#arjes

Happy New Moon in Aries! I made some affirmations for the astrological fresh start the Aries New Moon represents! <3

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Arjes ven Refurn was sitting up, propped between barrels of rye, dozing. There were no passenger cabins on the Harvest Moon, of course, and the sailors had made no secret that they did not wish to share sleeping quarters with three strangers. The feeling was mutual; no one really knew where Meg went to sleep at night (or if she slept at all; no one had ever witnessed such a thing), but the two men had made themselves comfortable in the hold—in a storage room on the gallery. This didn’t appear to be a normal place for cargo; at a glance, it seemed that upon loading the greater holds, just a few barrels wouldn’t quite fit, and had ended up socked away here. In any case, it was private, and secure enough. As Arjes dozed under the yellow glow of a glass chemical lamp, the door swept open as silently as if on a breeze; the knob hadn’t made so much as a whine when turned. It shut again with not a breath of a noise. Amused, Reschauld stole closer to Arjes and leaned on a barrel beside him. “Waiting for someone?” Half this small sentence was drowned out by Arjes’ cry of surprise. He looked around wildly, finally fixing on Reschauld in exasperation. “Is there another entrance in here? I’ve been sitting here watching this door for an hour, how did you get back in this room?” “Sorcery,” Reschauld answered dryly. He pulled a little glass disc out of his pocket; he’d had this meddler’s lamp for decades, and still it shone stubbornly when activated. Jenny had been nagging him to make or buy a new one, but Reschauld had never bothered to. “And how could you have been up watching the door for an hour? I’ve only been out for twenty minutes, if that.” Reschauld drew forth a journal and some papers from within his coat. “What are those?” “Needle and thread. I’m going to work on my cross-stitch.” Arjes twisted his lips in a scowl. “Don’t blame it on me when they throw us overboard.” Reschauld leveled a droll glare at him. “The difference between your mischief and mine is that people notice when you make trouble. I could rob them all blind and paint the word ‘scurvy’ on all their ballsacks without anyone noticing. They’d probably hang us on the prow by our toes if you so much as took an extra corn chip at breakfast.”

Reschauld wasn’t old, yet. Autumn in the Seaside Castle was a tumultuous time. The preparations of a castle of such a size for the grueling winter months were the work of virtually half the year. The hay, alone, to feed the stables’ famed thousand horses, not to mention the scores of dairy cows, the hundred or more donkeys and asses, and the myriad goats that were kept in the castle’s lower levels was the work of a small army to store and portion. No wonder the castle chamberlain appeared to not have slept since 502. Just as troubling were the late-summer storms that hurled whipping rain and ravenous wind against the castle walls, rattling windows and light sleepers, pushing the thoroughly-tested strength of the stone floors until even the hardiest soul in the keep might have begun to doubt the castle’s durability. By the time these storms blew themselves out, winter would begin and bring with it nights that grew cooler and days that grew shorter. And pain in his hands. Reschauld stubbornly pressed on, meticulously penning the final paragraph of his letter of congratulations to the Lord Fenegret and the Lady Gretielle on their recent marriage. Actually, it was not his letter. The newlywed nobles likely wouldn’t recognize his face, let alone his name. This letter was from Lady Revenhjar, Reschauld’s sworn liege, and her indisposed husband. Reschauld’s aching fingers paused over the final “honorable” the message was to contain. Lord Revenhjar had always preferred to write his own personal congratulations and consolations and dispatches of this type. Official letters, summons, replies to inquiries, any communication about business and the running of his and his wife’s lands, he would have not hesitated to assign the writing to someone else. But personal letters, even to people he did not know well, the Lord had always taken the time to write in his own hand. The fire in the grate lapped against the soot-smeared marble of the fireplace. Its warmth flowed out across the study, over the thick Yvella rug dyed in their famous twisting patterns and the heavy old bookcases packed to bursting with books and scrolls, old and new, mostly read and kept within easy reach. Shadows filled the space, from the gaping blackness of the hearth’s enormous mantel to the tiny chiseled patterns in the wood of the furniture around him and made Reschauld’s world seem deeper, perhaps even darker, than it appeared under sunlight. Beside him burned a little brazier fed with coals from his fireplace, and when Reschauld had written the last letter of the last word and forged his Lady’s signature with a hand that had been practicing for decades, sprinkled the wet ink with sand and set the parchment out to dry, he finally turned to the wonderful heat source and held his sore bones near it. Absently, he tugged at the snug wrist of his sleeves, ensuring his arms were fully covered. The heat radiated, melted into his skin like liquid and erased the creaking pain between his fingerbones. There was a knock on the door and Reschauld quite nearly leapt out of his skin. He snatched his hands back from the brazier and peered over his spectacles at the open door to his study.  Without ceremony, as usual, in strode his life’s loudest occupant and his best friend of over twenty years.

The preparations for their run that night were in full swing, quietly rolling against the edges of town like lapping waves on the shore. Reschauld had slipped away hours ago. If Arjes was half as sneaky, he would have, also, but these young rebels clung to the older and more experienced fighters like ducklings learning to swim. Something about the whole arrangement didn’t sit well with Arjes, but he’d be lost to place it. Like a chiming bell beneath the roar of drums and shouts—Arjes simply couldn’t get a hold of it. Even now, as he climbed the inn’s rattling and creaking stairs, it eluded comprehension. It should have satisfied him enough to know that Reschauld had it handled—Reschauld always had these things handled—but that Jerne upstart was going to cause problems. He’d been twittering around like a maniac all day, and it took a great deal of restraint on Arjes’ part not to punch him in the jaw to shut him up for a few minutes. The kid was so small, a punch from Arjes would likely knock him flat, just like when he’d first sparred with Reschauld. He’d been, and remained, a lightweight also. Arjes opened the door to their room at the inn with every intention of telling Reschauld exactly this. All thoughts of teasing—in fact, all thought in general—puffed out when he saw his oldest friend slumped over in the spindly wooden chair at the far end of the room. His eyes were rolled back. His face was white. A reddish bottle and a brown glass vial sat open on the table in front of him.

“Living,” Reschauld spat. “Living, Arjes. Going about my days, one after the other. Taking their orders. Teaching the girls. Waking up, working, going to bed. Repeating. Gods, going back to being Reschauld the Advisor. I don’t even know who I fucking am anymore. And all of it, knowing she’s… knowing I’ll never…” Tears were welling up in Reschauld’s eyes, now. “Gods, Arjes…! He offered me everything! I could have been her husband now—! What do I care about the Allied Kingdoms or Lord and Lady Revenhjar or King fucking Theo—Reina was all I wanted, and I almost had her!” Sobs choked out his words. “We could’ve been nobles—or we could have lived in—in a farmhouse. She could have—kept me chained up by the f-fireplace and it would have—been enough!” Reschauld’s empty stare collapsed in grief. “Why?! She w-was my—h-home, Arjes! I would—have done—anything—almost anything—just—” Arjes watched helplessly as Reschauld folded under the weight, leaning heavily on the rigging and shaking as if he felt the cold for the first time.

EK Rochford

Sir Waylar nodded; both the knight and squire were made up in the military dress uniforms that Arjes had complained of. Arjes’ spotless coat did look a little snug in the shoulders. “Never just ‘Presider’, because there are actually presiders in the six districts that also are addressed ‘Presider’, and it could be taken as an insult to suggest Bjorskrim is anything less than High Presider.” “Oh, because I know I would be mortified if someone mistook me for just a presider.” Sir Waylar frowned at Arjes. “Just say what I told you to, for today. Let’s just get through the greeting ceremony. After that, we probably won’t see him much.” Reschauld looked up at the blustery summer sky and hoped that was accurate. It was a fine day, and many a worse morning had been passed waiting impatiently for events to roll into motion. Those who had managed to sleep at all the previous night were roused early, and all the lingering preparations to disembark were hastily completed. Reschauld’s page—Tim had been volun-told for the journey—faithfully pieced his court outfit together, as always, all half-thousand buttons. “The Bench of Lords still exists, right?” “Right, but where we say ‘Lord’ this or that, here, they say ‘Faelar’.” “And ‘fael’ for gentlemen, and ‘Faellim’ for ladies, and ‘faem’ for madams, and ‘felle’ for young ladies, yeah, I know. I meant, didn’t they destroy the Bench of Lords, too? During the revolution?” Waylar sighed. “Whatever you do, don’t bring up the revolution, Arjes. Avoid it at all costs. Leap out a window, pretend you don’t understand Fjordestij, hide under the nearest lady’s skirt. Anything else.” “So is that a yes?”