A contract of a different kind

Alexis lay down the peculiar ‘tinderbox’ she had taken from the assassin when the ember took hold and the fireplace slowly came to life. It hadn’t been too hard to figure out and as good as anything to start the day. Her sleep had been on the short side, steeped in dreams she couldn’t quite remember. The sun had yet to rise, though it wouldn’t be long now, and the chill of night and rain had reclaimed the room after the fire had been extinguished after yesterday’s impromptu get together.

Alexis sat down on the floor, legs drawn to her chest and stared into the slowly rising flames in silence.

For once she didn’t fight their allure and allowed them to draw her into an almost mesmerised state.

Her thoughts moved along regardless. Nothing to do but to listen to them.
Not for the first time she was left to incredulously marvel how she managed to get herself caught up in this mess. She was just a simple mercenary! She was only supposed to fight and eventually perish on one battlefield or another. Well, fine, THAT was still going to happen, and presumably soon, with a giant magically enforced army marching on this outnumbered and woefully underprepared city. Funny, almost, how her imminent demise by some blade, projectile or spell, or whatever, held no terror at all. An early, violent death had always been the most likely outcome for her. It was almost comforting that this, at least, remained unchanged.

It was pretty much everything else that was scary. Magic. Outer worlds forcing their way in. Gods squabbling for power, uncaringly changing the face of the very world in their thirst for power, for supremacy, for revenge, dragging mortals with them into the chaos.
She… she wasn’t supposed to know, let alone worry about shit like that. She wasn’t cut out for this. There were so many people out there, smarter, stronger, more powerful, more pious than she could ever be.
So what the fuck was she doing in the middle of this?
On the other hand, she was in good company, wasn’t she. She doubted any farmer, logger, hunter and all the other people in Ostiarium had signed up to be massacred in retaliation for the boundless and ruthless expansion of the higher ups.
You just don’t get to choose the cards you‘re being dealt…

Alexis‘ hand combed through her hair in a gesture of exhaustion that had nothing to do with her physical condition. Her mind strayed to memories of her parents. In a way she was glad she never cared to start a family. Gods knew that those few connections she had dared to make already pained her more than enough. Hendrik, dead to a murderous cult. Boyce, killed by an ally under the influence of maddening spores. Wim, Nikolaus, murdered for gods knew what reason. Gonyaul, abducted by a sorceress hailing from a people long time thought extinct. Voah, Tarmen and Ekero, just as much in deep as she was, while carrying their respective set of trials and tribulations. Others she simply did not know what became of them, which was probably for the best. And Islana… Islana. Yeah. That… was a situation that defied every description.

So yeah. She had no idea how she was supposed to deal with all of this, but deal with it she would, for the better or, more likely, the worse. It was all she could do, to whatever end.
The now familiar weight of the hammer head creeped into her awareness.

The mercenary sighed deeply and stared intently into the fire.

“I…”
she started in an almost inaudible whisper.
Closing her eyes she took a moment and tried again.

“I will try to get you your hammer back. I will.”

She wasn’t quite sure why she was affirming this to the empty room. She had already agreed to this a while ago, hadn’t she? Well… more or less.
And she didn’t expect Fosia to nonstop listen to her ramblings. If he had been truthful, the god had quite his own package to worry about.
So this was more or declaration to herself. To go from ‘more or less’ to actually accepting this ‘contract’ of sorts she had never signed up for, but the obligation of which had still been hers to bear for quite a while now. Because with all the fighting that was looming in the foreseeable future she’d better stop fighting with herself at least.

“… but for your sake I hope you have a plan b, because let’s face it, the chances of me actually succeeding are rather slim, and that is thickly sugarcoating it.”
She added with a mirthless smile.

Briefly she considered to earnestly ask Fosia whether he’d like her to hide the hammer head somewhere safe, for another of his followers to pick up and try to bring this to an end. But there was this strange feeling that there simply was no one else, not now. The hammer would be reunited. If not by her, than by someone else. Maybe that white-eyed assassin from Gra’akast.This felt like an inevitability, despite her misgivings with that particular concept. Like a certain man once told her…

"Fate is not kind. Like a great river it flows mightily along its path.You can throw a rock at it and create waves and ripples but it will always go back to its course."

And now, after all she had seen and done since that night, only a short walk away from where she sat at this moment, she could admit… it certainly seemed like there was no escaping fate.

But… she owed it to herself to at least face it head on rather than to try and run away.