Laurel Mith
Morning came late to Laurel, overtaxed as her body was. Sunlight long past the rays of dawn she would normally wake up to streamed through the thin curtains of the room, a small breeze moving the fabric as it entered through from the slightly ajar balcony window. She felt groggy and slow, her mind dulled with every thought having to fight through a thick fog to be fully formed, and her muscles were heavy with sleep although that sensation began to lessen as she pulled herself out of bed and tottered around the room on unsteady feet.
The constant pounding that had so taxed her the day before had receded somewhat leaving a dull ache, nothing she could not deal with once she could properly awaken and that happened with a start when she realised that she was alone in the room. She strode across the room, barefoot, and swung the door in sharply, startling the two guards standing outside.
"The Princess?" She demanded, the miasma clogging her mind beginning to dissipate but still slowing her down. Sleeping too long, even with a head wound which demanded plenty of rest, had been a mistake and it would take her some time to catch up to her usual alertness.
"She was invited for a walk with Princess Valeri and accepted the offer." One of the guards spoke, glancing at Laurel's tousled hair and the clothes she had been wearing the day before, and had slept in, although he had the sense to keep his thoughts to himself. "She has two guards with her." The second man added hurriedly as Laurel glowered at the two. She stared them down for a moment although her mind was distinctly elsewhere so she did not notice their nervous shuffling. Technically they were veteran to her, Laurel's position having been an invented one for the sake of this visit but there was no denying that in terms of skill, and therefore regard, she was far above them.
"She is still in the palace, then?" Laurel asked, relaxing a little as they nodded. If Eve was still in the palace grounds then she would be safe, especially if she had guards in attendance although it was unlikely they could keep up with her if the tomboyish Princess decided she wanted to be alone. That thought made her uneasy so Laurel retreated back into the room and quickly prepared herself to leave, bathing quickly in cold water for she had no time to call for heated, and changed into fresh hunting leathers. With her bow in its rightful place strapped to her back, she swung the door back open and made to head out but the two men blocked her path, a little more resolute than they had been earlier.
"The Princess ordered us to keep you here. You'll have to wait for her return."
Sensing that the guards were more scared of the Princess', and therefore the king's, wrath, Laurel did not contest the point and headed back in with the door shut firmly behind her. She, however, had no intention of being kept locked up and crossed to the balcony window, swinging it open and looking over the edge to the ground. It was a long, possibly fatal drop, if one were to topple over the edge but easily manageable if taken carefully.
Filled with purpose, and freed from the chains of guard duty which had so unnaturally bound her, Laurel felt familiar strength returning to her body and swung herself over the balcony, dropping down so that she was hanging on by her fingertips before letting go and falling the safe distance to the ground. She naturally fell into a crouch, as if she were back in the forest hunting game, and scuttled across the long gardens to a path and, when no one was watching, leapt over it before standing tall and walking normally.
First she doubled back on herself to the gardens within the palace, giving Eve's room a wide berth lest the guards supposed to be guarding the room caught sight of her, and observed the two Princesses talking for a short while. Eve's choice of clothing surprised her, surprisingly formal for the woman and even fashionable to the extent that she did not look under dressed next to the rather seductively clothed Primfiran Princess. They seemed oddly close, having never met before to Laurel's knowledge, but she supposed that they were women in the same position and that had formed an instant bond between the two; the trials of a Princess an area which Laurel was of no use to her friend in and she was pleased to see Eve finding someone who understood those pressures. Content that Eve was safe with the other woman, Laurel left before catching much of their interaction and headed out into the city; intent on finding what had happened with the monster. It had not escaped her notice that most of those she passed wore black or some other kind of funereal clothing and there was a heavy atmosphere that pressed down on Exodus.
The site of the battle, or at least where it ended, bore few of the signs she had been expecting for the rain had washed away the detritus death inevitably left. The beast's corpse had been moved, as had the wounded and dead who had been its victims, but there were signs she could see clearly with her tracker's eye on the cobbled ground and on the walls of the buildings nearby. Claw marks, chips and shards of metal weapons, scraps of clothing that had been missed by those cleaning up the aftermath. She was not alone in travelling to the area, many coming to gaze upon the scene of so much death the previous night with those who had lost someone to the beast easy to spot out amongst the mourners.
Having seen enough, she retreated from the battle site and slipped into a tavern on the road toward the palace. Despite the early hour of the day there were plenty of patrons losing themselves in ale and wine and she did not need to spend long weaving between tables before finding what she had been looking for: a group of Earthican warriors she recognised as from the king's retinue. They spotted her and moved up to make space on a bench for her to join them before turning back to gaze into the tankards.
"That many?" She asked, waving down a passing barmaid for a drink, as she joined them. There was a nodding of heads but no one spoke. Laurel knew most of the guards who had come to Exodus, all of them having trained together at one time or another as fellow warriors, so she shared their sense of defeat despite the beast's death.
"Aye. Wasn't even one of us warriors who killed it. Some merchant." There was a general muttering until one of the others piped up. "At least it was of ours. Couldn't stomach it if one of those Primfiran lot finished it off. Prancing around it, prodding it with spears to wear it down. A coward's way to fight!" Agreement was grunted around the table although Laurel stayed quiet, sipping at her ale. Her experience told her that the Primfiran's had been right, the brave and the stupid would try to finish off such a creature in some kind of idiotic honour-bound glory hunting but to admit to such would go against all sense of an Earthican warrior's code.
"Can't believe it got Solveig." Laurel started, looking up from her drink as the others shot warning looks to the man who had spoken but he was staring into his own tankard and did not notice the glares being cast his way at the mention of Laurel's mentor. "Rammed his damned axe hard and fast into it and the monster just shook it off like it was nothing and tore his throat out. I can still hear it..." Silence descended on the table, the man looking up at the faces of those around him and realisation dawned as he met Laurel's gaze. No one spoke for a while, the natural patterns of the wooden table suddenly becoming the most interesting thing which they had ever seen.
Dead? Solveig?
An emptiness opened up in her chest, a void created by shock and loss which she was not yet ready to face. Eventually it would implode, pulling in all of those emotions and exponentially enhancing them out of her control but for now she simply could not face them so she threw back her head and downed the whole tankard of ale before flagging down a barmaid and calling for something stronger.
It was time to toast the dead, just as Solveig would have wanted.
