Board Thread:Roleplaying/@comment-3293219-20140217201750/@comment-3293219-20140304142352

Days gone bye
It was a cold winter's night in Riften, Manja had spent the evening gathering gold from the gutter and she was pleased with how much she had found.

The nord had left Nish with the sleeping bag, hoping that her friend would have nodded off, by the time she got back. But, as always, he was sat there, waiting for her like an ever so loyal Goden Retriever.

Manja stopped to watch him from a distance; she rolled her eyes as he came into view. She couldn’t help but be very concerned about his self-helplessness. What would happen to him if she didn't come back? Would he be able to fend for himself? She knew that he was only just teenager and that he was new to life on the street but criminals don't care, in fact some like hurting children more than adults...

She approached him; dropping a bag of coins at her feet, startling the poor fool, making him jump, sending the covers of the sleeping bag flying into the air.

"Shit Manja!" The breton snapped as he put his hand on his heart.

"Pfft, you're so easy to sneak up on!" She laughed, taking a seat next to him and pulling the sleeping bag over her legs.

Nish stopped, to think for a second...

"Maybe you're just really good at sneaking up on people." He replied, trying to take the heat off of himself with a compliment. It was an old family tactic that his father had passed down onto him to avoid conflict, especially with the opposite sex.

"Nish, I was carrying a bag of coins that were rattling like crazy!" Manja snapped at him in response, completely overlooking his well placed compliment.

The breton just rolled his eyes.

Thanks dad...

The nord just sighed and shook her head, covering herself up in her sleeping bag.

"So..." Nish began, hoping to steer the conversation away from his own incompetence. "Sounds like you got a lot..."

Manja shot up, as if she had been waiting for him to mention it.

"Yup, some drunken nobleman dropped his coin purse, down the drain, the rookies got a lot of it and I cleaned up the rest." She smiled at her own accomplishment; the kids who got 'first dibs' probably didn't get half of it. Manja had been on the streets for a while and over the last two or three years, she had picked up a lot of experience a lot more than most of the kids her age.

Nish just sat in silence as he was conflicted as to whether or not he should say it...

"I-I could come with you next time." He offered, feeling guilty for not being as helpful as he could be.

Manja glanced back, with a pained smile.

"No offense but I doubt that you'd be much help..." She sighed as she buried herself into her sleeping bag.

"As long as you're sure..." Nish mumbled, glancing away, "I just feel bad. You go out, every night and come back with so much and I just sit here and do nothing."

Manja smiled and chuckled, faintly.

"You keep the sleeping bag warm!"

"Great, I feel so useful..." The breton muttered in response.

The nord rolled over and noticed that he was moping; she sat up and placed her hand on his shoulder.

"You give me a reason to come back here..." She whispered, trying to appease him.

"So I'm your husband now?" Nish scoffed, causing Manja to chuckle to herself.

"Nah, you're the wife."

"Huh?"

"I'm the bread winner, remember?" The nord giggled and looked up at the stars, "I wear the trousers in this household."

"I don't recall getting a white dress at the wedding..." Nish mumbled, looking over his shoulder.

"It was a nordic ceremony." She reminded him as she pulled herself down and put her back to him.

"Tradition dictates; that we get absolutely shit faced and never speak of it."

Nish smiled but tried to keep up his 'moody teenager' thing...

"Who'd we invite?"

Manja shrugged and thought about it for a moment. She didn't have any friends, other than Nish of course.

"I sent invitations to all the nobles. The Black Briars, Autumn Arrows... etc. None of them showed up though."

"More wedding cake for us." The breton smiled, always the optimist.

"Yeah, we were that hungry, that we ate the little bride and groom statues and you had splinters in your teeth for weeks." She giggled, unable to oppress the laughter as it grew louder and louder. She finally ended it, with a sigh, closing her eyes and imagined the frosting on the wedding cake, melting on her tongue.

They both lay there, thoughts swimming around their heads as they drifted off to sleep and the long silence commenced. They lay there for several minutes before Nish began to speak...

"Manja?"

"Yeah?"

The breton paused, hesitating.

"Do you think... we'll get married some day?"

This caused Manja to cough as she sat up, suddenly regretting her joke.

"Err... Nish? You know that I like you and everything but..."

He tutted and rolled his eyes, "I meant in general... to other people! Do you ever think about it?"

Nish failed to hide his annoyance at her confusion as Manja paused and thought about her answer. Truthfully? She'd never given it any thought...

"What brought this on?" She asked, nervously, as she didn't exactly anticipate the answer.

"I was... thinking. People like us? Do they ever grow up and get married? Have normal lives... houses, permanent, honest jobs and... Children?"

He paused as he began to wonder what he was getting at, though he didn't need to understand as Manja understood. She had thought this herself, many times...

She sighed and tried to think of a response, that wasn't 'I don't know.'

There was more silence before she finally inflicted her words of wisdom on him.

"Normality is overrated..."

Nish felt defeated, not knowing if she was joking or not.

"I..." He stopped, making sure that she was listening and happy to hear what he was about to say. "I don't know... I was just wondering if it was possible."

"Anything's possible Nish..." The way she said it, it sounded like she said it every day.

Nish began to giggle to himself.

"Even me getting married?" He asked with a smirk.

"Well..." Manja whispered as she closed her eyes.

"Someday, you might meet that special someone, who can't hold their ale and then who knows? You might just get her drunk enough to make her want to marry you."

"Gee... thanks..."

"That's what I'm here for." Manja beamed, much to Nish's annoyance.

Another long pause was cast over the two of them as they both thought on it. The nord glanced to her companion and noticed that he was deep in thought, this bothered him more than she realised.

"Don't worry..." Manja whispered, "You have a life time to sort this stuff out."

"I know...

I guess I just… don't want to end up alone..."

"You'll have me." Manja reminded him, with a smile. She noticed that he'd need more convincing.

She sighed and rolled onto her side, facing him.

"Look, just try not to drive yourself crazy with this stuff okay?"

Nish sighed as she finished, prompting her to cut across him in one last attempt to give him hope.

"Look, sometimes? We worry about things that we have no control over and we keep thinking about things, memories and our imagined futures as we try to remind ourselves of what has or could go wrong.

While you're doing this? Your mind isn't with you, it’s too busy focussing on what's bothering you and it’s just going to make you worry more or be more miserable." She sighed and looked up at the stars; she swore that she could make out the outline of 'the ritual' as a smile grew on her lips.

"Don't focus on the past or the future, focus on the now, where you can do good. Correcting the past and shaping your future."

She sighed and paused for one last moment, trying to summarise her point.

"The antidote to worrying? Is being in the moment..."

Nish thought about what she said, looking like he was hanging on, to every word.

"Did you get that from one of your books?" He finally asked, turning Manja's happy smile into a frown.

"No!" She snapped, through gritted teeth.

"Okay..." The breton replied, not sounding convinced.

"Talos, is it so hard to believe that I came up with something profound?"

Pro-wha?

"Erm, no..." He fumbled as Manja sighed again, she'd been rumbled and she'd have to come clean.

"Alright..." The nord sighed. "It was my mother..."

"Oh..." Nish whispered, rolling over to face her. She never mentioned her mother and often avoided talking about her, he knew that this was important to her.

"She never liked it when I worried...

Upset? Totally fine.

Anger, fear? Sure thing.

But worry? No... No way in Oblivion."

Nish looked at her with sad eyes; he often forgot that Manja had lost her family as well...

"Why?"

"Cause worry kills you Nish..." She looked up at the stars and sighed, "I've seen it... Mum spent years, waiting for dad to come home."

Nish glanced away, not knowing what to say.

"I won't let that happen to me." He finally whispered.

"Heh, you'll get married someday... I wouldn't make any promises, if I were you."

Her brother glanced back at her, with a look of surprise that he was unable to hide.

"Really?"

"Huh?"

"You think I could..." Nish couldn't finish as he was in shock at the fact that Manja didn't think that he was completely hopeless.

Manja chuckled and rolled her eyes.

"When did I ever say that you were hopeless?"

"I don't know but you were thinking it." He smiled as he rolled onto his back, suddenly feeling a lot better about himself.

"Nah, you'll be alright. You'll find someone." Manja whispered as she closed her eyes and began to drift off to sleep again. Nish continued to watch her as she rolled over, going back to sleep, with her back to him.

"I hope so..." He whispered as she drifted off to sleep.

Manja opened her eyes and waited for him to drift off before she opened her hand, revealing Nish's ring that rested in the palm of her hand.

It was quite warn, several scratches on its surface, each earned through generations of love. The nord smiled as she read the inscription on the side.

Rielle...

Manja closed her eyes and closed her hand, tightening her grip on the ring as she pressed it to her chest with a smile.

"You will..."

I know you will...

-

Manja, slowly stirred from her slumber, the walls of her tent, quickly, blurred into focus.

Nish had gone and he had taken the stars and Riften’s cold air away from him, replacing it with that warm, Cyrodiilic breeze and the ring was gone from her hands.

Manja, slowly, began to sob to herself. Grabbing hold of her pillow and burying her face into it as she wept.