He stared at it, shaking his head. It sounded so foolish. He sounded like a lovesick schoolboy. Well, it was all true. Maybe Justine needed to be reminded of how much he loved her. Maybe she did*’t care anymore, but he was in this for her whether she liked it or not. Who else could he confess his thoughts and fears to? No one here would understand his constant sensation of being an outsider – they all fit in perfectly, in their grisly melancholy. He signed the paper, folded it, and stuffed it in an envelope and into his pack. Then he touched the cross and his neck and whispered a prayer, that Justine was safe and that his letters would reach her, and that she loved him still.
Then he climbed to the upper decks, where his training was to continue. He hoped that maybe this time, he would emerge from the beating feeling like a soldier.
Gray flipped through the reports he had just retrieved from the Varrock army barracks. The Karamja mission had officially left. He skimmed the list of names, stopping at ‘Lucas Val’Myren, Private.” The document was signed by Jonah Barron. That old rat was leading the mission?
No matter. Lucas would still be dead soon enough. He studied Barron’s signature, and decided it could be forged easily enough. He took out a fresh sheet of parchment and began to copy the message, listing the names one by one, this time omitting Lucas from the records. Lucas Val’Myren, Private, servant, no longer existed, as far as Gray was concerned. When he was finished, he tucked away Lucas’ new flurry of letters into the same drawer. He kept them so that sometimes, when he was particularly bored, he could read them. He laughed aloud as Lucas’ pleas for Justine to write back became more and more desperate.
So Lucas was going to Karamja. Led by Jonah Barron, who might be one of the best, but he was going in blind. The mission was doomed to fail. And Gray couldn’t wait for it to happen. “Rest in peace, Lucas,” he muttered, and left to find the Prince.
06-Jan-2011 05:57:00
