Chapter Text
Conor glanced out the window, leaning back as the roughly chopped wood chair creaked. He didn’t mind. The hard texture was a welcome contrast to the comfy fabrics that were common in Greenhaven. The sun was just setting, shining golden light at the lush green pastures.
His sheep had been herded and the barn door shut. Briggan lay beside his feet, the Great Wolf panting with the exertion of rounding up the sheep.
The hut was tiny, consisting of merely the chair he was sitting on, a wooden cot with a straw mattress and an oversized cupboard, with enough rations for a month stuffed inside it, in case of occasional emergencies. The little room was set against the rolling slopes of the endless Euran plains, that seemed to stretch to the very end of the world if one stood in the middle of one of the fields.
Conor glanced down at the massive wolf, still catching his breath. He had almost forgotten how physically demanding herding sheep could be, while travelling the world, in pursuit of Great Beasts and their talismans, while trying to outrun the Conqueror armies hot on their tales.
Yeah, Conor could be forgiven for forgetting how to herd sheep in the midst of all that.
It had been a year since the war had ended. An entire year since the Great Beasts had given their lives as payment for peace to reign in Erdas.
The Greencloaks had revelled in the victory. Erdas had revelled in the victory. Conor could still remember the cheering and jubilation that had awaited them upon their return to Greenhaven, the island fortress of the Greencloaks. He remembered the leaping in his heart as he noticed his family standing in the crowd, beaming at him as he rushed towards them.
The celebration had continued well into the following week, with every person he passed in the hallways clapping him on the back and offering him a wide smile. The same had gone for Rollan, Meilin and Abeke as well, but Conor felt the most out of place in the attention they received.
Rollan had revelled in the attention, joking and messing about, and looking happier than Conor had ever seen him with Meilin at his side. Conor smiled at the thought of the two of them, teasing each other to no end. The occasional kiss or hug would make both of them blush with massive grins on their faces. He and Abeke watched on from the sidelines, smiling at the easy comfort their friends seemed to have found.
Conor had survived in the castle for four months, before telling his friends that he would be returning to his home in Eura. He could still remember the conversation that had followed the proclamation.
His friends frowned. They had clearly expected this, but perhaps not entirely prepared for it.
“Why would you want to go back, Conor? We’re having so much fun here!”
“Is something wrong back home?”
“Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”
He had shaken his head, a sad smile on his face. “This is not my place, guys. This-”, he gestured around them at the noisy dining hall. “This is not for me.”
“But, what will you do with Briggan? You can’t keep a wolf among the sheep.” That had been Abeke, her brows creased with worry.
Conor looked down at the large grey wolf beside him, currently gnawing contentedly on a massive bone. “I’ll make something work.”
He looked back at his friends. They were clearly not convinced. He sighed. “This isn’t the end of us, you know. You’re always welcome back home, and I’ll visit as well. Promise!”
Rollan gazed into his eyes, searching for any inkling of doubt. Conor held his gaze. Rollan nodded after a moment. “Well, if that is what you want to do, I’m fine with it. Just make sure you don’t smell like sheep when you come to visit, will you?”
Conor grinned. “Absolutely!”
The others had taken longer to convince, but he had held firm, and soon, Abeke and Meilin had backed down, letting him return to Eura aboard a newly rebuilt Tellun’s Pride .
The days passed by in a haze as he stuffed his belongings into a trunk, uncaring if they were neat or even unbroken. All that mattered was that he left, as soon as he could. Conor knew that his resolve would weaken with every extra day he spent with his friends.
He did not like this. He had had no clue as to what he would do after the war during their hunt for talismans, but leaving his friends behind had certainly not been on his list.
Perhaps there was a better way. Perhaps there was a way in which he needn’t leave his friends, the first true ones he had known, behind to escape his fears and insecurities. Many were the hours Conor had spent in his room, desperately pacing the hardwood floor as he searched for a different path to take in vain.
He remembered their tear-streaked faces as they said their farewells. Even Meilin was crying. Rollan teased her about it, and she swatted him away. He could feel his own eyes sting, but he held the tears in. Instead, he smiled, a watery smile, but a smile nonetheless.
“We’ll see each other again, yeah? You guys should come visit. I’ll show you around the pastures.”
Rollan wrinkled his nose. “Yes, Conor, because none of us has ever seen sheep before.”
They laughed, a sound that died away quickly. Then, Abeke stepped up to him and hugged him tightly. “Stay safe,” she muttered into his ear. Her eyes were glassy, and her voice was small.
“I’ll try,” Conor replied with a grin. “No promises though.” Abeke punched him on the shoulder, pulling away.
“I’m serious,” she said, although her eyes twinkled. “I hear anything about danger, and I’ll ride up there and drag you back myself.”
Conor raised his hands in surrender. “No danger. Understood, my lady.”
Abeke smiled and moved away. Meilin was next. She hugged him too, although it was much briefer. She smiled at him. “You won’t forget us, will you?”
“I couldn’t if I tried,” Conor replied. “You guys are the best things that have happened to me, you know.”
Briggan barked from the pier. They all laughed. “Yes, Briggan, after you, of course!” Conor called back. The wolf’s tongue lolled out in that wolfish grin Conor knew so well.
Meilin moved to stand beside Abeke, looking out at the pier, and Conor looked at Rollan, who opened his arms for a hug too.
“Nope, I am not hugging you,” Conor said, backing away. Rollan looked down at himself in confusion.
“Why not?”
“You stink.”
“I do not.”
“Yes, you do.”
“If I stink, then you must smell like a pigsty.”
Conor gasped in mock offence before both of them burst out into laughter. The girls looked over at them, amusement clear in their eyes, before turning away, and speaking in hushed voices.
Rollan cast a curious eye on their turned backs. “What do you think they’re muttering about?”
Conor shrugged. “Beats me.”
Rollan turned back to Conor. His grin faded slightly. “So this is it, huh?”
Conor felt his own smile slip off his face. “I suppose it is.”
“You have to visit.”
“I will,” Conor promised. “Trust me, I will.”
“In that case,” Rollan said, opening his arms again. Conor grinned and hugged him tight.
Then, he turned and whistled to Briggan. The wolf bounded back to him, abandoning the tufts of grass he had been sniffing.
“You ready, Brig?” Conor asked.
The wolf barked once and stared at Conor unblinkingly, his blue eyes sharp, as though posing the same question to him.
Conor sighed. “I suppose we’ll see if we’re ready soon enough.”
He turned back to his friends, letting his eyes rest on each of their faces in turn. Sadness surged inside him, but he pushed it down. Now was not the time.
Instead, he smiled and raised a hand in farewell, turned, and trudged towards Tellun’s Pride.
Conor blinked, the memories racing away as rapidly as they had surged ahead in his mind. He had not visited Greenhaven after that, not yet. Back home, his family had welcomed him with open arms, albeit with an air of surprise. Given that none of them could read, he could not afford the decency of sending a letter ahead, informing them of his decision.
Thankfully, they seemed to have noticed that it was not a topic that Conor wanted to talk about and had not brought it up. Conor was grateful for that. He knew that he could not escape the explanation forever, but the pain of farewell had been too fresh in his heart to be able to speak freely of it.
He eventually calmed enough to tell his family, about the details of his decision to leave the Greencloaks, and his family’s attention had caused Conor to immediately regret his actions, with tears welling in his eyes, and a lump sticking in his throat, choking him and tugging back the words that were forming at his lips.
With the help of his mother’s amazing lamb stew, he managed to stumble over the details through dinner and immediately felt the better for it. A weight seemed to have lifted itself from his shoulders as he spoke, a weight that he never realised he had been carrying. That night, he folded the green cloak, that marked him as one of the protectors of Erdas, and stowed it away in the back of his cupboard. It would not help him move on if he saw it on his bed every day.
In the days after, home felt like paradise. His brother insisted on offering him quite a larger share of the sheep to herd than he had been used to as a boy before everything.
He spent his days in the warm Euran sunshine, trekking across meadows and fields, drinking from crystal clear streams that littered the countryside and training Briggan as a sheepdog. Conor had been worried about Briggan being a wolf among the sheep - literally - but in hindsight, Conor felt stupid for worrying about such a thing with a Great Beast.
Briggan had slotted in effortlessly amongst the dogs that his family already owned, and after they saw that Briggan would bring no harm to the flock, his brothers had told him with mad grins plastered on their faces, that he would not get any of the dogs to aid him with the sheep when he had the best of them all. Conor had laughed at that, and Briggan gave another wolfish grin.
Conor shook his head with a grin at the memories, got up from the chair, and moved over to the bed, which gave a mournful creak at the sudden increase in load. Conor glanced at Briggan.
“You think the bed will survive the night, Briggan?”
The wolf opened one eye blearily from where he was curled up on the floor, on an old rug that had been covered with dust earlier, and just stared at Conor, as if asking, ‘Really?’
“Ouch,” said Conor, with a grin. “I’ll let you get your precious sleep, then. G’night.” With the darkness of sleep calling, Conor blew out the candle that offered the meagre light in the room and pulled his covers over him. He shut his eyes, and sleep wasted no time in washing over his tired body.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Conor woke with a grunt at the sudden weight on his middle. He rubbed at his eyes, and yawned, before sitting up. Briggan jumped off the bed, his tail wagging. Conor groaned and stood, stretching his back, before turning back and glaring at the wolf.
“Couldn’t have let me sleep ten more minutes?”
The wolf gave him a short bark and trotted out of the cottage. Conor followed, shielding his eyes as they adjusted to bright sunlight outside. He judged that it was actually about the time he would usually wake, although he could have slept another hour or two if his Spirit Animal had let him.
The cottage was nestled in the heart of the vast Euran meadows, with wild grass in every direction as far as one’s eyes could see. There was nary a tree in sight. The sky was a brilliant blue, with the occasional white cloud scattered across it. The rising sun bathed the green grass in a golden glow, and all around them, Conor heard the sounds of animals in the distance as they woke from their own slumber at the brilliant light outside.
The sheep bleated as he approached them. Conor smiled at them.
“Hungry already? Let’s get you out of there.”
He undid the latches to the sheep pen that adjoined the little cottage and let the sheep file out, counting them as he did every morning. None were missing, as Conor expected. He followed them as they spread across the plains, occasionally nibbling lazily at the grass at their feet.
Conor led the sheep toward his home relaxedly. There was no need to hurry, seeing that the weather was excellent, and he hadn’t seen any wolves around. Most of the time, he tried to walk faster to make it in time for a late breakfast, cooked by his mother, but his parents had ordered him to stay out until later.
“You need to learn the sheep again, son,” his father had said, with a twinkle in his eye. “They might have just forgotten you."
“And I will have a hot brunch ready, just for you,” his mother had added. Being allowed to bask in the late morning sun, with hot brunch after? That sounded like a dream to Conor. He grinned at the thought.
Briggan bounded about, sniffing at the ground, peering into every hole in the ground, and making sure the sheep didn’t get too far away from the rest of the herd. Despite some initial discomfort at being herded by a wolf, the sheep had seemed to quickly recognise that Briggan was not a threat, and had warmed to him.
Conor occasionally yelled out a compliment as Briggan raced about, his cobalt-blue eyes sparkling with delight. They match the sky, Conor thought. The sky at dawn, as the sun rises above the horizon.
He shook himself, grinning. “Don’t fool yourself, Conor. You are not good at poetry.”
Briggan howled ahead of him, almost as though the wolf was laughing at him.
“Hey! I’ll have you know that I was better at poetry than Rollan ever was,” he called to the wolf, whose tongue was lolling out in his mirth.
Rollan. Conor felt a tightness in his chest. It had been too long. He had not seen Rollan, Abeke, or Meilin for months now. He wondered how they were doing without him. He hoped they were having fun. He felt a twinge of jealousy at the thought but immediately felt guilt flood his chest even as he pushed the unwanted emotion away.
What kind of a person wishes his friends to not have fun in his absence? A terrible one, in Conor’s opinion, and that thought only made him all the more ashamed.
But before he could dwell on it, Briggan howled again. But this time, Conor could feel the excitement in the wolf’s voice. Before he could call out, Briggan bounded into sight, at the crest of a nearby hill. He bounded up to Conor and tugged at the sleeve of his shirt.
Conor groaned. The act was all too familiar to him.
“I swear to Tellun, Briggan, if this is about another rabbit hole…”
He followed Briggan back to the hill, his tired legs beginning to ache in exhaustion. When they reached, Conor looked at Briggan.
“Well?”
The wolf jerked his head at the falling slope, and as Conor turned, he heard a familiar voice.
“Well, it’s been a long time, Conor,” said the Greencloak, a wide smile on his face.