2 A Faithful Meeting (2)

The young man travelled from village to village and never stayed long, nor said a word. But gossip is a force to reckon with and rumours spread of a mysterious noble warrior who ventured around Ralloh. In some settlements he would spend up to a few days. The people there would always try and speak with him, only to be ignored.

"What's your name?", "Where are you from?", "Is that a sword?", "Are you a noble?". Such questions would always surround the young man, but he never replied to them.

Many felt offended at first, they thought that the handsome man considered them beneath him.

"Yeah. That's a noble all right. Ignoring us like we are nothing" they would scoff.

But after they would see him around their hometown, not necessarily fighting thieves, but simply helping an elder carry their items, or playing with the children, they would change their mind. Some people then started spreading rumours that the young man was mute and could not speak, to which many would nod and agree with.

"Have you seen him? Maybe he can't speak" a woman would gossip.

"My cousin's child is the same. Poor kid can't speak" another would agree.

"You think that he's a mute?" a new person would ask joining in the conversation.

"That's possible isn't it? Maybe that's why he's not looking our way? Maybe he feels embarrassed by his disability?" someone would then defend him.

Others, who would try to speak with him and saw the utter confusion in his eyes, would understand that he could not comprehend their words. This caused people to have yet another split opinion about him.

"Poor man. Maybe he is sick?" someone would ask.

"Why would he be alone then?" another would argue.

"Maybe he doesn't have anyone" an elder would then say in his defence, feeling sorry for him.

Regardless of their opinion, it caused many to simply shake their heads. It was only those who truly believed him to be a noble would declare that he must have come from a faraway land, where people spoke a different language.

"I heard that they speak in another language in the North" woman gossiped.

"From the North? Why would someone from the North come here?" another villager would ask back.

"Look at him" she would say, "He is clearly a noble. Maybe he is a relative of Queen Lunahera. Everyone knows that the Queen is from the North. Maybe he is on his way to visit her."

"They look nothing alike", would be scoffed back.

"And how would you know how the Queen looks? Have you seen her perhaps?" others would then laugh at the poor villager.

The word spread like fire in the region. People would speak with their friends or relatives from nearby villages about this mysterious person and he became a somewhat local celebrity that suddenly everyone knew about. He also gained some fame from when he saved a few villages from thieves that terrorised them, some days before the Knights patrolling the lands would come by.

Despite the numerous rumours and opinions of him, the young man remained ignorant. Just like they suspected, he could not understand what they were saying. He tried his best to guess the meaning of some of the words that were being said to him, but spare for the basic ones, such as hello, thank you and good bye, he was at a total loss.

'This is getting more difficult by the day' he would sigh, 'Is there really no one around here that could understand me?' he wondered, feeling miserable.

'Those strange creatures are nice' he would also think whenever someone would give him food or flowers, 'If only I knew their language'

Such thoughts always plagued his mind. On some days, despite being surrounded by many people, he felt on the verge of crying. It felt lonely, even when those weak creatures would act friendly with him.

'I am no longer sure if being here is a blessing or a curse' he would then think, 'On the bright side, I finally escaped my homeland, but on another, I am stuck in a place where no one can understand me.'

This was also how word of this mysterious man reached the city of Merabil, and Aldryn, who at the time was a guest of King Ilmar. After hearing those interesting news, the oracle could not help himself but be intrigued. It appeared to him that people started sighting this person not long after the final victim was found. Despite not finding out a name, the priest knew that people regarded him as the Wanderer, as he seemed to have no destination set in mind and simply roamed around. While this was a coincidence that Aldryn could not ignore, some part of him refused to associate the Saviour of Common Folk, as villagers came to call him, with the murderer that the oracle sought.

"Isn't that just a nice coincidence?" the fox then said amused, "A murderous creature disappeared and a mysterious hero appeared."

"You think they slayed the creature?" Aldryn then asked the Thrae.

"No" it then laughed back, "People are greedy. If someone killed that creature they would have long ago claimed the credit for it."

"So what?" the blonde then wondered, "What are you trying to say?"

"Isn't it obvious?" the fox said slyly, "Our create turned over a new leaf"

"Now that's ridiculous" Aldryn only scoffed.

"Wanna bet on it?" the Thrae then asked amused.

"We literally share the same body" the blonde argued, "What could we possibly bet on?" he then sighed and then begun ignoring the fox.

Its idea seemed ridiculous to him. Yet despite this, Aldryn could not help but think that he was chasing a ghost. He thought that maybe the creature that came through the waterfall of light has decided to go into hiding and strike when everyone forgot about it, or maybe it was found by the Nalrits and Shayra, which caused a shiver to run through Aldryn. Then, the Thrae's words continued to play at the back of his mind, seeming more real each time he thought about it. Aldryn also felt a pull toward the mysterious new hero. He wished to meet and put a face to the name, or rather to the titles that were bestowed upon him.

So that was why, a few days after hearing all those strange rumours, the oracle has declared that he must depart. To the King he said that he had to make haste and chase the beast that slaughtered the poor humans found around the forests and fields. To which, the King only nodded and declared for every servant to hear that if there was anything that the great Oracle of Light deemed necessary on this quest, it must be given to him without a second thought.

Despite his host's desire to fill his travel bag with food and other items that a human might see as a prime necessity, Aldryn would simply grab the hands of the servants' children, who were tasked with bringing him the food, and tell them to hide it underneath their clothes and take the food home. And if were the King to ask them, the priest urged the children to say that it was him who greedily accepted the food offered to him for this quest. And if were the King to approach Aldryn and ask him, the priest would nod his head without hesitation and claim to have taken the offers.

"It is such a pity", Aldryn heard a whisper at the back of his mind, "Despite so many ages passing, the poor remain poor and the rich become richer. While the skeleton of the children are becoming more pronounced by each generation."

To this, the oracle didn't know what to say. His eyes were following the children running around, helping their parents. All of them wearing worn and somewhat torn clothes. Their feet were nearly bare, as the shoes were obviously worn before for many years. Thinking now, he truly pitied them, but there was not much that he could do. He could still remember himself as a child, being similar to those running in front of his eyes. He remembered seeing his own reflection in the water when he was young. The dirty old clothes and the pronounced bones, the way the skin seemed to be plastered over his ribs.

"Was I that thin?" the blonde wondered, trying his hardest to remember.

While he could find certain similarities between his past self and the children running around, there was also much that he could not believe in. The children in the castle looked half starved, while he clearly remember having at least one meal per day.

"Years pass and everything seemed to change, yet when we truly look, we see that everything remained just as it was", he heard another sigh in his mind.

Unfortunately, there was not much that Aldryn could do for the servants, spare for trying to ease their lives while he was a guest in the old castle. He tried to speak with the King about it, but was only told that all the servants were being paid generously and it was not his fault that the parents of their children would rather spend coins in taverns than on their family. It was untrue, the oracle knew, for he disguised as a servant a few days previously and spoke with the people working around the castle. While the guards had a somewhat decent salary, the poor women from the kitchen were paid barely enough to put some food on the table.

The land of Ralloh was a poor one. The Kings there for ages lived mostly on the harvest their villages made, as there was close to no trade happening in their lands. This was also one of the reasons why the King was so eager to marry away his only daughter to King Ildurin, in hopes that it will bring them some riches.

While Ildurin was a generous King and would never refuse someone in need, the pride of King Ilmar would never allow him to ask for help from a nearby kingdom if they were not tied by marriage. Ralloh was one of those lands that was not only poor in its riches, but also in its position. It was surrounded from all four sides by other Kingdoms that had one or another advantage. The lands of the Silver City was filled with great rivers that many merchants had to use to transport their goods, which caused their markets to always be filled to the brink. The lands to their North, the Kingdom of Enralm had one of the three passages that people could use to travel through the mountain of Diarum, the other two being the underground tunnels and the cursed forest. It seemed that riches were bestowed upon all the surrounding Kingdoms, spare for Ralloh itself.

He finally departed when the sun was about to set and the main gates of the city were ready to be locked for the night. On his way, Aldryn greeted the warriors returning from hunts and the soldiers who were just returning from their patrol. Not many children were outside playing, most of them being forced to work around the castle for their parents to be able to put food on the table.

'What a sad city', the priest could not help but think.

"More like one filled with morons" the fox only scoffed and quickly continued when the blonde wanted to scold it.

"The Kenmen took a forsaken land and managed to create one of the most prosperous cities located above the ground" it explained, thinking back to Gilton.

He remembered like it was just yesterday. When the Fox still walked the earth in its own body, it heard of a group of people who decided to live on a cursed land. It felt amused by the idea and decided to watch them for a while for entertainment. To it's surprise though, those people, the Kenmen, managed to build their city and make it the richest one in the North. The fox would still often compare the glory of Gilton with that of the Silver City, which was still but a small fishing village at the time. This interest made the fox approach the people, who treated it with respect. The Kenmen were the first humans to not demand anything from the Thrae, perking its interest even further. That was how the fox begun living in the mountains surrounding that city and even became it's symbol after it helped the Kenmen defend themselves against another Thrae.

While the fox was remembering its days of glory, Aldryn was lost in his own thoughts. He knew that he would speak with Ildurin regarding Ralloh once again when he would return to the Silver City, but knew that there was not much even the famed King of Men could do. He knew of the many attempts that Ildurin has made to help those lands, but the current King was too proud to receive assistance from nearby kingdoms, not wishing to be seen as weak. No, Aldyn thought, the only way to help those people would be if Ildurin and him would come up with a more cunning plan. He knew the kind heart that his friend had and while he was prideful, like any other noble, Ildurin had a love for his people that no other King could ever match.

Those thoughts consumed the oracle as he walked. Everything around him was peaceful. The birds were singing from their nests in the trees and Aldryn could hear a few deer munching on the grass near the flowing water of a river.