A FARAWAY LORD OF LIGHTNING part I

Grant Rhoads opens the door to a bedroom.  What looks to be a young man's bedroom, but dark and empty of life, as if it hadn't been touched in years.  Not a spare room, but something different.  Grant doesn't step inside at first, as he hesitates to do so.  Instead he stares at something specific.

A closed chest at the foot of the bed.

~

I open the screen door that leads to the upper balcony of the Rhoads farmhouse.  I come here to see Tia who is sat back in a chair, with her feet up on the railing smoking a cigarette.  Her staff leaning on the rail as well, and next to the chair, her backpack ready to go.  She watches the near horizon passed the front of the house.  Waiting.  "You doing okay?"  She asks me genuinely.

I try to find the right word for an answer.  Right now I don't think my feelings matter.  I'd rather have truth more than anything else.  "You really think... this place will be attacked tonight?"

She takes her cigarette out, flicking the ash off as she exhales.  She still doesn't look at me.  "I travelled with soldier-types plenty of times before.  With no stars, no moon, and these black clouds... it's exactly when I would attack."

The pit in my stomach and dry mouth tell me of the true dangers of the situation I'm in.  I think I have the means to protect myself, but I've never had to face a life and death scenario.  I am anything but a soldier-- anything but a warrior-- I don't know what is expected of me--

"Reiji."  Tia breaks my spiraling and I look to her.  "...you should probably leave."

I can't deny that I want to.  I glance away in slight shame.  "Well-- what about you?  I don't... I don't want you to die."

She laughs for her own multiple reasons.  She then turns to look at me, giving her cocky smile and a wink.  "I'll be just fine.  I've been in more dire situations.  Not to mention..."  Tia removes her feet from off the rail and stands up to fully face me.  "I'm not as heroic as you might think I am, Reiji.  When I take on jobs like this one, they know I'll run away if I see I can't win.  I even got my backpack here with me.  Sounds like cowardice, but it's just the way how my line of work goes."

While I am comforted by the thought of her willing to save herself, I still can't feel shameful for wanting to leave.  I like this place.  I like Grant, and Holden, and Liam.  I want to protect this place.  I don't want to kill, and I'm afraid of dying.  Dying... I wonder what would happen if I died again.  Maybe it's not dying that scares me.  "I don't want anyone to die."

Tia doesn't laugh at me.  instead, she glances away from me, looking back to the horizon she watches.  Her seriousness returns.  "I think you should leave.  Go to the village inn."  She then forces her cheerful side in an attempt to not worry me.  "After I make it out of this one, like I always do, I'll come find you.  Then... we can go find your father together."

To find my father.  She's looking to the future.  Of course-- my father.  I need to live through this if I expect to find him at all.  He doesn't even know I'm here.  I need to live through this.

Mr. Rhoads taps on the side of the closed screen door from the inside.  I look to him as he looks at me and gestures his thumb up and behind himself.  "Reiji-- come inside for a minute, please."

I never see him courteous.  This is serious.  I give my utmost respect and oblige him.

~

We stand just outside an empty bedroom.  Noticing an opened chest at the foot of the bed, I then look back to Grant who is holding something.  Black cloth, rolled up.  He slowly holds it out to give me, his hands slightly trembling, just enough for me to notice.

"Try this on."  Grant is able to say.

Gently taking the cloth from him, I can feel it is lighter than it looks.  I can see it is some kind of outfit.  Holding it by the shoulders, I let it unroll in front of me.

A black coat with very subtle silver trim.  It's magnificent and stylish-- it reminds me of Tia's red mage coat.  I can feel something radiating from this coat.  A gently and silent aura of sorts.

"It was my son's."  Grant remains immediately silent after this.

I glance in the room again.  The coat's size doesn't quite fit for Holden or Liam.  This room isn't either of theirs either.  It suddenly hits me, and I extend my arms fully toward Grant.  "Mr. Rhoads, I can't-- I don't know about--"

"Just try it on, will ya?!"

After a moment of doing nothing, I decide to oblige him.  I put it on.  I was right-- it's my fit after all.  Its length goes down just barely past my knees.  I hesitate at first, but then decide to ask him.  "What was his name?"

"Emmet."  Grant tells me.  "He would have been twenty-eight this year.  This coat was his first.  He wanted to be a mage from the moment he saw magic when he was a child.  My wife encouraged his ambitions, whereas... I didn't.  Just a few days before he was to receive his mage's coat... his mother died."  My empathy makes my eyes widen as I remain silent.  "He talked to the seamstress responsible for making it and requested a change: to be made in black.  So he could wear it to the funeral, showing his mother that he had made it."

The emotional weight behind this coat makes it feel ten times heavier.  I am immediately reminded of my father's funeral.  I kept the black umbrella for the rest of my life after that.

"It's made specially for mages so it can withstand spells or whatnot.  It's not exactly armor-- it just means your clothes won't disintegrate from magic-based nonsense."

What is he doing?  Why is he being so personal?  I'm not family, so why such a deep offering?  "Why give this to me?"

Grant doesn't hesitate at all.  "You're a Faraway Lord of Lightning, aren't ya?"  Mr. Rhoads reaches in his pocket and takes something out.  A small leather pouch, handing it to me.  "Your pay for the work-week you put in.  Now consider yourself fired and get out of here, kid."

Dropping the bag of coins in my hand, I don't know what to say.  I feel I'm on the verge of tearing up.  With that, Grant turns and begins to walk away.

Soon enough, I am left standing in the deafening quiet of the farmhouse.  The grandfather clock ticking is the only sound as I hold the money bag and wear the black mage coat.  One of the drawn portraits on the wall being Grant's late son.  Around my age, wearing not only this same black coat... but a smile.  A smile of perseverance.

I don't know what to do.

~

Tia sits in the same chair on the balcony.  Grant sits in the chair beside her, smoking his pipe.  The two sit in an oddly comfortable silence with one another.  Her eyes focused on the one spot, she notices something.  Calmly taking up her staff, she places it on the edge of the railing, holding it like a sniper rifle.  Looking slightly downward and beyond the farm property, she sees it.  "Yeah-- that's something."

Grant quickly puts out his pipe to douse any light from it.  The farmhouse sits mostly in pure darkness, aside from one lantern at the front step.  Ahead of the farm, past the front wooden gate, further down the path stretching into the forest... there is movement.  Very subtle, but lots of movement.  Dozens of shadows that slowly move toward the farm.

Grant gives an expression of more worry.  "I can barely make them out-- looks like a hundred men."

Tia reassures him.  "No, it's only twenty of them.  They're spread out."  Tia is looking through his staff's crystal, using it as a scope, strikingly similar to a rifle.  The men that make their way toward them are not dressed like a typical soldier would be.  "Looks like you were right, Grant.  They sent mercenaries.  Man, you must have really pissed off the Prince."

Grant brushes it off almost comedically.  "I may have accidentally insulted him to his face when I was finally given an audience with him last month."

Tia quickly laughs through her smiling teeth.  Through her crystal scope, the mercenaries inch closer, and are almost out of the forest.

Grant glances to her, specifically to her staff.  "Why do you hold your staff like that-- it's weird."

Tia doesn't take her eyes off one particular target.  A mercenary holding a small shield and a curved sword.  She maintains her smile and begins to answer Grant.  "Oh, curious about my technique?"  Her staff's orb glows as she focuses her magic power.  At the front of her crystal sights, a stone begins to form.  Concentrating, she keeps it small and condensed.  She forms its shape.  She then focuses its sending-power to the back of the bullet-shaped stone.  "It's something Reiji's father taught me."