A Courier's Story
A brief contextualization
A few years ago, me and some good friends of mine began brainstorming an idea for a game. As of a few months ago, we’ve started properly making that game. I’ve tried to make at least “one piece of trash" for it every day since. What “one piece of trash” translates to could mean anything from a leitmotif in the score, a placeholder asset, dialogue, or background lore. Tonight, my piece of trash ended up being a 2,000 word short story about an inconsequential side character in this fantastical setting. It’s short and aphoristic, and I hope you like it =)
Gryme’s Story
The man steered his wheelcart with his head held high, looking for those with objects to bear or be born.
Every hundred yards or so, a person would hear the gentle ringing of his bell and rush out to meet him. Some were receiving packages, others hoping for delivery. Regardless, they all knew him as one of the finest couriers in all of Féorlyn.
He traveled in endless circles, making a monthly circuit through every duchy, village, and hamlet. Sometimes people told him they thought a life such as his would be unbearable, but they were glad of his service regardless.
He was a simple man, and he didn’t know how to explain to the people the joy he found in this life. To always be traveling, to always be helping. The excitement on people’s faces when a package arrived from a distant loved one. The sights of the greatest kingdom in all the world.
He completed his circuit of the village. He would set out on the morrow, but tonight, he could rest. And rejoice in the only thing he loved more than his work.
“Papa!!” the little girl shouted, squirming out of the arms of her mother and charging across the grass. The man pumped the breaks and locked his cart in a single well practiced motion, leaping from it to greet her.
Lifting her with a graceful spin, a laugh escaped both their lips. The woman could not help from breaking out into laughter herself, and the family joined together for the first time in two fortnights.
“I’m so glad to see you, Karmina,” he said, giving his wife a kiss on the cheek. He saw stars in her eyes and in her smile.
“Likewise, Gryme. There’s a roast that’s almost done, so you get yourself washed up!”
…
“Papa, why do you go away so long?” The little girl asked.
“Well, Bryn, there’s a whole lot of people in this here Kingdom. You know how many people there are in the village?”
“47,” she declared. Gryme felt his heart swell with pride, glad to see her introduction to numbers was going well.
“Ay. Now there’s 39 villages in the kingdom, most of them a whole lot bigger than ours. And we can’t even talk about the capitol, which is like a dozen villages all on its own!”
Bryn’s eyes widened imagining how many people that could be. Her rapt silence invited Karmina to chime in.
“You know papa’s cart? It’s loaded up with packages. Letters, tools, toys, so many things! And he delivers them to everyone he can!”
He nodded. “That’s very true. I get to go across allllll of Féorlyn. You wouldn’t believe the sights. Crystal mountains, beautiful lakes. There’s an entire town tucked away behind a massive waterfall!”
“How do you get past the water?!” her voice betrayed her skepticism. Papa had been known to tell a few tall tales in her time.
“They have a grand old magician there. He parts the water when he sees me or any other travelers comin’. How he knows I’m there, that I don’t know.”
Bryn’s eyes narrowed. Magicians were a rare thing in their neck of the woods, and she’d not gotten to see any of the fantastical things they were capable of.
He leaned forward. “Tell ya what: I’ll talk to him when next I’m there. I’ll see if he has anything I can bring back to prove his magic.”
“Why can’t I go?”
This was a monthly question. It broke his heart to answer it every single time.
“It’s dangerous on the road, Bryn. Usually nothing bad happens, but I still need to be careful. And it’s too long a journey for a kid your age to make.”
Her eyes drifted down. He saw the brief shudder pass through her shoulders, and extended a large hand to her. “It’s okay to be sad I’m gone, sweetpea. I miss you every day I’m gone. I wish I could take you on every circuit, and maybe we can in a year or two.”
She looked up, tears streaking her face. Karmina extended her hand as well. “One day we’ll all go, Bryn. I promise.”
“Can you stay one more night, papa? You always leave so fast.”
He let out a large sigh. God how he wanted to. But there was a Courier’s Council in the capitol one fortnight from now. If he wasn’t so loaded with deliveries, he could manage that with a day’s delay.
“I… I can.” The lie left his mouth before he could stop it. Karmina looked at him and mouthed the words “what are you doing”, but before he could amend his statement, Bryn leapt from her chair and hugged him around his neck, burying her face in his beard.
…
It was not yet dawn. He had not had a moment of sleep. Stupid, stupid, he thought to himself. Karmina had given him a righteous (whispered) thrashing after they put Bryn to bed.
After a moment, he stepped out of bed. This was his usual departure routine. He gave Karmina’s hand a squeeze, and went to Bryn’s room. He leaned down by her bed, and leaned as silently as he could to give her a kiss on the forehead.
She started, and looked up at him with wide eyes. “Papa, what’s going on? It’s so dark!”
“Bryn, I am so sorry. I don’t think I can stay another day.”
Silence. Painful, painful silence. He’d hoped to not have to face this silence.
“I promise you. I am staying for three days when I come home again. By hook or by crook.”
More silence. Nothing except a quiet sniffling. His sniffling.
“I’m really mad, papa.”
“I know, Bryn, I know… Your papa is not always a very smart man. I shouldn’t have said I could stay. But listen: I will find a souvenir or two for you. And when I come home we’ll spend as many days as I can afford together. I love you Bryn, more than words can say. And when you’re old enough, you and I will travel this great kingdom together.”
“... What if that’s a lie too?”
…
These travels were more painful than any he could remember. He had traveled while sick, he had traveled through the most dangerous winters anyone in Féorlyn had seen in a decade. That stupid lie. He traveled with his head bowed down this trip. He just needed to get back home. To be with his beautiful family.
The Arkmage of Charos was more than willing to give him a bauble for Bryn. “This will show some of our magical truth to her,” he wheezed. What that meant, he could not surmise. Likely it would only reveal itself when it entered Bryn’s presence.
Following the Courier’s Council, he found a small stuffed doll in a flea market. That went in a bag for her as well. Every few villages, he tried to find a small memento. A deep purple carrot, a vial of water from the Blue Lake. A nagging fear wore on him, that these trinkets were all just empty gestures that couldn’t make up for the Lie.
One painful, long month later, he found himself back on the outskirts of his home village. The guard on the border ran up to his cart, an ordinarily cheery demeanor replaced with a deadly seriousness. “Gryme! Gods around us, you’re back!”
“Ay Serj, what’s–”
“It’s Bryn, she–” before Serj could finish his sentence, Gryme had detached the back of his wheelcart and began launching forward. The road through his village had never felt so long. He pedalled so fast he wore a hole in his pant leg.
There was no one in front of his home. Leaping off the cart and stumbling, he charged to the gate of his home. “Bryn! Karmina! Where are you?”
The door to Bryn’s room was open. His daughter lay in bed, her skin pallid and soaked in sweat. Karmina was there, gently dabbing cool water across Bryn’s face.
The family reunited once again. The father and mother held the daughter, held each other and wept. Bryn’s frail, rattling breath became the only thing keeping Gryme sane. As much pain as she was in, each breath was proof she was still there. For two days, he and Karmina alternated watch over her. Serj and a few other villages had been kind enough to bring them food and water, and retrieve his cart.
…
Countless desperate ideas came to mind during their vigil. He brought the Arkmage’s bauble near Bryn to see if it was a scrying gate, to see if he could implore for help. Alas, nothing. He dabbed the supposedly healing water of the Blue Lake across her head. Karmina swore that it eased her breathing for a few hours. Gryme wasn’t sure.
On the third day, Bryn began to wake up. “Hi, papa,” she whispered. “Stay?”
He nodded, crying too hard to talk. He held both her hands in one of his, and gave her the ragged little doll he’d found in the capitol. She sleepily clutched it to her chest.
Two more days passed. Bryn’s condition did not stabilize much beyond waking up for a few hours each day. She loved her doll, and was amazed when the Arkmage’s bauble conjured an image of the waterfall parting. “I told you magic was real,” he said.
On the 7th day, an apprentice Courier came to take over Gryme’s route for the month. The Council was sympathetic, but the route needed to be serviced. Gryme had not left Bryn’s room for an entire week at that point. It was the longest he had stayed in one place since she was born four years prior. As Bryn fell asleep watching the waterfall conjuration, so too did Gryme.
He awoke to the sound of Karmina’s crying… and something he couldn’t put his finger on. Bryn was laying with her head to one side, her doll having fallen to the floor. This had happened a few times, her grip being too weak to reliably hold it. “You dropped your doll, Bryn!” he said as he got up. Her hand was cold when he pressed the doll back into it. After a moment, he realized. He only heard his wife’s sobs.
…
Bryn was afforded the burial rites of any Courier. This was Gryme’s first journey with a partner since he was apprenticing. Karmina rode in the back of the wheelcart with Bryn’s ashes, holding the doll and bauble close to the urn. The couple spoke infrequently. No blame was given, but the pain created a rift — not merely between each other, but everyone they met. They passed through Charos. By the Blue Lake. All the way to the capitol city. Gryme narrated each place to Bryn, just as he’d dreamed of doing one day. Sharing the people, the history, the little nooks and crannies he’d discovered.
Moving to the Courier’s Gravesite through the capitol, they spotted something incredible, something new even to the well-traveled Gryme. “That’s the new Realmward, Bryn! He’s going to be a hero that saves all of Féorlyn,” Karmina whispered. Gryme imagined the look of wonder that would have crossed Bryn’s face, and wept.
…
A month after Bryn’s death, Gryme set back out on the road. His head was bowed, and the people who knew him slowly came to understand that something terrible had befallen him. He moved slower than usual, made less conversation. He still listened, though. People spoke of a dangerous encroachment from a neighboring kingdom in hushed tones, and wondered if the Realmward could truly save them as the legends said. It didn’t really matter to him, anymore.
One night after parking at a farm, as he nestled into the back of the wheelcart, he couldn’t bear it anymore. The breeze rattling against the cart reminded him of her struggle to breathe. “FUCK! Gods around us, come out! Why did you take her? She was a baby! She was our baby! You FUCKING BASTARDS! COME OUT, IF YOU’RE AROUND US! WHERE WERE YOU WHEN MY BABY WAS-”
His crying made it too difficult to continue. A few minutes later, the farm’s owners came. Despite his profuse apologies for yelling so loudly, the women would have none of it and invited him to their home. He told them his story. They told him theirs. Of their fear of losing the Realmward, who they had known since his birth. The trio shared joys, regrets, and worries for the future.
The next morning, he left quietly. His head bowed, he walked to the wheelcart and set out on the road once more. On the outskirts of the village, he felt a change in the wind. That was when the Fires took him.
Postlude
She awoke to the sight of stars. More than she could have ever dreamed of.
“Oh, little one. I am so sorry.”
There was a shadow near her, sitting on the other side of a campfire. The shadow shed tears as blue as the ocean beside them.
“I think this belongs to you,” it said, handing her a small, ragged doll. “I know you will leave this place eventually… but you may stay as long as you like.”
She looked around. At the flowing ocean. At the fluttering stars. Feeling the soft red sand beneath her feet. The spiraling woods next to them. It was like nothing she could have imagined. Clutching the doll, she set out into The Beyond.
The shadow behind her began to speak, but thought better of it… and turned its eyes back to the stars.
Outro
My apologies for the bummer and the rather abrupt close for Gryme! It will all eventually make sense. Eventually. Making a game is hard and long and this doesn’t exactly contribute much useful material for it. But hopefully you enjoyed this little glimpse into the world it will eventually inhabit!