(Posted: 23 Nov 2008)

The wind was biting cold that afternoon as she stood on the docks to watch the ship carefully navigate its way into the harbor. Tow boats dragged it in further to ensure that the greater vessel didn't ram into the wharfs and clear them from the water and ground by smashing into them.

Dirty, surly men grumbled and cursed while trudging and heaving about their labors. Women of all sorts were there among them but not so prominent.

Valucia Sabet saw none of them, but did not go without missing a single one of them. They were hard to avoid, even as she did overlooked them. They were not why she was there. Nor the raucus noises or the filthy smell of the brackish water churning up against the piers.

"What do you expect to find, Daughter? Leaving will not bring Alrin Martan back..."

The feminine voice was still in her ears, even after all these months. It seemed to mock her, even at this distance. She ignored it and shoved it to the back of her thoughts. Expression had not changed the fiereness of its lines or stubborness of her gaze that looked to the ship as the plank was being hauled from the deck of it and canted into place.

The woman of the White Tower held herself with the air of a noblewoman that she was often unaware of. She could have been in rags and beneath an inch of grime and muck, but she would have been the same woman. Her ageless face appeared in her mid-to-late twenties to look upon her, but there was something in gaze that was far older. Black hair was shiny and rich in color, as if it might dare to turn a royal blue in some lighted settings. She wore a dress of skirts and layers that successfully fought off most of the cold and weather about her, though the faint rouge of her cheeks bespoke its touch there. About her shoulders and the rest of her was a heavy, lined cloak of wool with leather to trim it. The cowl was raised, but her face could be plainly seen in the reserved way she wore it.

Valucia Sabet watched the heads and shoulders of some of the men on the ship as they bustled about. It was unclear if they were in a hurry to get on land for a much overdue rest and a pint in their fist, or if it was from the orders barked by the steely voice of man who stood barely within her sight a little further back on the captain's deck - aloft a few feet higher from the main deck.

She had stood there long enough and carved her way forward through unkind crowds of mostly men. A flat look sent one out of her path who mistook her for some seedy, fresh interest of his. Then she continued on and up the wide-breadth plank to the wide-eyed shock and angry shouts of some of the men. They were outright ignored, even as she stood on the main deck and several of them gathered around with clear intent in their eyes to either toss her smartly back onto the wharf or into the frigid water.

"You there! Off my ship, woman!" The captain's eyes went wide and then narrowed with anger. "Get off my ship. Do you want to bring a curse on me?" The barrell chested man jumped from the captain's deck without touching the four steps that he would have normally used to go from one level to the other.

"I will not." Valucia passed a slow look over him from hatted head, to his boots and back to his face. "I will see the cargo that I ordered."

"You will wait for it on the docks. Like anybody else, woman!"

She suspected that the reason why his face was red had nothing to do with the cold air all around them. "I will not. I am Valucia Sabet and I will see what is mine. Now."

"You bloody...arrogant... " The captain was spitting the words out by then.

Her hand moved within the cloak to bring the weighted back of coins up high enough for it to be within his narrowed vision. "Your payment, of course."

The captain snatched it out of her hand. He shoved his other hand at two of his men. "You. And you. Bring it up here, now, so I can get this woman off..my..ship!"

Hers was a stature of form, poised and graceful. She stood there before the blustering, blistered man nonplussed by his ravings until the others had returned with the large trunk. Dark eyes with the luster and color of black pearls look towards it and moved to meet the lock with one of her hands. For a brief moment she shut her eyes. The weave on the lock and about the entire trunk was still there. Unopened or tampered with.

"Follow me. It needs to be put on the back of a cart." Her hand gestured towards the docks. "Down there, of course."

"Of course." The captain scowled at her. "Anything, just get off my ship!"

"Anything? Well then. I will take the services of these two men. Long enough to take the trunk to the Red Dragon and put the trunk where I direct."

"Ballocks! Do as she says. And get yourselves back here, soon as it's done!"

A pleasant smile on her lips was given to the captain. "You are far too kind and generous, Captain." The smile did not reach her eyes and it faded from her lips as she turned around to head back down the plank to the pier. She did not look back to make certain that the men were following with the trunk. Their lumbering, heavy boots on the wood and their complaints and talking were clearly heard even above all the rest of the noise there.

When the trunk was in the back of the cart and the men sitting to the back boards to either side of it, Valucia climbed into the buck board seat beside the driver. "Thank you for waiting. To the Red Dragon, please. When we are finished there, please take these...gentle men...back here to their ship."

"Yes'um." The older man nodded and murmured it out but said nothing more but gave each of the seamen a curious look before he looked to the trunk. Then dropped the reins against the back of the horse and set off in the direction of the inn.

It seemed like an eternity to her for the uncaring men to bring the trunk up the steps of the inn to where her room was on the second floor of the Red Dragon. But when they were finally to the cart again and the driver paid, she watched them move off down the road.

Valucia turned and pulled the cloak about herself and moved back into the inn. Though it dd not seem that her gait had changed, she felt that her feet were weighted in her ascent of the stairs for that second time.

She came to stand outside of the room with the door of it open and looked to the trunk for several moments before finally moving inside and closing the door. In afterthought, it was locked as well.

The key was withdrawn from its lock and dropped an inch from the table as if to misgauge where the surface had really been. It caused a brief clatter of metal against wood, then all was quiet in her rooms again.

The weave was complicated, but it had been meant to be. Shoes sounded against the floor and skirts were guided without any thought to them. She drew close enough to the trunk to touch it, then lowered herself down into a crouch before it. Her hand moved over the curved lid of it and settled in the end on its lock. Black luster eyes closed while she worked at unravelling the weave with care. If she was not careful, it could ruin the chance of unlocking it at all.

The passage of time was nearly half an hour when she heard the lock finally open. She exhaled loudly and her head lowered briefly. Settling down on her knees, with skirts gathered about her on the floor, she reached to either side of the trunk's lid and opened it.

What met her first was not the sight of the items that lay within, but the smells and scents of those items. Leather, metal, parchment, leather oil, herb soap, and much more. They were things of men. Of one man. She reached inside and touched the herring sword's grip.

Sorrow was still with her. The hollow of his absence after his death still hit her in waves and at the moment she felt herself drowning with his things finally delivered to her. She could still smell her Warder and feel his presence in such mundane things. It was still strong, even without the bond. His death had left her more desolate than any Red would try to ever understand. She was niende. Lost.

"Thank you, Mother." She whispered it to no one, but it was reverant and meant for that one. The reasons it had been left behind, how it had been brought to her this far, it all rushed over her in further waves of memory.

While the words left her, she took out each item and cared for it as best as Alrin would have if he were alive. When each had been cleaned, when the leather had been oiled, and clothing refreshed she put all of those things back into the trunk.

After the weave was carefully replaced, she stood. From the cuff of her inner sleeve a perfumed hand kercheif was withdrawn and used to dry the tears from her face.

"Time, Valucia. Time will ease it." She told herself and tried to believe it.

She was not a Novice. She knew the risks. The checks and balances of such a bond. Still, she felt the pain of it. She lifted her face and turned for the window to face it and look down on the street and alley below. She remained there for a while more until she pain was once again under control.

One moment at a time. One burying layer at a time.