It had been far to long since the scope of this city had touched her vision. Almost four years, was Elsie’s rough estimate. Lawley seemed as though it had changed. However, it hadn’t changed. It was her mind playing tricks on her. She had occasionally dreamed of it, and dreams had that funny way of changing everything. The travelling had not been the best Elsie had ever trekked, but it was something. Without even thinking about it, she had pretty much walked half the way until an elderly woman with a cart and nag of a horse had passed and offered a lift. Elsie had taken it up, however she had never been one for charity so in exchange for the ride she fixed the woman’s tattered piles of clothing.

Now, that she had returned to Lawley, the reasons for her leaving had become clear. There was not much money she could earn here now. The town was far over chaotic, and everyone seemed anxious. Perhaps it was the loss of men. Women had no idea of running everything half the time, so it must have come as a big shock when conscription had hit the towns. She had dressed in her somewhat best gown. It was a dark green lace-up. She had managed to keep it in good condition over the time. She walked along the streets, it was impossible to shake away every memory that came to mind, and for awhile she allowed herself to follow memories lane.

It wasn’t the most pleasant day to be wandering the streets. It was slightly depressing. Dark clouds were forming in the sky to the east, warning that a rain storm was on its way. Rain was good to have for sure, but not while one was travelling. Mud had never been a good thing. Getting stuck in it was worse. It sticks, and when it dries it crumbles and become very uncomfortable. Especially for the person cleaning the items that have the mud on them. Bess would know. A lot of people would. Well most of the second class citizens would. The first class, the royals with their noses you could ski off barely ever witnessed the stuff that commoners had to go through. Yet, they pushed them harder and harder. How did they expect local produce to keep up these days with all the men conscripted and sent off to war? Women were barely able to lift an axe let alone plough fields. What about the children? What about everything else that were a woman’s duty? Surely, it was enough to drive people into a revolt. A mutiny!

It was not hard to locate the house she had previously lived in. That street had not changed much. It still seemed pretty ‘how you going?’. Her parents had job, but their income had never been enough to keep their family stable. It had been pretty much ‘do it yourself’ from the word go. She had asked a few citizens on the street whether they knew of Brian Farraday and where she might find him. Of course it had led her here. Back to the place where it had all started.

She stopped at the door and paused for a moment, as the rain slowly began to beat down upon the town. The noise shielding out every other noise from the passing streets. The hood over Elsie’s head served as protection from the rain. Her hand trembled as she reached to knock on the cold wooden door. It had been some time, and she was nervous.

Very nervous. And, she did not know why. Brian was her brother. She had been fairly close to him. However, time changed people. From what she had heard, her brother intended to work in a rebellion against authority. It had sounded absurd to her. Being the youngest, she didn’t really have it in her to talk him out of it. But she still had some fire, and she wanted to know his motivations. It had become clear that she did not know her own family all to well. Now was the time she was ready to make amends, and try to bring it all back together. But, she knew that may be impossible. She hadn’t heard from her parents in sometime. It was possible they were dead. That hurt. Why did she even think such things?

She reached up and her hand knocked on the door. A few loud thumps, and then she withdrew it back into the warm depths of her cloak. She pulled back her hood, so it was no longer masking her appearance. She hoped someone was there, she didn’t exactly like the idea of sitting in the rain and waiting. Her eyes fumbled over the streets, as she waited for someone to answer. This was the place, she was once able to call home. Now she had no idea where her home was.

Rain drummed at the roof, but rain had never kept him from work in the fields before. Now that his hand was healed, the bandages needless (though the stumps of his fingers still made him queasy), he'd even gone up to rethatch some of the hut against the drizzle. Later tonight, he'd meet all of his coconspirators in the Towers house, and they'd see...

He'd just lain down on his bed and shut his eyes when he heard a knock at the door. For a moment, his lips moving silently over letters he'd memorized after Elena's teaching, he didn't answer. Then he slid upright and sidled cautiously toward the entry. It wasn't likely that Lawley's men were here to come and arrest him; it wasn't likely Elena was out in the rain. More probably it was Cael or John, or someone else with news from the front or news from the manor. When would the damn Lawley boy be off to war? That was the real question.

When he slid open the door, met with a sheet of falling rain and the blurred, sideways view of his patch of land, he was very surprised to see his little sister.

"Elsie!" She was out in the rain, and protective instinct took over; he pulled her in by one arm and fastened the door tightly behind her. She looked, thank God, well; not starved or sickly. "What are you doing here? This ain't the place to be--you should've stayed at the garrisons--" He'd wanted her to stay so badly he hadn't even tried to send word when their parents had died. "--it's more dangerous here--has something happened? What's the matter?" All through his patter he was helping her take off her cloak, trying to hide his maimed hand, and glancing around the room to see if he had something for her to eat.

She wasn’t half surprised to see Brian half asleep, but shocked with her arrival. She knew he was a hard worker and needed sleep, therefore she sincerely hoped she hadn’t deprived him of it. She hadn’t sent a message ahead to alert him or allow him the knowledge of her visit, even though she probably should have. But, if she had he would have tried to keep her back at the Garrison. He’d probably claim that it was not safe for her here, but it wasn’t safe anywhere.

Was it?

Not while this whole war was going on, nor while her brother was calling on a rebellion. She knew he had reasons, some Conn perhaps didn’t convey to her. But she hadn’t liked the idea of Brian endangering his life any further, and she was here to darn well try and fix any problem she could. Even if that meant hanging around, and making sure he was alright. She may be the youngest, the most fragile out of the three siblings, but she was still stubborn.

She allowed Brian to pull her in from the rain quickly, and was rather relived at not standing beneath the drizzle any further. She shrugged the cloak off without any problems, glad to be free of it for sometime. At first, she ignored his question and took a step to the side to allow him room.

But she was not ignorant. Well, tried not to be. So, she turned to look at him and answered accordingly, “Well, I came for a visit,” she sighed and allowed him the knowledge of a slightly stubborn look, “--and don’t try to tell me it isn’t safe here. It isn’t safe anywhere at the moment. The garrison is full of men ragging for women.”

She took a deep breath and looked around, “Where is ma?” she looked back at him with slight confusion. It didn’t seem like anyone else lived here bar Brian. So, what she had gathered on the way here must be true. Her parents were no longer alive. She hadn’t been overly close to her parents, but some sort of communication granting her the knowledge of their passing may have been nice, even a visit. But there were always reasons and she’d allow Brian to explain why he hadn't told her that they had died. But, then again Conn hadn't mentioned it either. Was their something she was still missing?

It felt like there was.

"They died," Brian said stiffly. He looked away. "Was a plague, two winters ago..."

That wasn't the true story, of course. But he'd spare her the monstrous details of their father's hanging, and what the villagers had done after. It was something he refused to believe could lie in the true souls of his fellow-men. It was an aberration. He had to believe that most of what he'd lived through was some sort of aberration, some soul-sickness, because even the extremes of starvation and poverty and fear could not create evil--

Could they?

"I'm sorry." He put one arm around his sister's shoulders, a little awkward. She felt unfamiliar. She was older, taller, her hair longer, the planes and angles of her face very similar to Ma's, at least, the way they'd been once. "I wish there were graves, but--" Brian hated to lie. Hated it. But there was nothing else he could do, and it was kinder anyway. Sometimes the things that happened in a hard winter were best forgot, shed like snow. That's how any of the Lawley serfs kept living. "Plague--they had to burn the bodies--"

He turned his head and muffled his voice, pulling Elsie tightly against himself, hating himself more than he ever had. "It will be dangerous here," he said, tears starting in the corners of his eyes and a hint of a growl in his voice. "But I'm glad you're back."

They died.

There was the conformation she had needed. She had expected it to settle every other mind wandering problem she had, but it just didn’t. The thought of her parents no longer being here was something her mind had crossed many times, but the sheer reality of it she had not expected. With Brian validating what she had suspected, how she would react didn‘t come to easy. Truth was, she had never been as close to her parents as she was to her brother. Still there passing felt like someone had torn a limb from her body and she was forced to live on.

She felt his arm reach around her shoulder, in a way comforting both of them. The stiffness in his voice alerted her to the fact that it was not easy for him to tell her this. Possibly being why he had not told her earlier. Like time had changed the town, just that little bit, her brother too had changed. They had been at similar heights the last time they were in company with one another but he had, had a growth spurt. He was now taller then she was, and had definitely filed out over the few years they had been distant from one another.

Her body shuddered as she tried to hold back tears. She did not want her brother to see her weakness. She’d always been a strong little girl, who could get by. She’d barely shed a tear when children from more wealthier families picked on her, but she had always had one of her brothers there by her side. Moving away had been hard for her, but she had grown up.

The plague was a dreadful thing. She’d heard stories about it. It was a ghastly disease and no survivors had been heard of. Her parents had been healthy in the way of activity. She had learned that this infection did not pick on the weak, the injured or the old like some others but it harassed everyone and no-one could find a cure. She bit her lips close together and closed her eyes. She wrapped her arms around her brother sensing the emotions were not only flooding out of her. As much as she tried, tears did taste her cheeks and finally burst away from her eyes.

For a moment she was silent. There were no graves to visit. Darn that cursed illness. Damn it to the very depths of hell. Still, she had her brothers and she was glad for it. She no longer shuddered, but tears still fell. Silent crying was a terrible thing, but she was prone to it. When she learned that her brother was happy to have her back, she managed to look up at him with a smile, “I am glad to be back. I missed having a family.”

"You, and me, and Conn..." His voice faltered when he named the last member of their family. Conn. He'd never known what to think of him. Sometime-protector, brother, killer. He'd killed both Botolphs, and for a minute Brian wanted to share that, but he just shook his head at the thought. "He came back. Almost ten years..."

He led Elsie into the room and offered her a seat at the low table. He hadn't had much time to prepare food lately, so it was the usual cabbage stew--but Elena had brought another meat pie, so he took that out of the cupboard and set it on the table. By now, of course, his sister couldn't have failed to notice the injury to his hand, so he held it up and smiled at her over the table of food.

"Eckhard Botolph wasn't too happy to catch me stealing a loaf," he explained. "But I always said seven was my lucky number." Trying to make light of it, he set to cutting the pie into two portions. "And it is, because now I've started to get some reading, even. And Botolph's dead." He took a hasty bite of food to keep himself from adding who'd killed him. "Jack Tiernay's the steward now, but... we've plans for that..."

Brian, Conn and Elsie. That was all that was left of their family. No longer was there the five of them that consisted of their Ma and Pa, now it was just the three of them. It was sad to think they had lost two members of their family already and they were the only ones left. But, they had always been without their mother and father in one way or another. Even now it felt like they were still alive- for so long they had been ghosts to the family during the years Elsie had lived beneath the roof, that is seemed they were still there, “One big happy family,” she muttered. But, she knew you it was from that. They were not a big family and they certainly didn’t seem happy. Conn had only lately turned up, she had only just returned to Lawley and Brian had suffered beyond words. It was not happy. As much as they all tried to put on happy faces, there were still hidden emotions.

She sat down on the chair Brian had offered her. Her eyes ran around the room- well it wasn’t as tidy as she had left it. But times had been tough and her arrival had been unexpected. To be frank, mess barely bothered her as long as she could clean it up. She had been put into such a routine back at the garrison, that cleaning was like second nature to her.

As her eyes ran around the room, and caught Brian by the cupboard she noticed something. His hand. He was missing fingers. It was hard to keep her eyes from it. She was still confused she hadn’t left him without fingers- what happened? How? When? Who? He must have noticed her intent look because he held it up and told her without her having to question him. She liked that, she would hate to be rude and ask. But he was her brother. She had every right to ask who cut his fingers off- whether it be by his own sheer dumb luck or some futile person’s doing. Her lips parted almost in pity as she was about to ask his forgiveness for not being able to prevent it. But that would be stupid. She’d make an even fool of herself no worries.

So, her dear brother had taken to stealing. The consequences could be brash- and everyone knew it depended upon their master’s mood, in how they would deal with it. But cutting fingers off? That was plain lousy. It was depressing, to know that her brother had gone to all that trouble and lost his fingers for something to eat. If he had told her he was short of money, she would have sent some of her wages down. She’d do anything for him. She could always get by, she had her ways. However, some good seemed to have come from the situation. Her brother was reading. That was great. Of course being in a lower class family they had never been given the chance to learn such things- for him, and in Elsie’s eyes that was a great achievement, “That is excellent,” she smiled, “Not about your hand though. You should have called on me- I had money to spare.”

Why hadn’t Conn told her anything? She would box his ears in next time she was privileged to see her phantom brother. He’d better watch his back. Jack Tiernay, oh yes. She remembered that creature. He’d made a mockery of her in public quite a few times. He was quite a bully-well that was what she could remember him being, but he could have changed. Time changed people. Elsie had witnessed that quite often.

“Jack Tiernay, ay?” she raised an eyebrow, “… I’ve heard about this revolution your organising,” she stood up and walked over to him and kneeled before him. Her voice and eyes filled with a sort of concern that bit into the heart of even the toughest soldier there was “..I…I.. I just don’t think it is a good idea.”