Tagaern - The taste of Old Law was still on my lips and warming my insides as I sat down inside the new waterfront apartment. Duncan’s dirty breastplate was there on the table facing me. I took my leave from Hakaar and his enigmatic companion, Silah, knowing it best not to overstay my welcome.
I spoke to the air, to Duncan’s plate, “Well, my friend. It is done… By Qinnah, we avenged you this day and we saved the world once more.”
I rose, autonomically went to my pack and drew out my cleaning cloths. Pulling the chair forth, I sat and started to clean the marks and blemishes, thinking as I did. As I had done for years, performing the cleaning like a religious rite to Qinnah.
Thank you, Goddess of Victory for using me as your mortal shield this day. Thank you for saving me those years ago…and not letting me be a vanquished soul.
I looked at the armor a moment, deeply into the sheen of it. “So what now?” I mused to the armor and to the faint sound of the ocean through the window. “This isn’t really home now is it? Then again nor was Materune any longer.” I realized this experience had changed me. Whereas before I felt only emptiness and lack of purpose, I’d found one. Though I was older now and too heavy, there was need for me. And that was home. That was what home meant, at once I realized. I continued my cleaning and polishing.
That’s what Duncan had realized years ago following the war, and with that he made his own home up here with those precious to him. Kella’s House. He made a new life for them and for himself up here in the Highlands.
There was something to that now. To rebuild it. Just as Jezero and the smaller holdings of Gefora had to be rebuilt after the Ten Years War. It would be the honorable thing to do, even his pleasure to help Amalia to do it. They would speak of it tomorrow.
