Duty Calls
Lady Emberheart followed the gravel path up to a flower wreathed cottage. Behind her followed a retinue of Illithian honour guards who had insisted on being her escort, even though she needed none.
Her name was Relriah Illithia. Mother of Lord Stenden Emberheart. Dutiful wife to Soldenis Emberheart. A docile thing who became vengeance incarnate during the Emberglades Civil War: The Lady in Red, who marched an army into Westheath to slay her traitorous father who had the gall to threaten the lives of her family. Now she ruled there in his stead, still trying to right his wrongs, even now, 8 years after she had slit his throat.
She knocked on the door to the cottage which was promptly answered a girl who immediately began gawking at her.
"Greetings," said Relriah, turning back and shooing away her honour guards, gesturing for them to remain in the garden. "You must be Marisen."
Marisen fidgetted as her nerves got the better of her. "L-Lady Emberheart!" She yelped and attempted to curtsey, only to realise that she wasn't in skirts but a pair of boyish trousers. The young adolescent swapped to a bow for a split second before swapping back to the curtsey, pinching the air as if there were a hem to an invisible skirt around her. "You honor us with your presence my- my- uh-"
Relriah smiled, leaning down to meet her eye-to-eye. "Don't worry, I don't fuss about titles. Where is your father, little Everburn?" She asked.
"He'll be right with you!" Marisen squeaked before darting back into the cottage, thumping across the floorboards as she went. "Ann'daaaaaaaaa! Our leige is at the door!"
---
Kassivir, roused from a nap by the sounds of hurried footsteps and incoherent yelling, opened his eyes just in time to see the door to his bedroom swing wide open.
"Ann'da!" Marisen cried out as she heaved between laboured breaths as crossed the room. "Lady. Emberheart. At. The door."
Her father stretched lazily and checked his goblin timepiece. It was late afternoon on a day he was off-duty. "Can you tell her to come back tomorrow?"
"'da!" Marisen stomped.
"Alright, alright," Kassivir laughed, rising to his feet and ruffling her hair with his only remaining arm. "Don't get upset on her account."
The man buttoned up his tunic and headed out towards his doorstep where Relriah waited.
"Master Everburn," Relriah greeted him with a slight nod of acknowledgement.
"Lady Emberheart," he responded with a bow. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit? You scared the living daylights out of Mari…" Kassivir looked over his shoulder to where his daughter was peeking at them from the bend in the corridor. "Would you like to come in? I could get some tea going."
"No need, this shouldn't take long," said Relriah, glancing over at the evesdropping girl over his shoulder. "Though you might want to step outside."
Kassivir tensed inperceptably, looking at the armed guards waiting in the garden. "Am I in trouble?"
Lady Emberheart retrieved the notice that Stenden had sent out to all who had previously served in the Sunguard, she held it up before nodding subtly towards his console table by the door, where his own lay— in shreds. "Your Lord put out a call to bolster the ranks of the Sunfire Vanguard. Why haven't you answered?"
"So I am in trouble," Kassivir said as he stepped outside and shut the door behind him. "I was under the impression that support was to be rendered on a voluntary basis."
Relriah's demeanour seemed to darken once Marisen was out of earshot. "Yes, my son's words do say as much, but that doesn't answer my question. Why haven't you answered."
"I have… A good thing going here. A daughter. A cottage. A quiet life spent training your militia men in peace—"
"—A life gifted by Sederis when he let you settle here in Westheath, a reward for your service. A life gifted to you by the man you turned your back on when his family needed you most," Relriah interrupted. The look in her eyes adding the reminder that he'd been on the wrong side of the civil war, in servicing of her father:
Traitor
The man looked away, flinching as a hot streak of shame tightened into a ball in his chest. "I gave Stenden my loyalty when my company was captured. I gave him my arm, assaulting the walls of your father's fortress. Was that not enough?"
"You owe him your LIFE," Relriah hissed, feeling old hatred from the war come spluttering back to surface. "Lady Dawnbrook would've had the lot of you treasonous dogs executed and, Light help me, I would've been all too happy to oblige her. It was Stenden who decided otherwise. Now he's put out a call. One that you're not answering."
"Is this an order?" Kassivir asked flatly.
"No. I'm not so cruel to forcefully seperate you from your daughter," she replied. "I am simply reminding you that you have a debt to repay."
Kassivir frowned. In the years since he had entered her service, their interactions had been professional, cold perhaps. But he had no idea that she had held him in such disdain. "So why then? If this is how you feel, why let me have my cottage- raise my daughter?"
"Because despite how I feel, I'm helping my son is build a more forgiving world than the one I was born into." Relriah paused and commanded herself to soften her demeanour, easing the anger out of her voice. "Because Marisen is a lovely girl who deserves a father… Even if he did make poor choices in the past." She turned to leave, keeping her eyes locked onto his over her shoulder. "And because I wanted to see if you'd prove me wrong. That you're more than a turncoat who joined us when it became clear that we were on the winning side of history. Something which you have yet to do."
--- "Ann'da your hand is shaking."
"Is it? Guess it's just chilly today."
"Your hand shakes when you're scared. It started shaking after Lady Emberheart came to our door." Marisen looked up at him. "I'm not stupid."
Kassivir let out a playful grumble. "Sometimes, I wish you were."
"'da!" she scolded, tossing his hand forward as they continued down the path towards another flower wreathed cottage in the Heartlands where a woman with rose-gold hair awaited. An old friend and ex-combat medic who had agreed to take her.
Before long, they were walking hand in hand again, her fingers squeezing tighter and tigher the closer she got to the end of the path they were on.
"I don't want to stay with Risa," she stated.
"What are you talking about? You love Risa," Kassivir responded, too quickly. "And I'm sure if you're really good she'll even show you how to do some fancy tricks with the Light."
"I don't want to stay with Risa," Marisen repeated.
Kassivir looked over at her. "Well, I'd have left you with Grand Aunt Lithy, but she's coming to help the Vanguard too."
"I don't want that either."
His smile faded as what she was really saying finally registered. "Me neither."
"Then why are you going? Is Lady Emberheart making you?"
"No, not really."
Marisen's mood soured at this. "So you're choosing to leave me."
"I'm not—" Kassivir stopped himself, because it was exactly what he was doing. He was leaving, not being made to leave by powers above him. He realised then, that by not ordering him to serve, by making this a question of honor, loyalty, and redemption, he couldn't blame Relriah for this decision. This was fully on him. One final cruelty.
"I have to. This is important," he forced out from his chest, trying to explain himself.
"Of course it is," Marisen added as she stopped in her tracks, digging her feet into the dirt just meters away from Risa's cottage now. "More important than me."
"Nothing is more important than you," he stated with all the conviction in the world.
"Then don't go." His daughter was on the verge of tears now, trying to keep a brave face the best that a twelve year old could.
He knelt, pulling a strand of her hair behind Marisen's ear and struggled to speak. Nothing he could say, no explanation he could give would make her feel any better. How could he articulate that everything he did was ultimately for her? That leaving her for the Vanguard was his way of keeping the kingdom where she lived safe from war. That this was the only way to make sure that she'd remain free of the debt of loyalty he owed to the Emberhearts— free of the sins of his past. So instead, Kassivir pulled her into a hug and just held her with a hand that wouldn't stop shaking. ---
The former medic and old comrade in arms was already waiting for him, answering the door and wiping her hands down a salve stained apron. "Kass," she greeted.
"Risa," he replied with a hug. "Thanks for this."
"It's no trouble at all, I've got a room all ready for her," she said.
Kassivir nodded. "I took her to the Heartfires first, but Lith had left the moment the notice came in."
"Typical," she said with a playful lilt. "You Death Seekers can't help yourselves can you?"
"Believe me when I say that I'd have rather sat this one out," Kassivir replied as Risa waved at the girl behind him. "But duty calls."
Risa waved over his shoulder. "Hey Mari!" she greeted.
Marisen waved back, but stubbornly kept her distance.
"How long does she need to stay for?"
"I don't know. A couple of months maybe? The Vanguard needs someone to whip new recruits into shape."
"And after they've been whipped into shape- You coming back?" Risa asked, pointedly. "Or will you be going out campaigning with this new regiment?"
Kassivir didn't respond.
"Well, you better come back."
"I'll try."
"I'm not raising an orphan, you hear?"
"I don't want you to."
A quiet understanding passed between the two veterans. None of this was up to him, it was all in the hands of Chaos and Luck and neither cared about the orphans they left.
"Well, you better go talk to her," Risa stated seriously as she nodded in Marisen's direction. "Tell her I have some sweetened tea waiting for her inside. Once she's ready."
Kassvir turned to his daughter, her heels still dug into the dirt path. With a heavy heart, he stepped up to her, placed his hand on her shoulder and squeezed.
"So, this is goodbye," he said.
Marisen looked up at him, offended. "Go then," she snapped, her tear rimmed eyes were now beginning to fill with anger.
Kassivir knelt, meeting her eye to eye and he dropped the usual tone he used with her. His voice grew dour and serious, the one he used when he needed her to listen to him, really listen. "The Kingdom needs me."
"I need you!" The girl yelled suddenly, surprising them both. Tears, that she had been holding back since they left their home were now running down her cheeks.
"The Kingdom needs me more," he stated.
"The same way the Kingdom needed Minn'da?"Marisen glared at him, but now with the same vicious intensity of her mother. The mother who had marched off to the Pheonix Wars and had never come home.
His heart stopped when she brought her up. They almost never brought her up. "No… That's— this is different."
"H-how?" She demanded, fingers balled into fists by her side, her voice shuddering. "Because when the fighting starts, they're not going to let you come home and the fighting always starts when one of you leave."
He squeezed her shoulder tighter. "Even if it does, I'll find a way to come home."
"Don't lie to me!" She screamed at the hollow promise. "You can't promise me that— I know how war works, I'm not a child!"
Kassivir looked at his daughter wanting to laugh at how ridiculous the assertion was. He studied her, how her small and fragile frame carried the fire he saw in her eyes. Eyes of a child yes, but ones that had seen war and understood how much it took and would continue taking from her.
"No… I suppose you're not," he said. "I'm sorry."
Marisen threw herself against him and wept.
"I'm sorry that this is all we could give to you." Kassivir spoke slowly, finally finding the words he had been looking for as the shaking in his hand stopped. "Your mother and I, we fought for a better world for you. A world where you could grow up safe and boring and normal. Where the most you have to worry about is if that boy at the market likes you back—"
"—'da I don't like Tomas—" she protested between sobs.
He pressed on. "—We fought for it. Your mother died for it. And we lost. We lost, and I'm sorry that this is the best we could give you."
Marisen breathed in, holding her quivering voice steady. "That's why you have to go."
"Yes," Kassivir confessed. "Because as hard as it is to leave you, if it means you'll be safe— if it means Lady Emberheart looks upon you favorably despite everything I've done— if it means you'll have a chance at that better world your mother and I imagined for you… Then I've got to try. I've got to keep fighting for it. Even if it means I won't come back."
"You'll come back," Marisen shot back, pressing her face into his shoulder. "You can't die. I know you can't. Grand Aunt Lithy won't let you." ---
The matron looked up at the flags of the mustering grounds, watching as the veteran soldiers who had served the Sunguard began to gather around her at the way station. From there, they'd be taken through The Bulwark's mountain passes that separated the Emberglades from the rest of the isle, then, across the bridge to the mainland where Silvermoon— and the Sunfire Vanguard awaited.
None of the faces she saw were familiar, not that she had expected to see any. There were only a handful of honest-to-god Death Seekers left after the Phoenix Wars. A lot of them either burned out, retired, or had lost themselves to madness. Most were just dead. So she stood alone in her regalia with her unit's black and white skulls on her pauldron.
No one dared approach her, not even to band up for their journey to Silvermoon. After all, Erissalithen was an unusual figure amongst crowd. Though she cut the same imposing figure of an infantrywoman with slicked back pale gold hair and a steeled posture, she was old, even by Elven standards. Her calloused hands and greying hair speaking louder than the armour she wore.
She was prepared to make the journey alone, until she saw him. Kassivir, with a pack slung over his good arm and a cloak covering the one that was missing. The man was dressed in a simple tunic, and looked lost... but certain. Like the stray wardog that Sederis pulled off death row 12 years ago.
"Kass!" she called out to him, and immediately saw his expression change. Something between regret and relief.
"Lith," he embraced her like the old family friend she was.
"Marisen?" She asked.
"Risa's. I figured she'd like it better there rather than with your brother," he replied.
"Good. That man would spoil her rotten. You'd come back to a round and unruly child."
"Rounder child," Kassivir corrected with a joke. "She's still got baby fat on her."
The mustering grounds began to grow crowded, not just with the fighting men and women of the Emberwardens but the other less glamorous roles that kept the engines of war running. Labourers. Foragers. All members of Sederis' old logistics corps. The ones who'd be part of the long tail to the armed and armoured teeth of the Sunfire Vanguard.
The duo however stood in comfortable silence, watching as the carts and carriages of the first convoy arrived and the troops to board.
"It never ends does it?" Kassivir asked suddenly. "War, I mean."
Erissalithen shook her head. "It does. Never is a long time and we're blessed to live long enough to see the end of war."
"Are we now?" He responded skeptically.
"In the six centuries I've been alive, war has only marked a fraction of it. Harvests and famines and festivals and children... there's been far more of those. There'll always be far more of those." she explained stoically.
"Until war threatens to brings an end to our people," he retorted.
"Not if we do our jobs right," the matron replied, looking at him. This was a far cry from the Death Seeker she remembered serving with.
Kassivir frowned, too ashamed to mention that he had to be dragged, kicking and screaming by duty and obligation to be here. "Yeah."
Sensing his doubt Erissalithen lowered her voice. "Kass."
"What?"
"Don't forget why we're here."
"Why are we here Lith?" Kassivir asked, meeting her eyes.
She could see his doubts clearly now, but knew better than to press him about it. "Same as it has ever been: To put our lives on the line so the people we love don't have to," she began as the second convoy arrived and they shuffled towards to the back of a cart.
She continued. "There's a chance, a slim chance, that my grandchildren can have lives completely untouched by war. I'd die a thousand deaths to make sure they keep that chance. That is why I'm here." Erissalithen climbed aboard, then offering him a hand.
"You're here because Mari deserves the same."