Where Will I Find You?

JP with Alexis, Gonyaul, Tarmen and Voah:

Gonyaul realized instantly why his elders had always instructed to release all expectations and be free of all heartache. He felt sadness and disappointment at the sudden news that Voah was being called away due to her role as Arbiter. He had hoped that she would be joining them, was almost certain that is how things were going to play out. His assumptions were wrong.

Why was he establishing expectations in the first place? He questioned his selfishness. They technically did not belong to one another. She was her own person, free of oneness with him. He did understand that she had priorities greater than him, but that understanding did not make him feel any better about it.

Gonyaul sighed as if the wind just got taken out of his sails. Voah was not asking if she should go, she was telling them. This meant her mind was already made up.

He spoke up, “When go?” He was trying to gauge how much time he might have before the unknowable future apart began.

Alexis nodded gravely. It had to happen at some point. It couldn’t have come at worse a time though, with her struggling to find a new footing in her role.

Poor Gonyaul. She felt for him. And she would make sure he was aware that coming with her to collect Islana and the others wasn’t his only option.

“And where?”

When - if, she reminded herself bitterly, by now quite thoroughly taught that things had a tendency to go from bad to worse - she found Hunter, he would want to know.

Tarmen understood her position. He was being carted back to Ostiarium when he truly wanted to be here, to make things right and be close to people he actually wanted to be around.
It did bring up the imp head in his mind again. If truly cursed, who better to finally rid them of it’s spokesmen?
The others asked the more important questions and he listened, eager to know where to go once he was able.

"I will rest here for at least one more night, but I should go as soon as I am able. So when Hunter returns... tell him I have gone to Bootlegger's Pier. I am still working out the details on its location and the length of the journey but I don't expect it to take more than a week to get there... if that.

I know I've made promises to you all... in one way or another... And I hate to part with so many things in limbo but... But this is a responsibility that I cannot neglect."

Indeed it might prove dangerous if Margrave found out that Voah had received his summons and shrugged it off. Should she worry them? Warn them of the arrival of another Arbiter, one who was certainly no fool with whom to play around?

"Which brings me to the question... where will I find you all when I am finished?"

Alexis thought about that for a moment.

“Eventually Ostiarium, I think. For the time being at least.”

Gonyaul was trying to keep a brave face, but he was deflated by the details even more. One night. He was trying hard to reframe his thinking. One night was better than no nights. He reminded himself to be mindful that he needed to live in the present and make the most of the opportunities he actually did have.

Voah’s life, this reminded him, was integrated into very powerful and important spheres of influence. A world he was not a part of; a world that contained and was run by those who had climbed to the tops of their hierarchies of competencies. He had none of these things to offer her. He only had himself.

“I go with you?” He asked Voah.

He glanced at Alexis, wondering how she would take him backing out of going to look for Islana. He was suddenly of two minds, where prior to this he knew exactly what he wanted to do; find Islana.