Rain poured on the timber roof.

The smell of the moist woodlands wafted to their noses.

The aged man sat back in his seat, wrapped in white and deep in slumber.

His granddaughter walked about with a bucket in hand to catch the droplets dripping through the cracks of the aged building.

She fetched another, then another, but soon found them lacking in their number.

Her gaze drifted to the slumbering elder, it would not do to let the cold disturb him.

Reluctant she might be, she took her shroud from the rack and the door opened with a clack.

There were other buckets in the shed and about the yard she could use.

The girl gave a sallow eye towards the distant forest. She thought of Lucretia, the Princess of her Kingdom, and held fast the hope that she would come here someday soon.

The door closed shut, and the elder roused.

His foggy eyes grew clear, he stroked his ruffled beard and made a few gestures typical of waking as he adjusted his posture in the chair.

“She’s gone now,” He said, calling to his guest cloaked in the dark like a chameleon.

There was no response, and the presence did not unveil itself.

He seemed to sneer, but not at the interloper. Rather, he was sneering at himself in derision.

“Have it your way then,” He said.

Then he leaned back in his seat and fell to slumber once again.

 

O

 

The tears of heaven assailed the trees.

Soaking water dripped from the leaves.

The lad lurked among them, cloaked in the shadows and invisible in his shroud.

“It’s just sensible,” Said he, who was Rapture, in answer to the old man that laid in slumber.

There sat a golden hawk upon his rain drenched shoulder.

He stroked its crown with a gentleness that made the small beast close its dark eyes.

The bird responded by spreading its wings, it formed an umbrella that shielded him from the downpour.

He turned his thoughts back to wonder about the state of the bird’s master, his charge and companion Lucretia, who was resting now in a snug shelter that he had formed with his survival skills for her.

He heard a sound, then turned to see the old man’s granddaughter lurking through the woods in a raincoat.

She scoured the wet and muddy landscape for a bucket to catch the rain dripping through her grandfather’s worm eaten rooftop.

His eye lingered upon her for a time, and then he waved his shoulder to rouse the hawk from its comfort driven slumber.

 

O

 

The maiden slipped her boots in the mud.

She did not fall, however, and only leaned her body against a tree for some stability.

She stopped to catch her weary breath, and then she heard a sound.

The noise was familiar; nothing more than the echo of thin metal buckets colliding.

She turned her head to see a young man cloaked in black, a golden hawk spread wings as it clung to his back.

She recognised him, for he was the man who accompanied their Princess.

She frowned at the sight of him.

He was not surprised, he could tell that she did not trust him.

When he he held out the buckets before her weary gaze, the meaning was clear enough.

 

O

 

The old man stirred, the echo of a hammer hard at work roused him from his slumber.

Light gleamed in through the cracks on the roof, but there were less than he’d seen the night before.

He grew curious, especially when the door opened and his granddaughter walked in carrying an empty bucket in her grip.

He saw her, and she saw him as he made a gesture that pointed to the ceiling.

“Who’s on the roof?” Asked the old man.

The girl put down the buckets and walked towards the fire pit.

Through a tube she blew air to empower a small flame in the ash black stone bordered square, and soon enough  the crackle of a budding blaze soon lit the darkened space.

She went about setting up a cage and then resting a kettle over the blaze before turning on her heels to face the door.

She heard someone coming down the ladder, then watched their helper, Rapture, as he walked into the one roomed building.

The old man raised his brows, his granddaughter’s silence at last made sense.

She disliked this boy, and it irked her to have him at work on her premises.

He smiled then, and laughed at the lad who smelled of wet woodwork.

He cast a gesture, and the boy read it well.

The granddaughter was already hard at work on the other side of the room when Rapture took the kettle and poured for the aged figure a cup of warm tea.

He then placed the mug down at the senior’s tableside.

The gratified elder spoke at ease;

“Not lacking in manners, I see.”

“My mother taught me,” Said the boy.

“Would that I knew what that felt like,” Said the man, who braved the beverage despite its heat.

Rapture’s gaze lingered upon him, only when he drank, and then put down the burning cup, did he relax just a hint of his nerve.

The man was human, this much proved it.

“Patchwork’s done,” He said, taking his seat on a torn up chair, “It won’t last though.”

“Ah, so what? You want my permission to rip up the roof and redo it from scratch?”

“If you’re willing.”

“You’d usually charge for such a service.”

“Then tell me what you know about Jupiter,” Said Rapture with neither impatience nor its opposite.

“Now that I’d offer up free of charge,” Said the senior with a snicker.

He turned his eye then to the figure of his granddaughter who paused in the background as if bitten by a stinger.

“I don’t know much, beyond what I told you. Ask the girl, she’s the one who came to me when the city fell though she was too traumatized to give me any details, at least until she saw your companion and told me she was the Princess…saying it’s a small world doesn’t quite cut it.”

Rapture did not know outright whether to believe him, but the old man did indeed seem to know nothing of true value.

He turned his eye to the young lady, who didn’t spare him even a glance.

Her dislike towards him was evident, so he didn’t bother to ask her.

Indeed, the old man was far more amicable, far more worth talking to.

He poured himself some tea, having confirmed through the elder’s own state that it was safe to do so, and then watched in silence the spiraling chunks of leaves left adrift within the cup.

He felt the elder watching him, but he didn’t say anything.

Only after a while did the old man let loose in a world weary tone,

“You’re dying…ain’tcha boy.”

Rapture fell silent, the granddaughter paused in her work to turn her eye upon the duo.

The lad did not bid to reply, yet he didn’t get up and leave either.

“I was a soldier once,” Said the old man “I’ve seen it before, plenty of times…Platinum Class, to be sure. You, boy, have been pushing yourself too hard, I think. That’s how they died too, if the war didn’t get them. What would you do that for I wonder? Fir one so young…The Princess, perhaps? But I’ll bet even she doesn’t know half the truth of it.”

Rapture did not need to speak.

His left hand came to rest over his right wrist.

Only he knew how the skin was cracked and blackened underneath.

The old man watched him closely, and it was not just him either.

The granddaughter saw it as well, the subtle clenching of teeth hidden behind Rapture’s cheeks, the trembling pupils that feared death…

All these subtle things…

Yet Rapture, for his part, stayed utterly silent.

He sipped on his tea, then muttered back,

“As I thought, it’s not something that just goes away, is it?” He thought back to the memory of his companion, Rusalka and, more specifically, her mother.

That woman had died in exactly the same manner which the elder described, and now that same death had come for him too.

“No lad, it doesn't,” Said the weary old man, “Unless you want to be dead before twenty, whatever the hell you’re doing to wear your body down this quickly, stop it.”

The granddaughter listened, her glance rested on Rapture throughout, and she saw the lad smile.

He faced his doom knowingly, shook his head and simply said,

“I can’t.”

She wondered, why? What could push him so far? And it was once again her elder who gave her the answer.

“Because of her?” He asked.

Though the boy said nothing once again, the old man received his answer from the silence.

“Is it loyalty or love, I wonder?” He asked, speaking his thoughts aloud.

“Can’t it be both?” The boy snapped back in turn.

“Oh? Well, whichever it is it doesn't matter, both for sure are prone to make men do foolish things.”

The granddaughter shot her elder with a worried glance.

His words carried a story, even Rapture could sense it, but all the geezer did was shake his head and sip his tea in silence.

“I hope you don’t come to regret it.” Rapture heeded that whisper.

The elder didn’t seem intent to speak more to him on the matter, but he felt that in that instant he had come to understand him just a little bit better.

He rose to his feet then, thanked the old man for his civic hospitality, said goodbye to the man’s granddaughter, and then turned to take his leave.

“I’ll escort you to the door,” Said the girl, who finished wiping the last of her old plates.

“It’s just over there,” The boy replied.

“I was raised in a palace sir, it’s good manners.”

He surrendered with a shrug, then let her lead the way. The wizened elder cast a smile upon them, then he leaned back in his seat as tranquil as he’d ever been.

He mused on the boy’s sad story, his life which was burning out so recklessly and rapidly.

All of this he did for a woman, and that fact resonated with the old man all too well.

 

O

 

The door opened to the light of a dim red sun.

Rapture stepped out, then took the hand of the man’s granddaughter in a parting shake.

Her grip tightened, he took pause at that and observed her firm eye upon him

“I was thinking,” Said the girl suddenly, “Maybe I can entrust her highness to you after all, sir. Although, I do admit that I find your feelings somewhat impure.”

The lad answered with silence at first, after a brief moment however he gave a nod and left his name with the lass.

“My name is Rapture,” He told her, “And my motives are none of your concern.”

“They are every good patriot’s concern, we can ill afford a foreigner to have designs on a member of the royal family, Sir,” She replied.

Her logic was so sound in fact that he had no choice but to swallow his complaints.

From a Centurion’s perspective, his purest sentiments were the highest blasphemy, there was no reconciling this.

“Lady Sibyl had a safehouse, it’s due south in the Wayfarer’s Hills, still in the Artemis Region but even Artemis’ lord knows nothing about it.”

“Wayfarer’s Hills?” The boy mimed the name half in curiosity.

He remembered it, and then gave her a nod, he wanted to ask her the meaning of such a name and its origin, after all, if it still lived up to such a name then it wouldn’t be a good place to hide a safehouse, would it?

“Good of you to ask,” She said with a nod, “It’s an older name from an older time, before even the isles of Orion had split from the mainland when the Gods clashed there.”

“That was centuries ago, nobody changed the name?”

“Nobody really goes there anymore,” She said with a shrug.

That, to him, made a fair bit of sense.

The place was frequented so infrequently now that nobody cared about it, hardly anyone gave it a glance on the map, nevermind then anyone even thinking to change the name.

“I’ll let the Princess know,” He said.

“Please take care of her, Master Rapture,” Said the maiden with a nod.

Finally, they shook their clasped hands and parted ways genuinely.

The girl watched him as he stepped into the woods and let a golden hawk land gently on his shoulder.

The bird stared back at her in what seemed to her a most disquieting glance, in fact it almost seemed human.

She leaned her shoulder to the frame of the door, then took in with silence the dim crimson light of the sun.

She sensed something in the wind and realised they’d be having guests soon, the very last people she’d ever want to see, quite frankly.