Favored

"Almeria?" Aunt said in shock, several of the villagers stared on with concern as aunt swooned.

"Kathy!" Uncle grabbed aunt before she feigned dead away and could collapse. I helped uncle lay aunt down, laying my halberd off to the side. She was breathing normally, it appeared my name caused her a bit of shock.

"My apologies milady, I'll take care of my wife." He wouldn't meet my eyes.

"You can just call be Liz," I said, "we are family now."

"No milady, I'm afraid we can't be." He said quietly. "We can't possibly meet your expectations."

I felt as if a dagger had been thrust into my chest. "I don't care about that!" I cried out, grabbing his arm. "Why does my name mean so much!"

"You are our lord's daughter milady," he said stiffly, "as a baroness, how could we mere peasants, hope to match your expectations?"

I could feel the dagger being twisted slowly, like a war horse had stepped upon me.

"No!" I said, shaking his arm.

Kathy slowly began to stir, rubbing at her eyes for a moment as she pushed herself into a siting position. She looked between Josiah and I. "What happened?"

"You wanted to sleep for a short spell." Josiah answered, "It was rather sudden... might I add, somewhat abrupt as well." She took Josiah's offered hand as she got to her feet.

"Well, its been an eventful day." she smiled at us.

"Kathy..." Josiah began, "we can't adopt her."

Kathy turned to her husband, shock and perhaps anger. "Excuse me? I won't be going back on my word Josiah!"

She grabbed my hand. "oh sorry about that, he can be a bit of a block head at times."

I smiled, to put her at ease, but I was still dealing with the blow that those words had dealt me. "It's fine, we all say things we do not mean." I said that to allow everything to be as water under a bridge. As it stood, Josiah and I nodded, letting go of it.

Caleb coughed, "I didn't stagger here for a troubadour's play auntie."

"Oh? You didn't?" Josiah retorted, "It seems to me like that was very much the case."

Caleb glared at Josiah and struggled to his feet. "Oh yes. Exactly my intentions." he stormed off, limping quite heavily as he did so.

I turned to my new aunt and uncle. Kathy seemed ready to go after him, but Josiah seemed rather cross with Caleb. "Why don't the two of you stay here? I'll go after him, keep him out of trouble and such." I said with a small shrug and a grin.

With a glance at each other Kathy sighed and nodded. "It would seem my husband and I have much to talk about in the mean time."

I supposed they did, I did force myself upon them in a way, and they seemed at odds with their viewpoints on the issue. Maybe some distance would help them figure it all out? So I grabbed the halberd and left, heading after Caleb.

"Hey! Wait a second!" I called as I jogged a bit to close the distance.

"You need something?" He grunted as I caught up to him and started walking beside him.

"Nah," I replied lightly, "just wanted to get to know you better, we're family now. Right?"

He shook his head, "I guess so, if auntie gets uncle onboard." He muttered.

We walked in silence for a bit, I absorbed my surroundings, for we were walking down the road south of the village, into the forest. "Is there somewhere you have in mind?" I asked.

"You'll see." His reply was brief. We continued our trek up the road of hard packed dirt, entering the foot hills of one of the mountain passes. He suddenly turned off the road, making his way through the dense underbrush. We forced our way through what we could not go around, stoping only to take small sips of water from my waterskin. It was perhaps another half hour or so that we arrived at a small meadow on the side of a hill.

Near the top of the meadow were several large boulders, that was where we ended up, after a few minutes we were sitting atop them, looking down the meadow, through the gaps in the trees we could see the great expanses of the valley below. The birds sang their little melodies and the distant sparkling of the sea could be seen on the western horizon.

"So, what's your story eh?" Caleb asked, as he grabbed a small rock and began idly drawing circles on the boulder.

"My story?" I asked.

"Yeah, you know," he gestured to the land around us. "Who are you, why are you here now?" He shrugged, "that kind of thing."

"Call me Liz." I replied.

"Sure, But..." he sighed, "why would a noble accept an offer of adoption from my aunt? What would your family say?"

I turned away, I tried to sit tall and just brush it off, as my brother could have done... but I wasn't my brother. I put my knees in front of my chest and hugged them. Staring off to the east.

"I don't know, maybe they're happy I won't be alone anymore?" I said softly.

"How'd they..." Caleb stopped, but the question seemed to hang in the air. So I cleared my throat, they would have to know eventually.

"My mother." I nearly choked. I slowed my breathing, wiping at the blurriness at the edges of my vision. "When the news of the first waves began to arrive at our manor, my parents released our guards to protect their families and homes."

"We were in the garden, my mother, brother, and I." I clenched my hand into a fist. "My brother was a soldier you know, he'd jokingly train me with whatever weapons he managed to smuggle from his garrison's armory."

"At first we didn't know what was happening. There were shouts and a few loud noises from the servants, so brother left for a moment to see what it was. He came running back, not a minute later, some bandits on his heels."

"Why'd he come back before dealing with them?" Caleb asked. I chuckled.

"Because I was still holding his halberd, doing his joke of a training routine." I sighed. "Mother leapt up from the bench she'd been sitting on and screamed at us to run, pulling knives from seemingly nowhere."

"So, my brother grabbed me and ran. We ran as fast as we could through the forest near our manor, we knew it was burning from the pyre of smoke at our backs." I repressed a shudder. "A few days later we'd made our way to a grassy knoll. During those few days my brother and I... he did his best to teach me how to survive in the wilderness."

"He must have been a great brother." Caleb said wistfully.

"He was. But, we stumbled into some bandits, they were hunting, like we were." I closed my eyes for a moment.

"You don't need to say the rest." He mumbled, "but, I do understand. My father, he died in an earlier raid, a week ago. I'd never really known my mother, she died of disease some years ago."

We sat quietly for some time. Watching the birds soar high in the sky. We could chat about things of little consequence, but the silence of the scene was perhaps more suited to the atmosphere we'd created.

After a while I asked a question that had been nagging at me. "Are there other children in the village? Besides us I mean."

"Hhmm? Yeah, Kelan, Jean, Isok, Farin, and I are the guys. Hester, Blini, Kini, Shanri, Jelci, and you would be the girls... oh! and Li-li, its easy to forget about her." He answered quickly. The tone of his voice had changed, when he mentioned Jean it had seemed more aggressive, like they had a rivalry of some kind, but when he mentioned Shanri it was soft, almost dream-like.

"So" I lightly punched his shoulder. "Which girl is your sweetheart?"

He flushed red. "I... I don't have one." He murmured.

"Oh please, a good looking guy like you?" I said playfully.

"Well, I'm soft on this one girl, but. So are most of us guys." He said quietly, looking to the horizon."

"Well, who is she?" I couldn't help but pry, I wanted.... needed to see if my hunch was right, I can't let this rest.

"What's the point? You'll know as soon as you see her." He sighed wistfully. "She's the prettiest girl a man could see."

"Fine." I sat quietly for a few minutes, just trying to remember everything that had happened today. After a moment I reached into my pocket and pulled out a platinum coin. The light shone brilliantly on the metallic coin. But it's design was simple, a small house stamped on one side and the words village token on the other. I'd only heard of these in legends, rumors, and of being in frail scrolls of old lore.

"What's that?" Caleb asked, looking over with interest.

"A village creation token." I responded with as much reverence and humility as I could. "I got it earlier, for completing a quest."

Caleb was looking at me with awe, after all, very few could receive divine communication from the goddess Zystim. To be favored with such a priceless item, it went so far as to be considered the goddess's champion to her worshipers. Zystim's popularity was only truly rivaled by her half brother, Dalance, god of fair play. However their father Gom, the creator of all things eclipsed both of them, not revering the creator god, to some it was comparable to treason.

"Aren't you going to use it?" Caleb asked excitedly.

"Well, first I have to find the right spot," I sighed, the sudden appearance of the holy item seems to have blinded his judgement. I gestured at the hillside, "this would be a difficult place to build a town, let alone a city."

I offered a prayer to the gods, hoping for some form of inspiration.

Ding! I looked at the grey box with excitement. Quest, make 5 friends, currently (1/5).

I quickly gave Zystim my thanks. One could not take such favor for granted. It made me swell with pride to know that Zystim, goddess of Progress favored me so. I resolved to build her the grandest temple if I could ever afford one with more splendor than the one in the capital.

Caleb upon seeing the excitement in my eyes grew excited as well. "Oh, you are favored! Amazing!"

"Caleb? Can you introduce me to the others you mentioned earlier?" He nodded, he didn't ask, after all. If I scorned Zystim's favor, only woe would befall me.