ryheric

He padded soft along the beach. A rare chance to be alone. The surf sighed its unending music. It was a summer evening. Ryheric was eighteen, and had been sent out on what ought to be an easy night patrol. 

There was a dark haired girl on the beach, visible thanks to the bright moonlight silvering the waves and wet sand alike. She was probably the same age as him. She hauled in a lobster net. The moon was high above, idyllic. 

Click here to listen

He played how it felt to sit with Cwennie in the aftermath of her quiet loss. He'd fought for her, and alongside her, protected her all the way to Rohan, only to find her home burned, her family slain. Everything she knew, gone.

He writes, and re-writes. Letters formal and like a heavy-handed forgery of Nunen's. Eventually, he lets the lines stand in the corner of his water-damaged note book. The thing kept with several short scrawls of writing, practiced letters and many black inked pages with not a shred of room left upon them. The small poems he'd attempted for Cwennie here remain like tiny shots of light, symmetry and order.


"In duty she treads

loss ravaged, her fate to find

Blue as the rich Sea"

Ryheric received a letter after a difficult day and with some heaviness and finality in his heart. He opened it once delivered by the runner.

He was slow at reading it, but reading was a skill recently learned he was grateful for. It was often difficult to believe he could do such an amazing thing. He enjoyed reading immensely despite his slowness.

The waterways of Nen Harn twinkled on the horizon. Overhead, orange light stole coy glances at horse and rider through the branches of trees. Son of Mouse's steady plod could be heard crumpling leaf litter and loam underhoof as sunset dimmed the landscape to a warm sienna. It was like being inside a fading ember.