[Mkguild] MK: The Long Day (2/5)

[Hallan Mirayas]

    Drift yawned sleepily as he walked Metamor's halls later that
night, tired enough that he had trouble keeping an image of his
smithy's sign in mind.  Instead, his overtired imagination insisted on
wandering seemingly at random, free-associating with all the restraint
and logic of a two year old who'd gotten into his parents' coffee
beans.  Not surprisingly, he was not watching where he was going when
Madog bolted past him at a cross hallway.

  =

Madog returned a few moments later and dropped a metal ball next to
Drift's head, tail wagging a laugh.  "You're silly, Uncle Drift."  Even
though Madog had dodged from under Drift's feet without any apparent
effort, Drift had tripped anyway trying to avoid him and landed flat on
his face.

   "Ow," the Samoyed replied, and eyed the ball. =

Pushing up onto his knees, he picked up the heavy sphere and looked it
over quizzically.  "What's this?"

   "It's a ball, Uncle Drift."

  =

The Samoyed shook his head, rolling his eyes in wry amusement.  "So I
see.  And why were you chasing it down the hall in the middle of the
night?"

   "We were playing," said a young voice behind him, and
Drift turned to see who it was.  The instant he did, the Samoyed's ears
shot back in alarmed recognition.  It was the Ecclesia priest!

   Father Hough, his blond hair lightly tousled and dressed in a simple bla=
ck smock, offered his hand.  "Good evening.  I'm-"

  =

Drift pulled back as if the boy had offered him a poisonous snake.  "I
know who you are," he hissed through bared teeth.  "You stay far- OW!!"

  =

Madog spit out Drift's tail and growled a warning, his ears low.  "You
no be mean to Father Hough, Uncle.  He is good person."

   The
Samoyed snatched his tail away, dropping the ball, and fixed the
automaton with an incredulous gape.  "You bit my tail!" Drift accused,
massaging the offended limb.

   Madog picked up his ball and
bounced jauntily back to the boy's side.  "Father Hough is good person,
Uncle Drift," the fox repeated once he set the ball down next to the
boy's feet.

   The boy laid his hand on Madog's neck, gently petting the metal fox.  "W=
hy do you fear me, Master-"

  =

Drift snapped his attention to Hough, his ears flat against his skull. =

"Snow, priest.  Edward Snow.  Last of that line.  I have others to
thank for that, but I have the Ecclesia to thank for making their job
easy by leaving only one branch unburned on the family tree, and that
not from lack of trying."

   "Unburned?"

   "Galador, priest," Drift snarled, all but hurling the name at that oh-so=
-innocent face.  "Galador."

  =

Father Hough twitched, his lips pulling down ever so slightly.  "You
speak of shameful times, Master Snow, but also of times well past.  I
was not yet born at the Burning of Galador."  His head came up, looking
Drift in the eyes with the barest hint of indignation.  "So, again, why
do you fear -me-?  Why do you judge me for something I had no part in?"

   Drift ground his teeth.  "I am -not- afraid of you."

   "But you do judge me, for no other reason than how I choose to worship."

   "Don't twist my words, Ecclesia," Drift growled.  "I can see where you'r=
e trying to go with this, and I want no part of it."

   "Then what do you want, Master Snow?"

   Drift rose to his feet, using all of his height to look down on the boy.=
  "To be left alone.  Goodnight, Madog."

   As Drift turned to push open the door to his smithy, Father Hough asked,=
 "Master Snow?"

   "What?" Drift snarled.

  =

Hough smiled faintly, the sort of smile that held an unspoken
invitation, and said, "Yahshua, whom you love just as I do, told us
that we should forgive our brother not just seven times, but seventy
times seven.  If we do not forgive each other, He will not forgive us. =

May His peace go with you."

   Drift's jaw opened as if about to
yell, and then snapped shut in a scowl that lasted until he vanished
through the doorway, which closed behind him with a hinge-rattling
slam.  Madog looked up at Father Hough and thumped his tail on the
floor.  "Uncle Drift tired.  He be nicer in the morning."

   The youthful priest sighed, patted Madog on the head, and nodded.  "I pr=
ay you are right, Madog.  I pray you are right."

  =

Inside, Drift slammed his fist against the wall, cursing himself for an
idiot.  "Stupid!  Why did you tell him about Galador?  As if things
weren't crazy enough already without holding up a sign that says
'Rebuilder!  Heretic!'  Stupid!"  He paced in his forge as if it were a
cage, snatching up a rod of tin from his stock pile and bending and
twisting it to deal with the stress.  Finally, straightening the bar as
best he could, he tossed it back on the stock pile.  It landed badly,
end-on and with sufficient momentum to send a quartet of tin rods
scattering across the room.  Looking at the mess, he growled, "Oh, to
the hells with it; I'll clean up in the morning," and blew out the
lamp.  Growling incoherencies to himself, he flung himself down into
bed without bothering to remove his clothes and was swiftly asleep.

-----

  =

The next dawn found Drift walking in taurform through Metamor's gates,
turning onto the barren track along the city walls with a familiar nod
to the sentries.  A few waved in reply, having grown used to the
Samoyed's morning runs, which he had been doing ever since a
low-hanging branch in an orchard convinced him that running in town was
a bad idea.  Even if it -had- introduced him to a woman he found ever
more fascinating with each meeting.  He smiled as he ran, cherishing
the thought of her after a long night of troubled dreams, and a morning
when he'd slipped on the bars he hadn't picked up the night before. =

Looking up at the stars, nearly faded in the light of dawn, his mind
ranged back to the scent of her perfume, the feel of her fingers
through his fur, and the stress that sleep had failed to quell started
to seep away.  Meeting the priest had been bound to happen sooner or
later, he knew, and while the timing could have been better, it could
have been worse, too.  /Well, he knows who I am now,/ Drift thought. =

/So, what next?/  He galloped past the gates again, his first circuit
completed.  /Madog was with him.  Playing.  That says something./

  =

"Good morning."  Misha's sudden appearance running alongside nearly
made the Samoyed stumble.  The fox was in taurform, too, and despite
his shorter legs, he kept up without any apparent effort.  "I'd hoped
to find you here."

   "How do you do that?" Drift asked,
incredulous, a hand clutched over his pounding heart.  How did that fox
always seem to step out of thin air?

   "Do what?" the fox
replied, his smile feigning innocence.  Drift grumbled and stepped up
his pace.  Misha matched it, and they ran in silence for a while.  "I
heard," Misha said finally, "that you met Father Hough last night."

   Drift scowled, his ears twitching back.  "Madog told you?"

   "Madog doesn't understand why you're so hostile to Father Hough," Misha =
explained.  "He finds it hard to understand hate."

  =

"I don't hate him," Drift snapped, louder and more harshly than he'd
intended.  "I don't," he added more quietly on seeing Misha's dubious
look.  "I just don't trust him.  Especially not right at the doorstep
of my home."  Silence followed.  "Stop looking at me like that."

   "Alexis is right," was Misha's unimpressed reply.  "You -are- a rotten l=
iar."

  =

Drift skidded to a halt.  "I don't hate -him-," the Samoyed insisted,
rounding on the foxtaur, his hands clenching into fists.  "I hate what
he stands for.  A false hierarchy built more to please ambition and
gather power than to worship Eli.  Worthless made-up rules and
purposely obscure rituals, all so that the Word as -they- speak it can
be used to keep the 'lesser people' in their place.  And heaven help
anyone who questions their translation.  It's not right."

   The
foxtaur nodded, stepping around to face Drift head-on.  "No, it's not
right.  There is a lot wrong with the whole organization.  I've met a
lot of bad and just plain evil priests.  But," he said, crossing his
arms, "Hough is not one of them. He is a true and devout follower of
Eli, and not someone to be wary of.  I have found him to be completely
trustworthy."

   "Does he know you're a Rebuilder?"

  =

Misha shrugged, letting his arms drop again.  "I've never tried to hide
it from him.  To be honest, it's never come up."  He gestured a
suggestion that they continue the run, and Drift agreed, his expression
thoughtful (if somewhat reluctant).  "I trust him, brother," Misha
continued.  "So does Madog.  You should, too."

   Drift said
nothing for several laps around the curtain walls, ears twitching this
way and that as if unsure where to settle.  Finally, he said, "I will=85
consider what you've said.  I won't promise anything, but I will
consider it.  And now I should really be heading in:  I have a busy day
ahead."

   "Working with the building crews again, are you?"
Misha asked as the pair trotted back through Metamor's gates, turning
down a side street to avoid the traffic already building on the main
thoroughfare.

   "That's Tuesday and Thursday," Drift replied,
shaking his head.  He paused to wave to the departing lumber crews,
wishing them safe travels.  "Today is the Lightbringer temple."  Drift
watched the crews pass through the gates, and his mood momentarily
faltered.  "I miss Lindsey," he said.  "I hope he's okay=85 wherever he
is."

   "Wherever he is I'm sure he is doing fine," the fox
answered.  After a moment's consideration, he continued, "Regarding the
Lightbringers, I thought you finished your penance for that makeup
incident months ago."

   "I did.  But the job still needs to be
done." His tail wagging amusement, he changed the subject.  "So I hear
you, George, and Oberon had an interesting time at the Mule the other
night=85"

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