It’s shoulders were wide and powerful. At four metres in height, it was almost as large across as it was tall. The arms of the hulking beast hung nearly all the way to the ground, and were thick with rope-like muscles that bulged with even the sl...
