Paths of the Chosen

Aidan
The Realms
Unknown date (day 2)
Night
Somewhere in the Mistvale Highlands

The centaurs led Aidan down the hill and into the valleys between, now filled with thicker, higher mists. He wasn’t sure how the centaurs saw where they were going, and more than once, he tripped over a rock or hole in the ground and tumbled to the ground. The centaur holding the rope, belying her stern words earlier, always patiently waited for him to get back to his feet -- no easy matter with his arms and hands bound like they were -- before continuing onward. The mist was still thin enough that he could easily see the centaurs and make out the more substantial obstacles around him, but even looking down at the ground, the finer details were wholly obscured.

He was also exhausted, having not had anything close to a full night’s rest. As the journey continued, he spent more and more time on the ground. The centaur leader grew more and more frustrated with their slow pace, but he thankfully didn’t take his frustration out on Aidan. All told, the sky was turning red and orange with the rising sun by the time Aidan ran into the female centaur from behind, not realizing she had stopped. Looking up in weary surprise, he saw the shapes of low buildings peeking out of the mists in front of them. The leader turned to the centaur holding his leash and said, “Derwyn and I will try to find a Council member to report to. Keep him here and out of trouble.”

The two of them walked off towards the buildings, and Aidan took the opportunity to collapse to the ground. Before he could fall asleep though, the remaining centaur -- Lail, by process of elimination -- nudged him with one of her hooves. “Sit up. I am sorry for the forced march, Steffan is a bit of a slave driver and has a stick up his tail about rules and regulations. He decided not to kill you outright, but he did not have the authority to let you go, and he could not let you linger longer than strictly needed. Here, I imagine you are at least as thirsty as you are tired.” Her voice was warm and gentle. She waited for Aidan to sit back up, then knelt down on her forelegs in front of him and carefully brought the tip of a large waterskin to his lips. He greedily gulped down the water, which tasted pure and clear and sweet.

“Go ahead and get comfortable, catch a little nap if you can,” Lail told him once he had his fill of water. “None of the Councillors will be long awake this early in the morning, and even Steffan will be reluctant to pull them away from their breakfasts. I would say you have at least an hour; get what rest you can. I can tell that you are not going anywhere.” Aidan gratefully rolled over onto his side, not even caring about the feel of his head sinking slightly into the soft, moist earth. Almost immediately, a deep, dreamless sleep claimed him.

Aidan
The Realms
Unknown date (day 2)
Morning
Outside a centaur village, Somewhere in the Mistvale Highlands

Sometime later, he woke up to a hand on his shoulder, shaking him gently. “Alright, human, best wake up, get to your feet. I hear a group coming.” Aidan groaned softly in protest, still feeling exhausted from the long night and lack of sleep, but struggled to his feet anyway. His muscles had tightened considerably while he was asleep, and Lail gave him a discrete helping hand, holding him up while he got his legs under him.

The sky had lightened to that same beautiful blue color that he remembered from the day before, and the mist had thinned out considerably now that the sun was heating things up, so Aidan was able to see the group -- herd? -- of centaurs approaching from a fair way off. There looked to be about a half dozen of them. Steffan, still in his armor and gripping his spear, led the others by a few steps, and Aidan looked over the newcomers as they emerged from the mists.

In the center of the group was the biggest of them by far, a large male, nearly six feet high at his equine shoulder and at least nine feet tall overall. He did not wear any armor but had an ax belted at his hip, and his bare torso and flanks were crisscrossed with dozens of scars. His skin was deeply tanned and weathered, and he had thick, black hair with just a sprinkle of grey. The fur on his lower body was a medium bluish-grey.

To the giant’s left was quite possibly his polar opposite. She wasn’t the shortest of the group, but was only a little taller than Aidan was. Still, where the big guy looked like a veteran warrior, she looked like nothing so much as the sweet neighborhood grandma who always gave out homemade cookies and brownies for Halloween. Her hair was stark white and tied up in a bun while her lightly-tanned skin was wrinkled and spotted with age and exposure to the sun; her fur was a rich brown with just the slightest hint of red.

To the warrior’s other side was another woman, slightly larger than the grandmotherly centaur but much younger -- much younger. Just judging from her human half, Aidan would put her age at twenty-one at the absolute oldest. She had grey hair, although it was more like the color of the warrior’s fur than the grey of age. Her skin was heavily tanned, and her coat was a rich, deep black. Aidan couldn’t help but notice that the soft, tightly-fitting leather jerkin she wore did almost nothing to hide her rather large breasts.

Next to her was the shortest of the group, another male. Aidan almost would have thought him a child except that he had a long, thick, braided beard. His equine half was more of a shaggy pony than a horse, and his broad shoulders and barrel chest combined with his beard made his human half look more dwarf-like than anything else. His skin was a light brown like milk chocolate, and his hair, too, was a rich deep black, while his coat was a rusty chestnut color.

Finally, on the other side of the grandmotherly centaur was another woman, just a bit shorter than the other two but taller than the dwarf-pony centaur. At first, Aidan thought her hair was white as well, but then he saw the light glint off of it; silver, not white. Her ears were also quite noticeably different from her peers; where the others had human-style ears, hers were long and pointed and protruded horizontally from the sides of her head. Also unlike the others, her skin was fair, and her fur a light, creamy tan.

By the time he finished giving each of them a quick look, they were standing before him and giving him equally frank stares. Steffan broke the silence by saying, “We found this human out in a little thicket near Old Irontop. There was no effort made to hide his tracks, so Derwyn was able to follow them with ease. He had nothing on him that you do not see now. Lail says that her Scan ability tells her that he is only level one. He claimed to have been brought here by magic from far away. Frankly, it makes no sense for a level one human -- especially one so ill-prepared for a journey -- to have made it as far into our territory as he did without encountering a patrol. I decided that while it is clear he is a trespasser, there was a chance that he spoke the truth, and it would be unjust to kill him out of hand, so we brought him here to face the Council’s Judgment.”

“Yes, you said as much already, Steffan,” The huge warrior said with a wry twist to his lips. His voice was a deep basso rumble that Aidan could practically feel in his bones. “Thank you, you are dismissed. You too, Lail.” The two patrol guards bowed and left him with the Council, and the giant turned his attention on Aidan. “Whether you know it or not, Hellspawn, you have wandered into the lands of the Starchaser tribe, and the sentence for trespassing is death. However, if what you told Steffan is true, then you may not deserve such harsh punishment as that. Our laws and traditions are strict, but like any good weapon, they can bend when needed. First, tell me: what is your name?”

Aidan bowed as best he could while still wrapped up like a Thanksgiving turkey and replied, “Honored Councillor, my name is Aidan.”

The warrior inclined his head very slightly in return and said, “My name is Fionn Ironhide. To my left are Eilwen Brighthearth and Ailis Silverhair” -- the grandmother and, appropriately enough, the silver-haired woman -- “and to my right are Anwn Wolfsister and Gerwyn Wanderhoof.” -- the black-furred woman with the well-filled shirt and the short one. “We five make up the Starchaser Council, and we will decide your fate. Ailis will cast a spell on you, then you will tell us your story from start to end in your own words. After, we will decide what to do with you. Lady Councillor?” He looked at Ailis, and she nodded in response and began to speak words that Aidan could not understand. Her hands glowed a radiant gold, then the glow flowed from her hands and settled in a halo around him.

She nodded in satisfaction and said, “The spell is active. Aidan, for the next ten minutes, if you tell a lie, the aura around you will turn black, and all will know you have tried to deceive us. At that point, I imagine Fionn will chop off your head, and we will be done with this. It is in your best interest to tell us the truth, even if you feel it might not be favorable to you. Now, please, begin.”

The five of them looked on expectantly as Aidan tried to marshal his sluggish thoughts. He didn’t seem to have much choice -- it was clearly ‘answer or die’ at this point -- and he had no reason to doubt that the silver-haired woman’s magic would do precisely as she claimed, nor that Fionn would kill him out of hand if he triggered it by lying. However, she only said that the magic would reveal lies; she said nothing about leaving things out. He decided that his best chance was telling the truth while leaving out a few choice details that would only muddy the waters for his judges. Choosing his words carefully, he began to speak.

“Honorable Councillors, forgive me for being slow to respond. I have had but an hour or two’s sleep this night and am quite exhausted. I am from a city very far from here called Atlanta; it is so far that I’m not even sure where here is. I woke up yesterday in a little box canyon, not knowing how I got there. I had only the clothes I am wearing now, although someone left these few other pieces of equipment for me in the canyon. I do not know who they were or how they came or left without your people seeing them. I took a while to orient myself and then left, deciding to climb a nearby hill to get a better view of the landscape and hopefully find some shelter from a rainstorm I could see coming my way. However, the climb was much harder than I anticipated and it ended up taking me until almost sunset before I reached the top of the hill, so when I spotted the trees a little further down the other slope of the hill I decided to sleep there for the night. I don’t have any real survival skills and couldn’t do much to make a presentable camp, so I just made my way into the trees and rolled up my backpack to use as a pillow. That’s as far as I got before your patrol found me. I do not know why I was brought to your territory, nor who it was who brought me. I am only thankful for my linguistic Trait because I have a feeling that without being able to speak your language, I would have died last night. I understand that I am trespassing on your lands, but I swear to you that I did not know and that I mean no harm. If you would just release me and point me in the direction of your nearest border, I would leave and never return.” Aidan bowed his head and awaited the Council’s response, trying not to sway too much on his feet. He spoke the literal truth throughout, although many of his statements were misleading due to omitted information, and he never saw the glow around him flicker. He said a short mental prayer to whoever was listening that his incomplete honesty was enough to save his skin.

The five Councillors listened quietly while he told his tale, then they all looked at each other in silence for a few moments. The short one, Gerwyn, broke the silence finally. “Ailis, are you certain the spell worked?” His voice was roughly and gravelly, like someone who smoked a few hundred too many cigarettes.

She nodded in response. “It took effect and remained in effect throughout. This spell can be circumvented, but unless appearances are deceiving indeed, I do not believe it has been. He spoke the truth, as far as he knows it.”

The Council shared glances around again, then Eilwen, the old grandmother, turned to Aidan. “We will need to discuss this further among ourselves, away from prying ears. For now, you will not be harmed.” Aidan couldn’t help but sway a bit as the muscles he didn’t realize he had been tensed up suddenly loosened with his relief. Eilwen whistled sharply and called out, “Lail, girl, I know you are listening in. Come retrieve our guest and take him to one of the storage huts. Remove his bindings and give him something to eat and drink, and a pail of water to wash with. Then let him sleep. I know you were up all night as well, so once Aidan here is settled in, go find Ivor or someone to guard him. Do not let him out except to go to the latrine when he needs, but for now, no harm is to come to him.”

Lail trotted up out of the mists, looking sheepish. “Yes, Mama Eilwen.” She quickly moved over to Aidan and drew a short knife from her belt, slicing through the rope binding him. Eilwen began to speak again as he massaged his hands and arms to chase away the pins-and-needles sensation.

“You are indeed trespassing on Starchaser lands, Aidan, and you must pay the price for that. Given what you have told us this morning, however, that price need not be your life. Make no trouble, and you will give us no reason to change our minds on that matter. We will send for you this afternoon to tell you what price it is you will be paying.” With that, she and the other Councillors turned and began to walk away.

Lail smiled at him and, once the Council was out of earshot, said, “That went about as well as could be hoped for you, I think. You are lucky the full Council came; if it were just Fionn, Anwn, and one of the others, they might have just decided to solve the problem you present the easy way. You need a roof over your head, food for your belly, and a more dignified place to sleep than in the dirt like an animal.” So saying, she led him into the village with a gentle hand on his shoulder.