{"id":3184,"date":"2017-03-31T00:00:56","date_gmt":"2017-03-31T04:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3184"},"modified":"2017-03-30T18:03:06","modified_gmt":"2017-03-30T22:03:06","slug":"seven-04-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/?p=3184","title":{"rendered":"Seven – 04"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Thom’s point of view.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Seamus did not disappoint him, though he stayed quiet for a few seconds more, just staring at the spot.<\/p>\n

\u201cI led them for centuries,\u201d he said slowly, as if the weight of the years and the memories had settled on his shoulders again, pressing him down with their magnitude. \u201cThey became my family. I knew them as well\u2014better\u2014than I knew myself. The past few weeks\u2014hell, the past few days<\/em>\u2014something has started to feel off, to feel wrong. I don\u2019t know what it is. I have no explanations. It\u2019s just a gut feeling, one I can\u2019t shake.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you think<\/em> it is?\u201d Thom asked.<\/p>\n

Seamus considered the question, still not turning away from the broken ground beyond the gates and the walls. \u201cI don\u2019t know. Once upon a time, I would have chalked it up to paranoia, but now I\u2019m not sure. I\u2019m not sure of anything anymore, to be honest. I wish I was.\u201d He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, exhaling a heavy sigh. \u201cI begin to wonder, though, if someone has started to pull on their strings\u2014it\u2019s not impossible. The old ways are breaking down. We\u2014the Hunt, I mean\u2014the Hunt used to be something that stood aloof from the wars even as we rode into them. We were a force of nature, a thing not to be trifled with. If we came, they would quake in fear.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey?\u201d<\/p>\n

A weak, rueful smile curved Seamus\u2019s lips and he glanced back over his shoulder toward Thom. There was regret in that smile, regret mingling with a sort of sad nostalgia and longing. \u201cEveryone. The Otherlanders. We would ride into their wars on nobody\u2019s side but our own, taking who and what we wanted because we wanted them, because we could. They feared us for that, hated us for that, but they could never quite touch us, never quite manipulate the Hunt in the ways they hoped to. Even selling me to them, that didn\u2019t have the outcome that my wife\u2019s father had hoped. He had hoped for some allegiance, some loyalty, considering the magnitude of the boon he\u2019d gifted them.\u201d<\/p>\n

His smile turned into something almost wicked. \u201cInstead, he got what he deserved.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is from Thom’s point of view.] Seamus did not disappoint him, though he stayed quiet for a few seconds more, just staring at the spot. \u201cI led them for centuries,\u201d he said slowly, as if the weight of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[240,248,14],"tags":[150,171,170,149,148,159,168,147,165,158,146,195],"class_list":["post-3184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-6","category-chapter-07-book-6","category-story","tag-awakenings","tag-fantasy","tag-fiction","tag-original-fiction","tag-post-apocalyptic","tag-seamus-vaughan","tag-serial","tag-serial-fiction","tag-story","tag-thom-ambrose","tag-web-fiction","tag-wild-hunt"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EBlN-Pm","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3185,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3184\/revisions\/3185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/awakenings.embklitzke.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}