Ordinary. The house looked completely ordinary. A single rusted coin flipped back and forth between my knuckles as I leaned against a tree among the many in these woods, staying mostly out of direct sight if anyone should be looking out from a window inside. I didn't really know why I expected anything different, but perhaps when visiting a rumored, powerful mystic, it came with all the wild stories and assumptions of what these beings could do.
The mystic had been nearly impossible to find. Elusive was not even the word for it. Hardly anyone in the nearest town would speak of it. I'd been met with more doors to my face than I'm used to normally since being a Gypsy generally invited that kind of welcoming whenever my people traveled outside of Nowhere. Even if I'd offered some coin upfront in a town where they had little, they still all refused.
It was a beggar who had finally decided to wave me over. He should've been the first I asked as they see everything while people dismiss them so easily. I knew how he felt. I'd handed the pouch over once the hunched man had given me what he knew, his shaky hand gripping the coin and hurrying away. I hadn't really expected the drunkard's directions to be good, but I was wrong, and was starting to believe fear was the reason the man shook and not from the lack of wine.
So why couldn't I move now?
A soft breeze swirled through my clothes, billowing my pants, and lifting the deep green robes I wore. It spun around my torso and brushed back the hood I wore, inviting the timid morning sun as it tried to break through the clouds after a brief rainstorm. My jaw clenched.
The Wind.
It pressed against my chest. A final, gentle effort to try and make me rethink the decision. My father's last words rattled through the hollow caging of my heart. "Don't.. become like them..." A vision of my mother kneeling in silence, unmoving, like a statue frozen in time while staring out at the endless horizon of the desert as if waiting for my father. My dead siblings.
This was for him. This was for them. Never again.
That familiar anger pooled and stirred in my stomach. It rose and crashed against my ribs and filled that hollowness of my heart. The ground stirred as a gust of air shot across the ground and upward to meet The Wind in answer. My own wind in making. "Leave me be." My voice broke, but there was finality still in those few words.
"Don't.. become like them..."
I wasn't sure how not to. My father was a better man than I.
With another caressing touch, The Wind had gone. My jaw relaxed and the coin I had apparently gripped so tightly in my fist had left an indentation on my skin. I pocketed it and looked up to the house once more. Still as normal looking as before save for the herbs that now floated from within and small whisps of smoke drifting from the chimney.
"Don't.. become like them..."
My boot finally lifted and I took the first step towards the door. The first step into finding purpose. The first step in finding direction. I would use this bargain as a way to protect my family. My people. My king. I had to keep reminding myself that that was the only purpose for this. Not revenge. The Wind would take action if I did. It showing here now meant it doubted me... I couldn't blame it.
This was for him. This was for them. Never again.
