It all shook. His bones. Muscles. The sinew that kept him all together. The nerves that screamed raw at the edge of each finger's tip and spread of toe's pad. The whole world he could still see through his single eye. Shook. Trembled. Roared.

Whilst the bloody furnace at his core cooked all the blood and guts into something he could use. Something that would see him through.

That's right, Oh Bearer Mine. The Fiend in the Jewel shined bright through the darkness of his missing eye. I will always be here to see you through.

A growl rolled through the Fiend Bearer's throat. Down into his guts. Breath. He still needed that. And his lungs pulled it hard through nose and teeth. Mouth, blood smeared and steaming.

We need to keep moving, Fiend.
​
"Aye," the word rumbled out of him like smoke from a burning pyre. Could hardly hear the Spellbreaker's curses, or commands over the sound of his insides burning back together. Quick. Enough to feel like fingers with hooked claws, and incisors with pinched bite snagged and pulled at those parts of him slung back together.

Sharper and sharper with each step across the blurred world about them.

Let not your guard down around this one, Oh Bearer Mine. Came those whispers like so many shards of shattered black glass. She will betray you, as did the Blood Witch.

He sheathed his ruined knife. Dragged his great sword until he hefted it up and slung its flat against his shoulder. Step after shuddering step. He marched behind the Spellbreaker and her elk.

The night was full of terrors, and the sounds of the woods grew wicked and wild. Through all this, the white gauntlet gleamed. Clean as fresh fallen snow. Its jeweled eye, smiling.
 
Every step she took, she was aware of the the dark.

Every crunch of ground and stone beneath the sure-footing of her boots, she knew at her back, a beast unlike anything she ever knew followed.

Leo still burned that silver flame of armour around her, half draining the power the shroud allowed her and the other half deterring anything that might look their way. Her eyes fell upon the child, still unconscious but beneath the bundle of blankets the Spellbreaker could spy the cloud of air that was the only sign of life.

This. Seeing the child to safety. This was why she could not leave behind the blood drenched Fiend Bearer. He had payment for her if she saw through to the end with him, and Leo wondered if she should have asked for a higher sum on top of all of this.

Instead, she threw a sour expression over her shoulder at him.

"We are losing distance if we take too long with any kills. Fast and precise, next time." Gods, saints, and sinners, she knew there will be a next time. Leo could not doubt his potency nor the allure reaching through the dark that was his fiend. Where Garrod may be trapped in his mind, she was trapped in her body. She gave too much blood to the shroud, and in turn she was blessed with a great well of magic that begged to be used. Every step forward, Leo could see the translucent flames cling to her. It had a life of it's own, a bargain she could not fathom enough to put an end to. She asked for more power and she got it...

Dandelia bristled, pulling Leo's gaze forward. The road ahead narrowed to a mere path, a necessary bottle neck they needed to take. It was the path forward or chancing it around the gnarled roots of trees rotting and alive. The unknown was a risk she would not wish to take past the witching hour.

"The first chance we get, we need to shop for supplies and I need new blades." She lifted her last dagger, having abandoned her others to the blighted wolves.
 
"Daggers," Garrod huffed. "Yeah, we'll get you some daggers," he grinned. Green eye agleam as he followed the Cazadore. His reddened teeth showed wide and sharp. Looked jagged through the dark red trails that smeared them.

The fire of his fiend still churned through him as the narrowed path lay before them. The silver fire burned about the Spellbreaker, like some veil.

Power, Oh Bearer Mine. The old familiar voice hissed through the darkness of his mind. For us to take. Should we but need it.

And oh, how the demon begged need of it. Aching. Clawing. Ripping and tearing through all the fibers of mortal flesh that made the One Eye.

Garrod licked his chapped lips. Passed down sticky spit with a gulp. Huffed breath ragged through flared nostrils. His bones popped with the adjustments in his stride. Hunched looming, straightened up with the raise of his head and crane of his neck. Greatsword's zenith raised high over his head.

"Let me take the point," he said, and marched forward.

The beast. Dandelia, if he recalled, stilled, like all things with sense at the approach of danger. Wretched and stinking of sulfur and brimstone as he was. His single eye lingered on the horned creature. Then found the child.

Half dead and bundled up. Gangly little corpse of a thing. Staring through cracked lids. Corners of her eyes scarred jagged with markings like lightning bolts. She stared at him like he was a thing that might bite.

Garrod shook with a laugh. Slunk forward. Armor rattling dull and heavy with each clink and clank of his march into the narrow path.

"For he who walks unto their death,
laugh, smile, sing.
There is no more precious joy than your most ragged breath."

Birds took to their wing in startled hurry from branches and bows.
 
"Ugh. Hard not to hate him." She cringed as he strode past her. Her lip curled with distaste as he neared Dandelia and the child, and even as he spoke his haunting words, Leo still could not summon anything for him other than regret.

The unease about their surroundings never did cease, it only wrapped around her as her weaved fire and armour began to fade. Burned out for now, Leo had been glad to breathe all on her own, but stifled any deep breaths to keep from inhaling the dread that lingered in the Fiend Bearer's wake.

They could do with a proper camp for the night, to rest their feet, souls, and minds. All of that could be possible without the beacon in their midst, and because she had made a hasty agreement, to take on a job, Leo had to stay and see it through.

March on. If she should see to the sun after the dawn, she would make a new vow for herself. Never work with this fucking bastard again.

The child, though, stole Leo's attention. Their tiny body shivered, even with that blanket wrapped around them, but Leo's bleeding heart made her jog to catch up and rummage through the saddle bag. Out came a woolen blanket, used for the steed on cold nights, but Dandelia would not need of it this night. Leo draped it over the child, giving them a kind but small smile.

"Have you heard of the white hart and it's herd? The hart's broken antler became a guiding light for those lost in a forest long ago, and if you were quiet enough, you could walk with the herd all night and find your way back to where you needed. Perhaps when these trees are gone, I can show you the constellation that is the white hart's antler."
 
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The child, just a slip of a thing. Malnourished, thin, and half dead in her cocoon of ruined blankets, with bloody crags where her skin had been split, as if by claws. Still, she smiled. Croaked out a breath. All iron laden, and blood drenched as the One-Eye's. "I'd like that," she confessed as she watched the woman who'd come to tell her a tale. Her eyes scrolled up, head tilt, and skinny neck strained. "The gauntlet," she asked. Voice tight with something like suspicion. "Is it still here?"

Garrod but marched on ahead of them. White gauntlet gleaming upon his right hand. Monster killing sword ran high above him. Its edge gleamed with the moons' light.

If Garrod heard the girl. He said nothing of it.

His ears too full of the churn. The crackle and hiss. Of all the green fire that stirred in his veins. Flesh too raw with all the hurt of being undone and redone all the same.
 
"I... I'm not sure." Leo said after a very awkward moment passed, the Fiend Bearer leaving the child hanging with her question.

She cleared her throat, giving the girl a small smile as she pressed on with filling the quiet with something to distract the small child. "There is also the constellation of Pella and her three cats. You must of heard of that one? Everyone in Southern Ilica knows." The grin she wore was too bright, too strained, but she lessened the force of it as she continued. "Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, and three times is fate. All cats were black with the same white sock on his front left paw."

Leo had recited such a thing whenever she was out perusing for knives or pretty trinkets. She could not help herself, most times, and when she could not decide, she often reached for three items.

The third item of fate had always done her well...

But one could think Leo was now the third to this small party... but surely... there had been someone else before she had come along? It could not just be the Fiend Bearer and this child...

Was she a child of Fate? And if so, what a fate she had been dealt so far.
 
The child stared at the woman with her smiles and her story. The youth's eyes, wide and open, showed little of that softness that came with most young ones her age. Eyes that had seen much and more already in her adolescence. Steely, for all they had endured. Sharp, for that was the only way she had made it even this far.

She smiled. Pale and bloodless as her countenance was.

"I've not heard that one," no hint of a lie there in it. "Can ye show me?"

On Garrod marched. Body slowly stitching itself back together. Boots heavy against the gravel of the trail they walked. An old hunter's path. Overgrown. Bramble and branch scratching and snatching against the cold plate of his armor. He snapped through it without a care for stealth. No regard for quiet.

The young one looked on at the Spellbreaker. Then up at the stars that peered through the gaps in the canopy overhead. "This maid and her three kits,"
 
She remembered her sister asking the same once, many years ago. Before favouritism had been laid out before Madelief and soured her very innocence. Ah, Leo had to remind herself. Nothing sweet ever stayed the same when in Veya.

Leo had never denied her sister of a story before, and it seemed she could not do so now with this child.

"The first cat was by accident, for Pella grew attached and began to feed the small thing. The second came to her in the winter, when food was scarce. He demanded attention and yowled loudly. Pella took on feeding the two cats that were remarkably the same, and the third came one night the next autumnal season. Born to the first two cats, a fated life." Leo shrugged, smiling now. "Some parts of this continent believe that black cats are bad omens, but that is believed by those that cannot face truths."


Her eyes lifted, staring at the back of the Fiend Bearer's head. Still he did not turn to acknowledge them, but Leo's eyes remained fixed on that spot. What was the truth he was hiding here? The story he did not deem to tell her?

The truth he was hiding.

"Fate is not always good. People who cannot accept that start to believe in something else, something to ease their worries. Good fortune is fabricated, and yes it gives hope, but one should not settle for one answer. It is because of Pella that we should always give three chances. One for accidents, one for coincidences, and one more for fate."
 
Brinda thought on the story. "That's stupid," she said. Anger in her voice still, tired and strained as it was. "Black cats are just cats, like all the rest," she sounded every bit her youth then. If only for that moment. "They aren't good, or bad, they just are,"

Garrod laughed at that. A rumble borne from his chest. Yet still he slogged. Onward. Toward whatever form of safety awaited them beyond the trail they walked.

Brinda's eyes narrowed at the sound of the One Eye. "Fate is stupid too," she grumbled. "There's no fate." worked herself into a bundle. Teeth gritting. Brows scrunching. Whole body trembling. "We just make our choices," she growled.

"And you made yours, didn't you, Mouse?" the One-Eye said with grin clear on his voice. White hand rattled against the grip of his greatsword till he squeezed it still. The jeweled eye gleamed. "And so did I," he said, full of bitterness.

"I didn't choose to be here, you gods damned," she wiggled. "Idiot!" Thrashed so hard she fell right off the saddle with a thump. Roll. Tumble through the underbrush all break and hiss. Garrod's eye widened. Sword dropped, he ran after her. Caught her and gripped her back from taking a dive onto some rocks.

"Pinche chamaca," he cursed as he glared at her. Hand gripped tight about the blanket so wound around her. "Why'd you go and do that?" his other hand held fast to some roots that gave slowly from where they tangled.

"Let, GO OF ME!" she shout as she jerked about and kicked.

The white claws of his right hand, digging in the more to the kid. "Stop your fucking wiggling," he grunt.

"YOU ARE HURTING ME!"

He hauled her up. Til he felt his feet slip. The roots gave. Momentum took them on a dive.
 
She had wanted to step in, to interrupt their conversation but Leo was too surprised to hear the two to even converse. It had turned to argument, of which Leo knew what inevitable when it came to the Fiend Bearer.

The child fell. The other side of the Dandelia of all places. She swore loudly, uncaring if the child picked up the bad habit from her or not, but she moved. Her boot crunched as the Spellbreaker pivoted on loose stones, moving to swerve behind her red elk, but the Fiend Bearer was there. He cradled her, and just as fast as relief washed over her did horror take her breath.

"No!" She shrieked and hissed, abandoning all she had on hand and dove for them. The silver flames that clung to her in a visible shroud was gone, and the earth she met as she desperately tried to catch any part of them as disappeared. Her fist came empty, too late to help.

She should weave a spell, to catch them, to help them, but already she could feel herself spent. Leo had never gone beyond her limits before, but tonight, in these deep dark parts, she may have to.

"Fiend Bearer!" She yelled, ensuring that she was heard. "Child! Call back to me!"

Be alive.

As insufferable as he was, Leo needed him alive. Both of them. She was not cruel or petty to abandon them, not after she struck a deal. Leo kept her deals, promises, and pacts. One would think she were fey for such devotion, but Leo simply wanted to stick by her word. It was the opposite of what her family would have done.
 
Down he ravine they went. Tumbling. Knocking. Holding on to each other. Garrod's armor took much of the blows. But his bones broke all the same.

Arm. Rib. Shin.

He could feel them all pounding under his skin. Throbbing. Pulsing. Even with his eyes heavy. And the dust settling. Fucking hells it hurt. And still.

A thump against his chest. A knee against his armored gut. Another thump of small balled fist. "I said let go, you asshole," the kid sobbed. "I said let go."

Garrod held her all the same. As his bones popped back together with the last of the fiend's fire.

Belephus laughed. You could always feed her to me, Oh Bearer Mine.

"Fuck off," he rasped through bone jagged breath.

He tried to move. Felt only the sharp pain of breaks still there in him.

"You should have just left me to die with Jesper," she wept. "You shoulda just let me die with my choices!"

Garrod grumbled. As a great wolf stalked out of underbrush. Head low. Teeth bared. "Fucking hell," hand went to knife at his side. Remembered it was a piece of shit now. Turned Binda toward the wall behind them, shielding her best he could.

The wolf growled and stalked forward. Snapped its long jaws.

Garrod brandished his long claws. The jewel gleamed.
 
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Gods, saints, and sinners.

None of them called back, but she was not taking their silence as an answer.

"Dandelia." Leo pushed herself up, kneeling before moving to stand and meeting her loyal steed halfway. Her hands tried to shake, but the Cazadore with the dyed purple plum tresses and the face of determination did not let worry and fear overtake her. It was a mistake to hesitate. Catastrophic to panic.

She inhaled through her nose, and out from her mouth. Her hands pulled free the bundle of rope and the pick axe she had found a week ago. The equipment had been lost on a climb, but no one had come to claim it. Leo did, and she was glad for it now.

To her red elk, she patted her hind and murmured, "Find a safe spot, girl." She turned, making for the space she had last seen the Fiend Bearer and the child.

Even though she was prepared for the steep decline of the ravine, Leo had not expected to fall so quickly. She had tried to use the pick axe to slow her momentum, but the earth and soil was too soft to aide her.

Leo came to a gradual slow half way down, her eyes scanning below. Her vision dipped beyond, no doubt where her travel companions ended up, but what she spied had kept her quiet. A wolf, a predator, stalking forward in a way that seemed unlike the other wolves they had encountered. Was this one blighted? Corrupted and desperate to sink it's teeth and taste blood? To wound and kill?

She had her small blades. She had the pick axe.

But she saw a hand, no, no longer a hand. Claws. Brandished to show his threat, just as the wolf himself bared his teeth to assert the threat it was to them all.

"Stand down, you idiot." She hissed, allow me to fight while I am still strong, but she was already moving again to cover as much ground to reach them both.
 
The wolf seized at the show of death white claws. The jewel in the strange chitinous plate gleamed so wicked, it struck a nerve enough for the grey pelted beast to hesitate. Teeth still bared, growl rumbling in its throat.

At the call of another voice. The rustle and scrape of another big gangly body moving. Natural instinct had the wolf snap its eyes to attention. Its ears flicked up, then back. It snapped at the air with growls of warning a yip. And it took off. Away from the three gathered there in the ravine.

Garrod but went on breathing. Jagged and rasped lungfuls that stabbed. Coughed. Grunt. Muscles spasming raw as he tries to get up.

The Kid forced themselves up to their feet. Fever stricken. One arm shortened, and fall scraped. Wounds about her eyes and mouth still red. Grit. Forced herself to move. To run.

"Hey!" Garrod barked. "Wait, Kid!" He hacked up a lung as he tried to go after. The fire in his bloods was burning low. So much work already done. Broken bones screaming. He tried to take a step. Took another dive hard into the dirt.

His fiend laughed.

Brinda stumbled off. Frantic as she tried to get away.
 
Leo launched herself into the air, guided by her careful aim as she felt herself fall down to the earthen floor in this deep, dark forest. The collision of a spell beneath her lit up the area, paths where the shroud existed and fed into the earth turned golden and green as it slowed Leo's descent. Her boots touched where the heart of the spell had ignited, her legs bending and getting low as if the momentum were normal and not at all aided by magic.

Once her hands touched the ground, the light returned to her. The spell struck her, and the Spellbreaker gasped loudly, hungrily, and turned to stare at the Fiend Bearer. In pain, writhing, just as he had been when she had come by him at the beginning of all of this.

"Stand. Down." She growled like the wolves that had come for them.

With a curled lip, she turned her gaze towards where the child had run off to.

Pain crushed at her chest as she weaved another spell, her eyes turning a hazy yellow that clouded her entire vision until two blinks later, and Leo was able to see the trails of the girl that ran away.

This spell also showed her where the wolves had gone.

And if they were chasing after the girl or not.
 
Pant after ragged pant sucked down breath through his grit teeth. He would go and get her. He had to. That damned girl. He had cost her her arm.

"Stand. Down."
​
What little breath was left in Garrod's lungs squeezed out. Shook his head. Nod. He stayed. Heaping wreck that he was.

Come the spell, and the girl's footsteps would come to light. Glowing with the faintest trail of green about their edges. While the wolf, blue as the evening sky went in the opposite direction.

Brinda would run. Clumsy and hurt and she was. She wouldn't run far. Tears streaming down her face. Arm remembering its agony. Even through all the magick that had already been woven over her. How could she ever forget?

Jesper. The old man's eyes still haunted her. How they looked when she had slipped her arm into that horrible white thing. That gauntlet that had taken her arm. That Gauntlet he still wore. She would get away. Get away from him and all its horrible mess. And she would get him back for old Jesper. This she swore.
 
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