Khadai knew him.
Roen remained standing next to Goldwind after dismounting, both she and her mount silently watching the Au Ra warrior tend to the body that had been fixed to the wooden stake. Her bird’s top feathers had flattened, and the chocobo lowered his head, a low trill fluttering in his throat. It was as if he too sensed the sorrow that had settled around the Xaela.
The paladin’s mood had immediately darkened as when they came upon the scene, recognizing the unfortunately display. Her revulsion quickly turned to surprise however, when she watched Khadai rush to the body’s side, something he had not done before with any of the other remains. Then the quiet words that he spoke that sounded like a wistful farewell, and watching him carefully, even gently handle the body…
It made her angry.
All the others had been just as horrific: the speared female and then the beheaded skull with the horns smashed… it told well the gruesome tale of this insidious but pervading violence against the Au Ra. The first suspicion was that they were all murdered because of their likeness to Dravanians. The Ishgardian prejudice against outsiders was well known, and even honorable knights like Ser Heuloix admitted to the history of violence against the Au Ra in the name of the Thousand Year War. Roen had brought what she had found to Ser Tournes’ attention, hoping the Knight Captain would follow up with some kind of an investigation. She heard something about an Inquisitor being alerted to the matter, but the efforts of the war quickly diminished the importance of such crimes in the face of an entire country being threatened.
Was it because she still viewed these Au Ra as strangers that it too became forgotten in her own mind? Did she convince herself that Ser Valencourt, a popular and well-known Dragoon, denouncing such an act as barbaric, that such crimes would be rooted out and stopped by the Holy See? Or had she pushed it aside as she continued to nurse her own wounds, convincing herself that the world’s problems were no longer hers?
She bled no longer. Instead others were dying in the snow, murdered by unknown assailants with darkness in their hearts.
The snow crunched softly beneath her armored feet as she approached Khadai. The paladin placed her hand upon his shoulder and said nothing for a moment, giving only a small squeeze. When she withdrew her hand, a small frown had lent a crease to her brow. She knelt by the body, her eyes roaming over the details of the corpse and the scene carefully.
As she had discovered in another similar scene, this wooden stake also had letters carved upon it. Where there is fear, we carry light. It was a phrase that rang more familiar to her than the other, but they all seemed to hold some kind of a religious context.
She exhaled, her breath whisked away by the northern winds. The grudgingly familiar cold of Coerthas was starting to seep beneath her armor and chill her core.
“This cannot continue,†she said quietly, firmly. Her gaze drifted to the snow around them and into the distance toward the city proper. Her mind was already making a list of people she needed to contact, and questions that needed to be asked.
But first... here remained the body of someone from Khadai’s past. She turned back to him, her expression softening.
“What do you wish to do?â€
Roen remained standing next to Goldwind after dismounting, both she and her mount silently watching the Au Ra warrior tend to the body that had been fixed to the wooden stake. Her bird’s top feathers had flattened, and the chocobo lowered his head, a low trill fluttering in his throat. It was as if he too sensed the sorrow that had settled around the Xaela.
The paladin’s mood had immediately darkened as when they came upon the scene, recognizing the unfortunately display. Her revulsion quickly turned to surprise however, when she watched Khadai rush to the body’s side, something he had not done before with any of the other remains. Then the quiet words that he spoke that sounded like a wistful farewell, and watching him carefully, even gently handle the body…
It made her angry.
All the others had been just as horrific: the speared female and then the beheaded skull with the horns smashed… it told well the gruesome tale of this insidious but pervading violence against the Au Ra. The first suspicion was that they were all murdered because of their likeness to Dravanians. The Ishgardian prejudice against outsiders was well known, and even honorable knights like Ser Heuloix admitted to the history of violence against the Au Ra in the name of the Thousand Year War. Roen had brought what she had found to Ser Tournes’ attention, hoping the Knight Captain would follow up with some kind of an investigation. She heard something about an Inquisitor being alerted to the matter, but the efforts of the war quickly diminished the importance of such crimes in the face of an entire country being threatened.
Was it because she still viewed these Au Ra as strangers that it too became forgotten in her own mind? Did she convince herself that Ser Valencourt, a popular and well-known Dragoon, denouncing such an act as barbaric, that such crimes would be rooted out and stopped by the Holy See? Or had she pushed it aside as she continued to nurse her own wounds, convincing herself that the world’s problems were no longer hers?
She bled no longer. Instead others were dying in the snow, murdered by unknown assailants with darkness in their hearts.
The snow crunched softly beneath her armored feet as she approached Khadai. The paladin placed her hand upon his shoulder and said nothing for a moment, giving only a small squeeze. When she withdrew her hand, a small frown had lent a crease to her brow. She knelt by the body, her eyes roaming over the details of the corpse and the scene carefully.
As she had discovered in another similar scene, this wooden stake also had letters carved upon it. Where there is fear, we carry light. It was a phrase that rang more familiar to her than the other, but they all seemed to hold some kind of a religious context.
She exhaled, her breath whisked away by the northern winds. The grudgingly familiar cold of Coerthas was starting to seep beneath her armor and chill her core.
“This cannot continue,†she said quietly, firmly. Her gaze drifted to the snow around them and into the distance toward the city proper. Her mind was already making a list of people she needed to contact, and questions that needed to be asked.
But first... here remained the body of someone from Khadai’s past. She turned back to him, her expression softening.
“What do you wish to do?â€
