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It's the poor that suffer the most. It's not that they asked for it or deserve it, he knew. It's that they never had enough to prepare. When you didn't have money for anything your mind was more focused on base survival: food, warmth, safety. But safety was the hardest thing because if you didn't have the money to build a sturdy home you took what you could get"built of straw, of mud, sticks or rocks. Straw didn't keep the last winter storm...Hannibal, was it' Hannibal they called it, yeah, from collapsing rooves. Freezing newborn babes and children, women and boys too young too be working but from families too desperate not to send them. It had taken them longer than he wanted to admit to visit all of the outlying towns he could within the Servryn Embassy, helping in any manner he could. It shamed him, often and mostly at night to remember that the best help he could do was dig out bodies of children and men from snowed in mines, or out from under collapsed rooves, or help dig holes in the ground for the babes too weak to make it.
The crying"the weeping of mothers, sisters, brothers and fathers are what haunted him the most. He could have done more. He should have done more. The Servryn Embassy was not cold to the citizens of RhyDin. They handed out food and even dipped into their own winter supplies. Alistair volunteered immediately to help hand them out and when Servryn Embassy announced they would be working with the RhyDin Watch and Watch agencies, he volunteered for that too. Whatever he could do to help, he did. He baled hay, dug out cart wheels, shoveled out drive ways, herded cows, found a lost chicken and even came to the rescue of a lost doll.
It helped ease some of his personal guilt.
As the days after the storm began calming and life was doing its best to return to normal, the rumors of demons in the Old Temple area, riots at the marketplace and eventually'suspected terrorist attacks again at the market place...Alistair began to feel less guilty and more angry as he tried his best to both help and aid the watch and aid the citizens of RhyDin. Corruption and laziness within the watch seemed as prevalent as innocence and genuine caring. For every guard, however, that tried his or her best to bring justice and follow procedure, there seemed to be two or three behind them willing to take a purse of gold and obscure a case.
At one of the outposts nearest the Servryn Embassy, Alistair had been spending most of the week helping them hand out food and settling disputes. Some as simple as so-and-so's family had used the storm as an excuse to move the rocks on their land, to so-and-so stole my sheep...And to worse. Murder. Corruption. Missing people. It was the missing people that was overwhelming and got to him the most. He had gotten into so much trouble arguing with his fellow Rhydin guardsmen that eventually they pulled him from taking reports because the last guard to make a snide remark to a weeping father is lucky to have a nose left on his face. It wasn't Alistair's fault he forgot to remove his gauntlets.
So they put him on door-duty, making sure the long lines of citizens begging for help, reporting, or what-have-you behaved themselves. The line snaked from the watch's doorstep all the way down the street, a living serpent of RhyDin woe. Each hour that passed, each citizen that was turned away because nothing could be done...His expression darkened until he was left scowling and even those he considered friends did not stop to say hello. Which was a feat in itself, because very few could say Alistiar was frightening. But he looked it now, standing by the door and doing his best not to listen to the sound of families weeping.
"Name," he could hear one guard boredly demand. "Liantha Marrow, sir." A pause as Alistair imagined the man lazily write down the name. "Issue?" The guard barked. "M-my daughter, sir. My daughter...Airissia Marrow, she's gone missing, sir. " Another pause. "Sorry to hear that," he told her with about the same amount of sympathy one would give a fly. "Many have gone missing since the storm, miss. There's not much more we can do by now. If she was caught outside or buried?" "No, no, sir please I beg you, she wasn't. She was with us for the storm. Two days ago we sent her to town to get flour from the market and she hasn't come back." Alistair could hear the rising tide of panic and fear in the woman's voice. "I'll report a missing persons, miss, but you must understand, we're all very busy?"
He had to grind his teeth to keep himself getting written up again for shouting a few choice words inside the door to the other guard who took down the woman's information about her daughter like it was taking down numbers for cheese. He did direct her to the currently frazzled sketch-artist on call, who had probably never worked so hard in his life trying to capture the faces of all that had gone missing.
He probably shouldn't have done anything. But he knew her by the sound of her quiet, little sobs of despair as she trailed out, a scrap of paper in her hands. He reached out a moment to tug on the sleeve of her worn clothing. Barely a step up from rags.
When she looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes his breath caught. A small thing with golden hair and brown eyes. Not quite the same...but the pointed ears, the way she looked at him...
"Lady," he said, doing his best to keep his tone gentle, never mocking. "I am sorry. May I see the picture of your daughter?"
She nodded, lifting up the piece of parchment. "They let me keep a copy," she told him miserably. A copy of your child, he thought, will never compare. He bent down to take a close, shrewd look and was surprised to note the girl's coloring.
"She's?"" "Yes, white hair and white skin. Purple eyes. It's a rare coloring that runs in the family. Sir, have you seen her?" Hope was a dying little bird in her question.
It hurt him to shake his head. "No, lady, I have not. But I promise you, we will do our best to find her."
The light behind her eyes dimmed and she nodded dully. Carefully folding the picture of her daughter, she turned and made her way down the steps and into the streets. Alistair watched her go, even when she was swallowed by distance and others in line. It took him a very long time to pull his eyes and thoughts away.
((Part of Forgetting Fate SL))
It's the poor that suffer the most. It's not that they asked for it or deserve it, he knew. It's that they never had enough to prepare. When you didn't have money for anything your mind was more focused on base survival: food, warmth, safety. But safety was the hardest thing because if you didn't have the money to build a sturdy home you took what you could get"built of straw, of mud, sticks or rocks. Straw didn't keep the last winter storm...Hannibal, was it' Hannibal they called it, yeah, from collapsing rooves. Freezing newborn babes and children, women and boys too young too be working but from families too desperate not to send them. It had taken them longer than he wanted to admit to visit all of the outlying towns he could within the Servryn Embassy, helping in any manner he could. It shamed him, often and mostly at night to remember that the best help he could do was dig out bodies of children and men from snowed in mines, or out from under collapsed rooves, or help dig holes in the ground for the babes too weak to make it.
The crying"the weeping of mothers, sisters, brothers and fathers are what haunted him the most. He could have done more. He should have done more. The Servryn Embassy was not cold to the citizens of RhyDin. They handed out food and even dipped into their own winter supplies. Alistair volunteered immediately to help hand them out and when Servryn Embassy announced they would be working with the RhyDin Watch and Watch agencies, he volunteered for that too. Whatever he could do to help, he did. He baled hay, dug out cart wheels, shoveled out drive ways, herded cows, found a lost chicken and even came to the rescue of a lost doll.
It helped ease some of his personal guilt.
As the days after the storm began calming and life was doing its best to return to normal, the rumors of demons in the Old Temple area, riots at the marketplace and eventually'suspected terrorist attacks again at the market place...Alistair began to feel less guilty and more angry as he tried his best to both help and aid the watch and aid the citizens of RhyDin. Corruption and laziness within the watch seemed as prevalent as innocence and genuine caring. For every guard, however, that tried his or her best to bring justice and follow procedure, there seemed to be two or three behind them willing to take a purse of gold and obscure a case.
At one of the outposts nearest the Servryn Embassy, Alistair had been spending most of the week helping them hand out food and settling disputes. Some as simple as so-and-so's family had used the storm as an excuse to move the rocks on their land, to so-and-so stole my sheep...And to worse. Murder. Corruption. Missing people. It was the missing people that was overwhelming and got to him the most. He had gotten into so much trouble arguing with his fellow Rhydin guardsmen that eventually they pulled him from taking reports because the last guard to make a snide remark to a weeping father is lucky to have a nose left on his face. It wasn't Alistair's fault he forgot to remove his gauntlets.
So they put him on door-duty, making sure the long lines of citizens begging for help, reporting, or what-have-you behaved themselves. The line snaked from the watch's doorstep all the way down the street, a living serpent of RhyDin woe. Each hour that passed, each citizen that was turned away because nothing could be done...His expression darkened until he was left scowling and even those he considered friends did not stop to say hello. Which was a feat in itself, because very few could say Alistiar was frightening. But he looked it now, standing by the door and doing his best not to listen to the sound of families weeping.
"Name," he could hear one guard boredly demand. "Liantha Marrow, sir." A pause as Alistair imagined the man lazily write down the name. "Issue?" The guard barked. "M-my daughter, sir. My daughter...Airissia Marrow, she's gone missing, sir. " Another pause. "Sorry to hear that," he told her with about the same amount of sympathy one would give a fly. "Many have gone missing since the storm, miss. There's not much more we can do by now. If she was caught outside or buried?" "No, no, sir please I beg you, she wasn't. She was with us for the storm. Two days ago we sent her to town to get flour from the market and she hasn't come back." Alistair could hear the rising tide of panic and fear in the woman's voice. "I'll report a missing persons, miss, but you must understand, we're all very busy?"
He had to grind his teeth to keep himself getting written up again for shouting a few choice words inside the door to the other guard who took down the woman's information about her daughter like it was taking down numbers for cheese. He did direct her to the currently frazzled sketch-artist on call, who had probably never worked so hard in his life trying to capture the faces of all that had gone missing.
He probably shouldn't have done anything. But he knew her by the sound of her quiet, little sobs of despair as she trailed out, a scrap of paper in her hands. He reached out a moment to tug on the sleeve of her worn clothing. Barely a step up from rags.
When she looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes his breath caught. A small thing with golden hair and brown eyes. Not quite the same...but the pointed ears, the way she looked at him...
"Lady," he said, doing his best to keep his tone gentle, never mocking. "I am sorry. May I see the picture of your daughter?"
She nodded, lifting up the piece of parchment. "They let me keep a copy," she told him miserably. A copy of your child, he thought, will never compare. He bent down to take a close, shrewd look and was surprised to note the girl's coloring.
"She's?"" "Yes, white hair and white skin. Purple eyes. It's a rare coloring that runs in the family. Sir, have you seen her?" Hope was a dying little bird in her question.
It hurt him to shake his head. "No, lady, I have not. But I promise you, we will do our best to find her."
The light behind her eyes dimmed and she nodded dully. Carefully folding the picture of her daughter, she turned and made her way down the steps and into the streets. Alistair watched her go, even when she was swallowed by distance and others in line. It took him a very long time to pull his eyes and thoughts away.
((Part of Forgetting Fate SL))