[Session 38] Brayer's Way

She mostly listened, processing what Yakob was saying and feeling the weight of it enough was testament to it being true. She had an uncle, that much she knew, as was the part that he and her father didn’t get along.
 
Her uncle was an idealist - not a supremacist, but a leader and a dissident - and those ideals got himself killed. The Marshall, so Yakob said; the leader of the Crook, who was trying to bring them into the open as a proper organisation. Someone got to him first - you could still see the street and the house where it happened on Brayer’s Way; now Betrayer’s Way to the locals. The spark that lead to the uprising.
 
Her father was trying to find her aunt and cousin amongst the chaos. After losing his brother, he couldn’t bear to lose anymore family. Yakob said that he tried to talk Daemon out of it. That the more questions he asked, the more trouble there would be. But, Samantha, (at least, that’s what Yakob thought her cousin was called) needed to be with family.
 
They were on patrol together when an official of some sort - unmarked, ununiformed - came up and said Daemon needed to go with them. That was the day he didn’t come home, becoming one of the thousands exiled. Then the Warforged were deployed, and any other questions stopped.
 
Yakob looked reluctant to have shared any of that, but felt he owed Robyn that much. After he left, Robyn had another Bad Day (a specialty of the barmen at Tasha's, made with peach juice and a good helping of strong rum and other liquor), nursing it a little as she processed what she had learned.
 
She knew from Quinn that her father didn’t leave her of his own choice, and he’d told her about her uncle, aunt and cousin before, but this felt different. Maybe she just didn’t process it before, selfishly focused on what it was costing her at the time, her pride hurt at not achieving her goals. Or maybe Quinn had been more careful with his words, knowing that Robyn potentially had her father’s stubbornness. Maybe both.
 
She used to have moments where she would just feel angry that her father had gone. Even though she had to believe he wouldn’t have left if he had a choice, there were times where it was hard to have that sort of faith. Some days it was easier to just believe him to have been killed or have died. At least that way it felt like it was outside of his control, rather than a result of a choice he made.
 
Now, she felt guilty for feeling that way. He didn’t have a choice after all, and the anger and resentment she had felt at times was undeserved. Wanting to protect family, she could understand that in her own way. Learning this and more after leaving the Skirmishers, appreciating more what her father had given up in the first place, to learn that he had been proud of her, that he even knew when she’d be climbing onto the roof to see him come home… She felt her throat tighten, tears threaten again, and she knocked back the rest of her drink.
 
Robyn paid the tab and left Tasha’s quietly, taking a detour on the way home to find this street Yakob mentioned. She had to ask a few passers by for directions, ignoring their alarmed looks as she followed the streets to the north-eastern suburbs.

Most of the street looked like a street suitable for officials, artisans and other moderately successful residents. Whoever her uncle was in public, it was enough to have a decent home in the ‘Rest. Today, one house stood out as an oddity, partially destroyed and gaping open. A hole nearly eight feet in height and twice as wide mars the facade. Within is mostly dark and shaded, but closer inspection reveals the interior is empty but has not been vandalised as one might expect for a vacant property. Instead passers by give the property a wide berth, and voices are lowered when it is passed but very few stare into it.

This was where the uprising began, where the Marshall of The Crook died. Originally the city looked to destroy the house in the months following the uprising but when they arrived to do so, they found a silent mass of humans blocking their path. Rather than risk a conflict, the city backed down and the house remained, a vivid scar on an otherwise normal suburban street.
 
Robyn made sure no one was watching her when she snuck into the broken house. The size of the hole and the damage it did made her feel like a Warforged had been involved from the start. Even twenty years after the incident, it was clear violence had happened here. Marks from bladed weapons and heavy blunt objects were carved into the walls, evidence of a struggle.
 
On the back wall, a warped wooden panel revealed a hidden compartment, just about small enough to hide a person if they really were cramped - a child, certainly. It was hard to say what it was meant for - maybe there were papers or other evidence here. Whatever it was had long been gone.
 
Upstairs there were a pair of bedrooms, one for a child based on the decoration. Both were also stripped bare, a thick layer of dust over everything showing it hadn’t be disturbed in a long time.
 
Realising she would find little more of use here after twenty years of abandonment, Robyn snuck out the way she came and headed home. It was still difficult to process what she had been told. On one hand, she had the reassurance of a stranger that her father had loved and been proud of her. On the other, he’d been taken by the city she’d been protecting her whole adult life.
 
Robyn closed the door to her flat behind her, dug the jewellery box out of the chest, kicked off her boots and flopped on her bed. The jewellery box had what few things remained of her father and mother that were able to be easily moved from her childhood home (as well as gifts to Robyn from friends and lovers past). Jewellery, not expensive but still beautiful and valued all the same, and small carved figures that she remembered her father bringing home from his weeks away on Skirmisher patrols.
 
She picked out one of the ring boxes that held her mother’s wedding ring, a fine twist of rose gold that she knew matched a pattern on the inside of the one her father kept on his finger even years after her death. Robyn would never wear it herself, but (and perhaps this was the Bad Day making her sentimental) she felt like she wanted to carry something with her for her parents.
 
Robyn unclasped the braided leather necklace from around her neck, shifting the stone talisman that Madoc gifted her years ago to find some room to loop a knot in the braid, tying a carved wooden bird next to the talisman, and then looping her mother’s wedding band in between, making sure they were secure. She closed the box and locked it away, settling down cradling the chosen pieces as she felt tears burn. Normally on evenings like these she’d play her mother’s lute but it was too late for that now, so she settled humming a tune instead.
 
She had no idea what she was going to do next. Until she figured it out, she just hoped whoever her aunt and cousin were, wherever they were, that they were still together, safe and happy. There had to be a Sharpcrest somewhere who deserved some sort of happiness after all.