In the dark of night, Ryheric had gone with Tarsorel to hunt a beast. A creature the local farmers called rabid. Or, they spoke of it like a demon. On hushed tones, making superstitious gestures.
There had even been a rumour or two it was an Enemy of the free folk. A man, a foreigner with a curved blade who guised himself as a bard, responsible. Rumours of bloodlust not natural for the peace-loving Breefolk. Someone had planted the idea. Tarsorel knew it. Ry knew it. It stayed unmentioned between them.
The beast was found, and blood drawn. But something unexpected happened that night. Ryheric met the eyes of Geornak the half-caste monster.
Geornak's tale would be a sad one, and Ryheric witheld the mercy of a fight and a quick death, instead granting mercy of a more compassionate kind.
Temperance.
He spoke with Geornak even while Leniok threatened with death and devastation. There was instant friendship. Trust that had no right to be there, but there it was like a tiny bloom defying mid-winter.
Geornak, blue, a giver, now forced to take or submit to wickedness. Leniok: red. Always taking, always hungry, and never sated. He would destroy Geornak, and everything else.
Geornak took his terrible friend and longtime companion Leniok away. A sacrifice of love, mercy and injustice. Ryheric knew that for Geornak to have any chance for himself, the insatiably cruel Leniok could not be allowed to live.
Ryheric's heart bled in a way none could see or know. For he viscerally understood Leniok's destruction, and Geornak's loneliness.
.....
He found Geornak somewhere safe, much later. The only place safe for him was somewhere no Breemen would go. There, Ryheric brought fleece and skins for the winter to his new friend. He visited him, now and then when time allowed.
Geornak would come to help Ryheric, Tate, Bryn, Tars, and of course the girls, very soon.
Fate was fate. Ryheric could only trust what felt right.
