#rye posting

Down the road, boisterous laughter carries from a tavern. Rowdy knights, soldiers of the like, spending a late night with friends and comrades catching up. Comparing scars. Telling drunken stories. It calls to me, lures me like a siren in the water, hungry for blood.

So, I ignore the call. It’s easier these days to do so. To continue with my routine, as I have for many years now. Even though we are the same, the knights, the soldiers and I. Same build, same hands. Same callouses. Same blood lust.

But that life is not mine anymore. And entering that tavern will not bring back those I have lost. Only pull me deeper into a drink I didn’t want to begin with.

The doors of the bakery unlock clean, with a quiet click. I only need to light one candle these days. I know this place like the back of my hands. I know every floorboard that creaks, the bags of flour I need to use first. Where every pot, pan, and tray is located. I could work here blind if I so needed.

But I know soon the sun will rise. My doors will open so the smell of fresh goods waft into the roads. And I will greet the faces of people I used to protect. And in some ways I still do. Providing food, and goods is how I keep my oaths.

Out on the balcony is no different, though cool in nature. The heat at events like this is no laughing matter.

I shouldn’t be here. I should collect my money and leave.

But the view. The breeze. I missed it. The quiet hum of voices and music in the distance. The quiet chatter you can hear from the gardens.

“Commands are clear, son. We leave-“

“No no no no no. It won’t happen. I won’t do it.”

“You have no choice. Neither do I. You know that.”

“I care not, commander. I’ll be your martyr no longer. Bloody my hands endlessly for a crown that scoffs when my armor doesn’t shine. It rusts for them. It bends for them, it breaks and shatters for them. But lord forbid it does not glitter like their jewels.”

“Are-“

“No longer will I break my back for siblings in arms. Not when I know their fate, as they know mine. Watch them bleed and scar, just to laugh it off, when they may fall the next day and never rise.”

“Crying won’t change what we must do. What your assignment is.”

“Commander if I die tomorrow in that hell pit, what would you do?”

“You won’t-“

“Goddamn it, Vern, answer me.”

“You want my real answer Rye? I’d recruit more folks. Expand our ranks.”

“You’d expand?”

“Son don’t raise your voice at me-“

“I’m done, Vern. I’m leaving.”

“Abandoning your post? You know you won’t make it out of this camp intact if you do.”

“Are you planning on stopping me?”

“Perhaps not, but your fellow soldiers will surely try. You can’t fight through fifty armed knights, Rye. Even I know that.”

“But I can take down maybe ten. And I know who to fucking kill to ruin your life tomorrow. So you might actually have to fight. So you might actually feel the brush of death.”

“…”

“Move, Commander.”

“…I always knew you’d be a pain in my ass, Rye.”

Yet here his is. He remains. Slept the whole night in my bed, arm over my waist. His armor is back in his barracks just as he should be. But he’s here. Standing by my bed, holding the most rubbery burnt looking excuse for eggs. His scars proudly on display in my home. Long healed, unlike mine that are still a bit red.

He looks at me with a gentle gaze and says something I can’t quite catch. I’m just fixated on the food.

A gift, to give food to one who always feeds others. A gift, to sit with someone like me.

I know those rough hands, rougher than mine, that are placed on my counter expectantly. Expectant but patient. A level of confidence that resides deep within someone. That cannot be curated, but is apart of the soul of an individual.

Hir eyes bore into me, but when he orders, hir voice is soft. Delicately handing me coin, ensuring that our hands brush when he does. Always giving me too much, refusing to take any change.

He chats with me while I pack hir order. Always sure to make a reference or an innuendo only the two of us get.

And when the order is complete he lingers. Waits patiently, looking me up and down. Unhurried. Unrushed. Drinking me in, before taking hir leave. And some how when he leaves, we’ve always made plans before I even realize.

It is simple work. Pluck, drop, pluck, drop.

The creek gargles near by and the grass beneath me whistles as I pick. It holds secrets that the winds cannot carry. I have whispered many of mine to the grass before.

In quiet nights amongst the brambles. Him and I. When it didn’t matter who saw my scars running along my chest, so long as it was him. He saw what I was. And he kissed me without a second thought. Strong hands like mine. A tan like mine. Strong bodies that met amongst the ground of the earth, that melted next to the brambles.

The grass held that secret. A secret between him, and I, and the earth.