The Fortune Teller.
There is a stagnant warmth about the place and the smell of old leather-bound books and hay in the air. Morning light breaks over the summit of the Golden Willow, shining down onto the shoddily kept man. Despite his current state, he was usually of proud stature - a defined figure, he was strong of will and proud to a fault; everyone who knows him would know by a glance that this was not the man they knew. From his seat, he could see the spot he met a friend, and previous employer, Tristan Kade. With Tristan, he had discussed his fear of going to fight the bone horrors, he believes himself to be the last person to see Tristan before whatever happened to him and he blames himself for allowing it to happen.
He had been up all night, the only noise in the room was the soft wheezing snores of his partner on the other side of the room. The enervated man, he hears a voice, his own but it is eager and childlike, naïve without a doubt, in his native tongue.
There is a stagnant warmth about the place and the smell of old leather-bound books and hay in the air. Morning light breaks over the summit of the Golden Willow, shining down onto the shoddily kept man. Despite his current state, he was usually of proud stature - a defined figure, he was strong of will and proud to a fault; everyone who knows him would know by a glance that this was not the man they knew. From his seat, he could see the spot he met a friend, and previous employer, Tristan Kade. With Tristan, he had discussed his fear of going to fight the bone horrors, he believes himself to be the last person to see Tristan before whatever happened to him and he blames himself for allowing it to happen.
He had been up all night, the only noise in the room was the soft wheezing snores of his partner on the other side of the room. The enervated man, he hears a voice, his own but it is eager and childlike, naïve without a doubt, in his native tongue.
"Mama, Mama! Look what me and Nessa made!"
He remembers what happened, he was a young boy of ten. He barrelled into his vardo, holding a small wooden toy, he hadn't made it with Nessa, her grandfather had whittled it for the boy over the course of several weeks prior. Unfortunately, the eager child had bolted through the door and into a tall, well dressed, unfamiliar man - he dropped the toy and the sword-arm of the toy snapped as it bounced off of the floor.
"This is the boy?"
The child didn't understand what the man said, but he surely understood the tone. A clear inflection of abhorrence rung about the mans voice.
The woman simply nodded in reply. She was hit by the man, he cursed and shouted loud enough for half the troupe to hear, the boy screamed and yammered as the man continued, beating at his legs - it was only a matter of time until the man turned his attention from the woman to the boy, kicking him out of the open door of the vardo. She screamed -
"Nicolo!"
It was her voice that finally got him. The man sitting on the chair, Nicolo, tired and broken with the dawn light washing over his face broke into tears it seemed uncharacteristic, he had the body and composition of a man that could be mistaken for a Viridian Paladin, or even an Imperial Guard yet he was slumped in a chair, scruffy, red eyed and crying. He had kept the façade for so long but the memory of her voice broke him in an instant. Nicolo's mother had been everything to him, she was the caregiver, the bread-maker, the fortune teller -the son didn't like to think of the more depraved work she did, like many if not most of the women in the troupe did.
She was still a young woman then, barely twenty-six at the time, so young in fact that she was younger than Nicolo is now and with two sons, ten and five.
The boy repeated. More of a guttural child-like cry than the eager tone he had before, he choked up at every syllable as the man turned back around to face his mother, Eloisa.
"Mama, Mama!"
The man, Marc d'Amboise who had not cared to introduce himself to the boy was in fact his father, an Ithanian Baron who had used Nicolo's mother as a prostitute on a pilgrimage through Montania, Vultaro and Basta. There was an unsettling irony about it but Nicolo would never learn it, only assume as he got older. He spat down at the woman laying on the floor of the vardo, discharging each word with a disparate tone of loathing, this time in dressolo rather than d'Ithanie.
"You can have the regals to send that wretch to a school. It is not my son and no one will ever know any better."
Eloisa's brothers had finally arrived, hearing the commotion from the other side of the camp, the Ithanian man showed himself out, waving over a tigran slave to accompany him from his carriage, the man left with little commotion. The brothers, Diego and Magno let the man leave and chose to instead comfort their sister and nephew.
Eloisa spoke proudly at first, then faltered.
"Diego, Magno -- could you leave us?"
They simply nodded in reply and left, she cradled her son in her arms and took his palm, spreading it before wiping the tears from her face and letting out an ungainly laugh, all it served to do was release a new onslaught of tears before she wiped them away - during this, Nicolo whimpered into her chest quietly. She recomposed herself and began to trace her finger over the lines of her sons palm.
"Nicolo! Your palm!"
Eloisa spoke with a surprised tone, it was clearly faked but enough to win over the attention of her young son, he perked up asking hesitantly -
"Wh- What is it, mama?"
By now, Nicolo was hunched up in a ball on his seat, softly whimpering once again but now a grown man. He felt betrayed and alone now more than ever, many of his friends just empty husks of what they were when he met them, others lost entirely, some he hasn't seen in days, some weeks, his imagination flicked through the faces of his friends: Johann, Sigurna, Lorenzo, Whitlock, Breon, Darius, Baird and Einarr -some of them must believe he betrayed them in this series of regrettable events and he can't help but feel guilty.
Akna had been watching him, for almost five minutes now, she had woken up. to the sounds of her partner's supple sobbing and wrapped her arms around him.
Later, he would get up and wash his face in the sink, put on his façade and take his morning walk to Greygate. He would don his crimson red armour, ordained with the sigils of Lo, offer a small yet determined nod to his once much more cheerful friend, Johann and set off on a patrol of the city. Like always he watches and listens carefully, just like he did for Jared, just like he did for Tristan but now only for himself.
OOC:
This is my first attempt at writing something with some semblance of a lore compliant story. I wanted to try to illustrate how Nico has been trying to deal with everything going on recently and how he's feeling. Sometimes I think some of my characters lack some depth, but it is there -it just so happens that they don't tend to be people who would share things like this.
Tagging people who's character's were mentioned:
@LumosJared @SupremeCripple @BahDoctor @Anastasius @MableSyrup @Silent_Ruler @Anseran @SpunSugar @JoyShake @Optimalfriskies @WrongChat
And the inspiration for writing this story:
@Walrusaur_ https://forums.massivecraft.com/threads/the-war-within.49623/
lots of tags I'm sorry
