Family Reunion (Cross Post)

[Kira Adia]

Kira walked past the Riverside Inn many times on her way to and from the New Market District. Every time, she wondered what lay inside, but almost immediately, something in the back of her mind pulled her away. You will find nothing there for you. Time and again her curiosity went unsatisfied.

She had been gone a while, healing from her mistakes. She was set on leaving, on looking for help. It would have been pointless. She would have simply been running away again.

But her kids had been threatened. Her shop had been attacked. And now, while they were gone, waiting for things to become safer, Kira was back to do a bit of hunting of her own. Once again, she found herself passing by wall between the districts.

As she passed the strange structure, she felt the familiar call and response of previous nights. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw movement in the doorway. She paused and looked in. The interior was well lit, but something about the light made it hard to see what lay within. Her desire for company (and her ever present desire for tea) won out this evening. She stepped through the entrance.

Two sights caught her so strongly as to stop her as soon as she passed the threshold. First was the sheer comfort of the place. It was well lit, the fire was that perfect mixture of warm and radiant, and the bartender was welcoming, if strangely distant. Outside the Red Dragon, she wasn't sure she'd found anywhere that felt so homely. In sharp contrast, the other thing she noticed was that no other person in this common room belonged here.

Right next to the entrance, raising a tankard her direction, was her uncle, an unfailingly jovial man with fiery hair like her own, but wiry and perpetually untamed. She had loved seeing him when he was at the homestead; his stories and fairy tales never failed to make her laugh. His daughter, her cousin, sat next to him, the very same who would practice singing with her every afternoon after the tutor left them. The old man himself was in a corner behind them, lost in some old book, much as always when he was not lecturing or leading some lively debate.

Each table seemed occupied much the same. Cousins and other relations, members of the household from other Houses who were pledged to their service, the old head groundskeeper, idly scratching at the head of his old hound sitting obediently at his side. All around her were voices. She couldn't hear what was being said, it was like listening through heavy fabric. It didn't matter. She knew they were all greeting her and reassuring her.

She missed them all so much. Tears formed at her eyes. This was her family. Everyone she knew at home, every one of them dead in the purge that had left her both exiled and alone. As she passed each one, she said goodbye. She gave her love. She said all the things she wished she could have said. This was her last chance to make this right.

At a final table near the bar was the reason for all of this. Mother. The regal woman, black haired, proud and stern, who had schemed and plotted until they were all dead. Kira wanted to hate the woman, but when she saw how she could not meet Kira’s eyes, how the woman's severe expression masked a deep shame in eyes of violet, all Kira could do was whisper, “You did this.” She would say no more.

At the bar sat the very man she wanted least to see here. Barely taller than her, the man had his back to her, his hood was thrown back and his long dark hair fell down his back. He was nursing a bottle, some ale or stout she guessed. As she approached, she could not look at him. She could not look at that face that had been so peaceful and accepting in the end. She said her goodbyes to over two dozen people tonight, loved ones she thought she would never have the chance to see again. Kira prepared herself for this final challenge, this final stab at the heart that would let her live her life.

The Huntress sat down at the stool next to him. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. A single question from a voice she could understand clearly pieced the muffled sounds of the room.

“You see them too?”