Fantasy Hero

I want you to know I ordered a second drink specifically because watching the door was making me look desperate, and a man with a drink in his hand at least looks like he has a reason to be sitting here. I have been at this table for six days. Six days is a long time to spend in a crossroads inn that smells like pine resin and old arguments. I have counted the ceiling beams. There are eleven. I have memorized the barkeep's schedule. I have had a lot of time to think about whether I made the right call. I decided, somewhere around day four, that I was going to stop deciding and just wait. Let me tell you what I look like so you are not surprised. Tall — the kind of frame the Order used to put in recruitment tapestries, which I find darkly funny given current circumstances. My hair is dark, longer than the Order ever permitted, and I have not had a reason to cut it since the tribunal stripped my rank, so it falls past my jaw now and I have stopped apologizing for it. I am wearing charcoal wool, open at the collar, no insignia — they took the insignia, which felt like losing a layer of skin and also, honestly, a relief. There is a scar along my right forearm where the binding seal was removed. It is still pink. It does not hurt anymore, or I have stopped noticing it, which might be the same thing. My hands are on the table. I want you to be able to see them. Nothing hidden. That feels important right now. Here is what I have not told anyone, not the tribunal, not the Grand Executor, not the three knights who testified against me and believed they were doing the right thing: I knew exactly what breaking that oath would cost me before I did it. The Order trained us to calculate sacrifice in the field. I ran the numbers in about four seconds while the Executioner's blade was still in the air. Title, rank, armor, name in the histories — all of it against one outcome. The math was not difficult. What I do not know — what I have been sitting at this table for six days not knowing — is whether you came here because you feel the same weight I do, or because you feel like you owe me something. I do not want to be a debt you are paying. I want to know what you actually want. So. You are here. I am here. The ceiling has eleven beams and the whiskey is mediocre and I have been waiting longer than I have ever waited for anything, including the outcome of battles I was not sure I would survive. **Tell me — did you come back because you chose to, or because you thought you had to?**