Weeee. I've written up a few new Lamis posts, but they are depressing and besides, there's continuity to consider. Once I've posted more of Ysani's unplanned vacation and the events stemming from it, I'll put up more of that stuff. Today though, you get a piece from Ysani's days as a fledgling with the Prophecy of Light, training her ass off out in the scourge-ridden plaguelands. Most of what makes her a good paladin came from what she learned there. Funny what working for a noble cause can do for you... finally a square peg finds a square hole.
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"Uuuuugghhh." Ysani dropped her heavy pack at the front door. Normally she'd begin to shed her armor on the way down the hall- boots here, gauntlets there, a noisy molting of her dirty, heavy plate skin- but she was home late tonight and didn't want to wake her guildmates. The door of her cluttered little room clicked shut behind her. The heavy sword on her back was first to go, hung on a small rack she'd installed directly into the wall behind the door, much to Fabrio's chagrin. (The small holes from her misplaced screws were neatly patched, a task that Fabrio insisted on, and supervised, in spite of Ysani's protestations that she could manage just fine without him looking over her shoulder.)
Next came her plates, unbuckled with cold, fumbling fingers and set down neatly on a low bench. Her arms were tired, so tired that they shook under the weight of each piece and the effort of setting them down quietly. The light, soft woven shirt and pants she wore under her armor went last, crumpled in an undignified (and decidedly dirty) heap at the end of the bench. Hands in the small of her back, she stretched and twisted, eliciting a series of dry pops up her spine. Time for a soak.
The private bathroom adjacent to her room made up for the tiny living quarters. She had the smallest bedroom in the guildhouse, she knew, but the bathtub was positively enormous. Most of the grime and death of the day's work rinsed off easily, but it was beginning to feel like the musty, dank decay of the plaguelands was settling deep into her skin and muscle, leaving its grit in her mouth, its ache in her bones. She scrubbed herself raw, then filled the tub with hot water and sunk in up to her chin, the ends of her wet hair floating on the surface like strands of blood.
The note in her mailbox was brief, but it allayed the fear that her guildmates might have hurt each other after Dorri confronted them on the cathedral steps and ordered Ysani to leave. It was hard to focus on her work afterward, but she threw herself into every last menial errand the Argent Dawn would give her until she was too busy to think about anything else. "Feel free to come knock on my door if you want to talk," he'd written, and of course she did. The night was nearly half-over by now, though, and she thought with no small amount of regret that it would be better to let him sleep.
Then again...
A quick towel-dry later she squirmed into a pair of warm, clean pajamas and crept across the hall. One long ear pressed to the heavy door, perfectly still, she listened. No rustle of paper, no clearing of the throat to indicate he might be awake, and certainly there was little to no light showing under the door. Still, she didn't hear any snoring, either.
The softest knock she could manage still sounded loud to her ears in the sleeping house. Her stomach was a bitter knot and she suddenly felt very foolish trying to wake Keilos at 2 in the morning for small talk. She herself was running on fumes and had nearly fallen asleep on her feet walking home. Turning quickly, she padded back to her own room and was turning the knob when she heard his door swing open behind her.
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