[RPG][LoA] A bittersweet state of affairs

[Bob]

*Alaina!* her name echoed in his mind.

Oh, how he had longed for her. But he had never asked her, couldn't ask her,
to follow him yet again to the League. He'd done so with the Commonwealth,
and hadn't he promised that would be the last change, the last move? Hadn't
he promised her peace and happiness? Perhaps even hinting at love?

And yet... and yet. The spirit had moved him here, and the army had moved
her there, and it had surely been weeks since they had even seen one
another. He was hardly the same man he was when they'd met. He'd been only a
recreational user of *ikrif* then; now he was a Priest of Communion. He'd
been a Fiduciary then, just as a Minister of Finances he was now - but the
old Maltheo sought profit, coin and wealth, sought politics and power. Now
such things held distaste for him. She'd been a young lady just arrived from
far-off Atamara then, and now... and now?

Now he hardly knew who she might be. He only remembered their brief
interludes in the woods of the southlands. Interrupted by the likes of
Nobdy, and by politics... then as now.

In the moonlit streets of the City of Anacan he meandered, thinking. The
Great Concepts all came floating through his mind now. Honour, service,
fealty, duty. Nobility, faith, courage, decency. He couldn't escape them
all.

And yet to fulfill his newfound duties, would he have time to pursue what
was merely a wanting of his heart? A perhaps boyish notion of romance, with
a woman who'd always thought him a better man than he knew he really was? He
thought not.

But that didn't prevent him from wanting to be with her, all the same. Any
more than it allowed him to leave the city in these times of change to go be
with her.

And so instead he walked. He walked all night long.
---
Alaina gazed sadly at the twelve wounded men making their way along the road
behind her, and their four healthy companions who were doing their best to
aid their progress. Of the men that had originally made up the Legion that
had followed her from Atamara, only these sixteen remained. She took every
death as a personal loss, and suffered for it, for she knew in her position
she would lose many loyal soldiers before death found her personally.

She was angry. Those men had been wounded when the Antozan loyalists she had
recruited on joining the commonwealth had learned that Alaina intended to
join the League, and started a skirmish with the militia of Ansopen. They
were all gone now, in any case, either killed or fled back to Taop.

Alaina took her eyes of her brave wounded men, and stared forward up the
road. In the distance she could barely make out a dark blur that was the
city of Anacan. Maltheo would be there, no doubt. She wondered what role he
would be playing now. She could not understand the man at times, always
taking on one responsibility or another.

And she sighed. It seemed there was always something that kept them apart.
In truth she did not even know how he felt about her anymore, or about
anything really. It had been so long since they had spoken face to face, and
there was much she wished to say and wished to hear that could never be
expressed in a letter. She hoped bitterly the army would not need to be
called out for atleast a few days. There would be no slipping away this time
for Maltheo Olik. Alaina was coming to Anacan, and she was coming with a
purpose.

-- 
~b
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