Dharah crouched near her campfire and studied the packet of parchments in her hand as one would a strange skull or artifact one had stumbled across. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Helplessly, she turned her gaze to the messenger that had brought civilization and confusion to her wilderness campsite, in the form of a standard guild balloting letter. The dark-furred fenki shifted her weight easily and returned the gaze with an almost bored expression.
“Reply?” The messenger inquired.
“What? Oh!” Dharah began to fumble in her rucksack in hopes of finding some unused parchment in there, “Yes. Yes I suppose there must be.”
Her fingers found the items she sought, and she bit anxiously at the end of her pen as she tried to reply quickly, but with due regard for the needs of the guild. So strange that they should seek her out, after such long silence, on both sides. She wondered if some new event had caused them to reach out now. Not that there had been many sisters to notice her distress, or absence, when she had fled the town.
She stumbled her way through a closing paragraph, sealed the letter clumsily, and handed it to the messenger, along with some hexa. Messengers liked that sort of thing, she remembered. As she watched the lithe young Clamod stride off with a confident gait, Dharah idly wondered how she had even found the campsite. Magic, perhaps, not that it mattered in the end.
She settled back onto her bedroll and gazed blankly at the flames of her campfire. The final paragraph of her message echoed in her head, forcing out all other thoughts.
I know my absence has been long and unexplained. I can only hope that my sisters in Xiosia can find the forgiveness and understanding as to why I left, and why I stayed away for so long. Perhaps there is no forgiveness to be had, but it has become clear to me that this must be resolved, in some fashion, so I will make my way back to Hydlaa, to tell my tale and face what repercussions there may be.
She wondered if she could truly hold herself to that promise – to come back, to resume her abandoned duties, to face her failure and cowardice. The fire died slowly to embers while the Nolthrir sat motionless, indecisive and afraid.
