Dal

Dal

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Life in the Monastery of the Anathaeum sworn was oft about preparation.

Preparation of blades to meet the steel of others. Preparation of food to fill the stomach of the dutiful. Preparation of squires to meet another request greater gladly. Stacking the odds in the favour of the cause, mindful action spent in pre-emptive time.

The bird made their calls as the day did break, beaks that did declare their presence to the sun. A gentle wind did carry the notes, fresh with scent of flowers making their arrival to the world.

The sound as thick bricks did plant themselves upon another, hefted by hands that were as sandpaper. A satisfying clunk and scrape, rising in tempo as pressured pace was caught, the self imposed challenge accepted.

Quick squat down, heft up brick, place and secure. Repeated until the line was complete, a sup of water taken, another line to perform in return.

Waist high now the bricks, the birds going about their day. A simple construction, designed to hurdle over more than support defensive motion or splendour of the monastery. The wall did ascend, ten feet long. More to go, the bricklayer did go, speed to maintain. The bricks to clutch were arranged at proper place, small stacks that yearned for their proper height, awaiting correctly spaced by Dal himself.

One hand with brick to slot, heated breath to grunt, the other to cleanse the brow of salt, a few eyes that came and went that caught Dal's work. Two flasks of water either side of the wall that Dal did drink each time he did reach the ends, a ritual that sustained his pace. Dehydration was an enemy to drown by individual ounces. The water like the stone were arranged just rightly to make the rest of retrieval scant. Hands were filled and emptied vigilantly.

To Dal's shoulders the wall became. A familiar burn within the muscles from the heft of bricks. A grim smile as the wall did hit. Soon, Dal thought, soon. Another side to make.

Soon was driven to it's conclusion without failing hands, the toll high for such speed but not high enough to hamper the deed. A final brick, a satisfied grunt holding all the tempo of his movement, flask one drained completely, a steady swagger of burning muscle to the other, and slaked he did become.

He rested a hand against the wall and pushed a handful, feeling his construction unyielding to it. The wall two deep. Neck high on Dal.

Good brick, heavy brick, Dal thought to himself, and turned to press his back against it, and hunched within it's shade. His breath returning, not much laboured, but endurance assured by his attendance to himself.

The wall was one of three, arranged some distance from common traffic. But not so far that squires did not see the bricks rising over the days, knowing they would be asked to scale them. Dal demanded such. A reward of suckling boar if all did run the course regular, a barrel of something fine to the best time once they were established.

For now, Dal did cool against the wall. His breastplate rising as he did stretch his arms up, a yawn upon him. A smack of the lips as he did consider an apple which awaited within his pack, nestled by where the pile of brick had been. The stones perfectly calculated by his pencil strikes on notepad before he had slumbered.

He took out small notepad from his wide belt and plucked the rectangle of pencil from behind his ear. Marked off a deed at top performed, the list did creep to the bottom invitingly. Replaced the pencil, and looked toward the moving trees that did rustle with the shimmer of birds of rich vibrancy. His grey eyes dull to it.

If any of you shit on my wall, I'll have you for dinner.
 
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Watching was a skill Horoth knew well.

He'd watched people fight to the death many times, watched ships take those sold into the ever onward and had watched Dal make his wall, hour after hour, in silence until it was done.

Being of practical thought and observant countenance Horoth did not once ask what or why even to himself. He observed Dal as you would observe a bird building its nest, in perfect passive observance, nor did he think at all to offer help knowing that a toils own worth was in its doing and that if Dal wished for assistance he would already have it, such was the mans way as much as Horoth could make of it.

Standing from his seated position under a tree nearby he was well relaxed in his light armour. A benefit of its spars nature was the ability to keep cool on hot days such as this and it did not bother him even as he stepped into the light of the sun from the shade his face unbothered but for the adjustment of his pupils.

"A fine wall."
He patted his hand against it, feeling the sturdy brickwork under his rough fingers.

"You could build a fine home with such skill and good time to make it with."
Imagining such a building as Dal might make was impossible. He could no more see that than see into the other mans own mind but he tried all the same. More bricks, stacked higher, a roof like other's he'd seen, a door and windows. Houses were such interesting things.

Though he adressed the other Knight he did not look upon him, his gaze was in the straightness of the laying, the tight packed uniformity of the structure and by abstract, in the dedication to make it. So much in life remained unfinished but he did not doubt that if Dal wished it to be even one row higher then it would be.

"Such skills we have here, makers of all sorts."
His voice mused all on its own to himself.

@Dal
 
Dal rose.

"Rather make good squires better," Dal said matter of factly deciding that was enough to refute the flattery.

"And skills get dull. Sometimes Knights forget what an obstacle is."

He resisted folding his arms. Dal was a squire, and Horoth was a knight. But Dal had fought as a mercenary against many with such a title. Been paid often and well to put them down in whatever way, visor to visor, punji to pit. It loaned him an inability to be impressed by flatteries from syrs.

"Just making myself useful. Obstacle courses don't build themselves. Not enough people do either."

He lifted his chin and scratched his neck slowly, eyes looking down at this Syr who spoke upon his bricks.

@Horoth Chainbreaker
 
At this he did turn to look up at Dal, his face relaxed and amused.

Being a gladiator he knew a challenge when he heard it.

"Anyone can grow lax, not just Knights, but Farmers and Squires too."

Patting the stone one final time he let his hand rest on his hip, a habit from the pit to project confidence that he had never rid himself of.

"I think I'd prefer a life without obstacles."
The violence of the free had not ceased to impress him. What he and others had been forced into was something many volunteered for. He did not understand it, the need to seek out strife was beyond him.

"What might a life be like, to live carefree under the giving sun?"

@Dal
 
Dal lowered his jaw, gave slow answer. As if he was delivering some serious import concerning basic wisdoms. As if he was stating the facts to bar fly slow and methodically for how abundantly true they should be to anyone.

"Life without obstacles is a life with just one above your head. If you're lucky. If someone makes a mark. Stone or wood, crypt perhaps. To house you if did something. Or save you from cluttering the soil."

He gave a small kick against the soil, scuffing it with his heel. Turned as he did so, looked to the east, to the skies that yawned without passion. Clouds thin and long, fingers that turned the page of the day.

"Nice plaque. Nice bard's voice, telling about the obstacles you faced. Overcame. Fell short at."

Dal looked back to the guest to his bricks. Looked him dead in the eyes. The look of a soldier used to looking at those with higher rank than his own. Dal proved himself by completing tasks he was given. To himself, or from the hierarchies. But there was a layer of calm relaxed disregard to any notion of reverence. Too many years in the tooth for that.

The kind of defiance that lived in cold statements that issued nothing except themselves in soldiering report.

"Farmers aint my business to be knowing if they are lax. Squires be the turf I think on."

But then, Dal, by virtue of the giving sun, felt him carefree with his tongue to speak a further word which gave his position entire in the utterance.

"Mostly."

@Horoth Chainbreaker
 
Horoth liked Dal, he spoke his mind and while the Knights often did that they held some things in reserve, chastisement was less given.

For himself he held no rank of military office ever before Knight and even then he knew himself to be more of an outsider than anything.
Dal gave no more ground than he was willing and for Horoth it was more than he asked.

"Soil!"

The word came with a glance downwards, at the dirt on his sandals and on Dal's boot. It was always hungry for something be it water or blood and for a fighter in the pits, soil was death. You only saw it when your life was at risk and even then it was lifeless itself.

"There is time enough for that when we get there. I would not want anyone dwelling on it overmuch."

Looking up he met Dal's steady gaze with his own, unflinching in the morning sun as it still hung low.

"So you mostly think on squires, what else do you wonder about?"

With no soldiering ever done the worn fighter had no understanding of Dal's standoffish nature towards him. A habit of the pits was to treat each other well unless there was need to quarrel so it amused him to keep asking the other man his thoughts.

@Dal
 
The antithisis of Dal's thinking was reflected in Horoth's position. Dal's eyes became portcullis to his soul, the grey flashing rebuke he set loose within himself to protect his ethos.

Not dwell on that?

How the fuck can I not think on that.

Dal spoke low, slow, and steady as the shovel that does dig a trench, pit or grave. No threat, just his truth, interred within the air for Horoth. Dal spoke the words that lived within him, careful to make sure he was not mistaken.

"If I'm making right on the lessons given to me. What justice I owe to fighting wisdom, to dole out correctly, it's to that I wonder if I am rightful on. Those lessons I got in mighty supply in pressure and patience from people I won't see again. I do what I must to make sure their brief time, the ones who guided me when they didn't have to give a damn, aint so brief. I wonder how they'd think I was doing at speaking for them. So that they didn't just help some warrior called Dal earn some coin for himself, that's all it was."

Dal spoke on, spoke on as one who knew, and accepted that others might not. The words exalted those names that flashed in Dal's memories of smiles and patience, of technique and instructions. Of goodbyes that were made regularly until the last.

"When the time comes, each lesson honoured might weigh the luck and will out in right measurement. To these young pups who laugh when I don't. To these eagers who want your rank, who haven't even seen themselves become themselves. I wonder if I am keeping my tithes to the words. Words of lessons that were said better by the mightier and the wiser, that aren't here to speak themselves no more."

Dal looked to his wall, placed a palm against it, as if he could reach through that brick. As if shaking hands with his past, to know that he was still friends with it. Pushed against it, moved to fingertips. And let it stand alone.

"The brick, nutrition, training, all of it. I wonder if it's enough, if it's true to what they thought was good enough to share. It got me this far. And I'm far enough to get others further. I wonder if I'm setting the scales of battles set right, each day before against the final, to see how they do dip. And the soil does take for my lapse. I lay my bricks, I set the obstacles. And I tell em, these squires, climb it, jump it, do it again, eat, rest, and on. I wonder if I'm too easy them."

A flash of brutal honesty with all it's conviction. Quickly let go as the wall had been.

"On all of you."

Dal moved now, slow, as if he were in the fighting pit that Horace did once raise his blade within. As if Horace had somehow was responsible for blame.

Stillness, and release. Calm and sureness. Dour irritation that was metered out, that which lurked behind the portcullis crash of his eyes was defended by virtue of speaking thusly and so long.

"Because you know. When the time comes, when it's for real. If the squires can't be, when they need - they won't be no more, and I'll have to think on that soil as owing me someone who trusted me, who I let down by relaxing, laughing, drinking, smoking, instead of building something to build them right."

@Horoth Chainbreaker
 
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Dal spoke of experience and of great love for his teachers. Those whom he felt a responsibility to and on whose lessons he put such stock in. It made Horoth think of his own lessons and wonder how different these teachers may have been.

"You care a great deal."

Idly he began pacing about Dal, following his feet as he watched them, as if they may lead him somewhere vaguely interesting though they only took him around to the other side of Dal as he spoke.

"That's good, we should care. It gives meaning to our actions."

Stopping at the other side he looked from his feet up to Dal again and smiled lightly.

"But you are not *responsible* for our lives my friend, we alone carry that weight. Each one of us."

Casting out his hand he gestured towards the wider grounds of the Abbey and Monastery. Where right at that moment dozens of the order lived breathed and readied themselves though from their vantage point little could be seen.

"You..."
Bringing his hand back he clasped it on Dal's great shoulder, still warm with exertion.
"...have no control over when we die, that is just how it is."

He did not leave his hand there long and took it away, resting it on his hip as he looked back out at the grounds and Horoth spoke his own simple truth, one every slave learned about the nature of all things.

"We have little control over anything other than ourselves. So when the time comes all we can do is hope to meet our end with some dignity and know that we have lived well."

Wind blew and the world let out its quiet roar at them, leaves waved in soft applause that grew and grew before letting up and falling silent and calm again. Horoth's head followed it as it passed over them, kicked up dust and carried it, blew leaves under new trees and Horoth cleared his throat.

"Release yourself from this burden Soldier. It is not yours to bear."

Again he smiled at the taller man, his lips parting slightly. Words spoken in frustration about Dal going soft on them did not wound his pride. It peaked his curiosity.

"How hard does a soldier's life get?"

He had never marched in rank and file. Never tented with comrades in fields or sat in barracks to eat and sleep. The experiences that Dal eluded to were hazy dreams to him, as unknown as the bottom of the seas or the tops of the clouds so it was with openness that he asked of the mans life before the Monastery.

@Dal
 
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Release myself from this burden?

What a joke.

"Might as well ask the Oxen to release the yoke and see how helpful to the farm it is without."

He made a movement with the shoulders as if saying the further lines he held. A sureness of the weight he carried, accepting of it.

This is my yoke, his frame did say. It is my responsibility.

He reshifted the weight of his attentions to the last question. He was no warrior of the word, and there was a discipline all it's own to letting superior's move as they wished about a conversation.

"Soldiers march. I don't have to march as much as I did in the early days. Never one for horses. So there's that," Dal stated, his full report requiring some further encouragement to bear out full in the light of day.

"Soldiers are in good sort if there's cohesion and discipline. There's that here in this outfit, even before my walls. When those break down, with morale breaking in turn, well. If you're one giving chase on a rout, it's a thrill."

A mulling expression, a nodding of the head there and there as if considering the other. It was a fact of war and soldiering, experience hidden, but understanding very much in the skull by scar. The unsaid words perhaps unlucky to issue aloud, one did not speak aloud of disasters. It caused worries in the mind, and did trouble the spirit of victory from appearing.

"You ever been caught in one?" Dal asked, his words chosen to allow Horoth to talk on the chase, or break he might have been part of if he so wished to talk on it.

@Horoth Chainbreaker
 
Horoth smirked at Dal's reply.

"But the Ox might find itself happier."

Likening oneself to a beast of burden, this was common among those who worked hard and Horoth had seen few who worked so hard as Dal. It pleased him to know that the other man had no luck with horses, Horoth himself found it difficult with the animals, never having ridden before his emancipation.

"Hah, give me two feet on the ground instead of four!"

On the topic of Routing, Horoth supposed he'd seen a few.
Turning towards the sun he let it warm his face and remembered when people would run and what prompted it.

"I remember when we took the Kennels. The Links, that was our name for the guards, they held us off for a time and well to be honest I don't know what happened exactly but the line broke and that was it, they fled. Not one of them held after that. It was like we were water flowing down a hill. We were unstoppable."

The feeling of that day returned and warmed him. Not with the passion of bloodlust or the violent joy of rage but the sweet warmth that touched his face now and spread throughout him. Blinking cast it away and he was here again, with Dal and his wall and the cool breeze on his skin that drew gooseflesh though from the chill alone or mixed with memory he knew not.

"When I saw the beach and the sea for the first time I admit, I did not know the world was so big. It seemed then that it went on forever."

An embarrassment hunched him into rolling his shoulders. For all of his years, his experiences outside of Gromm were few and he was learning without the benefit of youth. A task that often proved difficult.

@Dal
 
Dal focused on the report of the battle. Answered surely on it.

"Momentum. One mishap, one stroke of fortune, rolling into the next. Like that ocean, it doesn't quit, it isn't content with one wave. It makes a current. It isn't happy unless it's endless. It refuses to stagnate."

He moved his jaw, felt his own upturned canines sat in low jaw moved against each cheek in turn.

"That battle was countless decisions moments before the spear bit and the banners broke. Decisions to not visit the whore house. Decisions to burn candles over maps. Money spent on gear instead of pursuing the taste of good food. An extra hour drilling, someone who wasn't happy until everything was done that could be done. Every rout comes from erosion and escalation. Pressure, pressure, pressure, in the moment and before it."

Dal made a fist with one hand, dashed the other as water did to rock. A small gesture to punctuate his point.

"Happiness? A pale imitation of satisfaction. And there is nothing as satisfying as knowing your momentum is assured, in yourself, in others, by example and in deed. Each day, another wave, more current. So that water rushes, it carries you and the day. And most won't appreciate how day by day, the ocean assures it's own fierceness before you might even look at it, let alone fight it, let alone charter it."

Dal sniffed.

"Put it this way. A happy Ox is so until the famine hits because it didn't work. Then, it's just guilty meat."

@Horoth Chainbreaker
 
Dal spoke of life as a struggle and Horoth could not deny it and speak truth so he stood in it and thought to himself.
About the irresistible forces that govern life and death and how we may yet try to control them. Effort and weight, thought and deed.

"Momentum, hmm."

He certainly knew about strokes of fortune. Had not the Links been so cruel or the masters so undeserving then perhaps they would still be alive and he still a slave. His will was to escape but only after it was pushed to breaking. If that push had never come... the thought disturbed him, the notion that even his desire was so fragile or subject to whim. It made sense in the face of such a fear that a man like Dal would build structure, a means to control as much as possible both within and without.

Folding his arms he answered Dal's assessment with slow thoughtful words.

"I don't know, when you're in that place and you have that drive then you become part of it. I doubt if any amount of preparation would have been enough against the raw will of people. We were getting out, one way or another."

The other side of freedom was death, a lived reality for an slave although he liked Dal's visual demonstration. It was unusually expressive for him.

"There you are wrong my friend. Happiness is not a shadow of satisfaction. It is the apex of it. The crest of the wave you ride before it breaks underneath and you come back down again."

Elation was brief and wonderous. It was victory and air to him. Yet again he did not see much fault in the metaphor of the Ox. All things had to work to live although...

"A spent Ox cannot till the field nor enjoy the sun."

Leaning his back against the wall, now sturdy enough to hold him, Horoth turned his chin up to let the sun on his weathered neck and breathed in deep.

"And what is all the work for if not to spend a few moments like this in the sun with good earth beneath us hmm?"

@Dal
 
Dal, calm as a coma, moved over to a solitary brick upon the ground.

Picked it up, deliberate and slow. Looked over at Horoth.

Felt the weight of the brick. Tossed it from one hand to the other. Once, heavy, slow. Twice, faster, impactful. Third, full force, slapping against his palm. Shock against himself.

There were countless words Dal could bark out. What issued was low and grinding like the sound of brick against brick.

"Get up."

His eyes refused to blink. His tusks did jut. Control had it's limit. And insults to his work ethic, to his wall, was making the stone in his palm very viable ammunition to Dal in this moment.

"You're going to scale that wall. Or you're going to quit leaning on my work."

@Horoth Chainbreaker
 
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Horoth gave a short laugh, mistaking Dal's intention for a jest.
"Come now, you can't mean me to..."
A second look told him that Dal was completely, perhaps violently serious.

"You're not..."
He certainly was.

Deflated but not defeated, Horoth glared as he removed his belt and walked them a few paces away.
"Alright, but only because I know how much this means to you."
By the time he had rubbed sand on his hands for grip and took a slight crouched stance to mount the wall he was grinning. Freedom brought its own troubles, he thought. In speaking his mind he had given offense and mending bridges was easily done when one had a mind to do it.

So he did, he rushed and jumped the wall, strong fingers landing just about over the top from his frantic half sprinted momentum and as his sandaled feet sought purchase on the even brickwork he felt the heat of the morning bring sweat to his brow and his back.
By the time he huffed himself onto his belly and swung his leg over he needed a moment to rest, straddling the wall looking down for the first time at Dal.

"You know, the view is lovely."
He jested as a means to draw attention away from how tired the short climb had made him.
"There, see, you can see the Vayd from here."
Gods blood he was out of breath.

@Dal
 
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Dal nodded at the vault. No point in admonishing the form. The deed had been done, and the bricks held fast. And so he held onto his brick no more. Thudding to the ground.

He knew the sight that Horoth peered at. Knew it from his to-ing and fro-ing. And he knew that this gladiator that balanced on the brick was pushed enough. For now. Further words would crumble what had been built. Even if a single act did not a practice make.

He looked at Horoth, hearing the heavy breath, marking the lack of stamina. Perhaps built for the show of steel instead of scaling stone, he thought. Battlefields were so different from singular one on ones, this he knew himself. The latter he had delivered to prevent the former being populated at all. A champion for hire to deliver a day. A sellsword to a field of manpower set to violence more commonly. Killer of Knights, now Squire to make this Order better. He knew how easy it was to drive a rondel sharp into the visor. Knew the fear of thundering hooves and lance, and did his job well for his preparedness. To spite a gentry who thought the foot soldier simple and victim to their war fancies. Their lack of conviction to their survival making possible his old livelihood.

"I'm sure it's better for the vantage. For your taking of the wall," Dal said, eyes looking how quick the breath did recover in the knight. He paced a little, hands free of brick.

"Nothing quite like taking a battlement. Defending one, you see your enemy pack up and go. Sallying, you drive them away, pick up their things and profit. But taking a defence? Scaling walls, climbing ladders, defeating them. Looking back to where you're come from. Nothing like that to change your sights. And career."

A casual gesture, up and down at Horoth with armoured gauntlet.

"You'll see for yourself if you train regular. Getting to the fight can kill you. But standing taller than you did before? That's worth shirking the slacking. That's worth the P.T. So a better sight is earned."

Dal rolled his arms, and looked to his bundle. Some wasters of wood amongst them, longswords without splinters or damage.

"Knights can always spend the time with me to ensure a win. Become themselves again and again. Us Squires ensure you're ready in what we can and must," Dal said, and adjusted his broad belt to sit secure and tight against his posture.

"You were accepted to be Knight for a reason. When was the last time you stood in an Arena? Heard the roar? Saw applause," asked Dal, his voice gaining more freedom from his serious low, "Bet that was a sight." The last words he did say with a jutting of his jaw, his stubs of tusks presented in comradery of the thought of displays. Of such triumphs. Of days survived. Of days of being paid.

@Horoth Chainbreaker
 
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