Fortune and Glory
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A small collection of Octavia's musings
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“They don’t understand”, she thought to herself
While Baxter spoke of history and politics, people drank and celebrated, Octavia sat on the cushions, fiddling with the old lock she had found in the storage room. Anything to keep her mind off of the light show meant as a celebration.
She was but 17 when she stood on the front lines near the wooden fortress. The orcs had cleared the forest almost 100 meters around to build it, and it made for a great killing zone that she was not relishing having to cross. The only cover was the numerous stumps or the occasional fallen log.
Her friend Kayla, one of the only other women mercenaries, had scouted ahead with several others under the cover of night to find a weak point to breach. Kayla was about the only true friend she had at that time, each sharing a common bond simply because of gender. They laughed together, shared dreams, and spoke of intimate things.
At dawn, the soldiers were mustered at the treeline. Kayla hadn’t returned, and the unit commander was swearing at his lack of intelligence. That’s when Kayla and her team were spotted, sprinting away from the fortress.
Orcs loosed arrows. One of the team was hit, but kept running. But then three unusual figures topped the fortifications, and a bright sphere intersected Kaya and her teammates. In a conflagration of fire of epic proportions, Kayla and her team simply disappeared. All were incinerated on the spot.
The commander ordered the charge.
What followed was a spectacular light show in the early dawn. Mages from both sides hurling evocations that lit up the area and gave the cleared ground around the fortress a hellish hue. There was no agency for anyone in the front ranks whether they lived or died. It was purely luck.
When Octavia watched the light show in Moonreach, she was 17 again. Her best friend in the world incinerated…again. Over and over the scenario replayed in her head, drowning the sounds and cheers of the others. This wasn’t how soldiers celebrated. Light shows were for civilians. Soldiers celebrated with others in ways meant to celebrate life, honor the dead, and enjoy the company of their brothers and sisters in arms.
Octavia never made it back to her room. She found herself in the bath, still clothed. The water washed over her braids, hiding her tears.
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Octavia sat on the couch in front of the wood stove. The room, like most castle rooms was chilly, and wool stockings covered her feet. Long legs stretched out as she lay back, bringing her stockinged feet as close to the stove as she dare.
She hated cold feet, and always had. Yet, her feet were always cold. Her nanny “Ana” had said that it was because she grew too fast, and her heart was too far away. Octavia mused at that and reflected on mispent youth.
Too easily influenced by the promise of easy coin, Octavia had fallen in with the wrong crowd. She wasn’t proud of the things she’d done. Her training in Shuang Shou Yue was used for less than honorable pursuits. Ana had stuck with her through it all. She offered advice and rarely judged. When the decision on Octavia’s sixteenth birthday to join the Silvertree family came to pass, and Octavia decided to go her own way, it was about the only time she saw Ana visibly disappointed. At the time she didn’t care. The world was hers for the taking, and she was going to grab it with both hands. But now, experience was beginning to teach her that people were more valuable than things.
She always liked “things”. Gadgets fascinated her. The Silvertree family imported gnomish artifacts from all over the region, and resold them to the curious and wealthy. She had used her gift of tongues to learn gnomish, and took apart the broken things some of the merchants brought to just to see how they worked. She still had the music box she had managed to fix, and had kept it all these years.
Octavia reached into her pouch and pulled out the music box, winding it for the umpteenth time as she did most nights. She had difficulty falling asleep without it playing.
She brought it with her from campaign to campaign. Soldiers smirked at the frilly girlishness of it, but often baulked at saying anything out loud. Like most girls, she had stopped growing at 15. Head and shoulders above most of the boys her age, she was often mistaken for someone older. Her first contract came just after her sixteenth birthday, and she never looked back until recently.
Fortune and Glory. That’s what it was all about. Finding the artifacts, the riches and adventure. Blood for gold and gold for blood. Now, she was beginning to have doubts.
The people she’d join up with since being rescued by the Cleimants weren’t under contract. They had purpose other than coin. A band of misfits joined by camaraderie and a desire to do something good. It was the first time she’d killed other than by contract, except for that one time in the tavern she’d rather not remember.
She picked up Aen’s letter, and re-read it for the third time. It chilled her. To be admired in this way was something new. The admiration had meaning and depth. It wasn’t a love letter. It was more than that.
She put the letter on her lap and stared into the fire, trying to sort her feelings. She was never good at that, and as someone in her line of work often distanced herself from them. But now she didn’t have that luxury. The letter had a weight of its own far greater than the paper it was written on.
