Correl of Otley
In the morning the duo collected their belongings onto Trillion, and were once again on the road. Correl felt a question dancing around on her lips almost immediately. From her placement on Trillion, she asked aloud, cutting through the morning silence, “What is Gauwynn like?” For a moment she felt that Lord Brighid hadn’t hear her, but her master seemed to snap out of a daze, turning to her a little too quickly.
“What is… Gauwynn like? It’s…well,” Lord Brighid seemed to roll the question around in her head, tilting from side to side, “It’s very still and calm there. Like a painting made real.”
“It sounds beautiful. “Correl mused, watching the road and catching more of those “maidenhair” leaves scattered across the ground and being picked up by the wind before dancing away. “What about House Gauwynn?”
“It’s… a house. I don’t…” Lord Brighid stuttered suddenly, looking away from Correl for a moment, “I don’t actually spend much time there…with my work taking me away so frequently.” When she looked back at her Correl saw her brow had furrowed significantly.
It was almost as if she didn’t remember, or she didn’t know and was trying to save face.
Correl had always figured if she lived in a fancy lord’s house, that she would never have been able to look through every room and hallway. Hell, she’d spent 15 years at Caer Wren and still found herself getting lost every now and then. She tried to not let it stick in her mind too much. She let the silence settle for a moment before asking something else, “I’m sure you and Trillion are more than happy to be going home?”
She pat the trusty horse’s mane, and felt him shake his head with a deep whinny in return, she’d become rather close with this animal, though she could say with certainty that she still didn’t know how to ride one.
“Trillion’s not from Gauwynn.” Lord Brighid stated absently, grey eyes casted down at her own feet.
Correl looked over to her, “He’s not? You said he was one of the best horses you’d ever ridden. Was he a gift from somewhere else then?” She supposed that a horse from home was not always the best option. Lord Brighid, still somewhat nonchalantly, said in a quieter voice that still caught the wind and carried, “He was tied outside when I was running away… but that was-”
“What were you running away from?” Correl tried and failed to keep the rising, concerned pitch out of her voice. In return, Lord Brighid balked, turning to Correl quickly, fear seemed caught behind her eyes, she began stuttering again.
“I-I meant… I wasn’t running away! I meant running, I had originally not brought a horse with m-me and… and… I found Trillion trying to run from someone following me at night.” Lord Brighid’s tone was shaky, on the verge of panic. She tried to calm herself, and once again turn away, but Correl could see something was wrong. Her fists clenched and unclenched.
Were they going to be running into some other assailant? But if it had been following them that would have had to be the dragon man from Fort Hawke, right? There couldn’t have been more than… Correl shuttered as she realized that Lord Brighid had planned this excursion explicitly because she felt someone had tampered with her route.
“How long have you been running away from these…monsters?” she asked, it was a careful question, she wasn’t trying to blame Lord Brighid, but she had to be sure.
For a moment, Lord Brighid ignored her, instead, rubbing her forearms and muttering something incoherent to herself. “…I” she started to speak, cutting herself off with a shake of the head before trying again, “Ever since I left Mynydd Gauwynn, I think… but I can’t, I don’t…”
Lord Brighid cut herself off before she spoke again and her eyes seemed to glaze over, with her gaze cast out once again over the autumn trails. Correl felt there was more she needed to ask, to be sure of.
“Do you think we’re going to be attacked again in Gauwynn?” Correl’s voice threatened to break, shifting to a higher pitch than she’d meant. Lord Brighid ignored her for the most part, head shifting slightly to look back at Correl before freezing back into place. Correl watched her mentor shake, it was subtle, but there. As she stood against the red and orange leaves, Correl thought, this must be the first time during the whole quest she’s looked like this around her.
She looked so cold and alone.
Instinctively, Correl brushed her shoulder, finally gaining Lord Brighid’s attention, “You’re going to be alright.” She said, albeit stiffly. She hoped her voice made up for it. Usually she asked if the lord knight was alright, needing the assurance from her before making a next move. But like with the other aspects of this… strange apprenticeship she found herself in, it wasn’t so simple as a mentor giving assurance and strength to their mentee. Sometimes… the complete opposite was needed.
Their walk was in silence again for a good few hours, until the sun had stationed itself squarely in the middle of the sky. Then Lord Brighid spoke up, still looking away from Correl. “When I left Gauwynn, I was immediately chased and tracked down by some specter, some monster. This one was not similar at all to the monster we fought at Fort Hawke, it couldn’t have been that one…”
Correl leaned over a bit, to hear her master’s soft voice against the wind. Lord Brighid said, “For the first three days of my journey, I was chased by some shadow… It appeared wherever I was, and disappeared whenever I thought I was finished. Only to reappear later somewhere else.”
“I became wary of crowds, and crowded places, scared of the dark…I- I watched every single movement I could see to make sure I wouldn’t be attacked again. In Fort Hawke, I was almost relieved. I thought this would be my monster… but it wasn’t.” Lord Brighid breathed out a deep sigh, low and shaky. “I realized that there had to be more than one assassin, more than one thing targeting the courts of Yor. And that my monster was still out there.”
Brighid stopped walking, and Correl struggled to pull Trillion to a stop as well.
This woman was considered larger than life. She was a force of nature, a master with a blade, death on wheels, the bane of evil… all those things that Correl had heard about in her time at Caer Wren and even before that. She looked none of it know, shrunken into herself, holding her arms for support as if they’d fall off and walk away… Correl slid off of Trillion’s back. With the reins in hand she walked over to Lord Brighid.
The taller woman froze as she approached, “I c-can’t promise we’ll be safe in Gauwynn either Correl. This is becoming bigger than me.” She mumbled
“Well that’s a very difficult promise to make, Lord Brighid. What with us being knights and all.” Correl shrugged, handing the reigns over to her master. “We’ll walk together then. Makes it easier to talk with you if I’m not craning down to look at you.”
Upon seeing Lord Brighid’s confused face, Correl started to walk again, patting Trillion to continue his trot and making sure that her lord was walking as well. “We’re going to be alright.” Correl reassured her, “And even if we aren’t, that’s exactly what we agreed to when we took our oaths.”
“You are not a coward,” Correl added, this being the second time she’d said it. The first, a supposed fact for the myth she’d only heard about in stories passed around evening dinners. This time, she meant it as a promise for the person she’d come to know.
She very nearly missed the quietest thank you coming from beside her as they walked on.
They’d ended up walking well into the next night, the wind rustling through the trees, serving as a constant rhythm as they marched into the mountainous region that marked the beginning of the land known as Mynydd Gauwynn.
Correl looked around the elevated landscape, and realized that Lord Brighid had been correct about her take on it. It was so quiet here, so still. Like watching a freshly finished painting. It felt… tense. Like waiting endlessly for a pen to drop that may never come. Correl looked over to Brighid and watched her face for a moment.
Lord Brighid stood completely still, very rarely blinking, like she was taking it all in. She’d not been here for some time. So to Correl, that was understandable. She figured it would always be strange to return home. There was also the fact that a murderer was possibly lurking around for them somewhere.
“House Gauwynn should not be too much further down this path.” Lord Brighid muttered, and Correl found she had to jog a little bit faster to keep up with her pace as her master began to march down the winding trail.
The pair walked down the one winding, open road that created the mountainous path, which led directly towards the famous House Gauwynn. Either through exhaustion, hunger, the biting cold of the autumnal air, or a mixture of all three, they had begun to move at a faster pace. Correl couldn’t help but feel that maybe Lord Brighid was more than eager to see what she’d left behind. As for herself, Correl was nervous. Nothing moved around them, neither the leaves on the trees, the grass and trodden dirt under their feet, nothing. She found herself scanning the landscape, and almost lagging behind her lord several times.
When the site of House Gauwynn had finally come into view, Correl could barely contain a gasp. House Gauwynn was a fortress. Built into the sides of two different mountainous peaks. As if the peaks had once been joined together, and a chunk was taken out and replaced with the entirety of the house itself. It stood tall, blocking out a considerable amount of the dawning skyline. With the leaves of the maidenhair trees all around, it almost looked as if it was on fire. Oddly enough, it did almost nothing to calm Correl’s nerves.
The only thing that tore Correl’s eyes from the intense sight, was the quick-moving figure of Lord Brighid, almost completely disappearing down the road, alongside Trillion. Correl scrambled to catch up once more.
Lord Brighid was a mask of calm, when Correl finally caught up with her, only her lord’s eyes, darting as her own had, rapidly across the still landscape betrayed her emotions. Correl understood perfectly, there may very well still be a murderer, waiting for them in this very building. When they got within one hundred feet of the building, they were greeted by a small party of the house servants. All of them were eager to speak with Lord Brighid, and as she had many times over at this point, the lord had put on the mask of happiness that left no room for questions. Correl watched as she flippantly nodded along to their questions, asking if her travel was good, waving away questions of her quick return, and amidst all the chaos introducing them to Correl, her squire. Correl had been, as much as possible, trying to shrink into the shadow Lord Brighid cast in the morning sun.
Unfortunately, this didn’t stop eyes from falling onto her, so she quickly bowed and introduced herself. Correl was inspected and questioned just as much as Lord Brighid herself, about their adventure, about traveling with their lord, and many other questions all in rapid succession. She had no time to answer almost any of them. Instead, Lord Brighid cleared her throat, gathering their attention to herself once again, giving Correl a moment to catch up.
“Did you set up Correl’s room, like I requested?” Only Lord Brighid’s eyes held the fierce edge the question possessed, as she said it almost as sweetly as she could. When they confirmed she had, Lord Brighid grabbed Correl’s shoulder, leading her away for a moment.
“Get situated, and find me in the mess hall. I…keep your wits about you, alright?” Her voice was low, and while soft there was a edge there. Correl nodded in response.
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