The Bard of Faith Part 4

They couldn’t stay at their campsite, so they packed up and spent half the night traveling in the dark. Sometime after the moon had reached its highest point in the sky and most of them were falling asleep on their mounts, they found a campsite off the Imperial road.

                Raven started a small fire to beat out some of the cold in their bones while the other two set up their tents and soon they were fast asleep.

                Ariana believed she was the first to wake up with the dull light of sunrise, but when she crawled out of her tent, she found Lacey was up and gone. She slowly made her way over to Bard’s tent looking to see little to almost nothing in it. There was the bedroll, a few daggers, the journal, but nothing else. Her boots were gone, and her short sword was missing also.

                The Thief went to wake Raven up but stopped right outside his tent. He needed the rest, and it was best to let him be, mostly, because he was already distrust of Lacey.

                Ariana turned on her heels telling herself, she couldn’t have gone far.

                Indeed, the Bard did not go too far from the camp at all. She had found a tree to climb up in for a while, reading the Good Book, and praying. When Ariana found her, she was speaking to the AllFather like she would have spoken to anyone, out loud, and full of passion.

                The sun washed over Lacey black fur like the paw of the Father keeping her warm and setting her on the right path.

                “Father,” Lacey said with her head low and her paws together, “I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if this is the right path or not. The squirrels who you have sent me are not like the angels in my dreams. And now,” she sighed deeply, “their squirrels out to kill me. Why Father? Why do they wish for my blood?”

                The question went unanswered, or maybe, it was an answer, and Ariana couldn’t hear it, but Lacey lowers her head even more as if someone was speaking to her. Her ears moved with the sounds of an unheard voice, and Ariana was lost in awe of the sight.

                Something in her chest jumped with joy, never felt before, because the light around this Bard was holy. Everything in the forest breathes with the holiness of the Lord. The world was set in its rightful place in time and Ariana, the Thief, was meant to be there watching this little Bard. She felt the cold wind blow between the trees but even the chill was a calming peace for her soul. It’s wasn’t her bones which understand the magic of this place or the fact the AllFather was among them, it was the deepest part of herself, her soul.

                She smiled at everything closing her eyes almost hearing the footsteps of the AllFather walking near her. She didn’t need to see him, believing wasn’t seeing at this moment. There was something deeper, greater than whatever her eyes could be on because it would all fall flat against the very idea of the AllFather near her. The joy in her soul knew without a shadow of a doubt, for shadows cannot stand against the brightness of lights, the AllFather was here with them.

                “You can join if you want?” Lacey said making Ariana open her eyes to the smiling chipmunk.

                “Oh, sorry,” Ariana said.

                “No, you are fine,” Lacey said holding out her arms to the place she was praying. “Why don’t you sit with me for a bit?”

                “That would be nice,” Ariana said following the Bard to branch in the tree. They both said down with the sun keeping them warm and their feet hanging off the side. Ariana couldn’t let the smile on across her face even as the feeling started to fade. She wanted to ask Lacey about what had happened, but her words failed her. There was no true way of speaking into the word what she felt a moment ago. If the words came from her lips, they were be nothing but mere words with the weakness of a sinful world.

                “It’s nice, huh?” Lacey asked.

                “What is?” Ariana asked.

                “Feeling Him around,” Lacey said with an even bigger smile.

                “Yes, it is,” Ariana said with a nod. “I don’t think I have ever felt it before.”

                “But you have felt it now,” Lacey said pulling her knees up to her chest, “that is all that matters, you know?”

                “I know that now,” Ariana said. “Is there a way to feel it again?”

                “Pray,” Lacey said. “Pray in the stillness of the day. Pray in the emptiness of the woods, and He will come to you.”

                “It’s that easy, huh?” Ariana asked.

                “There is nothing easy about it,” Lacey said. “If you call on the Lord be ready for Him to ask you to take up your paws. Sometimes, it might be something sweet like cooking for your sick friend or ---”

                “Going on a quest to save a dying town?” Ariana asked with a risen eyebrow.

                “Right,” Lacey said. “I wasn’t ready for it you know?”

                “Most are not,” Ariana said. “I learned a long time ago, most are not ready for what life has in sort for them.”

                “Is that why you are a thief?” Lacey asked.

                “No, I’m a thief because I needed to eat,” Ariana said. “One thing led to another, and here I am sitting in this tree with you.”

                “What did you want to be before you became a thief?”

                Ariana stopped herself, she hadn’t thought about what she wished to be when she was a young pup. There was no point in unburying a dead dream, life had moved on, and there was nothing she could do to go back. Who she was right now was all that matter, not what she wanted to be before her life changed forever. But right now, it was good to think about that old dream. The idea of her having to move on from the dream didn’t help her as much in the shower of morning light.

                “I wanted to be a cook,” Ariana said. “I would dream about cooking dinner for all the Nobles of the Realm, and they would be overjoyed with my skills.”

                 Lacey giggled a little and said, “What a great dream.”

                “What about you?” Ariana asked. “Did you always want to be a Bard?”

                “I always enjoyed singing and poets,” Lacey said, “but no, I wanted to be a mother and wanted to make clothes.”

                “I guess either of our lives went as planned,” Ariana said standing up. “We should get back to camp and wake Raven.”