I Feel the Weight

Featuring Rhoda, with mention of Aneirin, Drustan and Donnaghán
Spring, Year 764 of the New Age 
Glenmore, the Glenmore Mountains

I've been wondering what is freedom/
Is it checking out from all your feeling?/
Is it feeling okay cause you're not running/
From the boring person that you're becoming?/

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    The morning air carried a warm, gentle breeze down into the Glenwood. It wafted between trunks, sidled under leaves and teased at the delicate fringe of mosses that arched over Rhoda’s den entrance. She watched, quietly, as the small bits of foliage swayed sleepily. Spring was passing quickly into summer, and muzzily Rho wondered what sort of weather they’d be in for. Perhaps they’d be lucky, and the season would be mild? The pale doe shook her head and rose stiffly from where she’d been lying.

    Her body ached, but she knew the rigidity would fade as she got up and moving. Life outside of the herd was very different, with all members of their small group working hard to keep each other healthy, well fed and watered, and safe. Rhoda had to but let herself lie down and she would be carried off to sleep in a matter of moments. And yet, Rhoda couldn’t remember a time in her life when she had felt happier. Perhaps the only competition was in the form of ancient memories of her childhood. Days spent with her parents, before reality of life in Glenmore had settled over her like a weighted branch.

    Rhoda shook her head again. Enough musing! She pricked her ears up and took a look around for anyone else who was awake and about. Her friend Rin was not too far away, clearly still waking up. Rhoda caught his eye with a wave of her tail.

    “I’m going uphill today to scout,” She reminded him, “We’ll pick up training tomorrow?”

    The stag nodded, yawned widely, and headed off to his own tasks for the day.

    For some time now, Rhoda had wanted to make her way up the foothills of the Glenmore Mountains. She wouldn’t go near Loch Kerr, or towards any of the well traversed paths used by Glenmore royalty to get to the aforementioned watering hole. Instead she intended to find a lookout on the seaward side. So much of the expanse of the Glenwood was still unknown to their troupe. Who knew where Drustan and his followers had found a place to tuck themselves away in?

    Rhoda walked cautiously away from their settlement. She was careful about hiding her trail through practical woodcraft and minor magic, to keep their home secret and safe. As much as she missed the bustle of Glenmore, and as much as she enjoyed the close companionships she had developed with the other stags and does that had left the herd together, there were sometimes when Rho craved the silent, solo wanderings she had been able to take in the safety of the Oldegrove and Gardens.

    So much of her life had been spent with great spans of time alone, passing through the empty night, feeling the recent absence of her sleeping herdmates. She missed the thrill of walking through a deserted market, shuttered up for the night. She missed following faint moonlit trails just for the chance of a rare encounter with a night patrolling guard. Somehow it was more exciting when she never did meet anyone, but the possibility of it happening veiled the entire trip. Rho really needed some time like that this season. A year from when they had left Glenmore demanded some silent observance.

    And so today, it would just be her. Rhoda and the mountains. She smiled and snorted at the title.

    Morning slipped into midday as the doe wound her way out of the woods and into the more sparsely sheltered fields of scrubland that coated the lower hillsides closest to them. Her legs moved in a steady, tireless gait that she never could have achieved in Glenmore without joining the guard. She had become stronger, tougher and more aware of the world around her out here. Rhoda inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of fresh life bursting from the earth beneath her feet and the warmth of the sun in the cloudless sky just beginning to bake the exposed stretches of earth and stone. The soft buds and baby leaves tickled her legs as she moved. All around, plants rustled in the gentle breeze. There were sounds of birds both on wing and from the sheltered branches closer to the earth.

    She pressed on, meandering ever higher up the sides of the mountain base. Her hooves were beginning to feel sore, and her legs ached faintly. Rhoda cast about to look for a good place to take a brief rest. The gold and green slope ahead of her was dotted with pale stone caps, rising from amongst the tall ferns and brush. Ahead there was an overgrown shrub that could provide some shade. Rho plodded steadily towards it. When she reached it, the doe gratefully lay down.

    Her resting spot looked out over the slope she had been making her way up all day. Far below, the Glenwood spread out into the distance. As far as she could see, there was nothing but trees undulating in height and color. No wide open fields to gather in. Not even a trace of the Great Oak rising above all other trees. Faintly, just at the edge of the horizon, was a blue grey smudge that could have been a low storm cloud. But apparently that was the sea. A more endless body of water than the seemingly endless forest she was looking upon now.

    “What a view!” She murmured appreciably. “How could you ever bear to step from the sky and walk amongst us, Oganach? It’s no wonder you keep an eye open, one way or another, all the time! The things you must see…”

    Rhoda trailed off into silence. She had taken to speaking to her god rarely when she was alone, since leaving the main herd. The comment had slipped from her without thought. Did he hear her? Could he hear her? Was she further now from him than she had ever been before, if he truly rested beneath the regrown Great Oak? …Was she further from him than ever before, now that she had left the herd? Now that she might as well be called an outcast? A renegade?

    Coldness slipped over her like a blanket of snow settling into place.

    “Am I still one of yours, Great Oganach?” She asked in a quiet whisper. “Even after all of the things that I have done? Leaving my family, turning my back on my King? …learning how to use my magic?” Her eyes tracked upwards to mark the afternoon sun, the great lord’s eye, where it sat in the sky. No clouds obscured his shining view. And suddenly Rhoda couldn’t stand to be in the shade. She stepped out into the sunshine. She turned her face into the light. To face her god.

    “I have never been like the holy daughter, Aillte.” Rhoda said softly, but firmly. “My blood runs with Earran’s strength, with the powers of the earth. And yet, I have never been like the tales of the holy son. I am a doe! And a commoner! According to all I have ever known, all I have ever been taught, I am worth nothing. My blood shouldn’t even be strong enough to channel the magic of the earth. And yet, I can! And I revel in it! I have never experienced something that feels so right.”

    Rhoda’s voice rose as she spoke into the sky. How was it that she felt closer to the father of Glenmore while she was here, above the breadth of his domain, and not near his places of power?

    “What other things were I told to be true that are not?” She cried out sharply, “How can I- how can any of us know what your wishes truly are, when they have been muddled by so many voices repeating them?”

    Doubt slipped into Rho’s mind.

    “I… I only ever wanted to be a credit to my herd. I wanted to be more than another body to create more fawns. I wanted to help, to make Glenmore stronger, better, more than it was already! To live up to the gift you gave us by placing us in this world!” Rhoda’s breath caught in her throat and she stopped speaking abruptly.

    She sounded like the murderer.

    She sounded just like Donnaghan, when he was justifying all the atrocities he had committed.

    “Great Father Oganach, Lord and Ruler of the Sky Kingdom and all the lands below” she whispered hoarsely, “I am lost. Will you help me find my way again?”

    The brilliant blue expanse offered no response. The sun began to move ever so slightly downwards. The afternoon was wearing by. Nothing stirred. Rhoda hadn’t expected anything as direct as a vocal response. But perhaps a sign of some kind? There was nothing. Maybe she truly was worthless, as a commoner and a doe. But..

    “…am I not one of your children too?” She asked her god, her voice cracked with pain.

    Rhoda felt the silence that lay over her surroundings. It was a palpable weight. A silence of waiting and listening.

    But no response was made.

    Something deep inside of Rho shifted out of place. It slipped and twisted and stung. A numbness washed over her. She let her head fall. The sun felt as cold as ice. Oblivious to the world around her, Rhoda stumbled down the mountainside and into the warm gloom of the woods.

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WC: 1568
+3 Stamina - art + lit