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Aaron sighed deeply as he leaned his shoulder into the ivy, the feel of it a familiar comfort by now. He glanced up to the window above. The warm glow of firelight spilled from around the drawn curtains. They weren’t usually drawn shut this early. On other nights, he could sometimes see her shadow moving about the room. He’d wait until she went to bed, because then she’d appear in the window to close the curtains. A brief moment of happiness for him, in which he’d smile and silently bid her goodnight. One day, he hoped, he would get to actually tell her. Preferably while she was in his arms.
Tonight, however, was not that night. Tonight, it was that bard in her bed.
Aaron tore a leave from the vines around him. That stupid bard, with his stupid accent and his stupid singing, Aaron thought while ripping pieces off the leave. He’d been in love with Cilren Albrine his entire life, admiring her from afar, waiting for the day she’d finally notice him.
He wasn’t entirely sure why he was still waiting, staring up at her window. Perhaps it was to torture himself with the knowledge of what was going on behind it. Perhaps it was simply out of habit. Or perhaps a petty part of him hoped to see the bard climb out of the window, trip, and fall to his death.
That wasn’t likely to happen, though. He’d seen the ease and grace with which the performer had scaled the wall, like it was something he did on a daily basis. Which, now that Aaron thought about it, could very well be the case.
He let out another sigh and pushed off the wall. There was no sense in staying any longer. Cilren wasn’t going to make an appearance in the window and the bard wasn’t going to fall, so Aaron had better just go home and go to sleep.
He was about to turn the corner and allowed himself one last glance at Cilren’s window. His heart skipped a beat when he thought he saw a figure on the wall. He scolded himself for mistaking whatever it was for a person, then did a double take and came to the realization that it actually was a humanoid figure climbing the wall.
The person seemed to have either heard him, or simply sensed his presence, because they stopped climbing and briefly glanced down at Aaron. Then, as if they were just out on watch duty instead of trespassing, they held their hand above their eyes as if to shield from the not-that-bright moonlight, and did a scan of the area.
Aaron blinked at the figure.
They had one hand on the ivy vines, and while their bare feet were firmly planted against the wall, they somehow made it look so casual, they might as well have been leaning against a lamp post.
The figure ignored Aaron, instead slowly looking one way, then the other, apparently on the lookout for something.
Aaron looked around, then back at the figure on the wall, slowly blinked again, then shook his head and turned away. He’d been about to raise the alarm on the first person to scale those walls tonight and Cilren had welcomed that one with open arms. If she’d invited a second person, who was Aaron to spoil their fun?
Now a little more bitter rather than melancholy, Aaron walked alongside the wall, towards the front of the house, on his way to his own.
When he reached the frontside of the Albrine house, another figure caught his eye. While it was not yet so late that it was strange to see people walking around town, this particular person looked, well, strange. He wasn’t sure which feature drew his attention more; the purple hair, the purple trousers, or the ropes wrapped around his legs, waist, and torso.
His eyes followed the figure with curiosity and he felt his jaw go slack when the stranger walked through the gates of Albrine house and to the front door.
A third person? Really?
He knew it probably wasn’t the same as with the bard and the figure on the wall, since this person was actually about to announce his arrival, raising a hand to knock on the door. Perhaps he was here for the master of the house, Nester. He probably didn’t know Nester too well, if that was the case, seeing as the old man had likely already retired to his sleeping chamber at this hour.
Aaron found himself watching the stranger as he knocked on the door a second time, and then a third. The man leaned closer to the door and spoke, apparently in response to something being said on the other side, though Aaron couldn’t understand any of it.
A moment later, the stranger reached out and simply opened the door, giving Aaron yet another shock of surprise, as it was neither Cilren nor Nester who was in the doorframe, but a young man in full armour. Next to him stood another stranger, not in armour but a plain, sleeveless shirt, the tattoos on his bare arms on display. Despite him being the shortest of the three men, he looked like he could hurl the other two over the wall as easily as a sack of grain, if the size of his arms were anything to go on.
Something looking like an umbrella poked out behind the two men, and it took a moment for Aaron to realize that it was actually the brim of an outrageously large hat, worn by a outrageously small woman. She looked the stranger outside the door up and down, but left the conversation to the men. There was something about her, Aaron thought. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but she seemed to radiate power. Like if he were to meet her eye, she might end him just by squinting at him.
After a brief conversation, the purple-haired stranger stepped inside and the door closed.
Aaron stared at the heavy oak door for a moment, trying to think of what to do. He had half a mind of running up to the door, bursting through it, and demanding to know what these strangers were doing in the Albrine house. In a brief little fantasy, he would rid the house of these trespassers and Cilren would hail him a hero, forgetting all about the bard.
Luckily, the rational part of his brain quickly caught up and remembered the full armour, the tree-trunk-sized arms and the very sharp-looking swords and knives he’d seen the men carrying.
While it hurt his heart to leave Cilren to potential danger, there was no chance he would win in a fight against those trespassers, if it were to come to that. He was no hero, no swashbuckling adventurer. The best thing he could do, was to run and get the town guards.