An Ordinary Message

A brown overcoat wearing wandering boy, around sixteen years old, contemplated ideologies he hadn't touched upon.

He thought of the mosaic in the Rigac Cathedral. He remembered fidgety behavior of Slin on confronting the staff of the Temple of The Repenter.

Several of these crashed in his mind. A whirlpool he meant to dislodge himself from.

A man bumped into the boy. Few guards nearby watched both as one apologized to the other.

Both still chose to help the other in collecting back the bundles of paper they were holding.

The man handed the wanderer boy a few of his papers the man had collected from the road. None had been damaged. The wanderer thanked the man as he also handed him a few of the bundles that belonged to the man.

The guards watched them curiously. One of the guards considered arresting both for miscreant behavior and obstruction of traffic.

Her partner replied, "Both of them only walked into a situation that they have already resolved. Let it go."

The one, who advocated her friend, wore a beautifully crafted white and silver armour, her weapon of choice a simple longsword. Apparently drawn and turned downwards for a reason known to her and her squad.

The one who had considered arresting the man and the wandering boy, wore a darker shade of red and black armour. Her weapon of choice was a spear, but she had a secondary weapon as a saber. The spear mimicked her friend's longsword position, the pointed end downwards awaiting to slash upwards.

Her friend in red and black armour clicked her tongue. Walking away onto her patrol route. While the one in white and silver accompanied her as far as their patrol route stayed in the same path.

Both never wanted to leave the other, but knew they had to. For each had their own place in Rigac, and Monarch's decree was higher than the will of a soldier. They knew this well.

So did the ones who had partially heard their conversation, glancing at the wanderer who was still checking his bundle of notes and papers. A look of confusion was carving itself more into his face.

The people were convinced that the red and black armour wearing guard will take him away. But no one wanted to approach the boy, for they knew what that armour colour meant.

Whom she represented.

Yet, the red and black armour guard wasn't the one who had glanced back the most at the wanderer and the brisk walking man. It was the white and silver armoured one.

She had considered her own words more often than her friend. Her belief in her words was strong, so was her trust in the instincts that her friend in red and black had.

A girl tugged her father's shirt. The father didn't look down at her, just caressed her hair.

An old woman poked her grandson in the back in their family owned shop.

These were among the few who had glanced at such a simple occurrence in the street on a normal day of Rigac.

But for the people of Rigac was any day ever normal? They won't answer so. Not since the day Kingdom of Riga had been established.

The day capital of Riga lost its original name and was rechristened with Rigac.

The white and silver guard stopped in her tracks, still focused on the wandering boy. She knew of him.

She recognized he was the same one that yesterday went around and sold some 'enhancing mixes'. She considered her friend's instincts, as she turned around.

The old woman struck her grandson harder whispering, "attract that boy!"

The father of the girl chose that moment to start walking towards the boy. He had recognized the boy wearing four different colored rings on his hand.

The father of the girl knew its meaning, its significance in their world.

The guard in silver and white waited, staring at the boy. She had taken notice of the others in the vicinity.

But the one who became the decisive element of stopping a catastrophe, was the guard in the darker shade of red and black. She saw her friend staring back at the boy.

And realized the rings. She could see them from her angle, for she was further along her path than the place where her friend had stopped contemplating a life-changing decision.

The wandering boy in the brown overcoat was becoming more and more perplexed reading the notes he held on. He questioned what it meant.

His mind spoke to him, 'I have been outed. But how?'

The clash into the man had brought the boy back to reality. It gave him the moment to realize and read a few of the scattered pages on the street.

It kept surprising him. The servants mentioned in the play were half of what was depicted on the ceiling mosaic.

The play had no messenger. For the Lady of Repentance delivered her messages by herself.

She was waiting for the messenger to arrive, and the messenger who wished to serve her had not. She proclaimed as such even during the last scene of the play, the one the man whom the boy crashed into handed to the boy at last.

The guard in the red and black had chosen to believe in the innocence that her friend originally believed in.

She called out, "Skyact Guard Leous, stick to your patrol route."

Leous heard her friend's commanding voice. She knew the position her friend held and how it related to hers.

"Tribulations Captain, I will." Leous responded. She turned back, and away from the boy with the concerned look.

She understood her friend's choice. And her friend had accepted her advice.

And thus the wanderer was saved. For the Tribulations Captain had felt remorse and repentance on what awaited the people who wore four colored rings.

The brown overcoat of the wanderer fluttered as if waving to thank the Tribulations Captain and Leous for something only it knew.

Maybe the coat did know things others may consider as abhorrent, or ecstatic.

However, the wanderer was again distracted by the father of a girl. He had approached just as the wind died.

Everything that had occurred since the wanderer left the cathedral had only taken a couple of minutes.

A couple of minutes that could have saved Rigac.

The father of a girl asked the boy, "um, excuse me if I was intruding, but do you know if Priest Noria is inside the cathedral?"

He had watched the boy exit the cathedral as he had taken his daughter around for a walk in these trying times he had so preciously tried to hide from her.

He nearly had a heart attack on having heard the Tribulations Captain's words. He knew his daughter must have heard it, and he received its confirmation by her tug.

The wanderer was brought out of his new reverie by the man's words.

He stuttered, "Uh, huh? Yes—yes, Priest Noria is in the cathedral today."

The man nodded to the boy, and patted him on his shoulder as the man held his daughter's hand carefully. Walking alongside her peppy steps to the cathedral.

His daughter loved the cathedral, for whenever she went in there. She always told her father, "Pa! Look, look, I can fly." As she jumped around in the cathedral and Priest Noria glanced at her time to time making sure the girl doesn't run into any pews even when Noria knew every time that the girl's father will break apart the pew before his daughter had an injury.

The wanderer didn't know of such details. But if he did, would it have changed his decision? Maybe. Maybe it won't.

He looked back down on the collection of notes and paper, and he called out back to the man. For one particular question he had.

The man turned as did his daughter, "Yes, child?"

The wanderer asked, "Do you know what the word 'poster' means?"

The man shook his head, "I don't believe I have ever heard such a word in Ashtrim, and I have compiled the local dictionary of Rigac. It must be a writing mistake or you must have read it wrong."

The wanderer nodded to his explanation. "I understand. It's just that I heard someone say it once."

"Then they must be announcing a very new word to the public, trying to start a trend. Maybe the word poster means a posing earthenbeast. Or could be an allegory to humans." The man relayed his inference based on the boy's question.

His daughter tugged once more, "Pa, pa, what's a poster?"

"I don't know, kid." He smiled back at her. "Thank you for helping an old man out." He told the wanderer boy.

The wanderer confused by the man's parting words. But he didn't stop him.

He let the man and his daughter go. For he had other considerations he had to make that had been revealed to him.

The notes and its implications for Rigac, Priest Noria's hints, and what it means for him to be assigned as the Servant of Messenger when there is none in the play.

And the extra page that the ordinary man he ended up bumping into. That man had handed him a peculiar page.

An ordinary message was on that page.

"How are you, oh my first partner?

-Yours truly,

Cheal, your first partner."