Story

I don't know if this is the right place to post stories and don't know how well I can I write. I will finish this story but will need to do it a day at a time.

He had wanted to be a philosopher but he was named Buck Valor. His family insisted on a definition for their name and expected him to live his life as a description of that definition. Being a Valor described a line that would be held. The eldest son would hold that line. He would know philosophy as a quest for truth, but truth would be the ancient lineage of the Valor line and the responsibility and complicity of human nobility. Buck would hold that line and use truth to convince commoners to spend their lives holding it with him. Everyone at the line knowing his last line was drawn before the Valor stronghold.

This happened every time he held the Commander’s attention; his life, no, his truth reflected back to him. The mirror of the Commander’s eyes had always provided solace, even warmth. Here, on the cobbled streets of Lion’s Arch with the noise of commerce and the commons bubbling around them, he was cold and alone. He wasn’t sure the Commander recognized him. Perhaps in his street clothes he really wasn’t the warrior the Commander knew. Buck put his hand to his chest, fingertips seeking the true million knots of the Valor crest embroidered on his coat and the uncounted but perfectly summed knots that his wife and daughter had embroidered on his undershirt.

The Commander began to turn away. Buck saw vague images of weariness and doubt replace the vision of himself.

“No!”

People turned to see what the commotion was and most quickly looked away when they saw the Commander. Buck stepped closer to the Commander and nearly fell to his knees when he saw the Commander catch themselves reaching out to him in need.

“Please remember this. You were making the final push. The boldest line had to be drawn at Mord’s mind and you were going to draw it.”

Buck got his breathing under control. The next thing he had to say, needed to pierce the Commander.

“There were other lines to hold and I was willing to die holding them. I shouldn’t have been willing to die…”

Buck began to falter, everything he wanted to say was too big. His cousin Price gently took hold of his elbow to encourage him to resume their business.

“We locked eyes, just like we did now, and we both nodded. We knew…”

“Knew what?” the Commander quietly pleaded.

The words poured as orriculum into Buck’s bones. He did not know why his words would make sense, but they would.

“We knew fidelity. We knew courage. We loved knowing.”

The Commander swallowed, licked their lips as though to speak. Instead they locked eyes with Buck and shared with him a self-conscious nod then turned and continued on their way to the next impossible to hold line.

Price was close to tears. He had been with Buck and the Commander and remembered the moment his cousin had described.

“Buck”

He gently pressed more firmly on his cousin’s elbow.

“We are Valor and Valor business is with Evon Gnashblade. Come.”

I restarted this story with another thread. I learned what should have been obvious, insuring the work pf others is protected. Thank you to anyone who removes this thread or lets it sink.