1629, Fire Season, Fertility Week, Clayday
Context
Nayale needs to know if Berra would be dishonourable to do her duty. Session S5-O-6.
Events
Nayale brings her horse alongside Berra’s as they ride toward Queen’s Post. She doesn’t say anything at first, but looks like she’s trying to work out how to say whatever is on her mind.
Berra is leading her horse today, and looks up to note, “I gotta walk one day a week. If I make it this one, I don’t have to walk tomorrow if there’s an emergency.”
She has so far only explained this once before, on this trip. They have travelled together for around a week. On the way to Nochet it came up at least twice.
“I know,” Nayale replies in the way that some youths get when their elders state the obvious. She spent a day earlier in the week walking.
“Oh, yeah.” Berra falls silent. She looks either grim or thoughtful, depending on how well one knows her.
Nayale hops down without stopping her mount, so that now she’s walking beside the priest. She’s still taller.
“Would you really have… did you really ask him if you could join the Lunar army?” She stumbles over her own question, changing it midway through.
Berra looks to Nayale. “No. I demanded to be part of his plan.” Her expression twists a bit. “Always do what they don’t expect, or what they can’t handle.”
“I meant the High Sword.”
“Oh. Right.” Berra tilts her head. “Yeah.” There is a beat-pause, and then she adds, “He might have some stuff to stay about that.” Say about that. She does not correct herself.
“If he’d said yes, would you have done it then? Or did you know?”
“Yeah – I asked him because I thought I should do it. Um. You shouldn’t … well, you’re not. But the two of you were thinking of it. And I shouldn’t get my command to do what their commander won’t. So if … if Kolyey was gonna volunteer, then I should be willing to.”
Nayale grimaces. “What would you have done if he’d said yes?”
“My duty. I mean, I wanted to be in that chain of command so that I could stick between you an’ Ornkarth.” Berra seems to think this is reasonable.
Nayale chews over that for a while before asking, “Can doing your duty ever be dishonourable?”
“I can’t imagine that Lord Eril would ever let it be. But if you’re thinking duty’s dishonourable, then you ain’t understood one of the other – what you’re bein’ asked to do, or what’s dishonourable about it.”
“But… The High Sword forbade you and yet, Kolyey has done. So who is doing their duty and who is being honourable?”
“Well. I’m a Wyter Priest. I don’t actually know the difference. I mean, I dunno why. But maybe it’s different for me.” Berra gives Nayale a look that anyone could read as wry. “I’m gonna have to learn what that means and why it’s different. I don’t … I don’t know why it is. But why’s it dishonourable to join the Lunar army?”
Nayale’s expression can only be described as aghast. “They are our enemies. They invade our lands. They caused the Great Winter. And they worship Chaos! How could it be anything but dishonourable?”
“Because you’re not believing in the same things they’re believing. You’re not supporting them by doing it. You’re… well, I was too much of a scout, maybe. I’m too-often thinking in terms of getting into a place quietly to look.”
Nayale falls silent, but does not appear entirely convinced.1Berra passes Insight.
Berra sighs. “The answer is, and you might not wanna hear this, we do the best we can with what we know. Sometimes I get things wrong. So you could be more right than me here.”
“I just… I don’t trust him, Lady Berra. And I don’t know Kolyey well. I’m trying to trust her.”
“I don’t trust him either. But we can trust some of the things that he does. Like it’s not worth being worried about the porridge. He was pushing us when he said you should join the army, I bet. It’s an advantage to him, an advantage to us, AND it shows him how far we’ll go. So that’s one of the biggest reasons I put myself in there. Because that wasn’t a thing he’d thought of.”
Berra finds herself on the receiving end of an “if you say so” look, just as the caravan is signalled to stop. “I’ll go find out what’s going,” Nayale offers, leaping onto her horse and wheeling it about. She forgets to wait for permission.
Berra watches the Narri youth for a moment, and then goes on tiptoes to look around.
It seems to be a normal rest stop for the mules. They’ll likely move out again soon enough.
- 1Berra passes Insight.
