Private Where the Light Returns

In time, even a haunted place remembers how to live.

The mist was gone, and the dead long sent to sea, while those left behind endured. Because still, life marched ever on.

Laundry returned to the lines. Bread rose in clay-baked ovens again. Fisherfolk pushed boats from the docks each morning, checking their nets with hands that were remembering how.

The rhythms of life resumed, if not a little different.

People flinched at shadows that lingered too long. Lanterns burned in excess at doorways, in windows, even tied to posts that lined the street. All to chase away ghosts that weren’t there.

Children who had once played in the surf clung instead to their parents' sides. Smiles came slower. Laughter, when it arrived, carried the shape of caution. But every day that the sun rose and fueled the bright flare of the shroud crystal atop the lighthouse, was another day they saw less of the hunted wariness that haunted the people of Urbos.

It had been nearly two weeks since Farren had bound the shroudfiend, the knights having stayed to recover and to help rebuild what they could. Faramund had finally been stitched up, his fever broken a few nights prior. She and Faramund now bore their wounds with grit and a grim sort of grace, while Aarno remained ever steady, quietly helping where hands were needed. Now, it was just a matter of monitoring Faramund for infection, and making sure he didn’t push his body too hard as the wound closed. Not that the knight was particularly good at rest. But Davina had ways of making her displeasure known—

Just one more thing that kept the former Bell Keeper's hands full.

She and her husband, Rex, had been the ones to take the reins and plan the town’s restoration in the meantime. And perhaps it was Davina's sense of atonement, but she was often found brewing through the nights, her apothecary windows lit at all hours. Tinctures and tonics, salves and poultices, were passed to an endless sea of hands. Her guilt waning with each thank you.

The knights, meanwhile, had been offered an empty house to stay in, a modest home near the bluff, overlooking the sea. And Farren had been relieved when Faramund was finally well enough to be discharged from Davina’s close care at her apothecary. Not just because he was her comrade and was glad to see him finally on his own two feet, but for the purely selfish reason that it meant the house wasn’t just left to her and Aarno anymore.

Not that she was avoiding Aarno. Not really.

But something was growing between them ever since he carried her from the lighthouse, something alive and too large to name, and in the still moments, that quiet threatened to swallow her. Being alone with him overwhelmed her. Being alone at all overwhelmed her. She hadn’t begun to unpack why.

And she wasn’t sure she was ready to.

Not yet.

So she helped where she could. Hauled beams. Lifted crates. Rehung doors. Rethatched new roofs into shape with her teeth clenched and her heart thudding far too loud in her chest. It was easier that way. To work. To move. To not stop.

But eventually, she would have to.

Eventually, Davina would stop moving too.

Eventually, they would have to talk.

The kind of talk that only came in the settled aftermath when the worst had passed.

The kind of talk where they would have to stop circling each other and mend what was broken.

@Faramund @Aarno

As a young man he’d hated the sea. For what it meant by a glance — complete lack of entertainment for how there wasn’t really anything to look at in it. Nothing to discuss or consider, just the endless pounding of waves and the sickening billow of water. How the wind was always cold and tasted of salt, the spray leaving a sticky dusting on one’s hair and face no matter how far one stood on the cliffs. Suppose it was like the sky, just as boring, with the addition of a drowning hazard if one fancied seeing what was in it, examine as one would a forest or the firmament. Try its depth.

On the surface, there was just being alone in the deafening ambience, the stretching horizon. The great Water, the primary reflector, mirror. It’d caught him finally, here, at the worst of times. And he didn’t hate what he saw.

Stood broken, staring into the deep dark and it’s unsilence, having the thought that if he was to live anywhere after the monastery, it would be somewhere as this. If he was to build something larger for himself ever again.

His eye strayed the billowing cliffs as he passed through town, submerged on the idle experiment of picking a hypothetical spot. He’d gotten some ideas from the little house they’d been provided for staying at, but for his liking it was too close to the shore and very much crammed betwixt other dwellings. Caught in almost a little sinkhole, with earth rising on both sides and the windy side of the coast at its back. An old fisherman’s home by the make of it, one storey and an attic full of crates, the hooks on the windowless seaside walls meant for spreading the nets on. From the brief yard therein, a paved path led to a flight of rotten steps that probably once took directly to a pier below. He’d found no boat stored anywhere, not even a skeleton of one.

The house probably flooded occasionally, if it rained in a specific way. Or when the snows melted, making it an every spring occurrence. He’d circled the property one evening in a wanton whim, finding evidence of multiple different attempts at directing water away from the yard. Failures all, the lot too far doomed by the surrounding soil that was shallow and beneath it nothing but solid rock.

A deep dig, fill with gravel. Or raise the entire foundation to begin with, unless the dirt has— He hobbled the meager two steps up to the rickety porch, the portent of disappointment as he pushed the front door open.

“ Breakfast. “ He announced to the rooms in the morning gloom, passing through the brief vestibule into the kitchen and it’s fire where he’d set their coffee brewing before hiking out. To fetch cheese and half a coldsmoked salmon he’d won in an argument yesterday evening. He’d meant to laugh it off, but the man had been adamant to give something for the trouble and the dishonour of his assumption a random swordsman as him didn’t know his masonry.

“ Morning. “ His voice came quieter as he realized Syr Lóthlindor already at the table, appearing as a wraith in the pale glow of the square window. Falling to a more subdued step, an indoor pace, he approached to put down what he’d brought in a little woven basket. The faded green and verdant scent of seagrass on it’s fibers.

Would make the rooms taller too. See about an earthcellar—

“ Where’s Faramund? “

'Up to no good, I'd wager.' Faramund replied, peering from his cubbyhole like a gnome from the ground sans the pointy hat. 'What've you got there? Grub?' Breakfast, that's what Aarno had said. In a basket, no less. Very fancy! 'Let me guess: fish and seaweed, and salt.' Sitting up, the dawnling wheeled until his feet found floor, the bed he'd been sprawled out on keen to see the back of him.

The lice were sad to see him go, too, so much so that he could feel some of them crawling across his scalp. Filthy beggars.

I'll take a dunk later, he promised himself, setting aside the little wooden effigy he'd been whittling away at. The knife he kept close, pocketing it like one might a lucky charm or talisman, careful not to nick himself in the process.

A vicious wind rattled the windows in their frames as he strode towards the cabinets, a step ahead of Farren, who had yet to set the table in readiness for their morning meal. But then she hadn't been herself as of late. None of them had. And no wonder, thought the dawnling, nudging shoulders as he brushed on by, festering concern hidden behind a smile as empty as his eyes.

'Look alive, sister! Breakfast's ready, and Syr Latva ain't like to wait long, glutton that he is.' A slow smirk spread its way across his face. In this, at least, he was being honest. 'And you need to keep your strength up, if'n you still plan on visitin' dear sweet Davina later.'

Plates pattered upon the table as Faramund went about his work. His side still ached intermittently, reminding him of his own mortality, and the place pain held in it. For the first few days, he had been unable even to raise his arm above his head.

Time had healed him, but not by much. The house they had been given felt more like a cairn than it did a home, all stone and cold earth. The mist had retreated, sure, but that hadn't improved the scenery much. Urbos was a bad place, in every sense of the word. Why anyone would choose to live here, beside the fathomless sea, was beyond Faramund's comprehension. Most things were.

'Any news from the village, syr?' Drawing out a chair, Faramund sat himself down, willed his fellows to do the same. 'Any tidings from neighbouring sites?'

The weight of her exhaustion had been unexpected. Farren had been a Bell Keeper since she had first bonded with her wolf at age eight. And she had found and bound three more since. So she was no stranger to the tithe of shroud it took to work with spirits, nor to the responsibility of being their champion. But none of them had tried to consume her before. For none of them did she have to wrangle madness into a malleable shape, mold it so she could swallow its barbed duty.

It felt fitting that the shroudfiend had turned out to be a formidable foe— even if they hadn't ended up killing the damn thing. In the moment, she hadn't been able to completely undo the bindings between Davina's spirits and the Urbos. If Farren could even call them Davina's anymore. But her hope now was that, since she was able to untangle and rearrange the bindings so there was no corruption, she could take the time she needed to eventually unravel them all and return each spirit to its rightful home. That work, however, would have to wait until she could coalesce with her captain, Selene, about the next steps with her bell. It was no small thing to walk the world bound to a Shroudfiend.

Aarno's voice startled Farren from her brooding, apparently she hadn’t noticed him come in, or even Faramund curled up there, gnome-like and muttering about breakfast like the ghost of a salt-rubbed hermit. A sharp gust of wind groaned against the shutters as she blinked herself back into the moment.

Her tea had gone cold in her hands.

She stared at it for a moment—half full, forgotten, left to chill on the table while she’d sat there unraveling herself in thought. She set the cup down quietly, careful not to let it clink against the wood.

Then Faramund brushed past her as she relieved Aarno's basket with a feeble smile, his grin pretending not to watch her too closely. Faramund's words earned a dry look from her over one raised brow, but there was no heat behind it.

“I’m not the one skulking like a gremlin under the stairs,” she said, voice hoarse from the morning hush. “Keep poking, and I’ll make sure your stitches pull.”

She shifted her focus to Aarno, all too aware of him as she passed out items from the basket. The seagrass basket still held the sharp scent of tide-wet rope and sunlit docks. She began to unpack it without thinking, fingers brushing a waxy-wrapped wedge of cheese, then something soft at the bottom—jars. Glass jars, cool to the touch. Her brows lifted faintly. Jam. Several of them. She blinked. With the fish? Hm. Interesting.

A gift, maybe. Or maybe someone in the village was feeling generous now that they could taste their food again.

The absurdity of it made her throat tighten.

"No, no other sites that I know of. Aarno did mention he sent off a missive to the Monastery about our mission. Was that right, Syr Latva?"

As they began to eat, she remembered the glimpse of the little carving Faramund palmed, having caught the edge of his movement.

“Is that for Etan by the way?” she asked, with the careful brightness of someone trying too hard not to sound hollow. Trying to sound okay, so they’d stop watching her so closely.

“He’s been asking after you, I think Davina wanted to bring him over when she came to check your bandages one last time today.”

@Aarno @Faramund

A glutton.

“ Quite so. “ He responded humourlessly, merely glancing at Syr Faramund who’d appeared swinging as if summoned by the mere whiff of his name in the air. Such was the way with ghosts and beasts— and some tiny household spirits, known for their large feelings, larger mouths and vengeful humour. Suppose he had been plenty harsh with the man, in his time.

Dragging his bleeding arse across town with none so much gentleness as urgency tallied up to the rest. Giving room as Syr Faramund took charge of setting the table, Aarno shuffled on for one of the cabinets by the stove and yanked it open, looking for that bit of bread they’d left. Where the fuck—

“ Where’s the— “ Glanced within one of the spare baskets and found it. “ Nevermind. “ Crisis averted. Picked the whole thing up and closed the door, turning on heel for the table. The linenwrapped half of a loaf landed on it to the beat with Farren’s question, prompting him to bounce a look at her.

“ Yes, I did. “ Affirmed in a toss of a hand as he made to fetch the coffee pot from the stove. “ Informed that we’ll stay until business has properly been resolved and you two— “ He put weight on it, glancing past his shoulder. “ Have sufficiently recovered. For the road. “ Cups clinked as he hooked two upon the index of his free hand from the top of the cupboard. Keeping swift, he set them on the table before Syr Faramund and whatever spot he’d elected for himself.

“ Am glad to hear Syr Faramund at least is up on his regular humours again. How’s the pain? “

Farren’s cold tea he frowned at, then picked it up and went for the front door. Tossed it out, emptying her cup to the makeshift excuse of a ditch by the porch, and returned as if he’d never went anywhere.

“You could do worse than giving him a shadow that guards,” her voice made strange by the hush she spoke into it, settling next to Faramund with a wan smile. “He’ll need that, I think, if he should choose to pursue the Order, although I'm not sure Davina will like that very much, when the day comes.”

Farren watched the stiff way Faramund still moved through his torso— she herself was still sore in ways she hadn’t expected to be, deep down where the Shroud had dragged its claws. But there was comfort to be found in the simple rhythm of a shared morning, in the scrape of butter on bread and the chime of cups. Even if she felt like a frayed knot on the edge of it.

“I’ll take a cup, please.” Her hands craving a hot cup against her tight joints that were slow to unfurl in the dank sea air. And curious now that her mind was on knightly beginnings, she accepted her empty cup from Aarno, trailing the motion of his hands before looking to his face, "I've always wondered why people choose the Order." Something thoughtful working through her brow. "Do either of you remember your reasons for joining?"

@Faramund @Aarno

He gave a single nod at the man, accepting the answer despite the doubt on his face. It’d about melted away by the time Faramund offered to pour them all some coffee, which he confirmed by moving his cup closer. A bright, metallic plink against the table.

Farren’s question, a proper breach of subject, landed as he finally shuffled on to take his seat, levering down to the bench. Choices indeed. Instead of his usual non-answer, proper deflection, he resulted to something less direct.

“ I do, with my meager time with you lot, but does Syr Faramund? How long has it been for you, now? “ Way longer? Barely beyond my stay? The man sure had been with the Order by the time himself had arrived, six years ago.

He leveled a smile at the Dawn knight, all to pleased to just watch the two of them past steaming brew. Hands busying to tear up bread.

His smile didn’t falter, just grew sharper in the eyes as the man went on. Called him out, all in good fun. Unsheathing the small knife at his belt he slashed into the butter and scooped up an unruly square of it. Spread it haphazardly on the slice of bread in hand, shrugging.

“ One to speak of avoidance you are, truly. “ He hummed thoughtfully, head tilting. Coy. “ A man of your years forgets what happened mere six ago, imagine what it is like for me. “ Took a bite of his bread and smiled a little wider. Chewed and glanced at Farren sidelong.

“ Chosen mysteries. It’s not a very interesting story. “ And he meant it. Fugitive flavour, all of it.

“ But I’m happy with the choice I made, to join. If that is anything. “ Paused to pick up fish for his bread with the tip of the knife. Slapped it into a bundle over the buttered part.

“ Didn’t really leave anything or anyone behind— “ Chattered on, the implication betwixt it all. While he knew precious little of Syr Faramund, the man about as much of a willful mystery as himself, Farren having walked away from family had never been a secret.

“ That I’d miss. “

Farren watched the two speak over the rim of her mug, steam curling into the hollow of her brows as grey eyes tracked mostly empty words. This casual pugnacious camaraderie that danced between them always left her a little remiss for the origin of such tempered rancor. But that teasing reminded her of her brothers in the way that they endlessly dogged the other. So perhaps it was just her not understanding the complex nature of their friendship, for friendship it clearly was, although she felt they would both deny it if questioned.

And Farren would be lying if she didn't admit that there was some pleased part of herself to hear that Aarno's past didn't follow him to the Monastery. Why she felt that way, was another matter. One that tugged with a shy hopefulness towards a dream she could not name. That and the envy. For Farren herself had only been with the Knights for three years this winter. And some days she wished she had found their frontsteps with no strings attached to her limbs, pulling her back to the Vayd woods, steeped in familial duty she no longer could stomach the weight of.

"Well, if it matters," Farren offered to Aarno with a soft smirk over her cup, "I would have found it interesting."

She held his gaze a moment before passing a roll to Faramind, her own breakfast still untouched.

@Faramund @Aarno

A startled laugh broke loose before Farren could stop it, sharp enough to crack through the dulled haze she’d been wallowing in.

Her gaze snapped to him, incredulous, brows drawn together in disbelief. Yet even as she tried to pin him with a look, heat crept treacherously into her cheeks, the notion of Aarno's hands on her skin betraying her. Godsfucking damn you, Faramund.

She laughed again to cover her sudden nerves, this time lower, turning quickly back to her mug and very deliberately not looking at Aarno. Farren wasn’t sure she could stomach whatever expression might be waiting there.

“Why?” she said at last, irreverence cutting a crooked grin across her face as she hid behind the rim of her drink. “Is your bed so barren of women that you must find entertainment in those that do?”

@Aarno @Faramund