Tristan stared at the walls of Mileth as he thought about things. On the mainland of the Storm Coast, it seemed like loyalties were always shifting and nothing was stable. Laythe had not been Queen of Ligoria long, Blackrose had been exiled, he had destroyed Vale personally, and now it seemed a force from somewhere else had taken over a town. Well, nothing wrong with shifting loyalties; he hadn't seen the sense in staying true to any particular country in a long while anyway. Amnesia is a wonderful thing for those in charge, but when one overcomes it, well... c'est la vie, as the old men say. Not everything in his past was a lie; the past year of it was real enough, but before that...
Ah yes, before all of that. Lovely Aimee; she'd stayed by his side even when he couldn't remember why. Here and there she'd tried to give him little hints about who he really was, sometimes talking too much about history, other times bringing him something in spring for his birthday when his very name suggested she was a season late with it, a few instances when no one was around she would speak openly of how Dalannor was too stuck on blood and needed to be changed. He hadn't taken her seriously at the time, but when they were on the boat over Aimee had given him a special tea to help him remember and explained everything to him, from their time growing up on the streets, to the loyalty of the men on the boat to his cause, to the rebellion he'd almost led. Almost. During the first real battle he'd taken a blow to the head and was knocked unconscious, only to awaken later in the prisons below the castle.
Upon learning he could remember nothing from before the blow to the head, they told him he had merely drunk too much and required him to sleep it off for another day or so... clearly they had wanted time to decide what to do with him. Eventually they told him who he was, or who they wanted him to believe he was, and 'returned' him to his job as a guard in the palace. It was obvious to him now they were demoralizing his former soldiers by 'making their leader one of them,' and parading him around the castle every day where anyone could see him. Doubtless that was why he was always assigned to some highly visible spot, such as the battlements or the gate.
He at first thought that perhaps his lapse of duty - getting so drunk as to forget himself - was why he was being sent to Ligoria. He knew now the real reason for it, of course, but in a touch of delicious irony he thought he would keep the name 'Winterbourne.' It was now winter, after all, and he had been 'born' again in a fashion. He would return to the name Chéron when he was ready to take Dalannor. First, however, he needed to raise an army and get ships. Perhaps he should look for a coastal city; Ligoria was one, although he couldn't be returning there without explaining himself. Especially after sending a runner there saying he had been killed in the fighting.
"Perhaps we should offer to join up with them," Tristan said, turning to his men. Opinions were varied; some wanted nothing to do with the Dragon Empire, some saw no problem with it, and other didn't care who they were. "Fine. I suppose we'll move on. What's the closest city? Shola? Let's head there. I think if we let them know the Dragon Empire took their western neighbor we can get ourselves hired on to protect them, for awhile."
Head to Shola and offer our services to Lord Cain, with the explanation the Dragon Empire took Mileth and they might want another regiment around, just in case.
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Topic: You Are King II: Tales of the Storm Coast (Winter 416a) (Read 239005 times)