Kre watched the old man walk away and the memory started to fade from his mind. Looking back, there were so many things that stood out now as clues that Cooter… that is, Ser Cootsman, was different than everyone else.
His old friend’s words had always struck him as important though. Perhaps it was the way he said them, the way he believed in them. Maybe it was the way he didn’t flinch under the threat of being clubbed by the Ranger and instead focused his attention wholly on the man in obvious need. Whatever the reason, it was those words that stuck with Kre now.
‘It’s a gentleman’s duty to offer peace of soul and mind to those in need, no matter who they are or what they’ve done.’
This apparition… this priest from ancient times… it was a ‘those in need’. It didn’t matter that it was long dead or had a temper. It didn’t matter that it had essentially kidnapped Kre and trapped him in this world of fake light in order to force him to do as it wished. It didn’t matter that it would not let him go unless he agreed to its terms.
What mattered was that it was in need of peace. Peace long denied it for reasons outside of its control, but not outside of Kre’s.
“I apologize,” Kre said gently, his face still stinging from the strange spectral slap. “I misspoke.”
He held out his hands in a cupped fashion, his left underneath his right. “I would be honored to escort your son out of this place. To let him feel the light of the sun again.”
The air seemed to shimmer and sparkle around them, as if the illusion were responding to this new development. “Now,” the priest replied, smiling broadly, “that’s the kind of respect I remember being due. I should have slapped you sooner.”
Kre gritted his teeth. Cootsman had made it look so easy, being verbally berated by the Ranger during the course of his gentlemanly duty, but Kre was finding it incredibly difficult to maintain his composure after just a single response.
The priest seemed to savor Kre’s new subservient role as he simply stood there, smiling down at the boy. Finally, his smile faded, and his dark eyes narrowed, “I suppose I don’t have to tell what this means to me.”
He chewed his lower lip for a moment, then looked up at the illusionary sky, “I feel as if this is why I’m still… what I am. Why I’m not like the others. I feel as if…” He trailed off and shook his head. “I cannot explain it well, but I think, perhaps… I will lose myself after this.”
Kre wasn’t sure exactly where his next words came from. More accurately, he knew he had heard the words being spoken to him some time ago and that they had been important at the time, but he had no memory of the event itself. He couldn’t picture who might have said them to him nor why, but the words seemed like they were too much a part of him to forget.
“Letting go of your child and leaving them is the hardest thing a parent can do, but you have to trust that you did everything you could to raise them well and that they’ll grow up to bring hope and light into the world in your place. Their life can only begin if you let them go.”