rage that rises (eithne, vera)
What could you say about White Rider design choices? Maybe it had been built before they were established. If Koe recalled correctly, it had been formed as an organization from the remnants of a House that gave up its power. Fancy that... a human doing something not only just, but intelligent. Any other man would have trained his own agents to that end, but left himself in charge of it and run it as a House. Then his son would have realized how little money there was in the game of politics for honesty and started using his agents as assassins. Koe had seen similar things happen. Must have been something of a supernatural fellow, the one who'd given over his House for all of this. Not one of the White Riders have ever asked, except when they were too young to understand the answer.
At least, that would have been his guess.
This room certainly did nothing to improve his impression of the spare means of entertainment the White Riders had to offer. It was a stone room, with a pair of arrow loops in the wall to let in sunlight. How long since this fortress had suffered a siege? The table was hardwood, and extremely fine. There was a tapestry on the wall depicting the founder of the organization astride a horse. In his left hand was a shield, and in his right hand a blunted sword. That must have been how they pursued wrongdoers once upon a time. Who was brave enough to confront their enemy with a wooden stick, not even capable of killing? Koe thought he could have done such a thing if he'd been called upon to do it. Anything was better than the alternative.
And yet his companion seemed not troubled at all by the lives she'd taken. Koe would have lost sleep over such casual death. Perhaps even gone into the wilds, staring at trees and taking every sort of hallucinogen he could obtain. Mushrooms. Fire leaves. Frit bark. Anything at all to take him away from himself. The self which could take a life and not consider what it meant, what it cost, and what it meant about your soul. He'd only made his peace with his own past by confronting those demons slowly. Over the course of hundreds of years.
Humans did not have that long.
Instruments aplenty dangled from his belt, which was draped over the back of his chair, and another was sitting on the table before him. No one had forbidden him from playing the ocarina. Yet he did not think that Eithne and Martine were the sort to appreciate music of any kind. At least, not in their current moods. It seemed this Eragos fellow was someone of importance to both. Koe did not know him personally; there was no reason to know him personally, and he'd not been one of Urill's friends.
Strange to think that someone capable of murder would be a friend to anyone. Then again, he was a friend to some, wasn't he?
Apparently they were waiting on someone called 'Vera', or as Eithne had muttered under her breath, 'the blond bitch'. All it did, truly, was give him time to reflect on the young. If she aged a thousand years Eithne would become much more like him. More patient. More fond of the moment instead of rushing, always rushing for the next step. She would probably retain that temper. When he looked at her he didn't see the young woman before his eyes. He saw what she would be in a thousand years. Wiser. Patient. Lovelier than she was now. It made him smile; a smile that drank in the whole of his face. Eyes crinkled and his mouth widened. A grandfatherly sort of smile. If she noticed his actions she gave no sign. Head tilted to the side, Koe swiveled his gaze to the door.
A White Rider was standing there. Martine he'd given as his name, and he was fiddling with a knife. Honing it against a stone.
"Never thought I'd see the day, Eithne," he told her. "I knew Eragos was capable of... y'know. Killing a fellow. But this? This is something else."
"Does this Eragos have a temper?" Koe wondered aloud.
Martine fixed an angry glare on the bard. "Not to notice, music-maker. Maybe you ought to meet him before you start tossing names about."
"Fair enough," was all Koe replied.
Light burned behind frosted glass in four lanterns, arranged at each corner of the table. The white light seemed unnatural, but it also filled the dark room, giving a clear view of everything. Martine's face was both nervous and disgruntled. Eithne's face was angry. Koe felt as though he were waiting to be interrogated. And yet there was something about the room that felt welcoming and honest. Strange to think an organization could give him hope for humans. Renewing it as one might renew a fountain. And yet the people in that organization could be as roughshod and rampant as this lot. Koe didn't think he'd ever imagined something so out of the ordinary as that.
Strange days, indeed. Something about the mood helped him resist playing his flute.