He sat upon the topmost step underneath the porch staring out at the rain. This place was so sleepy sometimes that he had a difficult time believing a Human Ranch lurked only a few miles away, though he knew that it loomed over everything like an ominous and mechanical shadow.
The wood creaked softly with the weight of another and a mug of steaming coffee was shoved into his face. "What are you doing out here, Mr. Aurion?" asked a familiar voice, the daughter of the man who was paying for his lodging.
"I should think that would be obvious," he muttered, cradling the warm cup in his hands. He didn't look at her, didn't need to, because he was certain she was already staring at him, studying him. "I'm watching the rain," he said with a sigh when she didn't respond. "I find it very relaxing."
"Why? Everything is all grey and wet and … boring," he glanced to her and saw her face, contorted into an overdramatic look of disgust. "You can't go outside when it's raining. You can't go fishing or shopping, or feed the ducks. It's like the sky is crying."
"Crying?" He turned his head toward her, a bemused expression on his face. "Perhaps. If they are tears, they are tears of relief and gratitude, not sadness."
"What does the world have to be relieved about?" she asked him. "When everything is so full of hopelessness? When the sun is shining isn't that like it trying to get through another day? I feel like the rain is sad, sad tears of a world that finally breaks under the pressure."
"Or it could be relief that it has made it through another day," he took a long, slow, drink of the steaming beverage. "Tears of gratitude that mana still flows through it, that all life has not ceased in a moment because of that fear and oppression."
He turned his eyes back to the rainy soaked dirt streets, make shift trenches carrying water away and into the lake or into the fields beyond the town.
"You don't find anything melancholy about it at all?" she asked him after several measures of the rain's rhythmic tapping against the roof of the inn, saturating the ground, cooling the air.
"I didn't say that," he took another drink, spending a moment to inhale the scent of the coffee. "Relief that you are not dead is a melancholy thing indeed."
He could still feel her eyes on him, as if they were trying to pry him open and read his thoughts, an effort that was futile. Kratos was a man who would never reveal his secrets to anyone, especially not a girl who could become a liability, for all her vibrancy and intelligence. "You're a weird man, Mr. Aurion. You dress like a mercenary, all threadbare and rugged, with your stubbly chin and your tan skin and rough hands, but you speak like a scholar or a priest."
He snorted then, finally settling his gaze upon her. "I'm no scholar or priest, Miss. I'm none other than what I am, and that is …" He looked away, staring into the hazy distance. "That is nothing but a warrior worn rugged with bitterness, sharpened by the sting of the blade, baptized into the religion of those who must fight for a living, a religion of the necessity of violence and sorrow."
"Cheery," she muttered to herself, into her coffee as she took a drink, her eyes finally leaving him as she contemplated his words. "If you really believed that sorrow was necessary, I don't think you'd be here fighting for us like you are." She said, still not looking at him. "I think that if you really cared as little as you pretend to, Mr. Aurion, you would be working for the Desians, because they can pay more."
He didn't say anything to her, simply shook his head.
"Besides," she continued. "You're an honest man, I can tell by looking at you and I'm never wrong about people."
"You never know," he said with a scoff, "I just may prove you wrong."
"You might," she agreed lightly, "but I doubt it."
For a moment longer they shared the silence and the rain, enjoying one another's company. He didn't mind her there, as there were few people he could really share his thoughts with these days. All of his old friends were trapped in their own prisons, their own hells where he could not reach them any longer, places he himself had only delved on his worst of days. Conversation with a normal, albeit intelligent, young woman was almost a relief to him after so long being alone with his own thoughts.
"Does the rain make you happy?" she finally spoke again, tone wistful.
"No," his response was curt, followed with a soft sigh and a gentle admission, "But it does make me feel at peace, something that I find myself lacking most days."
"I guess a mercenary must not live a very peaceful life, huh?" she took another deep drink of her coffee. "Always on the move, sometimes with very little to your name … Your profession isn't a popular one."
"That is because the Church of Martel discourages violence," he shrugged. "But I would rather be moving and working doing something that satisfies me than be stuck in one place for too long." Taking a drink of his own, he placed his empty mug on the step beside him and placed his fingers to the hilt of his sword. "Swordplay is what I am skilled at, so I see no reason I should not make money off of it. It is the same as paying any other skilled laborer."
"What's it like? Sylvarant?" she leaned forward, placing her own mug on the step, though it was still half full. "I've never left Luin. I wouldn't know."
So she wanted to travel, was that it? Was that why she was so willing to put up with him? "It's … larger than you would think. The whole of it is wilderness, for the most part, though each city is very different. Perhaps that is because the populations are so separate due to the danger of travel, though … I am surprised you have never been on a pilgrimage. You are of the right age, aren't you?"
"I would go, but since Mom died, Dad needs me here to take care of the boys, seeing as he can't even boil water without burning it," she laughed, fondly but sadly. "I know that journeying is important to the Church, but sometimes you can't always do what your religion recommends if your family depends on it, you know?"
"I wouldn't know," he said. "I'm not very religious, though I certainly know the teachings." He paused and deliberated before continuing. "The only thing I do correctly is to journey. After all, I am a killer of men, a spiller of blood, which is a precious gift from the Goddess. My very existence offends the Church, but as I have said my existence is a necessity. Their pilgrimages would not survive were it not for men like me."
"I think that what the scriptures say and what the Church teaches are two different things," she said.
"Perhaps you are right," he said as he stood. "It is getting late, and I am sure you have responsibilities other than to waste your afternoon speaking with me." He reached out a hand to help pull her to her feet, though she refused the offer. "I guess I will speak with you later, Miss."
He felt her watching him as he retreated back into the Inn, "You're really not a bad guy, Mr. Aurion, for all your brooding," she called after him, making him pause on the threshold and look back over his shoulder.
"And as I have said to you already," he responded softly, "I may just prove you wrong."