Elemental Witch: Child of the Earth (Part I)

Seeking the Wild

Lady Reyani supposed that she should still care what Amiya's future husband, and her own King,  thought of the fact that she had strode out of the room given to her for her stay in Keepsal, wearing pants. But she didn't, nor did she care about the opinions of anyone else on the matter either. Reyani just knew that she wanted to be involved, that she needed to be involved in whatever was unfolding around her.

Her fighting was staff strapped to her back and she was focused on catching up with the Master at Arms as he hurried to go risk his life by seeking an unscheduled meeting with more Feysha. It could be a risk, she wasn't sure. Lady Verana had seemed relatively friendly, despite what myths and legends said about the darkness of the creatures that prowled the Woods of Clairval. 

Maybe she had slipped on a pair of her soft riding pants and a shirt in record time and bolted towards the stables because she had finally heard it put into words she hadn't been able to say herself. Or perhaps it was because she was tired of sitting on the side lines and having men assume that she was incapable of doing more than smiling and giggling at their jokes.

 Whatever the cause, she caught up to Sir Benchan as he started across the courtyard to the stables, one of her men leading out her horse as Benchan's own mount was brought out to him. 

He paused, looking at her horse, then her, raising one brow. "This isn't a pleasure ride." He was a grumpy, long suffering man and she saw only apprehension in his eyes as he spoke. He clearly had only one thought about high-born ladies and it wasn't a good one.

"No, its quite dangerous, but its asinine to go yourself and I figure that if I can show you where she probably watched us from. We might be able to enter the forest in the approximate area that her people will be in." Reyani mounted and wheeled her horse, starting along the cobblestones towards the main gate, leaving him to catch up. She was halfway out of the city by the time he had managed to bring his war charger alongside her smaller mare. 

"Can you fight with that big stick?" Sir Benchan grumbled like a bear poked but not allowed to attack.

Reyani nodded, giving him a grim smile, "better than most people can fight with their swords, Sir Benchan."

"Alright. But just so you know, we don't even know if there's anyone else out there. She never said if her people came with her. Or if they're far back into the woods and she's just been staying closer by herself." He shrugged, letting out a slow breath as they left the city and gave their horses rein to stretch their legs in a quick canter. 

The rode in silence for a while watching the land stretch out on either side of them as they left the trappings of the small city behind. Eventually, her thoughts prompted her to turn to him curiously.  "Do you think she... her people.... Are what she says, or do you think they're more like what our stories make them to be?"

Sir Benchan gave her a considering look, before glancing back out to the woods, "I trust Verana. I can't tell you why I do but I think she is everything she has said she is. There's still a great deal we don't know. I mean, they have completely different values, priorities, so maybe there is room for misunderstanding. But I don't think they're the human eating monsters our stories make them seem."

Reyani nodded at that, slowing her horse to a walk as she watched the road for something familiar to point to the right spot, hoping that she could remember it as well as she told him that she could. "I know. I was ready to distrust her completely. But there's something alluring or disarming, as if I don't want her to walk out the door."

"Maybe that's why they chose her. She has the ability to get to people on a basic level." Benchan's dour expression changed to something more considering as he watched her, "I was raised in a village where we respected the Feysha a bit more than most people in cities do. We didn't go into the Wild areas but during our festivals, we would leave offerings to the fey. We understood that they kept the forest alive and that the forest is what gave us a lot of what we had to survive. After meeting her, feeling her gaze, I believe we were watched more than we ever knew but they never came within our sight. They never spoke a word to us."