Baseplate at 16:54, 15 September 2026

2026-09-15T16:54:20Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:54, 15 September 2026
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	{{News Header\|Type=Character News\|RealDate=2026-08-07\|Author=Kaelurun Voltkr}}		{{News Header\|Type=Character News\|RealDate=2026-09-07\|Author=Kaelurun Voltkr}}

	Zak didn't look up when the Kaelurun let himself in through the gap in the fence he never bothered fixing he had heard the footsteps a good while before that slower than usual and was dragging slightly and Zak had already pulled a second stool over to the sugar cane rows without being asked.		Zak didn't look up when the Kaelurun let himself in through the gap in the fence he never bothered fixing he had heard the footsteps a good while before that slower than usual and was dragging slightly and Zak had already pulled a second stool over to the sugar cane rows without being asked.

Baseplate at 16:57, 7 September 2026

2026-09-07T16:57:06Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:57, 7 September 2026
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			{{News Header\|Type=Character News\|RealDate=2026-08-07\|Author=Kaelurun Voltkr}}

	Zak didn't look up when the Kaelurun let himself in through the gap in the fence he never bothered fixing he had heard the footsteps a good while before that slower than usual and was dragging slightly and Zak had already pulled a second stool over to the sugar cane rows without being asked.		Zak didn't look up when the Kaelurun let himself in through the gap in the fence he never bothered fixing he had heard the footsteps a good while before that slower than usual and was dragging slightly and Zak had already pulled a second stool over to the sugar cane rows without being asked.

Baseplate: Baseplate moved page Kaelurun Voltkr/ Dirt On His Boots to Kaelurun Voltkr/Dirt On His Boots

2026-09-07T16:56:33Z

Baseplate moved page Kaelurun Voltkr/ Dirt On His Boots to Kaelurun Voltkr/Dirt On His Boots

← Older revision	Revision as of 16:56, 7 September 2026
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Clorey: Created page with "Zak didn't look up when the Kaelurun let himself in through the gap in the fence he never bothered fixing he had heard the footsteps a good while before that slower than usual and was dragging slightly and Zak had already pulled a second stool over to the sugar cane rows without being asked. "You look terrible" Zak said "Thank you" Kaelurun lowered himself onto the stool. "it is good to see you too." Zak went back to tying off a stake that had been leaning wrong for a..."

2026-09-07T12:58:33Z

Created page with "Zak didn't look up when the Kaelurun let himself in through the gap in the fence he never bothered fixing he had heard the footsteps a good while before that slower than usual and was dragging slightly and Zak had already pulled a second stool over to the sugar cane rows without being asked. "You look terrible" Zak said "Thank you" Kaelurun lowered himself onto the stool. "it is good to see you too." Zak went back to tying off a stake that had been leaning wrong for a..."

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Zak didn't look up when the Kaelurun let himself in through the gap in the fence he never bothered fixing he had heard the footsteps a good while before that slower than usual and was dragging slightly and Zak had already pulled a second stool over to the sugar cane rows without being asked.

"You look terrible" Zak said

"Thank you" Kaelurun lowered himself onto the stool. "it is good to see you too."

Zak went back to tying off a stake that had been leaning wrong for a week. " was it the council again?"

"No something else this time my hunters brought in two strangers up north past the mangroves. A cartographer and " Kaelurun stopped and then started again. "A queen. An actual queen. Not tribal, not chief of a village queen. Ruler of an entire nation none of us have ever heard of and was sitting tied to a pole in the middle of my camp because a hunting party mistook her for a threat."

"You untie her?"

"Of course I did." Kaelurun's voice had an edge to it that wasn't aimed at Zak. "I sat with them half the night. Talked, traded stories, gave the man a helmet before he left. It should have been simple. It should have felt like every other diplomatic mess I've talked my way through."

"But." Kaelurun stared at the rows of sugar cane "She barely spoke all night Just sat there and when she finally did say something it was one line about the mangroves and it landed like it meant something it was like she'd already decided what kind of place this was and what kind of person I was and it was all without needing to ask a single question." He laughed "Percival asked me a hundred questions it was genuine ones and somehow it was the one who said almost nothing that I haven't stopped thinking about since."

Zak set the hoe down finally giving him his full attention. "Kael."

"I keep telling myself I'm the Hand of Driisar that the tribes chose me, that I earned this, that it means something." Kaelurun's hands had curled into fists on his knees "And then I sit across a fire from a woman who is actually something she was chosen, anointed or whatever word her people use for it and some part of me needed her to see that I mattered too. Like her opinion of me carried more weight than four years of Council votes ever did" He shook his head ."That's not that's not a Leader thinking. That's a kobold who still isn't sure he belongs in the title."

The wind moved through the Sugar cane rows. Zak let the silence sit longer than usual before he spoke.

"You know what she thinks of you changes nothing about what you've actually done."

"I know that." Kaelurun's voice was quieter now "Knowing it and feeling it haven't been the same thing in a long time."

Zak reached over and pressed the Sugar Cane into Kaelurun's hands the way he always did. "Straighten that."

Kaelurun looked at it then at Zak something in his face loosening just slightly at the familiar undemanding weight of the request. "I don't think a crooked bean stake fixes an identity crisis, Zak."

"No." Zak went back to his own row. "But it'll stop your hands shaking long enough to say the rest of it out loud go on I'm listening."

And slowly hands working at the dirt instead of a treaty or a spear Kaelurun did.

He talked for longer than he meant to about the queen's stillness about the hollow feeling of needing a stranger's approval more than his own Council's and about how four years of being trusted hadn't managed to quiet his mind, Zak was quiet listening to every word rarely saying anything like he always did

By the time he'd talked himself dry and the sun had moved well past where it'd been when he arrived something in his chest had loosened that hadn't loosened in months.

"You know what the strangest part is" Kaelurun said eventually "I spent one night with them and I still don't know anything real about where they came from Koperdam, Kedet names on a map I've never walked."

"So walk it"

Kaelurun looked up "It's not that simple."

"It's exactly that simple you've spent four years fixing everything that comes to your door instead of the thing that's actually bothering you." Zak shrugged unbothered as ever. "Go see it yourself stop wondering what a woman who said six words to you thinks and go find out what is actually out there"

he let that information sit for a while and by the time he stood to leave something had settled behind his eyes that hadn't been there when he arrived not resolution but direction which was usually enough to get him moving.

He left the farm that evening already composing the letter in his head a formal expedition north past the mangroves and past the border his hunters had found Percival and Semet crossing Not a diplomat sent in his name not a scout report he'd read second hand by firelight it was himself, in person and enough of the Covenant's weight behind him that it couldn't be dismissed as one Hand's private curiosity. He would bring Council members who could speak for the tribes if trade or treaty came of it. A few of the Covenants sharpest hunters in case the road north was less friendly than the fire had been and perhaps even someone versed enough in common to make sense of whatever a "Queen of Kedet" actually meant to a people none of them had ever studied.

Whatever unease had driven him to Zak's farm that day he intended to answer it properly this time not by sitting with the question but by walking toward it.
[[Category:Kaelurun Voltkr]]
[[Category:Character News]]
[[Category:Era Nova, Year 3]]

Kaelurun Voltkr/Dirt On His Boots - Revision history

Baseplate at 16:54, 15 September 2026

Baseplate at 16:57, 7 September 2026

Baseplate: Baseplate moved page Kaelurun Voltkr/ Dirt On His Boots to Kaelurun Voltkr/Dirt On His Boots