Xandilif shouldered the heavy door open with an unfortunate smash, both her hands full with two large mugs. “Hey..Red…I brought ya a grog…”
She sat the two mugs down on the bedside table, only spilling a little and pulled a broken down chair up to Catalinna’s bedside. The woman looked much the same as she had since they left Fornost. Unmoving, peaceful, silent…her features appeared to be somewhere between lightly asleep and somewhat dead.
Lif took a long sip of her mug. “I would a brought ya some food, but..well…Finch ate it. Swear ta god that girl ain’t done nuthin’ for a full day but cry and eat…usually both at once. The eatin is normal, the cryin' ain't.”
They had arrived in Trestlebridge the previous night, just an hour or so before a hazy dawn. The entire company had still been shaken and battered from their ordeal in Fornost, and between the hour and the circumstances it had not been easy to find lodgings, and they didn’t think it was a good idea to sleep rough. It finally took a combination of ready coin and vague threats to get them a few rooms in a boarding house that had seen better days.
As the old woman who ran the place explained as she showed them to their rooms, “We aren’t used to this kind of custom here. We host visiting merchants and dignitaries, not saddle tamps and roughnecks of your sort. Just remember I have counted every last thing in these rooms and if anything is missing, I’ll have the law on you double quick….and if I should come in here I expect ta see one to a bed and one only, if you get my meaning.”
No one had the energy to argue, and once everyone found their place, they all slept through the day, just grateful for the beds and the quiet.
As night fell, Xandilif wandered restlessly. She made sure Finchley was as comfortable as she could be, but clearly saw the girl was not ready for company as of yet, still coping with all that had occurred. In fact, everyone was in must the same situation to a greater or lessor degree, leaving Xandilif, Champion of the Azure Faithful at loose ends, and for one of the first times in her life…lonely. No one here to speak to, and she couldn’t bring herself to attempting to contact her sister….
..and so she found herself here, drinking Grog with an unconscious Catalinna…if she actually was still Catalinna. Lif wasn’t sure who was in there anymore, after everything that happened, but didn't much care.
She took another long sip, tilted the chair back against the wall and sighed. “Well, I set out to make sure that babygirl was alright, and she is it seems. The brand is gone, and that bitch who was living inside her was forced out and dealt with. Mission accomplished, huh? Hail the victorious heroes and lets go home, right?” She took another sip. “Nah, it is almost never that easy. Finchley ain’t dead but she is gonna take quite a while to put back together, and I still got no idea what went on with you.”
Lif looked down at Cat’s placid face. “Whatever it was, I got a feeling what you went through, what you did, saved Finchley’s life, whether you meant it to or not…so….I owe ya for that.” She took another sip. “Owe you more then I could ever pay, more than I could even ever explain….so….there it is, Red.”
She took another sip and leaved forward, staring into her half full mug. “Not sure how much that sort of debt is worth however. That little bastard was right about me, I got too much, too much blood on my hands. Sure, I’ve won a lot of battles, but I ain’t so sure how my war is coming. I’ve killed off a lot of enemies…but nearly as many friends, so I figure up till now it has about been a draw.”
She took another long pull on her grog, draining it. She looked at Cat, and pointed at the other mug. “Ya gonna drink that? No? Why thank ya then, don’t mind if I do…” she grabbed the other mug and took a sip.
“Course, if that little bastard had thought he was gonna lay me low with that twaddle he was stupider then he looked. I KNOW what I am, I KNOW what my sword is…what it does, can do. I know what I did in Men Erain in order to serve it, what I do in order to be here. I know what I lost there.” Lif sighed and closed her yes. “I know what happened to the Argent Lions, hell I was there…I was the last one there. No feckin’ surprises. Even if I had forgotten that last vote, the feel of their hands on my shoulders, the smell of their fear, the rush of the power through the blade….every night they remind me. Every night I hear Siryena’s last words…”You hadn’t told me it would be like this….” Truth was I hadn’t told them Jack. What would knowing have done for them? There was no other way to save that pass, to stop those feckin Uruk, to save the inland villages and maybe all of feckin’ Gondor. Would knowing what utter hell they were letting themselves in for have helpled? No it would NOT have. Would knowing have helped me in Adar’s tomb all those years ago, knowing what the future held? NO, no help at all, so what does it matter?”
She took another sip. “That part about Xanir…about my brother…THAT nearly did for me, I admit. Not even Rian knows about that, and…well…I don’t know how Finchley would react to it, cause she got all attached ta the little pissant, or at least to his head. If it hadn’t been for me, none of that hell would have happened to him…it was all my fault. I as good as murdered him.”
“That last meeting with our mother, before she and Adar were taken off West. Just me, her eldest spawn, and her. I lied about it, to Xanderian, to Finchley, to everybody. I told them she refused to take Xanir, or little Yanca as she still called him…”Sacrifice”. I said that since the babe was weened, she pawned him off on us to raise, having no interest or time for it as they were going off to the undying lands. But I lied. She had intended to take the damn baby, just leave us behind.”
She took another sip. “I changed her mind, I threw a fit, I feckin refused. I asked her how she could take that poor little baby off before he even had a chance to live, to see the world, to taste mortality like a ripe fruit? What purpose would be endless sunlight if he never grew up beneath an ever changing sky, if he had never felt darkness?”
Xandilif sighed and leaned back, a single tear running down her cheek. “She practically threw the baby at me. “Fine,” she said, “If he is so important to you, then you take responsibility…but his fate will be on your head, Gawad, not mine.” That was the last thing she said to me. His fate on my head, not hers. She left me her sword, and my brother, and told me to do whatever I wanted with both of em. Well, the sword I broke and reforged into knives…and the baby? I made him hate both me and Rian like poison, until he got himself killed…badly…horribly… alone.”
The Champion took another sip. “If I hadn’t decided that I wanted her to be as alone as we were, if I hadn’t put my own anger over my brother’s life, he would be happily eating little cakes in the undying lands, not just a skull buried on Tol Lochul, waiting for Mandos to give him a break. So yeah, I killed him….and I doubt Xanderian could ever forgive me if she knew, but I ain't sure I really care about that. Finchley? Finchley 's different...Babygirl likely couldn’t stand the sight of me if I told her so I ain't gonna. Regrets? That little bastard don’t know the half of it….none of you feckin’ do.”
She drained the rest of the mug. “Ya know what Red, you ain’t a bad listener.” Xandilif settled back and closed her eyes, and within a few minutes was snoring softly, asleep in the chair watching over Catalinna.
Outside the closed door, her back pressed to it with her shoulders shaking, was Finchley. She reached up to wipe fresh tears off her cheek, but they had not been shed over what happened in Fornost. She shook her head slowly. “Not stand the sight of you? Lif…you are such a doofus…”. The sound of snoring helped her decide that this was a talk for the two to have another time and she went off to see if there were more of those cheese crackers in the pantry.
