Feren had run into Red Earth after a gathering of the guild. Her reaction had been less severe than he had expected; whether he was hurt or relieved by that, he didn't really know. Since that night, however, Feren had managed not to run into anyone who had or still did wear his former colors. It was just easier than explaining.
Pala's treatment of him was still the same, quiet and brief. He paid for his room at the Inn, amply so, even though he ended up spending half of his nights elsewhere away from all the life of the bluffs. It still felt alien too him.
He'd paid one of the messenger goblins a little extra to bring his mail to the inn for him, since he'd been so lax in checking it with any frequency, and there was a tidy pile waiting for his attention when he entered before dawn one morning. He idly fingered through the packages from the auction house and the payments from skins he'd been selling there. Toward the bottom was a letter addressed to him in a frighteningly familiar hand.
Feren sat as he unfolded the letter and read the short message. We need to talk, below there had been something else, but it was scribbled out. He sat there, running his fingers over the writing; he hadn't expected her to write anything back.
He rubbed at his scarred neck as he stood. Sighing, he stared around the room. No one living stayed here, it was spartan. A bed. Supplies. Armor. The only item of character was a small trunk, shoved under the bed. Pulling it out, Feren squatted before it, opening it to rifle through the contents. He lifted aside the tabard and added the letter to several others written in the same hand. His gaze lingered on a fan and several feathers in the trunk, sighing. You have to stop hiding. Pulling the small, leather bound, bundle of pink Plainstrider feathers from the trunk, the smell of black lotus strong on them, Feren reached up to tie them into the braid behind his ear. Standing as he closed the trunk, he nudged it back under the bed with his hoof, and turned to leave, fishing for a few coins to pay a Goblin for a favor.
|