Safe Journey, Brother

A personal piece for a novel I'm writing in my free time. 

Every year a Paragon of Sentinel society leaves for Ivorton as an ambassador for their people. They are accompanied to the edge of the settlement by two guards who wish them a safe journey. The same guards return every day to the place where they bid their brother or sister farewell and offer up words of encouragement and fortune. The wind is said to carry these prayers down from the mountains and offer protection on the long and lonely road that lies ahead of them.

Similar to the tradition of crossing the bridges at Forrenford, this gesture is seen as a right of passage, as well as a necessary requirement to anyone who would one day seek to be named a Paragon themselves.

In years past, family members would be the ones to fulfil this duty. If the Paragon returned with outcasts from the city, the responsibility of care would also fall to them. With fewer and fewer Mokai families willing to adhere to the somewhat monastic life of the Sentinels, however, the settlement guards are often nominated to carry on the tradition instead.