Memoirs 500 - A day in the life of... (Patreon)

(Next chapter will be up according to the usual schedule)Fynn hadn’t decided yet what he thought about the imperials’ palace.

Growing up, he had heard stories from his mother and the elders about the world beyond the mountains. The empire was complicated, according to them. The imperials could build amazing things, and many of their laws existed to care for their people. At the same time, their nobles surrounded themselves with excess, raised castles and palaces for themselves, and hoarded wealth like they were Olgolzkreh’s spawn.

Fynn didn’t mind it that much.

When he had travelled the empire to earn enough to feed his siblings, he’d never given much thought to its nobles. Even after working for Scarlett for as long as he had, most of their habits still felt more strange than obnoxious.

He didn’t need soft beds or shiny forks, even if they could be interesting to look at. He had imagined things would be different with imperial royalty and their home, though. Apparently, they were mostly the same.

Maybe they used more gold?

Fynn had already inspected most of the trinkets in the room they’d been given, and he was running out of things to do. He was used to waiting for Scarlett, but he could never tell how long she would be gone. He wanted to leave the room, but that might cause trouble for her instead.

He could meditate. But he had done a lot of that while Scarlett recovered these last few days, and his body wanted to move.

He tried distracting himself by studying one of the paintings on the wall instead. It showed a man with a sword facing a dragon, several companions gathered behind him. Fynn didn’t recognise either the man or the dragon, but he assumed they had both been strong. The dragon looked like it might have been an elder.

Or the painter had taken liberties.

Fynn hadn’t realised before coming to the empire how much imperials liked doing that. Grehaldrael carvings and hymns were supposed to depict things as they had happened, so that those who came later could learn from them.

Imperial artists seemed more interested in making people want to look.

He wasn’t sure that was too wise.

Rosa had told him he was oversimplifying their culture. She had only been lying a little when she said it, so he supposed she was mostly right.

His sister had read more imperial books than he had. Maybe he should ask Velryrth what she thought about their art, and if it was useful for more than entertainment.

Fynn’s gaze lingered on the painted dragon as he listened to the faint footsteps moving through the corridors and nearby rooms.

The palace was interesting in some ways, but he didn’t like how active it was. Strangely, the city was better. There, noise and scents came from everywhere at once and blended into one enormous mess. That made it surprisingly easy to notice anything that didn’t belong. Here, every footstep echoed too cleanly, every scent sat apart from the next, and guards were constantly moving through halls and rooms, tugging at his attention wherever he listened.

Everything fitted together too neatly, which somehow bothered him.

A faint click came from the doors.

Fynn’s head snapped towards them. He dropped into a crouch, one foot sliding back.

There hadn’t been any footsteps in the corridor outside.

The door opened.

Fynn straightened and relaxed when a small girl stepped through. Hilde turned as the door closed behind her, looking around the room before settling her gaze on him.

“Where is the Baroness?” she asked.

“In a place they called the Imperial Reliquary,” Fynn replied.

The girl was quiet for a moment. Her expression barely changed, but Fynn sensed a hint of disappointment.

Finally, she nodded. “Okay.”

She turned to leave.

“Where are you going?” Fynn asked.

Hilde paused with her hand on the door handle and glanced back, eyeing him.

“Do you want to come?”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.”

Fynn’s eyebrows rose.

His tribe had always placed more weight on the words of its elders than on the blood of its leader and his children, so Fynn had grown up without too many expectations about decorum, or where he was supposed to go and what he was supposed to attend. His mother had also often taken him on adventures the elders wouldn’t have approved of, so he wasn’t sure what it would be like to grow up without that freedom.

But… were princesses in the empire really supposed to be able to wander around like this without servants following them?

As far as he knew, the answer was no.

Was it bad if they did?

Fynn would have said no, but imperials usually had some reasons for their customs, even when those reasons seemed strange. They were also much more worried about their young being left alone. They didn’t throw them off cliffs to teach them how to climb, like his mother had done with him.

Or like Fynn had done with his youngest brother.

Still, it was the responsibility of those who were older and wiser to make sure the younger ones didn’t hurt themselves or make mistakes they wouldn’t live long enough to learn from. And since Fynn was doing nothing but waiting for Scarlett at the moment…

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll join you.”

Scarlett cared about the princess. Fynn had noticed that much. And from what he had seen, Hilde seemed a bit of an outsider with reckless tendencies of her own. Scarlett would probably worry less if someone responsible went with her.

Hilde opened the door, and Fynn followed her through.

They entered a chamber with one of those strange beds that had its own cloth roof, a tall window overlooking the lake, and shelves and cabinets filled with ornaments and other things Fynn supposed belonged to a princess. Standing silently in one corner was the enormous knight who always followed Hilde around.

Fynn still didn’t know what to think about the girl’s ability to open doors wherever she wanted. It was very powerful, and probably not the sort of ability you wanted in the hands of a child who didn’t even know how she was doing it.

It would have been better if she knew how to defend herself.

Maybe that was what the knight was for.

While Hilde walked over to a set of shelves along one wall, Fynn met the knight’s gaze.

His mother had once told him about the empire’s Five Swords. She had fought one of them when she was young and lost, which had been enough for Fynn to know that they were strong. Holdger was the only one he had met himself, and the man was interesting.

Fynn wanted to fight him. He thought Holdger wanted to fight him too. Not because either of them disliked the other. It would simply be useful to know who was stronger.

They hadn’t found a good opportunity yet.

Hilde returned carrying a small wooden chest in both hands.

“What is that?” Fynn asked.

“Music boxes.”

Music boxes?

Fynn studied the chest.

The girl had talked about music boxes on their way to the palace. Fynn had thought they looked different from this. Were there more boxes inside the chest, or was the chest itself magical? It didn’t store music inside, did it?

Hilde walked past him towards another door, this one almost hidden in the wall beside the bed. She pressed a small brass ornament next to it, and there was a quiet click as the door eased open a finger’s width.

She pulled it the rest of the way open and stepped through.

Fynn followed, with the silent knight behind him. Holdger had to stoop almost double to fit through the doorway.

Fynn recognised the room on the other side as one of those in Scarlett’s mansion in Elystead. Sitting at a table and staring at an empty chessboard was Slate, her hood pulled so low that it nearly concealed her entire face.

She looked up, ghostly green eyes settling on them.

“This is unexpected,” she said.

Hilde walked over and placed the chest on the table beside the chessboard. “My music boxes.”

Slate’s attention moved to the chest. “I see. My interest was indeed expressed.” She looked back at Hilde. “Are we leaving?”

“If you want?”

“They also expressed their interest.”

Slate rose from her seat.

Hilde picked up the chest again, and the two started back towards the door. Fynn stepped aside as Hilde closed it and placed her hand on the handle again.

“Is Scarlett okay with you leaving?” he asked, looking at Slate.

Slate tilted her head slightly.

“She has previously told me that I should deliberate, form opinions, and make choices according to my own judgement.” She was quiet for a moment. “I have not always found this comfortable, but it is intriguing.”

Her eyes remained on him. “Do you believe accompanying them would contradict what she wants?”

Fynn thought about that.

Scarlett had said similar things before. Maybe just not in so many words.

“No,” he said after a while.

“Good.”

Slate stepped up beside Hilde, who looked at her, then at the door. “Where are they?”

Slate regarded it quietly for several seconds. Then she reached for the handle, one pale hand slipping from beneath her dark robes to press down beside Hilde’s.

The door opened, and all that showed on the other side was darkness and shadow.

Fynn felt Hilde’s surprise, and her Sword immediately moved forward, one arm coming across in front of her. Fynn did the same for Slate, though he doubted she needed it.

The darkness beyond the doorway shifted. Patches of colour began forming within it, faint and blurred at first, before gradually sharpening into the image of a forest clearing. At its centre lay the skeleton of some large beast, its bones half-surrounded by threads of shadow stretched across the forest floor. Near the edge of the clearing, a knight in tattered dark garb sat atop a broad stone, both hands resting on the crossguard of a tall sword planted between his feet. A large crow perched on one shoulder.

The shadows around the skeleton stirred. They gathered together at one point, rising from the ground until they formed the shape of another girl. Red robes hung from her slight frame, and a white mask covered her face, three large lavender eyes set into its surface.

Slate stepped around Fynn without any concern and passed through the doorway. She crossed the clearing and stopped beside Nol’viz, studying the skeleton.

“A Grimhide Ursine,” she said.

“Yes,” Nol’viz replied, her voice breaking into the same jumble of overlapping whispers that Fynn always had trouble separating into one.

Hilde passed through next and joined them. She looked from the skeleton to Nol’viz. “That is a little weird...”

The three eyes on Nol’viz’s mask blinked one after another, then all together. “We see. We knew others did not do this, but we had not thought to consider it under the word ‘weird’. It is good that you are here. You know more about these things.”

“I agree,” Slate said. “Experience has exhibited more examples of understanding nomenclature failing to accurately reflect the social implications of its application than the reverse. I do not enjoy supplementing absent information with assumptions when I have not been directed to do so, so your aid is welcome.”

Hilde turned slightly away, her fingers worrying at each other in front of her. From what Fynn could tell, she seemed pleased by the praise.

If that was praise.

It could be hard to tell with these three. They were all somewhat odd.

Fynn walked over and studied the skeleton for a moment, wondering where you would find one of those in the wild, before turning back to them.

“What now?”

All three looked at him, then at each other.

Hilde held up the chest for the other two to see. “I brought them.”

Nol’viz studied it curiously. “Them?”

“The ornamented automated musical instruments,” Slate said.

“The music boxes?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting. Show us.”

Nol’viz, Slate, and Hilde moved towards the edge of the clearing, near where Carnwedain was sitting. Hilde set the chest down on another flat stone, and Fynn started after them before noticing that Holdger had moved closer to Carnwedain.

The two enormous knights were staring at each other.

Fynn stopped.

Interesting.

Off to the side, the girls opened the chest and started taking out several different objects. Fynn didn’t hear any music, so apparently the chest itself wasn’t magical.

A short while later, a tune finally drifted through the clearing. Fynn gave up watching the two knights and walked over to see what the others were doing. The music boxes were small sculptures and trinkets that played music when you wound them. That was not quite as interesting as he had hoped.

Still, it made sense.

Imperials had their own ideas about art.

Fynn wasn’t entirely against them. Most of it simply didn’t interest him, but he had enjoyed some of the games Allyssa and Shin had introduced to him and his siblings. Rosa could play neat music too, even if most of what she sang was lies.

He moved over to a nearby tree and leaned against its trunk, folding his arms while the three girls continued examining the boxes.

“We like this one,” Nol’viz declared, indicating a small music box shaped like a bird perched among silver branches. A light, chiming melody played as the bird slowly flapped its wings. “How was it made?”

“Should I explain each of its constituent mechanisms?” Slate asked.

Hilde smiled faintly as she picked up the box and began explaining where it had come from instead.

Fynn watched them for a while.

It occurred to him that he’d come because he wanted to make sure these three didn’t do anything reckless, but this was calmer than most days he spent with the others. Maybe he should have been more worried about what Scarlett was doing while he wasn’t there.

Then again, she was supposed to be in some form of guarded armoury.

That sounded safe enough.

Although, Rosa often said that the noblewoman was too good at finding trouble.

Fynn frowned slightly.

Maybe he should have followed her, just in case.