Chapter 5: Getting It

"Would anyone else like to speak today?" The question was spoken by Priestess, but Courier could see Seer look at her. Why? Her eyes narrowed as they met Seer's, and then Seer's drifted, settling on their newest attendee. She hesitated, but then caught Seer's eyes again as they returned to her. "Anyone?"

Courier licked her lips and raised her hand, "Y-yes. I think I should go."

Priestess had calmed herself, dropping into a state where she could listen to the horrors without cracking again. Her voice was nearly preternaturally calm, "Of course."

With a sigh, Courier rose to her feet. "As you know, I am Courier. I bring messages from town to town, or to outposts, or between kingdoms." A series of nods, simple acknowledgements, swept the circle and she nodded to herself in the awkwardness, "With the return of the Demon Lord, the King has needed more and more couriers. At first, it wasn't so unusual. I would go to different communities, farming villages, bring word of new orders and laws and decrees. But things have been changing."

She shifted, almost swaying back and forth on her feet, "I know the King has moved troops to the capital to guard it, and the capital is under threat, but the settlements… it's getting bad. Without the trained soldiers, the goblins are killing people. Some farming villages have set up their own defenses. Some didn't do it in time." She swallowed the rancid taste in her mouth, "I've tried to deliver messages, only to find no one to deliver them to. Either the farmers ran back to the city or were killed in their homes. I've seen untilled land, fields of grain rot with no one to gather them."

She squeezed her hands into fists, "And nobody understands. Nobody gets it. These goblins are worse for the peasants than a plague. I've seen a village that came under attack. The goblins, what they did to those people. They killed the defenders, they butchered them, and then they went house to house. And I couldn't have done anything. I was alone, I was just bringing them a message, and I couldn't, I couldn't look away. I was just coming over a hill and I saw it happening, and I saw some people trying to flee, women and children. And," Her voice hitched, tears streaming from her eyes. A hand came to rest against her back, and she collapsed into her chair.

"People don't get it. They don't see it. They don't think about the small villages that stop sending supplies. They don't see what happens to people."

People don't get it. Courier's words repeat in Bard's head. People don't get it. He didn't get it. At least, he hadn't, not until… he closed his eyes and placed his head in his hands, but it did nothing to block the images, the noises, the whispers from the farm.

A gentle hand was placed on his back and he jumped, hands falling away from his eyes. The others were looking at him, but not unkindly. He'd seen those sorts of eyes recently; when he trailed off during a song.

"It's okay." Cleric's voice was soft and soothing, "They aren't here." She offered him a sympathetic smile.

He waited to hear one of them say something to counter that. If he weren't the one suffering, he may have been the one to make that jest, and it soured him on his own sense of humor. "I'm fine." He lied, and he could see that not a single one of them was buying it.

"I just…" He bowed his head, "I agree."

"Perhaps…" Seer began, but was interrupted when someone else cleared their throat. He looked up and found Priestess giving Seer a not quite bland look for a second longer than was comfortable. Then she turned to face him, her face nearly expressionless.

"Would you be willing to speak?"

Author's notes: That took longer to write than expected. I struggled with the ending for a while. I was originally going to have him remain silent until the second session, but it feels appropriate at this moment.