Arc 7: Chapter 10: Sever
One night I dreamt. I dreamt of home. Not Seydis, or Karles, but the place I’d been born.
The Herdhold isn’t a pretty land. Rugged and dry, known for its vast herds of chimeric cattle bred by House Herder and sold across the southern lands, it’s a country of wranglers, herdsmen, opportunistic raiders and stubborn farmers.
My mother was from a little village called Hew. Her family were lumbermen and charcoal burners, but she’d quit the tough, sparse woods her relatives tended and found work in the Herder castle and eventually married a clerk. That castle, like the land it’d been raised from, wasn’t an elegant thing. Made low and tough to withstand the fierce winds that blew down off the bluffs, it was blistering hot in summer and freezing in winter.
The western dales are a region of extremes, the blessings that make so much of Urn fertile and green left thin so far from Elfhome. God had never trod those arid plains with Her golden feet.
In the dream, I didn’t live in the castle where I’d been born. I lived out on the plains, with my own farm and my own animals. I was old, almost too old to work, but I’d spent my life fighting for this little scrap of peace and I enjoyed it. My children worked the fields, though some had gone off adventuring, hearing tales of distant lands and great names.
It was well enough. Those who’d stayed had children too, and they played through the wheat, laughing.
Cool, strong fingers slid down my neck. I grunted, then relaxed as those familiar hands worked the stiffness out of my shoulders.
“You were daydreaming again,” she said and kissed the top of my gray head.
“‘Bout you.”
“Flatterer. You know I can sniff your lies right? Your blood’s still fresh in me.”
But I wasn’t lying, and she knew it. She laid her head atop mine, letting out a contented sigh. The arms folded around my neck were still young and smooth, and would be forever. I regretted that, that she’d be alone soon.