Old Wrongs and Kindred Souls

That dwarf had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He'd made the wrong moves too. It wasn't the time to try and pick a fight, but he'd tried it nonetheless, with a grieving opponent who only needed a reason. The dwarf had given him a reason, and Nomad had given him death for it. Now he was on trial, but his mind was far from this place, searching for the spirit of his departed wife and the living daughter awaiting his return.
 
"He murdered 'em!" he could hear Shevra scream somewhere nearby. Her band of mercenaries had also been employed by the caravan heading north to Neverwinter, and it was one of her warriors who's body grew cold in the earth.
 
To his surprise, another voice silenced the arguments. Perhaps even the last one he expected.
 
"Murder implies premeditation or malicious intent, does it not?" the refined, almost aristocratic lilt posed to the tribunal.
 
"Ye were there, Silver!" the angry Shevra continued. "Ye were even the one to stop 'em afore he could kill 'em outright! Ye saw the whole thing!"
 
"I did indeed," the warforged answered, "and by that logic, I remain the only accountable witness to the altercation, which, by my reckoning was the product of escalation. Your man didn't throw the first punch, but Nomad was not the first to draw his sword."
 
That much was true. At least to Nomad who was currently replaying the events of the last day in his mind. Between wrestling with the news that his wife was dead, it was hard to concentrate. Silver seemed to have it sorted out well enough, however. At least he had a witness going for him. Strange, though. He thought the warforged didn't like him too much. Silver had tried hard to avoid him since he joined the caravan.
 
"Bah! Yer on his side! Damn the both of ye! I know me man, and he wouldna' done it like that!"
 
The baritone voice of the presiding cleric of Kelemvor and caravan leader spoke next. "You would swear to your account, Silver?"
 
Nomad held his breath.
 
"I would," came the warforged's reply.
 
There was a moment of silence before the cleric spoke again. "You have no substantiated claim, Shevra. Your man was already dead by the time we arrived, and Silver has offered his testimony. The matter is settled."
 
Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Nomad was confident he'd soon be free to go on his way, but he knew the truth of what he'd done. He shouldn't have started the fight. The dwarf shouldn't have run his mouth and kept prodding until he finally said something about Orianna. It was the one thing that could have made Nomad snap in such a way. But he'd found a tender spot, and he'd paid the price. Nomad had been found innocent of murder, but he knew what was in his heart when he drove his sword home and ended the dwarf's life.
 
He could hear the laughter of his old nemesis and tormentor echoing in his mind, and there was nothing he could do to silence it.
 
The door to the holding wagon swung open, a tall and lithe warforged clad in silver, leather armor with a fine crossbow hung at this side stood before Nomad. "If I escort you to your camp, will there be any trouble?"
 
Nomad turned his hooded gaze to the marksman. "Should there be?"
 
Silver turned his remaining eye toward the dark warrior. "I'm merely trying to ascertain the nature of our relationship."
 
That made Nomad chuckle. "Our relationship..." Apparently Silver thought he was owed something now. "No trouble. Not from me."
 
"Very good then," Silver responded, stepping aside and offering Nomad a clear path out of the holding cell. "I will accompany you to your camp. For protection."
 
"Don't need protection."
 
"The protection isn't for you."
 
Another chuckle as he brushed past his fellow mercenary, the pair moving in silence past the stares and glares of the other members of the caravan. Toward the back of the train was Nomad's former campsite, much of it scattered and vandalized. The dark warrior sighed, then went about picking up his broken or dented cooking supplies. After a few moments, he noticed another set of metal hands helping him go about the task. Silver inspected the shredded canvas of what was once a tent, recognizing the cuts made from axes and scimitars. He noticed Nomad watching him, then bundled the mangled tent and set it beside the fire ring.
 
"You waiting for payment or something?" Nomad posed, discovering a tin cup that had managed to survive the destruction of his possessions.
 
Silver shook his head, retrieving a bent spoon and bending it back to shape. "Are you going to find them?"
 
"Find who?"
 
"The one's who did this?"
 
Nomad snarled, then shook his head. "They did this on impulse for what I did on impulse. No need for more blood over it."
 
"Hmm...Well I suppose that's the noblest outcome from all of this, given the circumstances. I admire your newfound restraint and urge you to hold to it. Next time I may not stop you, and if that is the case, I hope we don't find ourselves on opposite sides of the conflict."
 
He replied with a snort. "A threat, and a lament."
 
"A promise, and a lament. Don't be like the rest of them and assume I can't feel, Nomad. I can, and I can feel someone else's pain too. Pain and rage, if I'm not mistaken."
 
His fists clenched at the observation, but he shook away the tension after some deep breaths, then finished gathering his scattered belongings. Silver continued to watch him. Finally, Nomad sat across the broken fire ring from the warforged, gathering stones and reassembling the protective barrier that he might keep warm tonight.
 
"I've often found it takes one to know one," he said after a time.
 
"Your previous experience would prove accurate," Silver confirmed. "I had my doubts about you at first, which is why I thought it wise to afford you a generous distance before making your acquaintance. However, I saw the fight between you and the dwarf brewing, and I saw how you held on as long as you could. Kick a dog enough times and eventually it's going to bite. Our deceased colleague didn't seem to understand that."
 
Nomad sighed, then nodded. "And so the bloodshed continues."
 
"As it always will, my fellow warrior. It cares not for our efforts to curtail it."
 
He looked the warforged in his glowing eye. "Spoken like one who's shadow is conflict."
 
Silver bowed his head. "Who's shadow bears the same resemblance as yours."
 
Nomad kept his gaze locked on Silver, the warforged staring back all the while. In that glowing spark of Silver's soul, he detected an aged depth of experience and wisdom that he'd only seen when he resided in Celestia. Some of the other Solar had that look, though they had lived for millennia. Was Silver that old? He couldn't say, but the instinct regarding his earned wisdom remained. There was more than a few meager decades to this one's life.
 
"You think we'll ever find a place away from it?" he posed.
 
Silver tilted his head. "Away from what?"
 
"The fighting. The wars."
 
He didn't need to, but the warforged sighed, then shook his head. "No. Not in my experience. A man can change his nature, but he can't change his heart. And the heart drives the passion that fuels a man's talents." He held his open hand out before him. "Our talent is war, my friend. Let us not be ashamed of that."
 
Nomad found no fault in the statements. He nodded his agreement readily. With a degree of sorrow, but readily. "You've made peace with your talents."
 
Silver nodded. "So have you, despite this momentary displeasure. We can rest at ease because it is for peace that we make war in the first place."
 
It was a curious thing to Nomad that this warforged whom he hardly knew and had barely spoken with knew so much about him just from empathy and what he believed to be mutual experience. Of course he'd confirmed nothing to the observant Silver, but Silver had already drawn his own conclusions that were accurate enough. All while subtly revealing his true nature to Nomad as well. Out of respect. Not out of pity or arrogance. He simply spoke with a kindred soul. Nomad felt a sense of peace and sadness from that kinship all at once.
 
Silver rose. "I suspect I won't be seeing much of you after tonight. Should our paths cross again, I do hope it's for a mutual cause. You're not someone I'd want to see across from me, Nomad." He bowed his head. "I'm sorry for your loss."
 
Nomad watched him leave, the chirps from the evening crickets and song of a whippoorwil covering the warforged's footfalls away from his ravaged camp. Oddly enough, the conflicting emotions of peace and sadness began to subside. Something about Silver's words resonated with the warrior. He lifted his visor and stared into the night sky, thinking of his wife and praying the news was wrong. That somehow he'd return home and find her alive holding his daughter as they rushed out to meet him. He knew in his heart, just as he knew Silver's claims to be true about him, that it wasn't so.
 
"I'm sorry, my love," he whispered to the darkness, closing his eyes to hold back the tears. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you."
 
Silver's words came back to him. Practicing war to make peace. So many would claim that was a contradiction, but not those who had lived by such methods. Not those who embodied that duality every day and fought to toe the line that was so dangerously thin and separated the truly virtuous from the truly corrupt. He recalled why he fought now. Why he was so good at it. What that gift might bring to this world that it had brought to Celestia.
 
"Zora..." he whispered. His daughter would need him more than ever now.
 
His camp was destroyed. There was no sense in staying the night. He counted the coins in his pouch, relieved there was enough there to buy a riding horse. The night was young, but he knew he wouldn't need sleep. Not till he held Zora in his arms and made sure she knew it would all be all right.
 
He was off soon enough. The conversation with an unlikely but kindred soul echoed alongside the sound of his horse's hooves. His resolve to give his daughter the best life he could, even without her mother, sustained him through several, long nights of travel back to Neverwinter.