Convergence - Nedley (1/?)
With arms crossed over his chest, Sheriff Nedley props himself up against a large boulder, surveying the crowds gathered around the Waller Bridge. The same green, poisonous fog covered the bridge, but a loud explosion from the city had shaken the students of Khleebur back into a state of alertness. Was this what they had been waiting for? Was this the time to finally charge on Lossan?
Nedley knows he is not the person to ask.
It's something he's wrestled with for the past few weeks, he knows. The rise of Kunt had been happening for many months, of course, but he never thought their troubles would land in this town of all places. Nedley was here before it was a university town, when it was nothing more than ten families and two wells. He was here when it became a university town and the families screamed that these were the end days for quiet living. Everything came in waves and those waves eventually settled.
But this one didn't. After the Orange Occupation of the town, after all of the soldiers had relocated to hold down Lossan, something was different. The tide rose high and seemed to rise ever higher, and Nedley had a feeling things would be bad when the wave came crashing down. Where his place was in this town when the wave finally landed, though, he wasn't sure.
Predictably, the university kids had pulled him in one direction and the town's families had pulled him in the other. The students called for a stronger rebuke to the Occupation while the families wanted calm and order and were willing to concede to martial law and the Battalion's commands. Unable to appease both sides, Nedley found himself caught in the middle and wholly unable to appease either.
It was the students who stepped up in his absence Nedley couldn't help but admit. Among their ranks particularly was a tiefling in a bandolier whom the other students seemed to respond to. Benji, Nedley knew them as. A Nature Scout of considerable composure and authority for someone so young. They somehow had rallied all of the students together and got them to act as one cohesive force, rather than letting them descend into the anarchy of un-checked rage at what was happening with the world around them. The town's families had expressed fear of property damage and lawlessness, but this Benji had somehow persuaded the students otherwise. They led the crowds in chants for peace, for action, for justice - all while keeping the crowds still and steady, waiting at their command to converge on Lossan when called upon.
It had taken Nedley time to accept that this was the wave of the future and that he would best step back and just let it happen.
Benji sees Nedley standing and watching. They approach, appearing to rub the strain from their eyes.
"You heard it?" they ask Nedley, referring to the loud explosion in Lossan.
"Oh, I heard it alright," Nedley sighs. "Heavens knows what's happening in Lossan, but it can't be good."
"Everyone's itching to act on it," Benji notes with a nod at the buzzing crowd. “Right when I had thought they’d calmed down.”
"They've been itching for a while, if you ask me," Nedley says. "No thanks to me, I admit. But they listen to you." He notes this without bitterness or resentment, but vague respect.
"Why should they listen to me?" Benji asks. They turn to Nedley and the question in their eyes suddenly reveals just how young Benji is. "How will I know when it's time to act?"
Nedley stares off into the distance, at the silhouettes of the dragons on the bridges, at the orange wisps snaking their way around the spire in Lossan's hills.
"You'll just know," Nedley finally says. "You'll feel it in your gut. And if you're smart like I suspect you are, you won't fight your gut on it like I did."