Snowbound Memories

When the coldest months stepped their icy feet upon the Isle of Mixed Blood’s shores, the winter brought with them took no prisoners. Though the Stormshield Mountains along the northern coast often blocked the worst of the weather, bulbous and rolling clouds of dark gray yet carried a frigid chill that helped birth raging inland snowstorms. What fiery colors remained of the autumn were soon buried in snowdrifts or encased in crystalline ice, and invasions of frozen flakes whipped through the air for days and sometimes weeks on end before any respite.

When this year’s initial storm cleared at last, leaving a peaceful but thick snowfall in its wake, Elizan was wrapping up his latest workday. The remains of a fire smoldered within his office’s small hearth, but the application of a poker and some old ashes easily smothered the glowing embers. Already, the insulated room felt cooler, but the Captain-Commander paid the change no mind as he switched off the lights, stepped out into the hall, and locked the room behind him. While returning good evening wishes to the aides and other officers either taking their leave or preparing for the night shift, he then journeyed through Peacemaker Headquarters to the front door before walking outside.

At once, and despite a biting breeze that blustered through the street, a muted quiet settled around Elizan. Though the Wind and Water Masters kept the thoroughfares from becoming too congested or slick throughout the day, snowdrifts yet piled here and there while the buildings around him stood silent in their icy coats. So late in the evening, very few other people braved the roads despite the manageable weather, either, and Elizan often found himself walking alone beneath the flickering lamps lighting his path.

His master, Marra the Swordsworn, would’ve loved this weather, and the quiet. Even now, he could see her ethereal form striding beside him while garbed in her beautifully designed winter robes, their patterns of white-on-blue and blue-on-white flowing and flicking about each other beneath outlines of fine silver thread. In her single remaining hand, she held the appropriately-named Stainless Snow, the glittering white dragonscale sword cutting quick but harmless paths through the flurries while also weaving designs of six-winged, serpentine creatures soaring along the wind. Elizan could even hear Stainless Snow’s twin crystal bells, each tied to the blade’s hilt with thin but strong silver cords, ringing joyously through the night. 

“Even in the beginning, I always loved watching you perform for yourself, dearest aunt, especially in the weather,” he whispered. “I don’t think I ever told you that in so many words, though.”

“I always felt you watching, brash young colt of mine. Always.”

Elizan laughed softly, and on a whim, he turned off the straightest path toward home. Soon, his boots crunched through the courtyard of the Sanctuary Grand Healing House before he rounded the stone fountain at the yard’s center, the font’s basin emptied of water months before but now filled with frozen slush. There, beside the edge nearest the building, he stopped in front of a statue, the polished marble figure depicting a long-haired, hawk-nosed, and keen-eyed woman who stood with a firm and regal bearing; indeed, even the expression on her face brazenly challenged anyone who perhaps wished to try moving her by the slightest inch.

At the woman’s feet laid a golden memorial plate, bearing the epitaph, “In honor and loving memory of Chief Healer Geraszi BahtDaphna, our founder and a hero who stood firm against the perpetrators of the BehnAbethalite Massacre. May she be remembered always and in great esteem, especially by those lives whom she saved.”

With a smile, Elizan said, “At last, you cantankerous old stork, we once again have a spout of weather to match your attitude, and your tongueーand I dare say that the icicles are a rather becoming touch. Were that your own silence was as absolute as that of the snow, of course, but I suppose we can’t have everything in life that we want, eh?”

“Hmph. Would that it could also cure your insufferable impudence, brat, but even I possessed not the ability to aid everyone brought to me. Of course, there’s little anyone save the Triune can do for those who are also incurably stubborn by the ‘virtue’ of their own overindulged self-importance.”

“Ouch. I suppose I walked into that one.”

“And I suppose you still haven’t fully learned the meaning of the phrase ‘tactical retreat’ either, despite my best efforts.”

Following another laugh, Elizan replied, “Perhaps not,” and began journeying again, each of the next destinations of the night’s detour clear and anticipated within his mind. 

Soon after, as he passed by a street lined with shops, he heard shoutingーwhat sounded like a group of youngsters and, from the slurring, a belligerent drunk. Turning, Elizan then saw what appeared to be a bulky man bellowing and waving his hands into the face of a teenage boy. The lad looked not much younger than Elizan’s own sons, but despite the efforts of the two other youths to drive their aggressor away, the man persisted before shoving the group’s sole girl onto the ground and then picking the second boy off his feet and tossing him aside.

Elizan raced forward while suddenly recognizing the target of the man’s outrage as one of this year’s new Peacemaker trainees. However, the Captain-Commander had no more time to think before the drunkard grabbed the boy by his shirt and held him in place before backhanding him across the eye.

Neither the crack of bone-on-bone nor the child’s cry of pain finished echoing down the street before a throwing dagger slammed pommel-first into the man’s jaw. Releasing the boy before wheeling unsteadily around to face his newest opponent, the drunk couldn’t even raise one hand into a proper defense before Elizan barrelled into him. The Captain-Commander then flipped the man head over heels before pinning him solidly to the ground with both arms wrenched tight behind his back.

“Call for a Healer, now!” Elizan shouted at some passersby who’d stopped to watch. Then, he looked to the boy, now lying almost flat on the ground while being tended to by his recovering friends. “Is he alright? Did he hit his head?”

The girl, seeming admirably calm, said, “N-No, sir! He caught himself in time!”

“Good! Keep him there and keep him awake until a Healer gets here! Make sure he doesn’t move too much either, understand?”

“Okay!”

Returning his attention to the drunkard, who shouted and spat in fury, Elizan growled, “By the order of Sanctuary, you’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent, and anything you say from this point onward can be used against you in your impending trial. Do you understand me?”

“Gerroff me!” the man demanded before shouting out a hail of slurred obscenities. “I have the right to discipline my own son where and how I please!”

“That wasn’t my question. Did you understand what I just said?”

“Yeah! What of it? You have no right to arrest me here, Peacemaker!”

“Your opinion is duly noted, and while we’re on the topic of your son, who you just hit in the face without justifiable reason, I want you to look at me.” When his prisoner resisted, Elizan loaded every ounce of authority into his voice before deepening it to the tone of thunder. “Look...at...me.”

Then, immediately after the drunkard glanced up, this time truly getting a good eyeful of just who had arrested him, he froze, and his face paled almost as white as the snow.

“C-Commander B-BehnAbethal…”

“Indeed,” Elizan rumbled, baring his teeth in a vicious scowl, “and you have just struck one of my trainees, a mere boy, and your own son, as well as assaulted two other children directly in front of me. Now, as of this moment, you’re forbidden from coming within a hundred paces of both the training center and the children, and for good measure, I don’t want myself or anyone else catching the slightest glimpse of you even one step outside those bounds unless you have good reason for being there. Do you understand me?”

“Y-yes, sir.”

“Good, and while I’m at it, let me make one more thing perfectly clear.” Elizan leaned down close to the man’s face. “If I so much as discover the slightest hint that you’ve abused your son or anyone else ever again, it doesn’t matter where you run, or how you fight, or whom you get to help you. I will find you; I will defeat you and all of your little allies; and I will drag you and them straight to jail, even if you’re kicking and screaming the entire blasted way. And you had best hope that I’m also in a generous mood that day, or next time, you just might have to deal with more humiliation than merely being taken down and arrested drunk in front of your son and everyone else on a public street. 

“Do...you...understand me?”

“Ye-Yes, s-sir!”

“Good. You’d best mean those words, because both the Triune and I are going to hold you to them. Unconditionally.”

0000

Later on, Benjamin winced as a Healer finished treating him, her fingers wrapping a bandage tightly around his head.

“There you go, we’re all done. Now, be sure you keep this bandage on through tomorrow morning; it’ll help ensure the bleeding stops. However, don’t wear it for longer than half a day, and be sure you change it out for a clean wrapping afterward. Then, for the next day or two, repeat the process while making sure you take things easy, and if you start feeling dizzy, or having a headache, or suffering any other questionable symptoms, please follow up with your personal Healer as soon as possible. Do you understand?”

Benjamin nodded.

“Excellent. Now, if you’ll give me a few moments, we’ll get you all processed out so you and the Commander can both be on your way. Are you comfortable with me leaving you in this room with him?”

Benjamin nodded again, and soon after, the Healer left him alone with Captain-Commander Elizan. However, the boy still said nothing, and he didn’t dare meet the older man’s gaze for even a moment. Of course, Benjamin wanted to be respectful and also thank him for his helpーhe truly didーbut… But...

But Captain-Commander Elizan BehnAbethal was a living legend: the Black Dagger of Sanctuary; the Shield of Abethal; the Ultimate Soldier! Some even called him the Undying for everything he’d managed to survive that should’ve killed himーthat would’ve killed anyone else. He even looked imposing with his lightly scarred face, straight black chin-length hair, considerable heightーhe stood almost a head and a half higher than Benjamin himselfーand mostly black Peacemaker uniform styled for the winter. From years of watching this man, this myth, this absolute hero perform in the tournaments and after hearing and reading so many stories about him, Benjamin himself became a Peacemaker to hopefully follow in the Captain-Commander’s incredible footsteps.

And for partially the same reasons, he also didn’t allow himself to cry, no matter how much more he hurt for it.

“Do you wish to talk, Benjamin? About what happened?”

The boy’s heart skipped a panicked beat, and all of a sudden, he couldn’t move or fully breathe.

“If you don’t, that’s perfectly alright. I don’t wish to make you feel uncomfortable or like you’re being forced into anything. But know that if you ever wish to talk, I’m here, and I’m ready to listen no matter what you have to say.”

For a long time, Benjamin never fully understood what happened next. In one moment, he might as well have been a statue; in the next, he felt something inside himself, something deep and built to its breaking point, shatter. Molten hot tears flooded from his eyes, and while they ran in rivers down his face, a torrent of words gushed out of him before he could dam them up again.

“It’s because of my mom,” Benjamin sobbed. “She… She…! She was murdered not long after the first snow fell four years ago! Dad was gone for work, and I was home alone with her, and some people broke into our house to rob us that night and...and…”

His words ran dry; all that remained was crying, and more weak, horrible tears.

“...and you were supposed to protect her,” the Captain-Commander finished.

“Yes!” Benjamin shouted. “I tried! I tried, but I… I couldn’t do anything. Those guys beat me up, and then… Then I laid there and watched them kill my mom! Then, when Dad came to see me in the Healing House, he… He blamed me for it! He said I was weak, and a horrible son, and that...I should’ve...died instead.” The boy curled in on himself. “At least… At least I could be replaced…he said...

“Ever since then, he’s hated me, and every time the first snow falls and things get quiet, he gets drunk at night and yells at me and...hits me, sometimes, and then threatens me not to tell anyone or things’ll get worse. I try to stay over with my best friend through the winter as much as I can to get away, but sometimes, my dad finds me. But he’s never hit me out in public like that before…”

After a silence that seemed to last forever, the Captain-Commander asked, “Benjamin, would you mind if I sat in that chair nearest you?”

In response, Benjamin shook his head but didn’t lift it out from his knees, and vaguely, he heard the other man step across the room before sitting down.

“You’ve heard of the Massacre at Sulhammon’s Spring, yes?”

Benjamin nodded. “They taught it in one of my history lessons in school: How you were the commanding officer of that hunt, and how...how dozens of Peacemakers died to the Marked One before...”

“Right, before everything that occurred afterward. However, what they probably didn’t teach you were some of the gorier details, such as how, just before we discovered the Marked One’s true power, it managed to take me by surprise and throw me hard against a rock. The moment I hit the blasted thing, my back snapped clean in two just above my shoulders.”

At that, Benjamin couldn’t help looking at his commander in shock.

“I couldn’t move,” Elizan continued, “and there was no way I could compensate for it; it was as if everything below my head just disappearedーthere wasn’t even pain. Then, akin to the horrors you suffered, I laid in the mud and watched all of my comrades be slaughtered before my eyes, and one of the Peacemakers there that day also happened to be my first wife, Reyna.

“I...still remember it so clearly, the last living look she gave to me as she tried desperately to protect my sorry hide. Then, after the Marked One slew her, our mutual best friend died while trying to flee with meーhe used his own body as a shield, almost in vain.” The Captain-Commander paused, taking a deep breath. “There’s few other times where I’ve felt so helpless, and fewer times still when I’ve felt more at fault. For over a century, I blamed myself for every Peacemaker lost that day, so much that I almost didn’t survive the depths of my griefーor my hatred.”

“...for the Marked One?”

The commander nodded. “For him, and for myself.”

Benjamin’s forehead scrunched in confusion. “But… But you didn’t do anything wrong. That thing killed them, not you.”

“I know, but for a long time, that didn’t change how I feltーhow I viewed things within my own headーand I wasn’t the only one who thought that way either.” Then, the commander looked at Benjamin, who stiffened again. “You’re much the same, Benjamin; your father blames you, and you blame yourself, for an infernal tragedy that never should’ve happened and you couldn’t have been reasonably expected to stop.”

“But… But I…”

“Listen to me, Benjamin: It’s not, in any way, your fault, and there’s absolutely no one who would be right to blame you for your mother’s death. Your father also had, has, and will never have the right to treat you like he did tonight, and you shouldn’t treat yourself so harshly either. Your mother’s killing belongs solely to the accounts of those who murdered her, not to the other victim of that night.”

An agreement lodged itself in Benjamin’s throat, but after working his jaw for a long moment, he only murmured, “I… I-I don’t...know if...if I can…”

“I know. It’s hard to do, especially when one of the people supposed to love and protect you has failed so miserably in his duty… But,” the Captain-Commander’s dark blue-grey gaze locked with Benjamin’s, “if you want, I’m willing to help you through it however I can. I’ve been where you are, Benjamin; I know how much it hurts, and not just as your commanding officer but also as your friend, I want to see you overcome the blame, and the pain. I know you can, and I know you’ll become so much stronger for it.”

“...you really mean that?”

“How about this: If you want, I’ll shake on it with you.” The commander slowly held out one open, callused hand. “I mean it, Benjamin, and I honestly look forward to the Peacemaker you’ll become. With enough perseverance, training, and experience, you might even be worthy of becoming Captain-Commander someday, which isn’t praise I give out to just anyone, and certainly not lightly. 

“Do you believe me, and will you work with me?”

A few moments later, Benjamin gave the man’s hand a tentative shake and said, “...I believe you, and...I will.”

*

As he shook hands with the boy, Elizan heard Reyna’s voice say softly, “We’re so glad you tried visiting us tonight, Zan.”

Indeed, my autumn flame, he replied silently. Me, too.