InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Sometimes, I eat berrypie."

Noah Lazarus ✦ David Shepherd (tankslayer) wrote in thereincarnates,
@ 2016-10-16 22:27:00

Entry tags:

!au, !fairytale, noah lazarus, riley kingston

Who: Noah Lazarus and Riley Kingston
What: Two lost strangers trying to find their way home.
Where: A clearing in an unnamed forest.
When: Night
Warnings: Language, possibly. Nothing else likely.

When he'd left for the war, he'd been a young man. Eighteen, full of ideals, certain that the cause he'd been fighting for was just, and good. He'd been certain that they would be victorious, that they would win because they were the ones in the right, and that he would return home to the lover he'd left, the one he'd thought would wait for him while he was gone. He had been as certain of those things as he had been of his own name, and he'd stayed just as strong, just as sure, for the three years they fought a war against all odds. Through every hardship he faced on the battlefield, he reminded himself that they were in the gods' hands, that they were blessed because they were doing Their will. It hadn't been until the final battle, when he'd realized that what they had been fighting for all along wasn't justice, or freedom, but money. Power. Prestige. Nothing that he had ever considered worth fighting for at all.

If he'd kept his mouth shut, if he'd done his job as a soldier, he'd have been able to go home. Instead... instead... he wasn't certain what had come over him, then. When he'd stood up. When he'd told their greatest hero, the demigod who had led the battle for those three years, the man who stood a full head and shoulders taller than him, that he was wrong. That he wasn't following the gods' will, that just because he'd been fathered by one of them, it didn't mean that he spoke for them. That the gods wouldn't have wanted this. That had turned into a challenge, and a fight. No one had expected him to win it, not even him... except he had. A lucky blow. The one spot where the hero's mortal mother had forgotten, when she'd dipped him in the sacred river that had granted him near invulnerability. He'd never intended to kill the hero, even if the hero meant to kill him, but he found himself standing the victor, their greatest hero dead on the ground in the wake of their victory.

They'd have killed him, then, the generals, if it hadn't been for the flash of light, for the sign of the gods' favor upon him... not the god that had fathered their hero. No... no, that was a god who had held a grudge against him, even though the rest had found him worthy of favor. They had blessed him. The hero's father had cursed him to wander, unable to find his way home until the kindness of others brought him there. The generals cast him aside, then, hadn't wanted to risk the god's displeasure falling upon them, as well, for offering him aid. And so he had wandered, alone, lost, in an unfamiliar land.

He'd gotten lost, for a time, in a land where they ate nothing but a flower, one that caused them to forget all their worries. They wasted away, and didn't care at all. He'd almost wasted away, too, in the arms of a golden-haired maiden who had made him forget the lover waiting for him at home. He'd lost a year there. Another two, wandering, after, uncertain where he was. Three, on an island where a sorcerer changed him into whatever beast took his fancy, for the moment, made a pet of him until he forgot to renew the spell and he'd become a man again, long enough to free himself and escape. He'd lost everything, there, everything that had been left to his name, wandered naked for another half year until he'd stumbled on a valley that it seemed like time had forgotten, into the arms of a dark-haired man who had given him everything he could ever have asked for... everything but a way to return home. He'd almost forgotten why he wanted to leave. He had forgotten, for two and a half years, until he caught his reflection in a wine glass and saw a face he didn't know. The face of a man nearing his middle years, youth lost.

It had been enough to shake him fromt his stupor, and draw him away from the arms of the first person to offer him true kindness since he'd left for war, no matter how selfish the reasons. He'd left, not certain of anything anymore. Where he was. Whether he'd ever been in the right. Noah held on to his name as the last truth he knew.

At least he was clothed, this time. It was better than the last time Noah had left behind everything that he'd thought he had, everything that he'd relied on to tell him who he was, what he was supposed to be, and want. Poking the small fire he'd managed to start with the stick in his hand, Noah tried to summon some of that hopefulness, some of that certainty that things would work out because he was in the right. Ten years wandering. It had to be time for him to find his way home.

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willyoutolerate
2016-10-18 02:14 pm UTC (link)

Life had not turned out quite as expected for Riley Kingston. If you had asked her a few years ago, she would have known exactly where she was heading. A nice, quiet life in her beloved town of Locksley, taking over her father's lands and marrying the boy she'd been in love with since she was old enough to even begin comprehending what that was. They had been promised to each other, just before everything changed. Even after everything changed, Riley had been intent on coming back to him. Maybe it hadn't been fair of her, but she'd asked him to wait for her.

She hadn't expected the war to last for three more years. She hadn't expected to be the one going at all, but when King Richard had asked for more soldiers regardless of age, Riley couldn't let her father go. By that time he was too sick, and too weak. He wouldn't last one day in a war of this kind, so she'd done the unthinkable. She'd cut her hair and bound her breasts, left a note for her father and for Rhett before she stole away in the night with her father's clothes, sword and armor, setting out to take her father's place in the king's crusade.

Riley hadn't actually expected it to work, that she'd be able to fool them, but once she was there, no one had asked any questions, or suspected her in the slightest. The war had already been going on for so long and it was so bloody that they were just thankful for another fighting body. From the time that she was a young girl her father had taught her how to fight, since she had no brothers and someone would need to be able to defend their land when he was gone. She was competent with a sword, though she had a preference for the bow and arrow.

Three years she had spent fighting King Richard's crusade in the Holy Lands before she was permitted to go home. In that entire time there no one had ever known her for who she really was, save for one. A good friend that had accompanied her on her journey home, but sadly, he'd died of an infection to one of his wounds a week prior. Riley continued to make the journey home alone, grief stricken and homesick, plagued by nightmares of the things she'd seen in the war whenever she closed her eyes. As much as she'd respected and loved King Richard, even she'd started to question the point of this crusade, close to the end.

In the three years Riley spent fighting, unlike other soldiers, she'd taken the time to learn some Arabic. It was important, she thought, to be able to understand the enemy you were fighting. That's when her heart had stopped being in the fight. It was another end to a long day of walking - her horse hadn't made it either, collapsing from exhaustion two days prior. Riley was young and strong enough that she could walk it, with only a sack and her weapons slung about her to carry, still dressed as a man in case anyone on the road wanted to try anything funny. Upon seeing the light of a fire up ahead in a clearing, though, Riley couldn't help but draw closer to it as she called out. "Please don't be alarmed! I'm a friend. Looking for warmth for the night."

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tankslayer
2016-10-19 09:07 pm UTC (link)

Every time that someone had claimed to be a friend, they had betrayed him, ever since Noah had left the war they had won alone. He'd been lulled into throwing years away by people who claimed to only want to be his friends, and Noah had been young enough, desperate enough, to believe them, even after being in a war. Even after everything he had seen, everything he had done, Noah had wanted to trust them. It might have been that he was alone, that he was eager enough for any company that promised kindness that he'd fall for any sort of scheme. Whatever the reason, no one in the world could blame him for being skeptical, for not wanting to trust anyone who said that they were a friend, that they wouldn't hurt him, ever again.

No one but Noah himself. If he didn't believe that there were good people left in the world, if he didn't take a chance on them, he'd lose the person that he'd been before the war entirely. He'd always looked for the best in someone. He'd always wanted, expected, people to be good. It was the standard that he held them to. He would forgive them, time and time again, if they didn't meet it, of course. No one was perfect. But he always wanted to trust them. He always wanted to give them just one more chance, one more chance that turned into a dozen more before all was said and done and he had to admit that they weren't friends at all.

He looked up from the fire, toward the direction of the voice that had called out to him. "Come warm yourself, friend. The night will only get colder." If they were willing to risk trusting Noah when he looked so rough, beard grown out because he hadn't had so much as a razor to shave with since he'd left the valley where he'd sheltered, he owed it to them to take a chance on them, as well. "I haven't got much, but I'll share what I have." Just parts of a rabbit that he'd snared, desperation having led to learning to hunt years ago. A few greens that he'd learned, from trial and error, wouldn't make him ill.

With the light of the fire blinding him, and the person who had spoken still in the darkness, Noah couldn't tell anything about them, except by the sound of their voice. Higher than he'd expect for a man; young, perhaps. Even worse; a youngling shouldn't be roaming out in the woods alone. Noah knew; he'd been that youngling, once. He'd be kinder to whoever this might be than anyone had been to him, Noah thought. There was no sense in hurting someone else just because you'd been hurt. That didn't fix anything at all, in the end, just passed it along and made it bigger.

If the stranger happened to be armed, Noah was helpless. He'd lost his sword... somewhere. The first one had been lost along with his clothes after his years as a sorcerer's pet. The replacement he'd found... he didn't know where it had disappeared to, in the valley, but he hadn't been able to find it before he left. All he had to defend himself with was a stick that he used for walking, and a sling that he'd made out of a scrap of cloth, with pebbles for bullets. He'd gotten fairly good with it, at least. Good enough to bring a rabbit down before it could run off in fear.

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willyoutolerate
2016-10-21 09:22 pm UTC (link)

Riley might have continued on, just in the interest of not risking it, but her new 'friend' was right. The night was only going to get colder, and it was already cold enough that she was starting to feel it underneath her layers of clothing and armor. It wouldn't get so cold that she would be in danger of freezing to death in the middle of the night, but still, she wouldn't have been entirely comfortable sleeping without some added warmth. The wool blanket she had in her pack would only do so much, after a certain temperature drop.

The possibility that he might not be a friend, as she had promised to be one, was always possible. Call Riley an optimist, but she liked to see the best in people, until they proved her wrong. If and when they did, she could defend herself, but she was always ready for a situation where she wouldn't have to. A situation where she could actually sit by the fire and talk to someone for awhile. In all honesty, Riley was a little lonely. Since her traveling friend had passed, she hadn't had anyone to talk to except for herself. So while she was perfectly capable of finding her own part of the forest to sleep in and build her own fire, that more than anything is why she'd announced herself when she caught sight of the stranger's camp.

"Many thanks," Riley responded as she approached, the flames finally bathing her in enough light that you could make out her own appearance, not nearly as rough (or at all bearded) as his but Riley couldn't remember the last time she'd bathed herself, her chest was still bound and her dirty, red hair was tied in a tight bun on the top of her head, all hidden by a dark green hood that she wore under her armor. One of the only pieces of clothing she still had from home.

She stuck her sword in the dirt near her and dropped the bow that had been dangling from her shoulders along with its quiver, putting her sack on the ground next to her as she sat down cross legged, on the other side of the fire from him. Riley kept her distance more out of respect for him than because she desired to keep some measurable distance between them, after all, she was the one who had invaded his solitude. If he would rather sit in silence, now that he'd offered her his fire, she wouldn't argue, though she hoped he wouldn't mind talking a little. She'd missed talking to another person.

"I'm Riley." At this point she wasn't going to try too hard to conceal her gender, though thankfully, Riley still sounded like a boy's name. Her parents had named her such because they thought they'd been having a boy, and hadn't bothered to come up with something for a girl when she'd been born. She liked her name, so she didn't mind it, but it came in handy when she wished to hide in plain sight. But since he'd been kind enough to share some of his warmth with her, she didn't see the point in keeping up pretenses, if he guessed. "What's your name?"

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tankslayer
2016-10-23 12:50 am UTC (link)

"Noah." It was still a mystery, whether his new friend (if only for a night of sharing warmth by a fire) was a youth or a woman, but Noah didn't need to know the honest answer. If Riley was a boy, the question would hurt his pride, possibly enough that he'd decide that he didn't want to share Noah's fire after all. That was the last thing that Noah wanted, not only because he liked the thought of having a little company, the first he'd had since he'd left the valley and his lover there behind. Part that, of course, but also the night really would be too cold, soon, to travel comfortably. He'd hate for anyone to go off into that when they'd had a perfectly good fire that they could have huddled by until the sun warmed the sky again.

If Riley was a woman, well, Noah was certain that she had her reasons for disguising that, on the road. He could guess at them, didn't even have to guess. He'd seen more than his share of horrible things happen to someone just because someone else thought that being smaller meant that she was weaker, and being weaker meant that she was less of a person. It was brave, really, for a woman on her own to share a strange man's fire at all, brave or desperate enough to risk that he wouldn't be kind. If she didn't feel safe, making it clear to Noah that she was a woman, it wasn't really any of his business.

It was simply nice to have someone to share the fire with, regardless of who they were, or where they were from. "Of Gilboa. A long time ago." Now, Noah wasn't certain that he was from anywhere at all. How long could a man be gone from a place before he stopped being able to call it his home? Noah wasn't even certain he would know what to do, settled safely in Gilboa again, after so many years of being alone, in lands so far from home that he wasn't even sure where home was or how to get back to it. Some men never really came back from war; Noah didn't want to be one of them.

Not that he had much choice, if he couldn't ever find his way back, at all. He watched Riley's face, while he said it, desperate to see if she recognized the name at all. If he was, perhaps, close enough to home in this strange land that someone might have heard of it, even in passing, instead of that blank look of confusion on their faces when he said the word as if they ought to recognize it. As if everyone ought to recognize it. Once, he'd never been far enough from home that it would even have been possible that someone didn't know exactly where Gilboa was. Now... now he'd give anything in the world to hear that familiar accent again.

He wondered how long Riley had been traveling. Where they were from, where they were going to. If they were on their way off to seek their fortune, or trying to get back home, as he was. He could have asked, but he was afraid that, if he opened his mouth right at that moment, he'd ask all of his questions at once. He was parched for conversation, needed it as badly as cracked earth needed the rain. He didn't want to scare Riley off, even if it meant only getting a trickle of it. It was better than nothing, after all. Noah had been living with a lot of better than nothing. He was used to it, by now.

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willyoutolerate
2016-10-25 02:02 pm UTC (link)

"That's a nice name." She'd never met a Noah before, and she'd met a lot of people, especially once she'd left home to go fight someone else's war. King Richard's, originally, but by the time she left Riley wasn't certain anyone actually knew whose war it was anymore, or who they were fighting for. What they were even fighting for. Crusades were an ugly business. She hadn't exactly been expecting there to be a lot of glory in war, but any shaky illusions she'd had about it had been very quickly shattered. Now she understood a little of why her father never talked about the first. According to her mother, he'd never been the same after. Riley still felt like herself, but maybe that would change.

She already had the nightmares. Not every night, but most nights, when she closed her eyes, she saw them. The dead and the dying, all that blood and screaming. The things she'd seen and done in war flooded her subconscious and wouldn't let go until she woke up, sometimes in a cold sweat and shaking from head to toe. Riley didn't actually know if she called out in her sleep or not, but maybe she should warn this nice stranger, in case she accidentally fell asleep here. Not that she was planning on it, no matter how nice he seemed, Riley wasn't completely prepared to trust a complete stranger enough to fall asleep in front of their fire, unguarded. For all she knew, he was a thief and he might make off with what little she had in the middle of the night.

Anyone who knew Riley would know how ironic it was that she was sitting here worrying about thieves, when she'd been somewhat guilty of the crime herself. Never seriously enough to be noticed and punished for it, but when she was younger, Riley had quite the habit of stealing what she could, when she could. Locksley hadn't always been thriving, they'd had their fair share of hard winters, and even the Kingston family had struggled a time or two. When wheat went scare, Riley always made sure they had bread on the table somehow, and often stole chopped wood from the neighboring homes to build a fire inside when their wood was too wet. Of course, Riley had only stolen out of necessity. She had no idea just how desperate this man was, maybe to him everything was necessary.

"Gilboa?" Riley's ears perked up at that, recognition immediately crossing her features. She'd heard of that place. She'd never been, of course, it was a ways past Nottingham. Quite a ways. Far enough that it would have been considered a small journey just from where she had lived, but certainly not as far as from where she had just come from. By her count she was only a few days away from home now, if she was still on the right path. He must be excited that he wasn't too far from his, that is if he was going home. Riley cocked her head in curiosity. "I know of Gilboa. People in Nottingham talk about it sometimes. Why do you say a long time ago? Have you been away from home for very long?"

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tankslayer
2016-10-26 10:36 pm UTC (link)

The hope that surged in Noah's chest when Riley recognized the name of his country was almost painful. Nottingham, too, because he knew precisely where that was. Knew how to get there from Shiloh, the capitol city of Gilboa, knew how to get there from his family's rambling estate in Port Prosperity—they'd traded with Nottingham, the Lazarus family, shipped their beers to the kingdom. It was close, close to home. The closest to home that he'd heard mention of since he'd marched off with the king's army. He still didn't know how far off it was. Riley could have been just as far from home as he'd ever been from his, of course, could have intended to stay that way. But... maybe. Maybe Riley could tell him the way home. Maybe Riley would know how he could get back to the place he'd missed for so long, to see if his family, his lover, had still held out hope for his return.

He didn't know what sort of look might have been on his face, but he felt frozen in place, for a moment. "Nottingham... I've been to Nottingham." He had a million questions to ask, but he doubted that Riley would know the answer to any of them. If it was only hearing of Gilboa, that didn't mean knowing anything about Gilboa. About knowing if the army had gotten home safely. If the Lazarus family was still making beer, still settled and happy. If Port Prosperity was still earning its name, or if the king hadn't been able to hold back the war from touching its shores, the dispute over the rich territory that they'd wanted. All Noah wanted was to know that they were alright. That his mother and father were still alive and well. That his brothers were home and safe, taking over their parts in the family business. Noah had never wanted to make beer, had never wanted to step into his role. He'd planned to be a soldier the rest of his life.

Now, he wanted nothing more than the rich, yeasty smell of it around him. It almost filled his nose, that smell, the memory of it. He swallowed against the knot trying to rise in his throat. "Three years at war. Ten lost. Thirteen years since I've seen my home." Thirteen years... his youngest brother would be a man, by now, when he'd been still small enough for Noah to pick him up and swing him around in circles without so much as losing his breath, when he left. He wouldn't even know him, if he saw him, he thought. None of them would know Noah, anymore. Not when he'd been little more than a boy himself, when he'd left them to go to war for a king who had abandoned him.

"Please..." He hadn't intended to beg for news. Not that he was too proud to beg. Noah had lost his pride long ago, when he'd realized he was friendless, a stranger in a strange land where he didn't even know the language. No, he hadn't intended to beg because he didn't want Riley to feel beholden, didn't want Riley to feel obligated to help him, just because he was lost and friendless. "How far is it, to home?" He'd spent so long in exile that he was almost afraid of going back to the place he had known, afraid of trying to fit himself back into the life he had left, but he had to try. He had to at least see them, before he admitted that he would never be the man that they had missed again.

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willyoutolerate
2016-10-31 05:45 am UTC (link)

It might have been dark, the firelight only illuminating parts of his face and most of his face was hidden under an impressive amount of bear, but Riley still saw it. That look on his face like something she'd just said had stabbed him straight in the heart, something more meaningful than all the gold in the world. And that was a lot of gold. Riley hadn't seen that look since she'd left the front lines, but it was a look she'd come to know very well. It was a look of desperation, from someone who was missing home terribly. Riley thought she understood a little what that was like, after being gone for three years and counting.

"... Thirteen years?" Riley whispered, shocked when she heard it. He'd really been gone for that long? Maybe she didn't know how he felt. Her three was nothing compared to his thirteen, and she still wasn't sure she fully understood. Only three years at war, the same as her, but he'd been gone from home for another ten? He'd been lost, for the last ten years? Where on earth had he been? Riley wondered just where he could have been fighting a war that he was far enough to get so lost? She didn't ask, it seemed impolite to ask, when he was clearly already in so much pain. Her heart went out to him, as someone who had also been through war and her own fair share of troubles along the way.

She couldn't even imagine it. Thirteen years away from home? Riley couldn't help immediately thinking about all the things she herself would have missed out on. In that amount of time her father would have most assuredly succumbed to the illness that had already been rapidly overcoming him when she'd left home. She could only hope that he was still able to recognize her and that the fever hadn't taken him when she finally made it back. In thirteen years, Rhett would have certainly found someone else to marry, a thought that sat with her just as poorly.

While she didn't know what his life before the war had been like, or who was waiting for him at home, Riley felt a sudden, very strong sort of kinship to him, along with a great deal of empathy. It had been clear even before his admission that he'd been through hell, she could see it written all over his face, the least she could do was not deceive him. She could be a friend, if he let her. Pushing back her hood to let it fall on her shoulders so you could see her face and hair fully, if Riley hadn't already been compelled to tell him, that 'please' would have done it. "Not far now. A handful of days, a week at the most, I think. Nottingham is only four days from here, on foot. I live over in the neighboring town of Locksley, but I'm told Gilboa is only a few days past that."

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tankslayer
2016-11-03 12:22 am UTC (link)

Noah wanted to be pleased that Riley had trusted him enough to show him this, her unhooded face. He would be, when he wasn't struggling to keep his composure, to not weep at hearing how very close he was. Four days to Nottingham, and then... yes. Only a few more to Gilboa. To home. A little more than a week, and Noah's journey would be over at last. No more time spent lost and wandering. No more wasted years, wondering if the people he loved were still alive. If they still remembered him. If any of them still hoped that he'd be coming home, someday.

Head ducked, he stared at the ground and blinked back the moisture in his eyes. So close to home... but part of him was certain that it would only be yanked away again, as cruelly as it had been every time he'd thought that, perhaps, he would be able to find his way back at last. Every time he'd left the last person to delay him on his travels, every time he'd thought that surely this time, he'd be able to find his way back to someplace familiar, it was as if the gods (or one particular god) had laughed in his face and cast him back out to wander, to suffer, for even longer, only to end up even more lost than he had been before. As close as he was, he ought to be able to make it back without any troubles at all. He'd thought that when he'd first left the war, too.

"Are you returning to... Locksley?" Noah was less familiar with it, but he knew it was between Nottingham and home. Knew that he'd have to pass it to get there, or at least pass by the way to it. It was cowardly, maybe, but he didn't want to set out on the road toward home alone. Not this time. It wasn't as if company would stop the god he'd angered, the god who had cursed him to wander, if he truly decided that he wasn't ready to let Noah find his way home, yet. But... Noah had never been meant to be alone. He wasn't built for it, he thought, wasn't made to be the sort of man that spent years upon years alone. He felt better, with a companion at his side.

If Riley wasn't returning to Locksley, though, if she was going elsewhere, he wouldn't press for her to accompany him. He wanted to. He wanted to offer her whatever sort of payment she'd like, if she'd just help him make certain that this time, this time he got back home in truth. Of course, he had nothing to offer. He had nothing left, except the fire that he'd already invited her to sit by. Nothing that he could refuse to share with her freely and still be the sort of person that he thoguht he was, that he wanted to be, even after all these years. "I wouldn't mind a little company, on my way. I've been alone... for a while."

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willyoutolerate
2016-12-16 08:51 pm UTC (link)

Riley wanted to ask him right then what had kept him away from home all these years, if he'd only been at war for three of them. How could one person get so lost? Riley was typically a fairly nosy individual, in any other situation with anyone else she might have just asked him outright, but the look on his face had stopped her cold. She couldn't see very well with the world dark around them, the only light illuminating him being the unreliable firelight bouncing off his features. The huge, unkempt beard didn't help any in making out some distinct facial features, but from what she could see, he looked as upset as he sounded before he ducked his head.

Of course, she could understand on a very basic level, the emotional response to realizing you were so much closer to home than you had been at any other point in your journey. When Riley had finally gotten her bearings for long enough yesterday to figure out where she was in relation to home, even she'd gotten a little misty eyed. She'd missed home and everything that made it home more than she ever thought possible for one person to miss so much, she almost couldn't bear it. It was like a dull ache in her gut that twisted into her like a knife, and only got stronger the more she thought about everything that hopefully still waited for her back there.

She missed her home, the house she'd grown up in, and she missed her father something fierce. She just missed talking to him, missed his laugh that could fill up an entire room and make everyone else around him smile back. She missed the stray cat who used to come to their back door every morning begging for milk, and stayed just long enough for Riley to give it some before it ran off again, too wild to actually be tamed enough that they could keep it in the house. Some animals were just meant to be free. Riley was so homesick that she even missed the way Locksley smelled, but there was almost nothing she missed more than the boy she'd left behind.

This Noah must have things he missed too, things about home that he'd been missing so much it hurt. Maybe he was trying to get back home to somebody too. Riley wanted to ask, she suddenly had more questions for him than she knew what to do with, but for once, she held her tongue. It wasn't an act that came easily to her, but some things were more important than her knowing everything, so she gave him the mental space he needed to pull himself together. Anyone that knew Riley would have known what a miracle it was that she actually sat quietly on the other side of the fire for the amount of time it took for him to find the words and speak to her again.

"I am," Riley answered immediately, with an emphatic nod of her head to further demonstrate that she was most definitely traveling home to Locksley. Just the thought made her heart swell again, and maybe it was just a convenient burst of intuition on her part, but she had been about to make the offer that he travel with her, before he actually asked the question himself and it made her smile. She didn't exactly do well as a lone wolf either, and it'd been incredibly lonely since her traveling companion died. She could use some company again. "And I'd love the company, actually. I don't much like traveling alone. It'd be nice to have someone to talk to."

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tankslayer
2016-12-19 01:12 am UTC (link)

Noah couldn't promise to be the best of company, an ideal companion on the road, but even a man as far gone from society as him had to be better than nothing. "Then we'll be each other's company." It was a relief. More than that, it felt like fate. It had to be fate, that of all the people to happen across Noah's campire, it would be someone that could travel with him to just a few days away from home. The gods willing, he wouldn't manage to go astray in just the few days that would separate him from Gilboa, from Port Prosperity, after he and Riley had parted ways. If he were truly blessed, he would be able to find traders, traveling between the two, company for the last of his route.

Thirteen years, and maybe his long punishment was finally over. Maybe the gods were done toying with him, and he'd be able to rest at home, at last. He hadn't looked any further than that, looked at what might be waiting for him when he reached home. Whether his family might have been punished for his own disobedience, for his offense to the god, to the generals who had commanded him in war. He wanted to think... the Lazarus family was too much of a credit to Gilboa, with many strong sons, and a reputation in kingdoms further than most of the people of Gilboa had ever been for the quality of their product. They couldn't punish them for what Noah had done wrong.

He didn't know if he'd be welcomed home at all, or if there'd be some sort of sentence waiting for him. He'd been blessed by the gods, but also cursed. There was no telling what they'd decided, in his absence, the stories that they'd told. It had been thirteen years. He didn't know if they would remember his name at all, the men who had abandoned him to die in the wilderness. Noah thought that might have been the best outcome for him, if they didn't remember him. If he could fade into life in Port Prosperity, into obscurity, with no one ever being the wiser for it. Build a new life for himself, even if his lover had forgotten him. It was more important that he had his family waiting for him.

"I can't promise the best of conversation." Noah managed a smile, though, when he told her that. "I've been a little... out of touch." As if that weren't obvious, just from the beard, his unkempt appearance. She'd likely made her guesses at that already. She likely had her questions, too, even though she'd clearly bit them back. Noah wouldn't mind them. He wouldn't mind anything she wanted to ask, given that she had agreed to keep him company. It would be a sorry journey indeed, if they didn't find anything to talk about during it, and Noah's journeys were the only things he knew to say. The places he'd been. The people he'd seen. It was enough to make it sound as if he were making up stories.

Besides, he was certain that she'd have stories of her own to tell. They could trade them, easily, the stories of where they'd been. What they'd done. Maybe even what they were hoping to find, when they got home... though that might be too painful. Particularly if what they found when they actually got there wasn't what they hoped for at all. He'd at least see Riley to her home, in the end, see her far enough that he could be certain that she arrived there safely before he left for his own home and hoped, against hope, against all expectations of everything that had happened on his travels so far, that he'd make it the rest of the way on his own.

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willyoutolerate
2017-01-24 03:56 pm UTC (link)

“That’s alright. I can be the best of conversation for the both of us,” Riley responded cheerily. She was used to being the one who wouldn’t stop talking, sometimes at the expense of the people around her. Not everyone was fond of a chatterbox, but Riley wouldn’t be silenced by anyone. She enjoyed talking. She enjoyed talking to other people, getting to know them and forging lasting bonds. If the person she was talking to couldn’t find the words? Well, Riley was well known for always having something to say about almost anything. Always had some sort of opinion on something, ever since she was a little girl and she was mostly just annoying her father with her moral outrage regarding the cruel treatment of horses in a joust or her personal feelings on the kingdom’s taxation at the still tender age of eleven.

Not a whole lot had changed since then. Nothing except that as she continued to gain in years, she was able to see the world for what it was, and not only with the eyes of a child. She saw Nottingham for what it was, all of its potential while also not ignoring its faults, of which there were certainly many. When she’d left Locksley three years ago, the king had already been at war and gone from his kingdom for a long time now. Some weren’t even sure if his crusade would ever end, after it had already been dragging on for countless years, but before Riley had even left to do her part for it things had already begun changing in Locksley, and not necessarily for the better.

The king’s brother was sitting on the throne in his place while he was away fighting his crusade, and Prince John wasn’t nearly as fair a ruler or as much a ruler of the people as the king had been. The prince tended to favor the rich and look down on the poor, which were many. People inside Nottingham itself were relatively well off, as were all the lords in neighboring towns, like Riley’s father, but everyone else? Thanks to a combination of particularly bad winters and the poor inevitably never getting less poor, things were already on the verge of going from bad to worse before Prince John implemented his new taxes on the land. That had been just before Riley had left, and while she’d been hoping for the best while she was away, she was already mentally preparing herself for when she finally returned home. As desperate as she was to see Locksley again, part of her dreaded it, if only because she wasn’t a child anymore.

Just as idealistic, maybe, but since Prince John was still in charge, the state of things couldn’t be much better. Part of her would still hope for a different outcome, if only because she wanted better for the people of Locksley. Riley missed home more than she could bear, she missed her father and she missed the boy she’d left behind. The boy she’d been promised to, right up until life unfairly intervened to separate them. If he was still waiting for her when she got back like she hoped he was, then that would be one thing she would be grateful for not changing. If he wasn’t, then she’d respect it, regardless of her own disappointment. Heart break, while a terrible thing, could be cured. Considering how long she’d been gone, she wouldn’t really blame him if he’d finally found another in that time. She wondered if Noah had anyone waiting for him at home.

But no matter what, she was ready to be home again, regardless of what ‘home’ had become. If things were as bad as she feared, Riley wouldn’t hesitate to jump in and help. Fighting in a war for the last three years meant she was no longer shy about getting her hands dirty, and if anything, she was newly filled with a near divine sense of purpose to help right the wrongs of her beloved kingdom. It was the only purpose she had left, now that she’d fulfilled her previous one of going to war in her father’s place. Scooting herself a little bit closer to her side of the fire so she could warm her hands better, Riley peered over at Noah curiously. “If you don’t mind me asking… how exactly did you get lost for thirteen years? No offense, but are you just really bad at directions?”

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tankslayer
2017-01-28 01:29 am UTC (link)

It suited Noah quite well, Riley taking care of guiding the conversation for the both of them. Maybe, by the time that they were finished with traveling together, he'd have remembered how to talk to other people. How to fit in as if he hadn't been mostly apart from everyone else for so very long. There hadn't been much talking, in the unfortunate circumstances that had sidetracked him. Hardly any at all, when if he'd been in his right mind, and able to converse, he'd never have let himself been sidetracked for so very long to begin with. Noah had never been the kind of man (even though he'd been a boy when he went to war, too young to know what kind of man he really was) to be so smitten by a pretty face that he'd forget about everything else. Not when there was someone he'd loved waiting for him at home. Not when he wasn't certain if that lover might still be waiting, somehow... Noah doubted it, but he wouldn't have been faithless until he'd known for certain.

"It's a long story," he told Riley, but what else were they going to do, sitting around the fire until they were tired enough to fall asleep? Noah didn't mind her asking, not at all. Not when he knew that thirteen years was a long time to wander, exiled and lost. The question about his sense of direction even made him smile, a flash of teeth through his beard, even though there was nothing funny about his story at all. He had to learn to find something to laugh about, in it, or he'd have given up a long time before, given up and refused to move on, to move forward. To keep moving until he'd gotten far enough that the rest of the way home was close enough to see, close enough to almost touch. It was unbelievable, Noah's story, and he had better get some sort of practice telling it, because he knew that his family would expect to hear all about it once he'd gotten home. If they were alive to hear it. If Noah were welcomed back home long enough to tell it.

If he was, though... if he was, he needed to remember how to be the Noah they'd known. The Noah that they had loved. He wasn't that man anymore. There was part of Noah that knew that he couldn't be that man again, that he might not even be able to fit himself into the space that he'd left. He was more, and less, than he had been, then. All he had left was hope that, maybe, once he had a chance to rest, he would be able to find who he was without anybody else getting in the way of it. To find out why the gods had blessed him and cursed him, like he was someone important instead of the lowly young soldier he'd been. Maybe they would have something more planned for him, once he got there. Maybe he was worrying, and hoping, for no reason at all, and he'd find himself folding back into the space that he'd always occupied. The quiet one. The peacemaker who went to war.

Noah took a deep breath, let it out in a sigh. "I went to war against the Trojans, when I was just a boy." Younger, he thought, than Riley likely was, now. Maybe she'd been the same age as he'd been when he went off to war, when she left for her own. "It was... I thought I was serving my country. That it was what the gods wanted. It realized that it was only what men wanted, and that the gods had nothing to do with it. That there's nothing holy about war." He'd never have fought, if he hadn't thought it was for the right purpose. Noah had never been the sort of boy who enjoyed getting into scrapes. All that Noah had ever wanted was to help. To serve king, country, and gods. "There was... a man. A demigod. Goliath." He wasn't sure what the world knew of Goliath, now. What stories might have been told of the war that he had fought. "I stood up to him. And I killed him."

Part of Noah wanted to tell her about the gods that showed him favor. That he'd been blessed. He still couldn't believe it himself, not when he'd been wandering so long, with no way home... but he'd lived through it all, hadn't he? That was proof enough that he was favored, that nothing he had lived through had killed him. "His father cursed me to never be able to find my way home, until a stranger was kind enough to help me set my feet on it." And here he was, sitting with a stranger that knew how he could get there.

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