By the early evening hours, Aden, Oliver, and Ser Percival made their solemn return to the village, bearing the fallen form of Victor draped respectfully over their shoulders. They had not lingered at the beleaguered seaport, knowing the urgency of relaying the dire situation to Captain Willem.
The weary trio arrived as the last slanted rays of dusk painted the hushed streets in a warm, golden glow. The villagers had just concluded their daily labors and routines when the grim procession approached. A hush fell over the gathered townsfolk as they took in the bloodied and battered state of the men and the unmistakable shape of a shrouded body being transported with heavy reverence.
Captain Willem was swiftly summoned, his stern features growing graver with each relayed detail of the seaport's harrowing struggle against the harpy onslaught. Once apprised, he dismissed them with a curt nod. "Great job, fellows. Now get some rest. I'll have the villagers dig a grave and prepare a simple funeral for Victor. We'll also send reinforcements to aid with securing the fish farm as soon as we can."
Though intellectually aware of the necessity, Aden couldn't help but feel a sharp pang of regret at the loss of their beef jerky supplies. Yet even as that Door closed, another opened - the overlooked fish farm provided an alternative source of provisions.
As the old adage goes, "When the bear takes your honeycomb, the salmon leap into your nets."
Father Edgar presided over the small, somber ceremony laying Victor to rest amid the cemetery's other unfortunate souls claimed by the harpy attacks. The actor's simple grave joined the steadily growing ranks, a chilling reminder of the escalating toll.
Throughout it all, Aden's gaze continually strayed to Indry and Laura, seeing the warring emotions of worry and relief playing across their faces at his safe return. He knew the desperate yearning in their hearts to breach propriety and enfold him in a fierce embrace. But they restrained themselves, ever mindful of keeping their relationship obscured from judgemental eyes.
Mere glances and fleeting smiles would have to convey the depths of their feelings for now.
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As soon as the solemn funeral rites concluded, Aden wasted no time in excusing himself. His battle-honed instincts, sharpened to a razored edge by the harrowing seaport assault, had stoked an animalistic need burning white-hot within his loins. Indry awaited him in the stables, her own desire simmering after days of forced separation.
No words were exchanged, nor were they needed. Aden didn't even pause for the slightest foreplay - he seized Indry with urgent intensity, craving the intimate release only she could provide. Beneath the musty aroma of hay and horses, their hushed cries and the lewd rhythmic creaking of the hayloft merged into a salacious symphony as they coupled with frenzied passion.
It was a brief but intensely cathartic joining, allowing Aden to temporarily slake the pent-up lust and aggression thrumming through his veins. Sweat-slicked and deliciously sated, at least for the moment, he extracted himself from Indry's tender embrace and straightened his rumpled clothes.
Back in the courthouse, the remainder of their party had returned bearing their modest prize - four hefty barrels brimming with freshly caught fish from the docks. While not an inexhaustible supply, it would suffice to feed the gathered townsfolk for a couple of days at least.
Scanning the milling crowd, one figure in particular caught Aden's eye, igniting an instant flare of fury.
"What is that h'mar doing here?" he snarled, recognizing the battered face of Ralph, the weaselly coward who had abandoned Oliver to the harpies in a cowardly bid to save his own skin.
Ralph started violently at Aden's venomous tone, instinctively putting Father Edgar between himself and the irate warrior. Ser Gareth moved to intervene, placing a restraining hand on Aden's chest. "Steady on, lad. Ser Percival already roughed him up proper for his treachery."
But Aden would not be so easily placated. "I'll take my turn then," he growled, fists clenching tight.
"That craven donkey shoved Oliver right into the harpies' clutches to save his worthless hide. If Victor hadn't jumped in to shield the boy, he'd still be alive."
He turned an accusing glare towards Father Edgar, rapidly recounting the ugly details of Ralph's cowardice and dereliction at the docks. "I know you're angry," the village elder said, raising a placating hand. "But he only did that out of panic and fear for his life. Let me deal with him...personally."
The unexpected leniency was like a dash of cold water. Of all people, Aden would have thought the wise and respected Father would understand and even sanction the urge to mete out retribution upon the fool who had indirectly precipitated poor Victor's demise.
But the remonstration, however mild, struck a dissonant chord deep within Aden's psyche. As an outsider, a foreigner recently arrived upon these insular shores, he could ill afford to overtly flout the village's esteemed leaders and customs. One misstepped too many, and his precious Crown's Pardon could be just as easily rescinded. The ever-present weight of that brand lingered, tempering his wrath but leaving a sullen resentment burning in the pit of his belly.
Father Edgar's defense of the wretched Ralph's inaction was nigh incomprehensible to the Djinn. How could a man so sagacious turn such a blind eye to moral failings that had directly contributed to tragedy? The anger smoldered, butensk wisdom prevailed - at least for now. Another battle, perhaps, but not on this field.
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In the dining hall of the courthouse, Gilbert's eyes danced with unrestrained glee as the retrieved party regaled them with tales of the bountiful fish farm nestled below the mountain near the beleaguered seaport. Though he'd heard whispers of its existence, the tantalizing details painted a vibrant picture that set his mouth-watering.
Gathered around the long dining table were Gilbert, Ethan, Maeda, Ser Percival, and the ever-silent Martin, his youthful face alight with rapt attention. What had begun as an enthusiastic recounting of this newfound provisioning opportunity soon took a more somber turn. The conversation inevitably circled back to the tragic events that had unfolded amidst the harpy onslaught - the heroic sacrifice of poor Victor, and the despicable betrayal of the sniveling coward, Ralph.
"Why did Father Edgar defend that craven donkey?" Aden growled, pushing away his barely touched grilled salmon as if the very sight soured his appetite. Bitterness contorted his features into a resentful scowl.
Ethan's lips quirked in a disdainful sneer as he rolled his eyes theatrically. "Because he's a chedaim - one of the so-called 'Blood of God' and 'True Sons of Adam'. The 'original people of the Ark'," he said, lacing the sanctified titles with mocking air quotes and exaggerated hand gestures. The disdain was palpable, clearly an oft-recited litany he had little patience for.
"So?" Aden challenged as his brow furrowing.
Leaning back in his chair, Ethan launched into a lecturing tone as if addressing a particularly dim-witted child. "Let me explain this in the simplest of terms for you. Aione is considered a god incarnate. He came to this realm in the mortal flesh and blood of a chedaim man. Thus, in the Church's eyes, all chedaim bear the sacred blood of the divine figurehead they worship."
The former Crown enforcer paused to take a pull from his cup of rich burgundy wine. "Their blood is considered holy, sacrosanct," he emphasized. "After the Chedaim Purge by the Valueldors a century ago, the Church felt immense guilt for allowing so much 'blood of god' to be spilled. To atone, they granted the survivors exclusive rights and sovereignty over the Ivory Mesa region, the Seven Springs rivers, and extended every possible protection to allow the chedaim people to live in peace within this Wessen world."
A heavy silence hung in the air, broken only by the hollow scrape of Aden's fork pushing the congealed fish about his plate in an aimless pattern. Finally, he met Ethan's gaze with an incredulous look. "And that gives the bastard the right to have killed all these villagers?"
"Unfortunately...yes," Ethan replied with a weary shrug of resignation. "As long as this land remains under the rule of the Church of Aione, Old or New, we are powerless to retaliate against any chedaim short of execution."
Aden opened his mouth to protest, but another voice cut across the tension. "But Ser Percival beat his arse black and blue," he pointed out, all eyes shifting towards the grizzled knight tucking into his meal with typical stoic taciturnity.
A cruel chuckle rumbled up from Ethan's broad chest, though his mirth didn't reach his eyes.
"Aye, maybe that's because our doughty Ser Percival is also chedaim-blooded himself." He raised his cup in an almost mocking salute towards the older warrior. "Seems only one of the 'blood of god' can lay a hand upon another without fear of reprisal."
The words seemed to sap what little remained of the group's appetites. Even young Martin ceased his customary enthusiastic devouring of his meal, eyeing the conversing men with a pensive frown. Aden noted the naked loathing that flickered across Ethan's weathered features as those calculating eyes bored into him - the impotent fury of one who understood all too well the need for restraint, no matter how justifiable the retaliatory impulse.
Just like Aden, a threat to Ethan's Crown's Pardon could shatter any hopes of reclaiming his former life and position in the Empire's law enforcer ranks, so heavily subjugated to the Church's doctrine. Incurring the wrath of the chedaim would be unwise in the extreme.
Ser Percival scoffed derisively, upending his cup and slamming it back down on the table with enough force to make the dishware rattle. "And I don't buy into any of that hogwash," he growled. "All Men are equal under the blade - the weak perish, the strong survive. Simple as that."
A fair point, Aden had to concede inwardly. This entire concept of a 'chosen people' gifted divine providence reeked of the exact sanctimonious dogma his own Lua Light's faith had fought so fiercely to abolish.
The chedaim clung to the unfounded belief that theirs was a race anointed by the supreme deity, selected to receive its blessings and favors above all others. Yet despite their adamant denials of the Aionian Church's teachings and the divinity of its prophet's claims, the two faiths remained bizarrely intertwined by their common reverence for the primordial 'God of Many Names'.
In stark contrast, the Lua Light followers adhered devoutly to the Prophet Ruhim's inviolable tenant that all men and women —regardless of tribe, tongue, or skin color— stood as absolute equals in the eyes of the One True God, The God of Many Names. It was one of the core principles underpinning Aden's spiritual identity - a liberating truth instilled from the cradle that had its counterparts decrying it as "demotion" from an imagined favored status.
He could see the twisted justifications woven into the doctrine, and sense the belief system's lingering imprints left behind as the Wessen world's successive holy wars swept across the realms like wildfires over three centuries prior. The Aionian Church extolled the virtues of universal equality while simultaneously elevating one ethnicity above all others as the prime inheritors of divine grace.
It was blatantly self-serving hypocrisy that Aden simply could not reconcile - a contradiction that reeked of the very 'tinkering with the Words' the Lua Light clergy had long decried the Aionians and chedaim themselves as guilty of perverting for worldly gain.
This doctrine of God's chosen people must be one of those tinkered Words which Ruhim, the prophet of Lua, accused. For Aden, this doctrine was utterly fucked up, no matter how he tried to rationalize or relate to it.
The church of Aione preached that all men are equal and had abolished slavery across humanity, yet they also paradoxically believed that certain people were born better than others based solely on their ethnicity, such as the plight of Corporal Knightly's and Marcus's people who happened to bear different skin colors.
Aden looked at the mute, Martin, who listened eagerly with an enthusiastic face. The Jinn assumed that the lord's son who had so wrongfully robbed Martin of his voice was also a chedaim, which had likely led to the mute's cruel captivity.
All the Wessen people's expressions around the table were like they'd relieved themselves of a burdensome weight from their chests. As if talking so openly about the chedaim had been a long-suppressed taboo in this supposed land of free speech itself. As if voicing such criticisms against the self-proclaimed 'blood of god' risked bringing the sword down upon their own necks for such blasphemous utterances.
An unnatural tension seemed to pervade the air, a sense that despite their mutinous words, a guarded glance over one shoulder remained a necessary vigil against unseen watchers taking offense at their candor. For all their bold rejections of the chedaim's sanctified delusions of racial superiority, a lingering undercurrent of very real, deeply ingrained trepidation seemed to consensus.
Aden realized with a start that he had never truly delved deep enough to understand the intricate doctrines and histories underpinning the Aionian faith so deeply entrenched across the Wessen realm. This revelation of their skewed self-perception as a divinely-anointed 'master race' was entirely new territory for him.
If he was being honest with himself, Aden had never paid much mind to seriously studying the histories and religions of his own Lua Light people, let alone the divergent belief systems that had taken root in these distant western shores. His knowledge remained painfully superficial - mere fragmented whispers overheard from the lips of traveling merchants or soldiers' campfire tales.
What paltry insight he could claim came from the vague recollections of the Holy Wars waged between the Wessen and his Median homeland over the hotly-contested sacred ground of Darusalin and its encompassing territory. Three forever-bleeding wounds were inflicted over the span of centuries as the conflict waxed and waned like the eternal ebb and flow of the tides.
Yet even those defining clashes between diametrically opposed civilizations seemed to blur together into an amorphous, dimly perceived melange of hazy battle narratives. Beyond that heated crucible, Aden could scarcely recount how the Wessen had all but abandoned their footholds across the Median lands following that final, ostensibly conclusive conflict.
Now, only scattered enclaves dotted the handful of strategic port cities and neutral free states nestled between the two warring powers - places like the mercantile city-state of Arumia far to the north of the arid Neck region.
His ignorance shamed him, Aden realized. How could he ever truly understand the cultures, motivations, and belief systems of those he now found himself inextricably entangled amongst if he persisted in clinging to his own willful obliviousness? The naive paints into which he had so blithely pigeonholed those of Aionian faith now revealed startling shades of nuance and complexity he had never fathomed.
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