1. Walter Thornley

    Private Stillwater

    "Ko's Temple is not here, save for you," Walter's words fell softly like bones onto a moss bed. He hooked fingers into the vest's collar, making sure it sat just so. "Your power is recognized, and taken into account," not bowed to, "...but your authority is that of a nobleblorn knight, Aelius. I...
  2. Walter Thornley

    Private Stillwater

    ♬ Martia's Muses He knew that part of it was an act. Of course it was, a considerate, soft lie. The boy that broke down in his arms was trying to reinstate himself as a prominent figure. But a tender spot needed to only be revealed once for that ruse to not be as effective. Walter appreciated...
  3. Walter Thornley

    Private Stillwater

    ♬ Martia's Muses One of the Huntsmen waved to Aelius exiting, offering a callout. "See you, lord paladin!" Most people who did not see exactly what had happened - have not heard the stories, yet. Most of them looked to Aelius with that every-present curiosity. Some smiled. Some took a moment...
  4. Walter Thornley

    Open Surely we'll sing of no little thing

    Oh, Walter's awareness missed nothing, not a single unique gait that shook the dance floor, not the cacophony of voices that his mind was splitting and separating by origin, not the way light glinted on cutlery and accessories and buttons and clasps and buckles, and not the way shadows moved...
  5. Walter Thornley

    Private Stillwater

    Up until Walter had almost fallen to his knees to salivate and spit over the porch - the stomach has been hollowed since the last three times, there was nothing else to throw up - the lord hung on by will alone. Past that point... He had already forced himself to perform at no capacity. Mercy...
  6. Walter Thornley

    Private Stillwater

    He did not need a healer to bind his flesh back together. There were other things. The man across broke the distance. No. But he was so tired. And he owed this young man at least that much, after all the disturbed air just now. Walter felt the arms wrap him in warmth. Something cracked inside...
  7. Walter Thornley

    Private Stillwater

    Wasn't because he went too far with an attempted joke, Walter knew. His mind swam, but his heart broke quietly. No. He knew it was inevitable, all sacred omens in the living men were bound to be pulled apart by greedy hands demanding that they give, but... "Aelius," he offered quietly...
  8. Walter Thornley

    Private Stillwater

    When he woke up in the soot, everything hit the at once - pain, stench, every sense screaming. So, about an hour ago, the first thing that happened upon victorious reemergence is throwing up on his knees and hand, violently, into the charred remains of some floor or other, and stumbling out of...
  9. Walter Thornley

    Private Stillwater

    "Shit, shit, shit," A willowy woman caught the glimpse of golden glow from Aelius' hands and gasped. "Hey, your paladinship - what's the proper way? Whatever, do you need some help getting up?" She vaulted over a half-burnt window frame, landed with a precarious thud, and moved along the edge of...
  10. Walter Thornley

    Open Surely we'll sing of no little thing

    With a soft sigh, Walter bit the tip of his tongue and avoided voicing the opinion that someone had dancing huntresses occupying most of the thinking space between the ears right now. With spare room for what Captain Agatha was drinking, of course. He chuckled to himself. Well, truly, cheers to...
  11. Walter Thornley

    Private Stillwater

    The touch was electric. It pulled into itself, burned the nerves with cold as it radiated Shroud for a beat longer. Perhaps, there was another realization to come. The lights came back after the skeletal being's passage, sometimes burned brighter. The sounds returned, resumed with no effort...
  12. Walter Thornley

    Private Stillwater

    The flames colored everything orange and red. Only the flames themselves were golden, eating through the prime material to keep that color from dying. What would burn where there was nothing more left? What was it that burned on empty ground, so brightly? Where the well ran dry and the hollow...
  13. Walter Thornley

    Private Stillwater

    The turning came like a soft wave, numbing every sense until it was gone with the overwhelming chill. Sword pierced the dirt, free of any hand to wield. A flask shattered in consonanse with the landscape chewing in on itself, clay shards fell at the lord's feet, the igniter liquid oozed heavy...
  14. Walter Thornley

    Open Surely we'll sing of no little thing

    The lord chuckled. It was a quiet, deep noise that was also somehow devoid of humor almost completely. A brief glance aside, following the angle of Agatha's eyes searching, searching, finding their stop on a woman that seemed momentarily adrift, and chose solitude to action. "Oh, take your pick...
  15. Walter Thornley

    Private Stillwater

    "You aren't on your own. I am right here," he let the words run out for the time being, they were not needed and he was resigning to taking records and following it up with blazes. The sounds of hammers from somewhere on the other side of the street, a large shape of furniture being moved...
  16. Walter Thornley

    Open Surely we'll sing of no little thing

    He leaned back, making the posture comfortable. Sharp eyes, used to spotting things, especially on the Captain and the lieutenants. Rested a hand over the mug, rather than to the side of it - someone was sitting too close on the left, he didn't know the name. The fingers of his other hand...
  17. Walter Thornley

    Private Stillwater

    The hand was warm. Walter stood there, quiet, for as long as the touch lasted. He could say a lot of words, to everyone who was hurting. A lot of words that had to be at least convictions. Half of them, familiar platitudes, caught in the throat, another good portion pinned down the tongue...
  18. Walter Thornley

    Private Stillwater

    The figure on the street watched the house go up in flames with Aelius still inside it. Beyond the flames' roar, an exclamation from the entry to quarantine, alarmed, a figure in greys and greens hurrying towards him, calling out after him and the paladin still inside. Walter's arm rose in a...
  19. Walter Thornley

    Open Surely we'll sing of no little thing

    To his relief, it was not too bright inside. A group of Huntsmen were drinking together. Cheers went up as they spotted him, the faces he knew by their names, a tiny island of familiarity. He'd start there. Walter spent a little time with them - quicker than most ways to ensure his thirty...
  20. Walter Thornley

    Private Stillwater

    The baron caught that all-too-quick reply. Did not smirk. Did not huff. Only his eyelashes lowered, gaze turned away from the radiant ember of foreign god towards the dreary townscape ahead. He was a product of a different atam, but he studied the ways of different cults, and how they formed...
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