Private The Twin Branch

They had to pass beneath the great stone statue again, the imagined her which stood towering above the town square. The fading sunlight cast most of its details in shadow, only the victorious silhouette of the raised sword standing out against a blue-cast sky.

It was strange; Selene had expected to be forgotten by her town. Decades had passed and she'd left as barely a young woman. Why would anyone remember the youngest Lamothe child as anything other than a tragedy?

Yet here she was, misremembered, a false image of a hero wrought large and enduring.

The shadow passed and they entered the warm light of the inn. The inn got it's name because of a stained glass lamp nestled atop one of the corner tables. A witch wrought in brass, with emerald green panels shaped like the folds of her dress. A candle lit the glass dress from underneath, and gave the little witch an unearthly glow. When she was a child, Selene had spent hours playing next to that lamp, imagining a world beyond the watermills and quarries of Prathil, a world full of spirits and weavers.

Selene huddled closer to Bebin to shed the cold that still clung to her, made real and prickly by the feeling of spice-laden heat. As they bumped together in the narrow entry, she couldn't help but look around for the lamp. She spotted it atop a high shelf, unlit and covered in dust. The sight eased her some, though she didn't know why.

"Welcome to Bavol's!" came the voice of someone Selene didn't recognize.

Layers were peeled off. Gloves and cloak and scarf. The steam and the cookfires made them unnecessary.

"It's the cumin you're smelling," the young lady said brightly back to Bebin. Sounding like she'd made the same explanation a hundred times before, she barely looked up at the pair. "My father couldn't find any this far north, so he brought some seeds back from his home and figured out how to grow them here himself."

Selene seated herself at the tall counter, shifting up onto the rough hewn stool. "Do you have any lamb today?" she asked.

"You're in luck, syrs." A shallow pot-pan warmed up on the stove next to the young cook, hot oil glistening at the bottom of it, just beginning to crackle. "We got a fresh pot of lamb curry rolling this morning, which means it's nice and falling-apart now."

Bebin's lip curled up at the corner of his mouth, hands folding over his cloak, bundling it with the rest of all the things they had peeled out of to set aside. Frost laden, and melt soaked. "Such pursuits require such dedications," he said, removed as he remarked on the cumin, though his whiskers bristled with an unmistakable pride before boots knocked away to set cloaks and scarfs upon hanging hooks.

A pair of thick fingers were raised up and splayed to the young woman as he settled down to the counter anew. "Two then,"

A little huff of excitement from the lass. "Two then!" she said spine sticking straight up as she snapped the ladle up to salute. Noticed the splotch of burnt golden brown that splat there before her. "Oh!" she sounded, let ladle go back to pot, hand found rag, and she wiped it up, lickety split. "Sorry, sorry! Just," she laughed, turning and moving to snatch up heirloom irons, deep bottomed, and gleaming with their hard earned season. "It's not too oft new faces come to have our pies!" she grabs a pair and sets them down at another station. Finds the pastry dough and sets them in with neat cuts and crimps. "I'll have them ready in no time!"

Bebin nods, and looks to Selen's hands. Lets his fingers work over her knuckles, digits slide through the bones. "Thank you,"

"Oh, don't mention it, syr! It's my pleasure!"

He huffs a little laugh. Leans closer to Selene and says quiet to her ear while the young woman works. "To think I'd get to see the little green witch you'd told me so much about,"

New faces.

Selene lets out a breathy chuckle at the girl's innocent comment. Doesn't mind enough to correct it.

Sounds and smells envelop the little shop as the proud pie monger gets to cooking. Oil crackles in a pan somewhere behind the scenes, scented with garlic and the prized cumin.

The green witch stands quietly on her shelf, overseeing the happenings with untroubled grace. Her bronze cast face is too roughly hewn to bear smile or frown. A perfect blank canvas for a child to scribe any kind of wish upon. Today, Selene thinks the green witch looks vigilant, ready to guard the peace of the pie shop.

"I did not have many other friends in town," Selene reminisces. "Outside of my siblings. I am lucky the green witch was such a good listener."

No more sorrow in the memory. Only a quiescence as she rests her head against Bebin's shoulder. Elbow couched in his, fingers intertwined. Thumb stroking against thumb.

"We must vandalize that statue of me, tonight," she says. "I need the sword embedded in its grasp. It is a family heirloom."

Ease comes easy across Bebin's shoulders, as Selene rests the more against him. Limbs twined, and digits laced while thumbs dance slow circles about each others bones. A smile, soft across his face as he eyes the little green witch on high at her station. There upon the shelf.

The sounds of the pie shop all gentle rumble and steady roil as the cook fire crackles, and the shroud ring stove creeks and strains in that way of heated metal moving so small as it did. He listens as his Captain speaks.


"Then I will be sure to thank her before we leave," he plays along. Bringing her hand to his lips and planting a kiss there upon the knuckle of her thumb. "For being as good as she has to you,"

He sets their hands down once more. And rests his head there against hers.

"Is that so?"
Bebin slowly unwound and sat up the straighter. Put on a more dutiful face. Cleared his throat. "Give the order, my Captain, and it shall be yours before dawn," he smirks, and spies at her sly. "Tell me, what is so special about this sword?" his next breath was laden with the savory richness of lamb stewed in herbs and spices, encrusted in buttery flakey goodness.

He had to take a second whiff, and track the smell's origins.

Beneath Selene's robes, a smooth and steady scar runs along the bottom of her ribcage. One of many. A knight she is, and her years of service far from flawless. This scar stands out from the others, because it looks near fatal.

Her smile is a cooling brook cutting through the warmed forest floor. "Well, it is the sword that killed me," she says, cheerful. "But that is not why it is needed."

She raises her head from the comfort of that shoulder. Mostly because she sees Bavol's daughter approaching, carrying something hot and steaming. Their hands stay tangled still.

"No, Segale hates that sword. We can draw it out with the blade and beat the Sightless to their prize."

"Here you go sers, two lamb pies."

The source of the savory smell is plopped down between them on a heavy wooden plate. Twin halfmoon pies, crisped to a bubbling, flaking golden brown. Warm curry spills out along the seam of one of them, still excited from the cook fire. Next to the plate in a little wide-mouthed jar, bright green sauce* gleams like a jewel.

"But not before dinner, I say." Selene nods her thanks, unhooks from Bebin, and takes up one of the pies.

Eyes glint with a somber light. Even the weight of the lamb pie palmed in hand cannot warm the chill that comes over her. Quieter, her next words barely disrupt the bustle of the kitchen sounds. "...and not before we find Demeix."

---

*Mint grew wild around Prathil, but no one had thought to grind it into a paste and make a sauce of it before Bavol moved into town.

He knew his Captain carried dark secrets. Still those darker than he could fathom.

Yet.

"The very same sword," he gave voice to his pondering. Fell back to his silence. Listened.

The steam swirling and hissing from pots so stacked and set to flame. When his eyes did look there in those rolling veils, his mind painted pictures within the swirls of grey, white, and fire's light made warm the shadows.

"Worry then, that in drawing the river spirit, we would draw those Sightless gathered to hunt them all the same," the young woman came, pies in hand. "Which begs the question," how exactly do you plan to draw Segale out.


"They look to die for," rumbles the low voice of the beturbanned knight. "It does my heart good, to see so fine a curry, accompanied by so bright a mint sauce," he gives her a smile.

"Oh," the young woman finds herself caught in a laugh. Fixes her hair, and gives a little bow of the head. "Well, you see, ser, just another one of those same traditions that followed up my Father's way alongside the cumin, helps cut the richness of the pie, and adds a nice variety to the bite! Now, most folks don't usually like the stuff, but, I do have a bit of our families yogurt stashed about, i can go and fetch some for you if you'd like? Really ties everything together, if I do say so myself,"

Bebin but smiled, and bowed his head in a nod. "That would be splendid,"

"Ha! Right, then, I'll be riiight back," she hurried off again. And still, the little green witch stood her vigil.


Bebin let the weight of all they had come to do, and all that had found them sit inside him for a moment. Like a thing coiling as it tried to shed its skin.

"I am not a man who believes in fate, and yet, that we would find such warm trail of him here," his eyes are fixed onto that verdigris figure. Her impassive expression. Was it judgement she passed down on him? For all he had done, and would still do? He gave Selene's hand a sure squeeze. "Segale must come first. Demiex must come after," Bebin said cold as that black ice upon which he had dueled his protege what seemed like a lifetime ago. There upon that same surface where herons danced with a basilisk. There above that Kingdom of Mud.

Sinking, she was always sinking into the mud while those two glided so faultlessly across the Loch. The assuring squeeze does nothing to buoy her. Selene slips her hand away from Bebin's. Slips deeper into that muck.

"Stubborn ass," she says, familiarity in her voice, but no small affection. Cheeks turn warm and red. A rare occurrence. "Fate gives you another chance, yet you still will not take it. Would it kill you to think with your heart for once, and not your head."

The young cook comes back with a clay jar in hand. Her shoulders are screwed up high and and her smile is strained. She looks more anxious than before. The little corner of the inn is small, and the walls are nothing more than slatwood.

"H-here's the yogurt, syrs," she says. Sets the offering down upon the table with a humble bow of the head. "Can I get you anything else?"

"Thank you, dear. Some spiced tea would be lovely, if you have any left from the day."


The tilting smile of thanks Selene gives is genuine. It falls level as soon as the young woman turns round towards the kitchen. She picks her anger back up where she'd left it.

"Already, you have let Demiex slip away once before. Are you really willing to risk losing him again?"

Part of her knew it was absurd, arguing the order in which they should conduct business. And so too was it unreasonable to draw her hand away, and deny that touch so tentatively offered.

Pies go on steaming, undisturbed on the plate. The bright warmth of their flavor wouldn't be tasted through the wrath currently coating her tongue. Or worse yet, as soon as she bit into one it would melt everything else away and reveal it to be the passing frustration that it was. No, she wanted to hold on a bit longer. 'He would not have us turn our back to this place.' She let the words spiral her into mad conclusion.

"Of course I care about this place. I threw myself into the river for these people."

A willing sacrifice, to appease the gods and quell the waters.

"And now I must do it all again, because, because--"

Selene let out a sigh. She could not think of anything to say that wouldn't be childish.

She thought again of the placard in the town square. Surely it was her name and her face inscribed there, but not her actions. The story twisted there to suit the needs of Prathil. And now that she had returned, there was no reconciling the woman the townsfolk saw with the myth that they had been told.

"It is so strange, being here. To walk into familiar rooms and have no one recognize me." She nudged a finger underneath Bebin's own, steepling tips up together. "Forgive me. I fear it is my own pride which has got the better of me."