Dreams in Eldrim; Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Sharon, Vince and Neil



As soon as the sun peeked over the horizon on the very next morning, Don got out of bed, threw his clothes on and rushed outside.  At first, his intention had just been to go for a brief walk, hoping to run into one of his friends before breakfast, but it wasn't meant to be.  He hadn't really expected to see anyone else out at that hour, but he'd needed to clear his head a little.

Don had been really tired the previous night, and he knew he needed to be able to plan things out well if he was going to leave town later in the day.  In that respect, the walk helped him a lot, and when he got home, it was almost time for breakfast.  On the way there, he'd picked up a couple of rolls and some butter from one of the nearby food centers, then dropped them off on the kitchen table as soon as he got inside.  They weren't for him, though.  In fact, he wanted them to be one final act of kindness towards his father, before he left town.

Of course, Don was a little hungry that morning, but he didn't really need much.  His work, he knew, wouldn't be too strenuous until later in the day, so he left the food on the table for his father and walked outside again; away from the building that had been his home since the day that he'd been born.  He still had quite a few preparations to make that day, and although he knew that he was going to have a hard time saying good-bye to his friends, he was also sure that it was the only way to get what he really wanted.

That was why, that morning, he headed towards Sharon's house, closer to the south side of town.



Sharon's house had a fairly simple design.  It was made from wood, with a foundation of stone and dried concrete.  It didn't have a porch, and it wasn't very big; having only two floors, neither one of which was very wide or long, but Sharon and her parents were basically the only people living there, so it was enough for them.  A few small pine trees grew around the house, but there wasn't much else to decorate the place.  Even so, Don felt a little intimidated as he knocked on her front door.  He certainly didn't relish the task of telling her about his plans for that day.

A few moments later, he was surprised to see that Sharon herself had been the one to answer the door.  She was wearing a deep red dress with a long skirt and red shoes that closely resembled slippers.  She also had a small, red length of string in her hair, which was probably intended to perform the function of a genuine ribbon, and Don was amazed by how good it really looked, considering how simple and inexpensive the whole outfit obviously was.

It seemed, however, that Sharon had heard about the work Don had been doing at the orchard, because she'd obviously forgotten how worried she'd been over the possibility of him leaving town.  When the thin, wooden door opened, and she saw that it was Don who was paying her a visit, it almost seemed like nothing could damage her smile, but it was only an illusion.  In moments, that smile had faded, as she'd apparently realized that he wasn't going to smile back.

"Sharon..." Don said sadly, as he stood on her front steps, "Good morning.  I... uh...  I think we ought to talk."

Sharon had obviously been feeling worried for several seconds, but when she heard Don say those words, she really started to look appalled.  She must have suspected at least some of what he was about to tell her, but she didn't look like she was prepared for it at all.

Quickly, Sharon had stepped outside and closed the door behind her, then started walking away from her house at a brisk pace.  Don followed her at a reasonable distance, and soon, the two were standing together, just under the branches of one of the pine trees in her yard.  She looked about ready to cry as she spoke to him in visible dread.

"It's tonight, isn't it?  You're leaving."

"Yeah." Don replied, looking at the ground for a moment, "I think I've learned about all I can here in Troma.  I have to at least go to the castle and try to find out more about the knights."

Sharon seemed to have gotten over her recent surprise, but the sad expression that she'd been wearing for a while was starting to turn into a look of firm determination, and Don wasn't sure why.  In a way, it really worried him, because whatever she was planning to do next, it was obvious that she had no intention of backing down.

"I hoped that you were just going to start tending orchards for a living." Sharon muttered at last, "I mean, you always wanted to protect people, but...  I figured that if you started to like living in peace, then you might want to stay here."

She was already making him feel pretty rotten about the choice he'd made, but as sad as he felt, he knew that he couldn't change his plans anymore, or even hesitate.  A moment later, he shook his head sadly.

"We're two different people." Don replied, frowning as he spoke, "I can't live like that."

"Why?" Sharon demanded to know again, "I still don't get it!  If we can all live in peace and be satisfied with it, why can't you?  Why do you have to be so different from the rest of us, Don?"

"Sharon..." Don muttered, finally finding the courage to look her in the face, though he didn't feel any better about what he had to say, "I don't know.  Maybe it's because of what happened to my mom when I was young.  Maybe losing her..."

For a few moments, Don looked back down, trying to think of the right way to express what he was feeling just then, but when the words finally came to him, he knew that they wouldn't be any comfort to his friend.

"When my mom died, I learned a lot about death, but my dad just learned to be a pacifist." Don tried to explain, "He never agreed with the job my mom took, though, so I think, for him, her death was just another way to defend what he already believed in.  Dad didn't think violence ever solved anything.  He didn't think it was worth it, and what happened to my mom only made him feel worse about it."

"I was really young when it happened," he continued sadly, looking up into the pine branches overhead as he spoke, "so I learned something different back then.  I learned what the worst crime in the world was.  It's really terrible, because no other crime has such a horrible punishment.  Sharon, the worst crime in the world is being weak.”

Sharon had looked pretty desperate as Don had been talking, but when he said that, she seemed to remember the reason why she'd become his friend to begin with; the sadness she'd seen in him when they'd first started going to school together, because some of that sadness was dawning on her own expression.

“Being kind, showing mercy and following the True Law are all great things to do,” Don continued, starting to look at Sharon again, since she seemed to be sympathizing with him a little, “and they make you a better person in the end, but being weak is a horrible crime, because if you're weak, you can't do anything when your friends and family are dying.  When my mom died, and I learned how she died, killing five orcs by herself, I knew that she understood that.  I can tell that was why she wanted to be a guard, and I'm not sure how, but I know that she was never sorry about the job she picked, or the way she lived her life.  That's the kind of person I have to be; somebody strong enough to protect the people they care about, even if I wind up dying."

Sharon looked horrified as she'd listened to Don's explanation, but in a few moments, her determined expression had returned, and she replied to him with a very stern look, almost chiseled onto her face.

"Lots of people are weak and haven't lost the people they love."

"Sure," Don admitted, "but they're the lucky ones.  They're only safe because strong people like the knights are there to save them.  There's nothing good about being weak and helpless.  That's why I have to leave town."

However, just then, Sharon said something that Don had never expected to hear her say, even though he knew how bad she felt about the choice he'd made.

"No." she said angrily, "I won't let you leave.  I'll do what I have to to stop you, Don.  You may not like our way of life, but there are people here who care about you, and we don't want you to wander off and get killed in the wilderness somewhere.  Do you know how many people you'd hurt if you did that?"

"I don't want to hurt anybody," Don replied, his anger starting to build as the debate escalated into an argument, "but I can't stay here.  I'm leaving tonight, and you can't stop me."

However, Sharon still looked just as determined, in spite of what Don had said, and he knew that she wasn't going to give up; at least not yet.  Still, she must have realized that there was no point in arguing with him anymore.  Don had already made up his mind about what he wanted to do with his life, and if Sharon wanted to keep him in Troma, she was going to have to do something drastic.  Words alone wouldn't keep Don Deley rooted to his hometown.

"I just wanted to say good-bye to you before I left." Don continued again, though there was still a lot of anger in his voice as he spoke, "I don't know whether you realized it or not, but it really helped me out when you listened to me talk about my problems and what I wanted to do with my life.  I guess...  I know I don't usually talk about that kind of thing.  Maybe it sounds a little weird, but...  I wanted you to know how much you helped me before I left town.  I mean, you deserve to know that, after all you did for me, so...  Thanks."

Just saying that much had taken all the self-control that he had.  He'd never been very good at talking about how he felt; especially to someone like Sharon; who he cared about a lot.  In some ways, she was one of the biggest reasons why he knew he had to leave.  He couldn't possibly have lived happily in the same town with her, not knowing when some monster was going to come along and kill one of them.  For Don, that kind of life just wasn't good enough.

However, after he'd made that statement, he couldn't say another word, and it was obvious that Sharon wasn't about to say anything else either; not even to reply.  In spite of how hard it had been for him to tell her all that, Don knew that his words hadn't made enough of a difference to her.  All she was thinking about was his decision to leave, and how desperately she wanted him to stay.  He could see that easily enough in her face.  For the moment, in fact, it looked like that was the only thing that mattered to her.

It only made Don feel worse when he realized that Sharon was determined to stop him, but he knew that he couldn't let that happen.  He had to leave that night, no matter what Sharon said or did, and that was one of the reasons why he didn't say another word to her during the next few moments, when he left her yard by himself.



Don kept walking for a while longer than he actually needed to, to try to shake off the depressed feeling that he'd gotten from his discussion with Sharon.  Even after almost half an hour of walking alone in silence, and trying to reassure himself, he still didn't feel that much better, but he couldn't afford to keep postponing the next step in his plans, because he knew that he still had a lot of other things to get done that day.

Don's next destination, he eventually decided, would be Vince's house.  Vince wasn't likely to take it much better than Sharon, but like her, he deserved a friendly good-bye, after all the time that he and Don had spent arguing with each other.

Vince's house wasn't too different from Sharon's, except that it was a little wider and had a back porch.  Vince wasn't an only child, though, so his house had always looked a lot more crowded than hers.  In fact, Don's best friend had three sisters and a brother.  Of course, Vince had never described his brother or sisters as anything but annoying and in the way, so unlike Sharon, Don certainly wasn't expecting Vince to be the first one to the front door when he started knocking.

The door opened almost immediately after Don made his first knock, and sure enough, the person on the other side was Celia; one of Vince's sisters.  She was older than Vince; tall and slim with long, blond hair, and since she'd seen Don a number of times before, she immediately realized who he'd come to talk with.

"Vince!" Celia exclaimed, only a second after she'd opened the door, "There's a friend of yours here!"

Soon, Vince appeared in the large, wooden doorway, grabbing it by the edge and looking irritated with his sister.  Only a moment after that, he seemed to have shooed her away somehow, and was stepping outside, closing the door behind him.

"What's up?" Vince asked, looking a little suspicious as he stepped outside, and clearly expecting another of his wonderful debates with Don to kick off.  In that instance, though, he was destined to be disappointed.

"Vince..." Don said sadly, not looking him in the eyes at first, "I'm leaving tonight."

For a moment, Vince looked unsure that he'd heard that right.

"Leaving?  Leaving what?  You don't mean you're going away?"

Don just nodded, causing a worried look to spread across his best friend's face.  In just a moment, Vince was frowning deeply, looking frustrated as he tapped his left foot up and down on the ground; a nervous habit that Don had learned to notice whenever he'd scored a significant point in one of their debates.

"Tonight..." Vince muttered, looking at the ground for a moment.  When he looked back up at Don's face, however, he was obviously preparing to launch a fresh debate on the subject, and Don had mixed feelings about that.

"Why tonight?" Vince asked, "Why does it have to be now?"

"Because I'm ready." Don explained, "By tonight, I'll have everything I need to start traveling.  The last thing will be to buy some provisions, say good-bye to my friends, leave a note to my dad, and..."

Vince, however, wasn't finished.

"If you wanted to, you could put off leaving for another few days, until the green season starts.  That'd be a better time to travel, because it won't be as cold, and..."

"I can't put it off, Vince.  If I put it off until the end of the frost season, I'll wind up putting it off forever."

"Really?  You don't have any self control at all?"

By that point, however, Don knew what was going on between the two of them and decided that there was no point in continuing the argument.

"We're arguing again." Don noticed aloud, though he was really more amused than saddened by that realization, "Why?  Do you really think you can convince me to stay?"

Soon, the look on Vince's face changed again, turning to surprise an a little embarrassment, but after a few seconds of trying to regain his composure, he just shrugged sheepishly.  A few moments later, when he actually replied to Don's last question, he sounded a lot less sure of himself.

"No.  I guess not." he admitted, "I mean, I know you well enough.  I know you've always wanted to leave, no matter what else you were trying to do.  I can't talk you out of that.  Maybe I'm just trying to squeeze one last argument in before you go.  I'll miss seeing you around town, but honestly, I think the arguments are what I'll miss the most.  They were probably the biggest part of our friendship, after all."

Don hated to admit it, but Vince was probably right about that.  As much as he liked to think of the two of them as friends, they'd barely had even one meeting in their lives when they hadn't gotten into some kind of argument or debate.  It was hard to imagine being friends with Vince without being able to match wits with him.  It was really such a big part of their friendship that, to Don, it almost seemed like the very center of Vince's personality.  Without it, he just wouldn't have been the same guy.

"I don't know whether I'll miss the arguments or not." Don replied sadly, "Maybe the arguing was a big thing for us, but that's not what I want to do right now.  I guess what I really wanted was just to get the chance to say good-bye before I left."

Vince looked puzzled for a few seconds, as if he wasn't sure what Don was really trying to get at, but eventually, he looked away, plainly trying to disguise how hurt he really felt.  When he spoke again, he sounded a little angry, but his words didn't quite match up with the feelings he was trying to display.

"You can go ahead and say good-bye, but if you need somebody to argue with out there, don't come crawling back here.  If you come back for another argument, I want you to prove that you're a knight first.  I don't want to see you back here until you settle all these things that made you leave."

It was pretty obvious to Don that Vince had been trying to keep from sounding upset, although he certainly didn't sound very friendly either.  It seemed more like Vince was surprised by the sudden news, and feeling a sense of loss already, but was determined to be happy for his friend, and to support him indirectly in some way.  He definitely wasn't ready to wish the adventure-seeking boy good luck, but he didn't want to hold his friend back either.  When Don considered that, he realized that Vince really was his best friend, though he'd never admitted it out loud.

"Alright." Don said at last, "I promise.  When I come back here, I'll be ready to live in Troma for good, even after I become a knight."

Only a moment later, he'd left Vince's small yard, and his best friend stayed behind; watching sadly, until Don had turned a corner and disappeared behind some of Troma's smaller buildings.



The last place that Don had decided to stop at was Neil's house.  He wasn't sure how the small boy was going to react to the news either, in spite of how long they'd known each other, but he knew that he still had to tell Neil what he had planned.  Of course, the young boy might react to the news any number of ways.  Don could easily have imagined Neil reacting with disappointment and a sense of loss, just like Sharon or Vince had at first, but on the other hand, it was also possible that he might find Don's choice inspiring. Still, there was no way to be sure how the young boy would take the news until Don actually told him.

Neil's house had a fairly large deck out front with plenty of space inside, but that was because his parents had originally lived there with their extended family.  There were quite a number of extra rooms in the place that Neil's family never used, and didn't even bother trying to clean or maintain.

When most of the members of his extended family had decided to leave that house and move into houses of their own, Neil and his mother, father and sister had been the only people left in that large building.  They'd thought of moving as well, but Neil's mother didn't even like to consider it.  After all, the house had been lived in by her father, and his father as well, and it had some history that she preferred to keep intact.  That was the reason why, as awkward as it was, a simple family of four had wound up with a house that big.

Don had to knock a few times over the course of about five minutes before anyone in the house heard him, and the first one to the door was Neil's father.  He was a tall man with a thick, dark beard, and he was dressed in basic, casual work clothes, which did nothing to disguise the shape of his nicely-built arm muscles.  To Don, that said that Neil's father had been just about to go out into the fields for work that day.

"Don?" the older man asked, looking surprised, "You're here to talk to Neil, right?"

He nodded briefly in reply, and in a moment, the tall man moved into the house, calling for Neil to come to the door.  Don, however, didn't leave the doorstep until the small boy had arrived, looking pretty pleased to see him, but also a little worried, for some reason.

"Don?" Neil asked, as curious as ever, "What's up?  Did you want to use the dummy again?"

It was a hard question to answer, because Don knew that Neil wouldn't enjoy hearing the truth about the dummy he'd built, or the sword he'd spent so long carving, so for the time being, he decided that it would probably be better if he tried to blunt the facts just a little, for the purpose of being kind and sparing the younger boy's feelings.

"Actually, Neil..." Don said, "I don't think I'm going to be using that dummy again.  Sorry."

Neil looked a little crestfallen when he heard that, so Don tried to mend his feelings by saying "I mean, it was really well-designed, but I'm not going to be around much after tonight."

For a moment, Neil's expression changed again, forming into a look of simple puzzlement, and that, Don decided, was as good a time as any to spring the big news on him.

"Neil..." Don said with more than a little sadness and hesitation in his voice, "I'm gonna leave town tonight to try to become a knight.  I couldn't bring the dummy with me, though.  I just wouldn't be able to carry it.  Sorry.  It feels a little like all your work on that dummy went to waste."

While Don had been talking, a bewildered look had started to spread across Neil's face, but in the end, he seemed to have fully absorbed what he'd just been told, and for some reason, was starting to smile in what looked like relief.

"Thank God." Neil said as his smile grew wider, "I was so worried."

At that point, it was Don's turn to look puzzled.  He didn't know why Neil was looking so much happier and more relieved.  There were many possible explanations, and Don just couldn't navigate through them all.  He'd enjoyed playing games with Neil in his free time for years, but the younger boy's feelings were like a maze; so complicated and numerous that it was impossible to keep track of them.

"Three months ago, when you started work at the orchard, I was afraid that Troma'd beaten you.  I was scared that you'd finally given up on your dream, but you never gave up, did you?" Neil asked in wonder and delight, as he stared at Don; his whole face beaming with admiration.

That question, however, was all that Don needed to hear before he realized the truth about how the younger boy really felt.  Neil had seen Don's ambition and daring attitude as heroic character traits, and in a sense, he'd always been something of a hero-worshiper.  When he'd heard that Don had apprenticed himself in an orchard, he must have thought, at first, that he'd had plans to take an job in food-growing after all.

In Neil's eyes, if Don had done that, then it would have meant that the peaceful lifestyle of the rest of the town had finally broken his will, forcing him to live his life their way, instead of the way that he'd always dreamed.  If that had happened, then the traits that Neil had admired in Don would have vanished, robbing him of his hero.  To the younger boy, even if Don had to leave town, it was a relief that he hadn't given up on his dream, because that meant that Neil's hero was still out there somewhere; opposed, but still undefeated.  It was, Don realized, very flattering to be thought about that way.

"I wanted to have the chance to say good-bye one last time before I leave." Don concluded at last, a smile spreading across his own face, when he realized how well his last friend had taken the news, "I won't forget about you, or any of my other friends."

"I know." Neil replied, still smiling as he spoke, "You could never do that, no matter what.  I won't forget you either, even if you're gone for years."

After that, there was a brief good-bye between the two of them, but it was mainly a formality.  They'd each already said what they'd needed to say, and in just a moment, Don was headed home to retrieve his money and start buying provisions.