Back to Chapter 18 - If you are feeling depressed or even suicidal, please ask for help. If you can't find someone close to you, go to the Suicide Prevention Hotline website to get help.
It was as if a test had been created by their Lady. The men and women training together to protect the household were sent to find and watch her. They were told not to disturb her, not to approach her. If possible, not to let her know they were there at all.
It took time to go through the land and see where she had been. It took a little more time and they found her sitting next to a stream thick with ancient ash from the dead volcano. To get there, places they did not know existed were passed, little nooks and crannies in the land and woods. Bushes ripe with berries, an old apple orchard and a husk of a building long since burned were now known. Deep ditches and natural pitfalls were discovered and marked for later investigation.
The silent signals that had started with the dancers were used to pass information back through the teams that had found her, and back to the others who were still searching. Information was passed, strengthening the training they were giving each other.
Laun’s need to be alone had been useful, if not to her, then to the household.
It had been weeks since she had been alone. Once she had been accepted by the household as their Lady, she had someone with her almost every moment of the day and night. When she had been alone, the faces of those she had left behind in the castle and keep would show themselves in her mind, dragging her into a despair she sometimes could not bring herself out of.
As she sat by the stream, she watched the thick ripples flow down in the grey water. The water was as thick as her mind. She could not see into the water and something was keeping her from looking into her own mind. She had stopped crying over the deaths a week ago. She just did not have the tears left. She could not bring the people back and the household still with her did not need to see tears.
She needed the touches, the reassurance that the people around her were really there, alive. She counted them every day. It was how she had forced herself to know her numbers. Ninety eight people including her. And now another six with the nobles that had come with King Dreng. One hundred and four people in her household. One hundred and four that she had to protect. One hundred and four she needed to comfort. One hundred and four.
And now, her first sworn had... Laun let a tear out. She did not know what he had done. What had she done?
She held her knees to her chest, the scar on her hip pulling, but she did not care. The physical pain she had endured seemed to be nothing now. The pain in her head, from not knowing why she was still alive and not knowing what she needed to do was great. The thought of doing something that could hurt any of her people made her shiver, and not in the way Edgar had made her shiver.
The thought of his hand on her sent a thrill through her. She did not know if it was right or wrong. It just was. His strength had kept her strong for the journey back to their lands. His body had kept the nights warm and the ghosts away. But...
Grey eyes flashed in her mind. Fount. There was a feeling in her heart for him she did not have a word for. He was what she was protecting. He was why she awoke in the night to listen to breathing at her side. He was the energy that allowed her to push through every day.
They were just two of the people in the household. She was just one. Others had more skills. Others had more knowledge. Others were more beautiful. Others...
It was not that she wished privacy. It occurred to her that she had never had it before. When you are owned by someone, you are expected to have nothing for yourself, including privacy. It just seemed that, as the head of the household, she was owned by not one Master or Mistress, but all the others in the house. Each person having just a small piece of her. One hundred and four pieces.
They could all have their little pieces of her if they would just be safe.
Laun stood and looked past the stream and to the volcano where it came from. There were clouds behind it, flowing over it’s top and past. More rain was on it’s way. The rain last night had brought the King. Laun wondered what this rain would bring.
Onto Chapter 20 The first feast for The King and his retinue is held, the slide to formality grating on the openness that has been cultivated
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