Oliver dipped his head, betraying his sadness. "Nor can I, Lord Idris," Oliver said. "With every day that passes, I am increasingly aware of all that we have lost. Too much wisdom, and too much potential has been cut from the Stormfront in the course of this war. I find myself at a loss as to what to do. I only know that the Stormfront cannot stand to lose further."
"And in thinking so, you rush to defend Lord Blackthorn from his fate," Lord Idris said, his voice hollow, with the sa sharpness of reasoning that one usually heard from Hod. "But what will it yield, young Patrick? You aim for this future, you and Hod. You attempt to plan so sort of seed, to see this revolution brought about, without ashes to see it finished. But do you believe it? Do you actually foresee a world in which this is all worth it? As you have said, we have lost far too much. So what do we even fight for? Is further bloodshed even worthwhile?"
"We fight for every city that we hold, every mountain that we own, every field that our people tend," Oliver said resolutely. "We fight for the hundreds of years our people have endured since the First King saw us founded. The glory of our own history, the ambitions of past n that have seen the Stormfront shaped as it was. We fight for its defence, to free it from the corruption that set it in place. We have lost more good n that just recently. We have lost Arthur, and we have lost Dominus, and more untold nas that the High King has seen washed away. The Stormfront could end here and now. The High King is poison enough to see it so. We cut at ourselves to remove that tumour, and now all we can do is see it severed. What future will it bring? I have no idea. But I don’t think those n of the past knew either. They trusted, and they struggled, and they allowed Claudia to do the rest. We can’t let it perish, for the aning that we would lose."
Blackthorn twisted his face, unconvinced. It seed evident enough to Oliver that the problem that he presented would not be one that would be solving itself anyti soon.
In a matter of days, they would be set to marching. Without cohesion amongst their ranks, there would be no binding force to hold them all together, and no grand purpose to set them in place. Understandably, in that, there was an eagerness to see the problem solved that day. It was the most logical pursuit to be had.
Against a rock like Blackthorn, however, to simply drive at him over and over, especially as ridden in grief as he was, seed unlikely to bring any sort of aningful result. At least not initially. The more they drove at him, the more staunch in his resistance he was likely to be.
Oliver nodded his head, seeing that his words were unlikely to get through, and he stood. "I will allow you to dwell on it, General Blackthorn."
Hod spared him a glance, seeing him stand, and then he sighed, standing also. "You make our situation far more troubleso, General," he said, but he saw the logic in leaving too. The mountain of stubbornness that Blackthorn was wasn’t sothing that his argunts were likely to pierce through any ti soon.
Blackthorn had no reply for them. He simply stared at them, long and hard, making evident more than ever how difficult it would be to get him to move for their purpose.
...
...
Autumn leaves drifted above Nila’s head, flapping their wings, stirring in an invisible wind. Gently and gently they swam around. These leaves seed not to need to touch the ground. Perhaps they owed so sort of allegiance to gravity, but if gravity were to call their banners, and ask them to make haste, these were the sort of leaves that would ask it to wait.
They flapped around in the air for far too long, long enough that Nila thought them to be a curiosity, as she lay idly by the creek, not a single thought nor worry in her heart. There was a vague thought in her mind that she was tired of the cold. An odd thought, for there wasn’t even the slightest degree of coldness around her. Autumn was only just getting started, and there was still so pleasant sunlight piercing through the trees. Much of the insects had faded away, and those annoying biting flies that hung around in the forests in the sumr had reseeded sowhat.
It was the perfect weather to simply sit and reflect – though Nila did no reflecting. She sat with the purpose of thinking, only to drift off idly. About the only thing that did reflect was the image of her crossed legs on the surface of the rippling creek. Clear it was, clear enough that she could see the bottom when she tilted her head, and that she could see the dashing little crayfish as it rushed from the cover of one rock towards another.
Autumn colours out of the corner of her eye again. Her head forced to turn. Right there, upon her nose, one leaf made a perfect perch. Then another two in her hair. She stared it down, wondering at its balance, and only then did she finally realize that they were not leaves at all, but beautiful amber butterflies.
There were far more of them than she realized too, a cloud of fifteen, or even sixteen. A small smile on her face. Her shoulders relaxed. Finally, peace. After all they’d gone through – what was it again that they had gone through? – there was peace. Peace enough that even butterflies were likely to land on her. And peace enough that if she had looked for them, she’d be able to find plentiful rabbits rushing through the undergrowth, and hunt them at her leisure.
Reviews
All reviews (0)