Heb Arwr
A Glass Darkly

"My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe. To him, all good things?trout as well as eternal salvation?come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy."
--Norman McLean; A River Runs Through It










On March ninth, he bought a slab of white marble.

And on March ninth, he took it to a place on the shoreline.

It wasn't until after the transport that he discovered an error: Ten gold pieces didn't come close to covering the price of Beijing White. Yet when he was noted of this error, it was not the courier that had assisted him in transport. It was not one of the dockhands or fellow longshoreman, no.
It was Captain Christopher Watercress.

March ninth was not the day to carve, so he left his marble and returned to the Tanar'ri Alus.

When he crawled up the gangplank, Watercress had already known about the marble; of which Renne only guessed how that was.

It was an honest error, really -- he'd underpaid the marble and without touching the five thousand still left to him, Renne could indeed either figure or find a way to rectify that. It was an honest error and Watercress laughed, apparently amused by that.
Watercress laughed and Watercress was a pirate.
Renne didn't know entirely what that meant until he asked.
"We're thieves, criminals," he said.
"We plunder, pillage, loot and sometimes kill."

Had he not been sneezing marble dust into clouds around his head, Renne might have appeared a little more serious.
As it was, Renne paced the deck with his mind reeling. He still heard the Hunter whispering, laughing in his head but was learning to force it away. Renne knew he had to confront it soon, either square with it or destroy it. One way or another.
"Wha-t yeu ha-ve Rrr-enne do?"

Christopher Watercress returned a serious question with a serious answer. Renne did not have to kill or plunder. He was there to learn, to become a proper sailor and whatever more he might wish later on.
Renne still hadn't encountered this darker side Watercress spoke of -- plunder, pillage and all that. The man said he didn't have to do that part and had not once raised his voice in a hostile tone.

When Renne made his decision to sign on, he made it knowing what he wanted to keep to. Knowing what he would and wouldn't do, and at present, he knew how green he was aboard this ship.

But that was all right. He was there to learn, and learn well he would.

Watercress read to him his Articles -- Renne understood only the barest basics of the whole document; knew he'd ask questions later. He signed the paper and as the captain departed to sleep, Renne disembarked the vessel.
He found the sections in his bigger-on-the-inside pocket that didn't hold any permanent secrets, treasures or keepsakes and began carefully gathering gold and silver coins that he could easily part with.
That other five-thousand? No, he wouldn't touch it, even if he was a pauper.

With a few hundred coin sectioned out, Renne gathered it all, put it away and journeyed back to the marble shipment he'd run across; the selfsame one his handsome white marble came off of.
Thankfully, one of the less crusty men approached.

"So, yer our wee thief, hm?"

Renne's ears twitched forward. His head shook slightly.

"Rrr-enne noht be Thee-fee. Thee-fee is ba-d."

The graying man stood above him, bent a bit and put his hands on his knees.

"Ye took me marble, ye did. I know y'tried payin' but 'tweren' enough. 'M sorry, but that's a form of thievin'."

Renne nodded and remembered his own mortified expression as Watercress recounted to him earlier of the grumpy dockman and the price of marble. He remembered too, Watercress's explanation of what pirates were.
And right now, Renne was still convinced he could remain a sailor. Without turning pirate.
The creature sat down in front of the man and carefully began removing coins from his pocket. the graying gent looked on in a mildly curious manner -- he'd read the Oracle and Dockside's now-gone papers and true, he wasn't all for killing folk.
Yet someone had to keep faith in the redeemable.

"That'll do, laddie, that'll do. Yer not a thief now."

Renne stopped pulling coins out of his pocket and upturned his head. he allowed a small smile as the gent grinned, collected the coinage and gently shooed him off like a schoolteacher nudges off a shy student.

On March ninth, Renne bought white marble.

On March tenth, he began to carve it.

Heb Arwr
The Second Coming

"If forgiveness be so divine, perhaps the mortal man may yet achieve godhood."








There was a reason he never said certain words.

Some words were not known. Some were forbidden by promise and others were forbidden by his own background.

When he returned to that place with his marble effigy, Renne did not speak. He knelt in the muddy ground before it, bowed his head and prayed to whichever entity might listen.
He prayed to gods and mortals alike.
And in it, he felt no shame.

The early spring was far too cold for him -- this close to the sea didn't help much either -- but the cold was not the first thing on his mind. His mind was preoccupied with a thousand things and nothing at once.
For when he prayed, it was with a quiet reverence and thus, he rarely wept.

He wept this time, reciting the names of gods and heroes, fallen and not.

In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Santi

He did not howl out his tears, nor did he make much of a sound beyond whispers. His posture was one that he'd learned here in Rhy'Din -- Kneeling, back straight, head bowed forward. He was praying to many, praying as the humbled one. Ever humbled -- humbled as a slave, a nomad, a learner and as a child.

In nomine Matris et Filia et Sanctus Sanctimonialis

When the rain began to fall, Renne was almost glad of that but did not cease his prayers. The rain to him, was a sign; a sign to pray onward the prayers of repentant sinners, unfound children and the prayers of the boy not yet turned to a man.
He remembered why "Goodbye" was a forbidden word and tonight, renewed the ancient promise of to never utter it.

Gold-blue laughter filtered through his mind as the rain decided to let up a little. That laughter was soon joined by the remembered sensation of a warm bonfire and the sweet smell of spun sugar on a stick. No, not quite spun sugar -- sugar, yes, but more shaped and stuffed with air. Crispy black on the outside and a sugary mush on the inside.
I'm proud of you

In nomine...

He was proud.

Renne prayed to the gods he knew -- ranging from his own to ODIN to The One-God and to the Heroes.

The child prayed in the rain before a marble effigy that stood on a muddy patch of ground. The place itself was utterly unremarkable -- there were no impressive monuments, no great wars here. There stood no elegant palace of five hundred years and there stood no prestigious governmental house where decisions turned into law.

The erstwhile child prayed at an unremarkable patch of ground that was a changer of history.