Chapter 154: Return to the Vale? (Part Two)
"So why did you go, boy?" Old Nan asked the red haired human, her whiskers twitching in genuine curiosity. She’d known Marcel for a very long time and she’d become all but immune to compliments that flowed from his lips like water from a leaking dam. He was a merchant at heart and his words always sought advantage.
This boy, however, seemed surprisingly genuine when he praised the carvings on her wall. More than that, the look in his eyes when he looked at her and her home seemed almost... sad. Perhaps the merchant didn’t understand an attachment to a home. She had heard that humans bought and sold homes freely. But this young man seemed like he understood, at least a little bit.
"I went because Lady Ashlynn was right," Ollie said firmly. "If I didn’t go, then Lord Owain would have killed me. I don’t know what it took to build and make all this," he said, gesturing at the interior of the burrow. "But I understand wanting to stay to keep it safe."
"But does everyone need to stay? Or just your soldiers? What about the cooks, the carpenters and the children? Can they visit the Vale while everyone else protects your homes from the rains?"
"And give them to the Vale of Mists to use as hostages?" Old Nan spat. "Child, I knew humans were cruel, but saying that to my face..."
"Old Nan," Marcel interrupted. "Ollie doesn’t think that way. Neither does Lady Nyrielle. She isn’t even in the Vale right now," he said, feeling helpless before this old woman. Some things couldn’t be bought or sold at any price. While he felt like Old Nan was overvaluing something as simple as a home, Ollie had reminded him how much work the people of the Heartwood clan put into their homes.
Asking them to leave this place wasn’t just asking them to give up a hut that kept them warm in the winter and dry in the rainy season. Each burrow represented lifetimes of effort to transform their home into a living work of art. Ollie might not know what it took to make this place, but Marcel did.
The oldest carvings here had been added by Old Nan’s grandfather, then by her mother. The most recent ones had been carved by her sons, two of whom were standing outside with bows trained on the entrance to the burrow right now. It was just too precious to lose.
Ollie’s proposal made a lot of sense to an outsider. Send away your children while a war is being fought. Only, to the Heartwood Clan, it was seen as pulling their future and the continuation of their legacy into the jaws of a trap, using them as bait to get the rest of the clan.