#vicoya 02

It was nothing short of a trek from Haven to where Caer Glas Keep sat watch over the bay between the Silverlands and the Feywilds, but Freydis was happy to make it. She had come to town a few days early, affording herself plenty of time to meet up with the artisan she had written to in order to commission a gift for her Legionnaire friend. The extra time permitted Freydis to be certain the gift was completed with the proper care, quality, and attention to detail. As the once-jarl rode a borrowed horse to a pasture near the keep she couldn’t help but miss her own horse. It had been a gift from another jarl, a foal that came into its own at the same pace Freydis had as a young noble. It was the first horse she had owned and trained for the sake of enjoyment rather than for labor, and she had loved it fiercely until she had parted ways with it during the initial flight toward Nornwatch. She had offered it up to an elderly man struggling to keep up, a quiet pact made between them that the steed would be returned to her once they were in the safety of the watchtower. The fates had divined so many cruel turns of events since then, and it was more than Freydis could manage to think of what fate befell that elderly man or her horse. But it allowed her to understand Vicoya’s widely known love for her own horse, Mabel. 

Freydis was not necessarily expecting a formal party. The other members of the legion she had met didn’t seem the type, especially the dark-haired moody one who seemed to be the catalyst for the event. But she noticed Etienne keeping the broody-looking host company, and suspected if he was someone Etienne approved of then there was more to him than what met the eye. She balanced the box meant for Vicoya in her arms as she looked for the familiar red-headed woman. With her signature, fiery locks–and it being that she was the reason for the festivities in the first place–it did not take long to find her. 

For some time now, every waking minute had felt like a violent tug-of-war between her head and her heart. In the night, her lucid dreaming felt like a nightly snipping of the sutures she spent every morning carefully placing in an attempt to sew back together her bleeding heart. But the last few days had had moments of levity, windows of time where her memories of the arches didn’t eclipse all else. This was one of those moments. Patiently, Freydis waited for Vicoya to have a small gap between chatting with her fellow Legionnaires and greeting the guests who had made the trip to celebrate her. 

“Happy birthday, Vicoya,” Freydis greeted, balancing the gift box on her hip as she used her free arm to loop around Vicoya in a warm, enthusiastic hug. So many of their conversations had been heavy, tear-stained affairs, but they had bonded over stronger matters than misery alone by now. Even so, it was a welcome change of pace to enjoy her company in a circumstance that demanded pure celebration. “I’ve brought you something, but I’m sure you’re busy–you don’t have to open it now. I just want to make sure it doesn’t get displaced.”