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 Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2014 12:01 am
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Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2014 12:20 am
take big steps
location oldcastle
time spring, 1798
summary lucian accepts a challenge from the wardwood Five years, eleven months, and thirteen days.
Since the day he had been fished out of the ocean by a passing fishing boat and brought into Northport to recover from his countless wounds, Lucian Kinlan had been counting. Three ribs broken, a collarbone, a leg fractured in three places, a gunshot wound across the arm. He had been counting the wounds as well as the days and everything he had lost. The fortune on the foundered ship, the seven major heists he had had to let slip through his fingers. Five years, eleven months, and thirteen days was a long time.
Recovering from the ship was an ordeal. The physical breaks and various other scrapes had been the least of it. His memory had been slow in returning, as had the dexterity required in his line of work. Light feet, quick fingers, sharp eyes. For a while, Lucian had feared it would never be the same, but the months and years of working for leather-makers and jewelers in Northport had slowly, painfully returned him to his peak.
He didn't steal from Northport men, as a rule. They had taken him in, after all, and Lucian felt he owed them that much at least. His five years, eleven months, and thirteen days had been heist-free save the occasional pickpocketed tourist who left a satchel of coins lighter than when he came. Lucian tried to be generous with his winnings. Benevolence wasn't his forte - after all, he was no richer, really, than most of the fishermen and sailors who populated the city - but he knew when having friends came in handy, and in a town like Northport, knowing people who smiled instead of frowned at the mention of his name was key.
Lucian Kinlan bided his time in Northport, but things were changing, he sensed. Something new was stirring, something that could drive him from the seaside port and onto bigger things again.
Five years, eleven months, and twenty-seven days.
He had felt in the last two weeks a quiet call, a taunt even. Something, someone was challenging him. He thought he was being called a chicken for laying low for so long, thought he was being told that there lay a window of opportunity he hadn't even seen and that was rapidly slipping away from him, and what a fool he was for not even reaching out to take it.
How dare it. How dare this... this voice, this presence that drew him ever farther from the sea? He would not, could not, let it slide.
So after five years, eleven months, and twenty-seven days, Lucian Kinlan left Northport, riding east on a half-stolen horse (he'd left a few coins in exchange) and riding as if something very urgent had taken hold of him.
The Ward Tree was anything but what he had expected. All the stories, all the fanciful rumors he'd heard, and still it was nothing like he had envisioned - if indeed he had envisioned anything at all. Part of him had always thought it was all a lie, even when he was standing right below it staring at the totems that draped the branches.
"I'm here now, aren't I? You got me, what do you want now?" He growled, more tensely than he had intended as he eyed the branches.
You've got to climb a little, if you want anything.
Lucian grimaced. But alright. He hoisted himself onto the first branch.
You've got to climb a little higher than that.
He reached for the next and pulled himself up. And up. Higher, he went until most of the tree was below him and he thought there simply weren't any more branches to climb. "What d'you want, you little s**t?"
You think you're so smart. Down here.
He looked down. There, four or five branches below him, sat a little plum totem, smirking at him from its perch, practically laughing at how far he had gone when she'd been sitting right there all along.
Lucian was too fed up with the entire ordeal to mount a protest. He grumbled and climbed down to her and snatched the totem off the tree, pocketing it and shimmying down the rest of the way. "Was that worth all of this?" He wondered aloud. Maybe not.
The horse was standing where he'd left it, munching lazily at some leaves. He swung aboard and guided it back toward Oldcastle, determined to find the first inn available for a long night's sleep. "Where is this window of opportunity, then?" He muttered to himself while the totem just smirked silently in his pocket.
-
Oldcastle loomed ahead and the inn with it. Lucian clattered into the courtyard.
"D'ye 'ear? There's t'be a weddin', is what I 'eard."
"A weddin'? That Rosalie
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