Topic: Empty

Lucky Duck

Date: 2010-12-06 04:09 EST
"...Well I looked my demons in the eyes,
laid bare my chest, said "Do your best, destroy me.
You see, I've been to hell and back so many times,
I must admit you kind of bore me."
There's a lot of things that can kill a man,
there's a lot of ways to die,
listen, some already did that walked beside me.
There's a lot of things I don't understand,
why so many people lie.
It's the hurt I hide that fuels the fire inside me.
Will I always feel this way?
So empty, so estranged."

Empty by Ray LaMontagne


Rhydin is a place of change. Fortunes are made and lost on the predictability of change in Rhydin. Lives in countless tally sacrificed at the city's Altar of Change. People of all cultures, personalities, times, races come...some seeking to affect it, some to embrace it, others to get lost in it, and others still arriving unawares as a result of it.

He was one of those that came seeking it, seeking to affect it and change the cruel turn of fate in his life, our Barrister did. He rushed headlong into it, arriving within the city, thrown into its stewing with its unique mix of angels, demons, fae, monsters, healers and murderers alike. He came seeking to affect it, and as many, many others before him and since, got swept away in its unforgiving currents and became lost in it....and inexplicably changed by it.

The biggest irony of Rhydin was for the perpetual changes it affected in lives and lifetimes, nothing in Rhydin changed. Nothing ever seemed to get resolved, or remain resolved for long. Chaos reigned unfettered. And peace was no where to be found.

His life had become a series of games and puzzles, mysteries and mayhem...games that could not be won, puzzles that could not be solved, and mysteries that would not be unveiled. He was a tired man. Tired of playing the game that was stacked against him, tired of chasing after meager clues to puzzles, tired of the mysteries and mayhem that insisted on maintaining their grip on his life. He was a tired man...worn and weathered.

Lucien stood in the front foyer of the empty townhouse and swept his attention over the place that served as his residence and office. Rebekah was gone by the time he had gotten home from the shipyard. In the front hall, in the middle of the chess board field, with ivory and onyx armies lined up and ready for battle, he left a red jewelry box for the Setite. Earlier that evening, notes were sent to Kate and Sylvia by way of the page boys he relied on.

The Barrister left his residence, secured and warded the townhouse and started down the road to one of the stables where a horse was waiting for him. Gwyr was away on another assignment, which meant he would be left alone at the Compound.

Lucky Duck

Date: 2010-12-28 20:09 EST
Music echoed through the halls of the compound, resonating against the stone walls and wooden surfaces. It spilled out from behind the closed doors of the library and wove through every nook and pore of the place and filled it with strung notes. In the brief moments of silence, a heavy still blanketed the compound as the snow had, weighing it down as the notes faded. But the silence never lasted very long and music would ring out again.

The library at the compound was the one room no one was allowed into. No one. There had been only one other who had seen what lay behind those doors, and was allowed past those doors. But the once Lady Skye was no longer in the Barrister's life. It was his one true sanctuary, besides the time he spent out at sea.

The staff assigned to the compound were the Barrister's most loyal and those longest in his employ, including several in his employ since before his time in Rhydin. They had seen the Barrister withdraw to the library before and remain behind those doors for days. However, whereas in the past, he would emerge to eat, to walk the grounds, to tend the horses and ride, Lucien did not come out of the library. Not to eat, not to sleep, or tend to the horses or walk the grounds. He arrived at the compound, handed the reigns of the horse to the stable hand and disappeared into the library with his instrument.

And so it went, day after day. Music poured from behind the library doors for hours on end, silencing in the brief moments of rest or review of the messages and reports that his staff picked up from town and delivered to the library door. Until a few days after the Baroness arrived and delivered her message for the Barrister. A report from town was delivered to him.

The music stopped. And a deafening silence fell over the compound.

Lucky Duck

Date: 2011-05-30 19:01 EST
The sound of the children's squeals and romping footsteps were long gone and a hush settled back over the compound. The staff went about their daily chores and their daily lives, tending to the gardens and orchards, the new foals and those that were healing...from wounds physical and otherwise.

The Barrister walked alone through the halls of the compound. A solitary figure moving through the expanse of building and grounds, walking quietly and sparing only a few words to offer greeting or instructions and receive reports on the progress of things. He spent the days pouring over reports that were coming in from various sources and from the shipyard and the evenings shut up in the library.

And still, no music played.