Chapter Three: The day before.

I could feel the post in the old barn splinters as my fist made contact, the small pieces of wood cutting into my knuckles painfully, but still I drove fist after fist into the old piece of wood. At one point there had been a bag full of straw tied to the post, but that had soon been worn away. "When I first arrived over sea's, I could take a man's life with my bare hands. I could crush plate armour and tear through leather, but after we were pulled from the abyss.. I couldn't anymore. Something had changed. Purhaps the time we spent there soften us.. all I know is I won't let it happen again." I paused a moment to look around the post at my listening audience. From behind a curtain of grey shaggy hair, a pair of brown eyes rolled at me. "Well no one asked you!" I spat at the old man as he nonchalantly chewed his alfalfa. A week has passed since Maisie and I had come home and life seemed to go back to normal. For most part. My eldest sisters still teased me about being a nomad who always returned home, any anything else they could think of for that matter. They had babied Maisie, when they got home. Happy to have their baby sister back. Maisie on the other hand, had been helping mother around the house like always, tending to house hold chores and preparing meals. She also spent a lot of time out behind the old abandoned barn practicing how to fight when she thought no one was looking.

I walked over to a bucket of ice water and dunked my hands inside to help the the sores I had accumulated from my unorthodox workout. Looking over my shoulder I caught eyes with the old man who gave his head a a shake and turned away from me. "Well no one asked you!" I spat as i wrapped some old rags around my hands.
"I will be leaving soon old friend" I told the old man, pulling a stool up to sit in front of him, his larges horns almost wrapping around me. "I have important business to tend to in the capital. I'll be gone awhile I suspect." The old man gave my had a soft bump with his own and I returned it. As I stood I matted the old man's hair playfully and left his barn.

At the far end of my family farm, their is a mountain, or rather a cliff. It over looks all the land we own. You wouldn't see it from a distance, but there is a small winding road of switchbacks that lead to the top. At the top you would find several stone mounds, each covered in a fair amount of moss and grass. A few were even so old that the earth itself had seemed to retake them, leaving not much more than a small bump in the ground. Under each of these was a MacPherson. My father's father and his father and so on. It was tradition in my branch of the family that the father be buried here over looking the farm, as he did once in life. His family would be buried in the family cemetery at the base of the mountain. It is where my father would be buried, and if I take over the farm at his passing, it will be where I will be buried too.

This is where I sat. My feet dangled I've the edge and my forefathers graves at my backs. I looked out over the farm and could here the slight echos of my mother and sisters, and a soft fait wood on wood sound, Maisie out practicing again. No idea why, mother and father would never let her leave to go off and fight. "What's on your mind son?" My father came up beside me and sat down next to me, handing me his already lit pipe. "What makes you so sure something is on my mind?" He gave a slight scoff at the question "you only ever make the hike up here when you have something troubling you." I sighed heavily. He wasn't wrong.

"If this about your friend. The MacNessa?" I puffed on the pipe, savoured it for a moment and released the smoke. "Aye, among other things" I added. "I am leaving in the morning, before sunrise for the capital. I aim to ask for the Laird's aid in the battle to reclaim the MacNessa throne." My father simply nodded his head in understanding. "Couldn't talk you out of the other clan wars. Won't try to talk you out of this one. You do what you need to do son." I was slightly shocked. My father had always argued with me every time I would go off to fight in another clan war. Or when spring would come and I would return across the sea, he would try to talk me out of it.

"Why?" I had to ask. "Son. I want nothing more than for you to stay on the farm and help out, and even take over when I am to old. My father had a family of all sons and therefore had no worries about the farm. You are my only son and so I have put more responsibility onto you than my father did me. Soon I won't be able to keep up the farm work, naturally I would expect my son to do it, but both of your sisters have met strong healthy young men who are eager to help around the farm, and So I am not so worried about it anymore. I had feared they would run off and leave the farm one day but both your older sisters seemed quite keen on taking over the farm one day and so do their men, and I am happy with that." I sighed again. If that was the case than the farm would no longer be in the hands of a MacPherson, as it always had, the idea that it would be my fault hung heavy. I didn't want that.  But at the same time I had other duties. Duties to my goddess and promises I had made to friends and I aimed to keep them.

"I leave before dawn. I'll take the dogs with me. I may be gone awhile but I will be home in time for the yule." My father squeezed one of my shoulders firmly before getting up and walking away. I would sit up here a little while longer. The day was still young and I still had a lot on my mind.

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