#voshanin

Voshanin

(x)

(Many years ago, following this).

Theothar earned his chance to speak to Voshanin about the tensionboiling between them, but not in a manner either man would choose.

Veriinya burst into the barracks long after dusk. Most of theVindicators had returned from long guard shifts around the temple and thesurrounding land, save a few. “Vosh!” she called over the din ofrelaxing - and thus rowdy - fighters. “Voshanin!”

The man sat up in his bunk immediately. “Veriinya?”

She shoved across a game of dice and kicked over a nearly fullbottle of alcohol in the process, in a rush to reach him. Protests snapped at her ankles.

His stomach tightened and he threw off the covers. Something musthave gone terribly wrong at the village.

Minutes later, Voshanin stalked down the stairs, a pillar ofglittering fury. The previously-disturbed paladins scrambled to follow, butnone moved as fast as he. “Go to Ishnia and wake her up,” hegrowled at Veriinya. “Tell her I am traveling to the villageimmediately to investigate the kidnapping.”

“You won’t have backup when you get there!”

“I will get there right when I perfectly well intendto.”

The pale-haired Peacekeeper paused and flicked her tail, anxious.Watching Voshanin’s armored back grow smaller and smaller. She ached to follow him,but he had given an order, and she only knew she had to follow it instead.

It wasn’t anywhere close to an even fight. Battered and bloodied,Voshanin felt his skull collide with a hard stone wall, and the heavy finalityof a chain clanged around his neck.

When he woke, a hand grasped his. Warm, strong, and familiar.Voshanin’s swollen eyes couldn’t open to see his fellow prisoner.

A muffled voice slurred his name.

Voshanin, whose mouth had not been shackled shut like the other man’s,spoke clearly. “Theo.”

(To be continued)

(Many years ago, following this)

Theothar felt awful, and hesmelled worse.

All alone in the showerroom, the Vindicator was too distracted by the wonderful hot water streamingdown and cleansing him to notice much else. He’d spent the evening with hiscontingent running hard drills – made more arduous, he was certain, byIshnia’s ire – and then he and Voshanin separated themselves in order to cleanopposite sides of the barracks while everyone else proceeded to the mess.Theothar’s stomach grumbled. Voshanin had completed his half without aword and left Theo alone to finish the latrines.

Now hours late for dinner,he resigned himself to a long, hungry night. Crestfallen, he wondered ifanything with Voshanin would be right again, after the verbal lashing his friend gave him in the woods.

“Theo, are you in here?” Awoman’s familiar voice floated in through the steam.

Theothar perked. “Hey,kiddo, I’m in here.” He sounded tired.

Veriinya perched on a bench angled away from the stall. “We just got back from the village and Ididn’t see you out there. There’s a meteor fall tonight and everyone isclamoring over the good spots.”

At the moment, Theothardidn’t care about bright balls of gas raining on him. Just hot jets of waterwashing away his day. “That’s good.”

Unused to such a conciseresponse from the ebullient man, Veriinya peered at the steam cloud containing the Vindicator. “Iseverything okay?”

“No.” Theothar’s throattightened.

“What happened?”

“Voshanin yelled at me andIshnia put me on latrine duty. I’m so hungry I could eat a whole nest of akaliri eggs.”

Blinking in surprise,Veriinya straightened. “Why did Vosh yell at you?”

Theothar rubbed his face andturned off the water. The echoed privacy of the shower noise faded. “Apparently hesaw you and me kiss and thought that I’d been awful and ignoring you ever since then.He had a lot of choice insults Ithink he was saving just for the right occasion.”

“You lost me.”

“Don’t you remember, whenyou helped me get away from that crazy Anchorite?” By now he’d had time to ransackhis mind and locate the offensive moment on the garden path.

Of course she recalledperfectly. “That was just to get her off your tail, unless…?”

“Unless nothing, that’s allit was! I can still remember you cuddling up with Mister Babub on the trundlenext to me because you couldn’t sleep. You know I love you, kiddo, just never like that.”

Her cheeks darkened at thereminder of her stuffed childhood companion, as well as Theothar’s admission of affection. “And Vosh thought we were…” Veriinyastarted to laugh, but it sounded hollow to Theothar. Maybe it was the tilewalls.

He leaned on the divide andpeered over at her. “I don’t know how to fix it. How do I fix it?”

“Have you tried talking tohim?”

“Tried, didn’t get too manywords in edgewise between all the hurling of epithets and names.”

She frowned. “Well did you finish talking to him? Maybe he justneeded to get it out of his system before he could start listening back.” At thevillage, she’d learned a little bit about unrest and expression, and the Peacekeepershad done an admirable job of keeping everything calm, she thought. That was the main reason the people felt they could gather and watch the meteor fall together. With a few arguments over who got the best position to view the sky.

“Ishnia did interrupt usbefore he had a chance to fully nail shut my coffin,” Theothar mused. “I’ll talk to him.”Thus resolved, a grin appeared on the jovial man’s lips again, in its rightfulplace. “I tell you what though, you ever meet someone who treats you the wayVosh thought I was treating you, I’ll kick that Naaru-cursed lout from here all the way across the wall.” Theothar lifted both arms. “Ten points!”

Again, Veriinya laughed, buther glass face shone with worry. Had Voshanin really treated Theotharthat terribly, all because of her? Did he really care that much? The seed of an ideanestled in the furrows of her mind.

“Now I’m going to getsomething to eat and watch a meteor fall! You want to come with, kiddo?”

“Oh, sure.” Veriinya tossedhim a towel and after he dried and dressed, she and Theothar walked to the mess side byside.

Voshanin strode through the hallways to the barracks, whistling to himself.  Things were going well; Ishnia was pleased with his latest reports, and when the Commander was happy, it trickled down to the men.   Ishnia was always good about ensuring it wasn’t just the bad that went downhill.

His whistling stopped abruptly as he stepped into the barracks and encountered his friend Theo wearing… a very frilly, feminine gown.  “Uh.  Theo?”

The other Vindicator didn’t get a chance to respond before Veriinya brushed past him, pins in her mouth.  “Hi Vosh.  Theo, don’t slouch, I need to hem this evenly.”  As she dropped to her knees, Voshanin felt his face flushing dark.

“Apparently I’m the closest one to her size,” Oblivious to his friend’s rising blood pressure, Theo grinned cheerfully.  “I feel real pretty Vosh, you should try it sometime!”

Veriinya sat back on her heels, and the moment passed.  “Turn around, let me see.”  Focused on the dress, neither of them noticed when Voshanin beat a hasty retreat.

(x)

Two shiny figures inimpeccable dress armor stood silent and watchful outside the ornate doors ofthe Auchenai complex. A perpetual red gleam bathed the grounds in false dusk.The light of this planet’s star glowed cooler and darker, near the end of itsown immense lifespan.

Yet even a dying sun wouldoutlast the people huddled for refuge within its reach, for in only afew decades they would flee again from the Legion.

The shorter of the pair, apale-haired woman, shifted her balance and sighed. “He can’t stay in thereforever, it’s not good for him.”

Next to her, a sober-facedman began a nod to agree, and then shook his head. “Let’s give him another hourbefore we pack it in. She was the last family he had.”

“Tedre was his sister,right?”

“Twin sister. She got caughtin a bad fire.”

Veriinya stared atthe door again. The final rites had been performed early that morning, andthey’d waited all day for their friend to reappear. “Is there any–”

She halted as the greatdoors swung open, and another pair emerged. Like the two soldiers below, the malevastly out-massed the female, but he clung to her arm, and she to his, as thoughthey couldn’t stand upright without the other. It lasted only a few steps before he detached at the top of thestairs, received a last hug from the Auchenai priestess, and tottered down thesteps to his companions.

They recognized the woman asthe Soulbinder that had performed the rites her soft blue eyes raw with grief.The Vindicator moving to join them looked no better. “Hey,” he mumbled.

Stepping forward, thepale-haired warrior clasped him in a tight embrace. “I’m so, so sorry Theo,”Veriinya whispered, knowing the inadequacy of her offering, but she had nothingelse to give. He sniffed loudly.

“We’ll take you home,”Voshanin rumbled, troubled. He glanced up the stairs, and observed the arrival of another man. A lean guardian with a looming scowl looked back as he took asentinel’s stance next to the weeping priestess. He extended his arm, she tookit. They turned together to disappear through the Auchenai doors.

(This is set before current events, when no one knew whether Veriinya was dead or alive.)

Voshanin sat on the edge of his bed, the trunk he had retrieved from Lunarfall open in front of him, the vestiges of a life lived distilled down into a single footlocker.  The bottle of whiskey had been full when the evening began, and it had taken him a 5th to get up the courage to open the lid.

It was packed neatly; heavy items layered on the bottom, smaller more delicate things lain on top.  What had prompted her to keep this broken bit of chainmail?   This old, faded ribbon?  Veriinya had been one of those people that had a sense of purpose in their personal items; even if he was unable to ascertain it, each item had importance.  Because She had chosen it.

It was at the bottom of the chest that he found it; a small wooden box, delicately carved.  He felt as though his heart had stopped beating; he had seen this box so many times over the years, and it seemed that if it was now in his hands... then she was truly gone for good.

She'd called it her treasure chest, laughing that it contained the most important things in her life.  He could still remember the last time he had seen her open it.

“You should keep this.”  She pressed the bit of steel and ribbon into his palm and tried to curl his fingers around it, her touch warm.   “I cannot accept such a gift, Voshanin.”

Her eyes were so clear; grey like a winter sky, framed with sooty dark lashes.  He wanted to fall into them, to drown in their depths.  His mouth curved upward, turning his hand to shift the medal back into her hand.  “I want you to have this.  As... a token of my esteem.”

She had tucked the medal into the little box in his hands while he watched, the conversation shying away from the deep waters of their relationship and on to more innocuous things while their eyes made promises that neither of them could put into words.

The medal was still there; the metal tarnished in a wide swath, as if a thumb had rubbed over it repeatedly over the years, the ribbon discolored and worn.  Both medal and box tumbled from his fingers as he bent over and wept... for the woman that died, the woman that lived – and was perhaps now dead too.  For lost chances, lost loves. 

(x)

(Following this, years ago)

Anchorite Trianaar’s eyes flashed dangerously as Voshanin fled into the crowd, leaving her with this white-suited buffoon in silver mask. She may have appreciated his dark hair and strong, handsome jaw, but she didn’t care for the idiotic grin on his face, after he noticed that his friend and companion had both disappeared.

“That didn’t take very long,” Vindicator Theothar chirped, as though pleased, but not surprised with the development.

Trianaar was less enthused. “What didn’t?” her voice held an edge.

Theothar waved a big, white-gloved hand. “Nothing.” He plopped down next to her. “So! Anchorite Trianaar, was it? You know, that is a lovely dr--”

“Who was that?” she interrupted him, her tail flicking.

“Who?” he blinked, baffled.

“The woman you escorted here tonight, Vindicator.” Though not an Exarch herself, being the direct progeny of one apparently gave her authority to question him as a superior.

For an instant, Theothar felt cornered, his heart hammering not unlike how it did when Ishnia really lit a fire under his tail. “Oh! Uh… my friend Veri. P-Peacekeeper Veriinya, I mean. Why?”

“A Peacekeeper?” Trianaar’s expression softened, as though washed in relief. Nothing to worry about then. Not someone who had any kind of real importance or clout, and she wasn’t even all that pretty. Trianaar assured herself that Voshanin would return soon. In the meantime, she could entertain herself with this clod. “What were you saying, then? I’m sorry I interrupted… Theo.” She smiled, silky.

His worry prickled with alarm on the fringes. “I was just saying that… It’s a really lovely dress! Yes. And your mask, it’s so… pointy.” His hand waved around, helpless.

Trianaar laughed, a false, empty sound, but she looped her arm with the man’s and pulled close against his elbow. Might as well give Voshanin a taste of what he might stand to lose, while she waited for him to get his head on straight. At least for the moment, her drink was full.

(X)

“Perhaps you should leave Auchindoun until after the Trial,”  Voshanin grunted as he got up off his knees, having completed a minute inspection of Seriol’s desk for any unpleasant surprises.

“I have duties here.”   Seriol pushed past his legati and sat, reaching for the files he had left neatly stacked on the corner of his desk.  They had clearly been rifled through, and he felt a surge of fury radiating through him.  

“Sir, I can protect you better-“

“I will not run.”    Grey eyes met blue.  “See to whatever security measures you think best suited for my residence and office, but they will not chase me from Auchindoun.  Do I make myself understood?”

Voshanin bowed his head in silent acquiescence.