Keelath went out to look for the coursers the next afternoon. He wasn’t sure why, for he hadn’t gone to see them since Mirium had left. When he reached their meadow, they were nowhere to be found.
Instead he sat and brooded, running over in his head ways to get more money. His father had gone over the ledgers with him that morning, demonstrating to him in no uncertain terms that they could not afford the full tribute. Despite this, Keelath was taken aback at his father’s charity. Would he be angry when he learned Mirium’s father was not some hero from the Troll Wars, but an unimportant commoner?
“Military service pays well,” his father had said at last. “It is what got us this land, after all. It’s not what I would have wanted for you, for it is dirty work, too full of violence and pain for what I would wish on my sons. It would be a fitting way of making up the last of the tribute, however, and you are strong.”
Keelath was considering the option again now. Though the wars had tapered off into simply going after the odd troll bandit in the mountains, service would never be fully without danger. It was also take him away from Mirium, as the soldiers of Quel’Thalas were often deployed for years at a time.
He considered other paths: manual labor, one of the crafts, even joining another theater troupe like Miri’s. None of them paid so well.
As the sun slanted down over the trees, signaling the approach of nightfall, Keelath stood. He knew what he had to do, and he went to see his father, to ask after how he could take out a loan from the brokers in Silvermoon, to be repaid at a later date through his service to king’s armies.