Oops!
I had a post for after Aman/CoD's posts, but before Fordim's major-event post! I meant to place it on the game thread last night, but I had AP homework (sorry for excuses!) and decided to put it up tonight. It came too late, though.
In any case, would someone kindly place the following post on the game thread? I suppose it would work best at the end of CoD's post, post 157 on the game thread...
Aylwen's Post -------
EDIT: POST PLACED AS ABOVE ~*~ PIO
“What about you, Jeren: where will you go, now you are free?”
Jeren thought on this, and at first nothing came to him. It was a question that he did not know the answer to. How many times had this happened to him? Too many for his liking, especially since he had been made prisoner by the power that he had once served. Too many questions had been left unanswered.
Where will I go?
The Southron had never actually thought about where he would go, for he never knew any home other than the one as captain of an army. He was always the leader, and he never needed a home as long as there were loyal soldiers behind him… following and listening to him. He hardly recalled the land his family once roamed, or if family would be there and remember him at all. It had been far too long for him to return to that home. There was nowhere for him to go.
“It hardly matters if I am free, for I have no where to return to. There is no where for me to bask in new-earned freedom,” Jeren finally replied to the question posed by Raeis. His voice remained steady and level, as Jeren refused to show his uncertainty and sorrow at his own words. “The things I have done make me undeserving of such freedom. I have no place to return to and that is how it must be,” The Southron added as an afterthought, the volume of his voice lowered so it came out just above a whisper.
Surely that is how it will be in the end…
“Yes. We rest. But only for two, three hours.” Jeren looked up as Grash began to speak in his usual choppy manner. “Then we must go – the path goes down soon, down to green land. Green land with trees and cool breezes, and waters. Freedom. Freedom at the end of the path.”
Turning back to Raeis, Jeren sighed, letting out all his self-pity in the exhale. What about everyone else? Raeis had hardly answered his question in a manner that satisfied his curiosity. Something about the group, though, and the way they came together in a most unusual way made Jeren hopeful for all of them. “I have certainly learned the value of comfort, on this journey. Not just being comfortable, or not being comfortable…but being able to live and go on and appreciate it anyway. I do not know you very well at all, Raeis, but somehow I know that you will be able to make home encompass one more elf…you will learn to make home within your own heart and strength, and not let it depend on someone else…”
Jeren paused, looking around at the rest of the group for a moment.
“Hopefully we will all be able to do the same. Maybe we will all find home.”
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And now I'll get to work on another post!
Thanks guys!
-Aylwen