Walking in Cuttle's shadow, Xen follows the unwilling prisoner through the streets like some unspoken threat, the presence behind him enough to keep the thug moving when the one beside him falters. The drunk ramblings spewing from Osytha's lips aren't worth listening to, though both Xen and Cuttle are forced to hear them. Not quite akin to having one's hand chopped off before being frogmarched to Eight knows where, but a punishment all the same.

Cuttle probably deserved it.

But fuck knows what I did, muses Xen, thinking back on all of her past sins and coming up blank. Shaking her head, the Deva returned to staring holes through Cuttle's back, recounting some of his numerous sins as they walked. And walked.

'Left here,' she growled, the angry stray in her baring its fangs as the rain continued to pour. Soaked to the skin, it was hard not to feel miserable. Someone had to carry the blame, and it sure as shit wasn't going to be her. Wouldn't you agree, syr knight? Cat eyes flitted to the bumbling she-badger, annoyed, though she can't keep it up for long.

The knight must bear a heavy burden, indeed, to have ended up here.

Everyone was guilty of something. Xenovia had never thought herself to be a saint, nor a guardian angel. She had committed her fair share of trespasses; she had lied, stolen, broken laws, or else skirted around them when her father had taken an interest in her misdeeds. Eventually, she had killed, though not solely for herself, and not before exhausting her options.

Aye, my conscience may have lost its squeak, she thought, but at least it's clean.

She had met very few swordhands who could say the same. Wait a second, where are we? Somewhere along the way, they had gotten turned around, lost track amongst the twisting, twining pathways and boardwalks of the Wendway Docks. Xen could hear the Wend itself churning nearby.

Blackened pilings rose from the water like the fingers of some drowned god.

The buildings lining the street were more warehouse than home, more boathouse than billet. Slowing, the Deva called out to Osytha as she approached the steps of some ramshackle hut. The boards beneath their feet groaned alarmingly. Through the sheeting rain, Xen sees the bridge leading back to solid ground, cobblestone streets carrying on towards the Planter, where they should be going right now.

'Hey, uh, Osytha!'

Belatedly, Xen realises the distance between them, sees the tension build in Cuttle's frame as he prepares to make a bid for freedom. "Thanks," says Osytha, her voice sounding clearer in that moment than it has all night. "You're a real life saver."

Then, she's falling.

Xen's already running by the time Cuttle's threat reaches her ears. He makes it sound like a promise, but really he's just as frightened as she is, deep down inside. A more primal aspect of the devahni's being wishes to chase the fleeing prey down. And yet she resists the urge. Osytha's no longer falling in slow motion. She's falling fast. Too fast. Xen knows she won't reach her in time. And even if she could, it wouldn't have mattered.

The river rises to meet the knight.

Sliding to a halt on the wet planks, Xen cast around for signs of life amidst the swell and surge. The peel of distant thunder is lost beneath the pounding of her own panicked heart. The greatsword hits the deck at her feet. Her boots join it in quick succession. Then, she's falling, too. Diving, just as mama taught her; arms straight, chin tucked slightly. Strays like her aren't meant to swim, or risk themselves for others. They're supposed to think of the only thing that matters: themselves.

Cold hits the Deva like a wall of ice as the Wend welcomes her. Beneath the surface, all is black, black, black.

Something kicks her in the back of the head. Kicks again. A third kick is met by her hand. Then, she's surfacing, pulling the flailing form up behind her, hugging it close as the Wend rises and falls and shunts them towards pilings and the sleek form of a moored cutter.

'Os- pfft! Osytha! Hey!' A wall of water buffets the pair, stealing Xen's sight and hearing for all of several heartbeats. 'Try to spread yourself out,' she coughs. 'Float, damn it! And breathe! That's it, just keep breathing.'
 
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It’s unimaginably cold.

Osytha thought she knew what ‘cold’ felt like. But for every slush-steeped mire she’s waded through, every biting gale and breath of snap-frost morning air, those were all just… sensations. Status reports from the picquets of her nerve endings, of frigid assaults rebuffed.

She has never been hit with cold so hard it doubles her over like a kick to the gut.

The water’s spinning her about. Or is that just her drunken vertigo? Which way is up? Why won’t her body respond? Which way is up?

A fizzle of training kicks in; she’s got lungs full of air, she can just… relax, and it’ll buoy her to the surface by itself. Only — she’s got this big sword as well, and a thick gambeson soaked through. Is a chest full of air enough? Or is she still sinking?

Panic hits her renewed alongside the first ominous aching from her chest. Osytha wonders which will kill her first — hypothermia, or drowning. Neither one will take long.

Fuck that. Fuck that fuck that pleasegodsIdon’twannadie!

Osytha kicks madly out. Her body wants nothing more than to coil in on itself in a hopeless attempt to keep out the chill, but she forces her legs to push, her arms to thrash and take her somewhere, anywhere—

Her foot finds something solid. A post? No, it sort of, has too much give. She feels it again with the next kick. Then the one after that… feels the whatever-it-is shift behind her in the water and wrap itself around her. Osytha almost loses herself to more panic. But then she recognises the feeling of arms around her.

Someone has her.

And she surrenders herself to them. Toils know they can only have a better sense of up and down than she does at this moment. Those arms are pulling her somewhere through the black, icy current, and then, a moment later, she feels blessed, breathable air around her head, can hear plinking raindrops and rushing rapids with the sharp clarity of ears no longer muffled by water.

“Float, damn it! And breathe! That’s it, just keep breathing.”​

There’s no breath to spare on a reply. Osytha just takes great, gasping lungfulls as she can, mind too scrambled by the endless freezing assault to even think of a response. All unnecessary function is shutting down, every resource funnelled into finding an escape.

Obstacle. In path. Black spires and something big, occluding surface reflections ahead. Not water?

Not water = good.

There’s not much Osytha can do beside flounder in an attempt to keep herself afloat, yet, she tries to paddle them into the path of that upcoming jetty. Though it hardly needs the effort. She’s guided — by the current, by Xenovia, she can’t really tell — into the posts beside a small rickety ladder, slamming against pitch-coated wood, and her hands are grasping out before she even thinks to try. They latch on beside wobbly rungs, sheer desperation making up for some of the strength that numbing waters have leeched out of her, and Osytha clambers up as fast as she can manage.

Hey body’s moving sluggishly. Not quite responding right. Hauling herself up by the ladder is so much more difficult than it ought to be, like her body’s failing after a day of intensive training. But she gets there. Shifts enough weight up and over that she can just topple forward the rest of the way, and roll clear on rain-slick Wendway boards.

“Xen-n…” whispered out, inbetween shallow, hiccoughing gasps and chattering teeth. Watching for garnet-mantled cat’s eyes to rise up over the lip. “P-P-l-leas-se…”
 
Every breath is a struggle, every kick and claw an exercise in futility. Xenovia's muscles burn as she tries to keep both herself and Osytha afloat. Next to the bobbing cutter is a jetty. A ladder. It's almost a relief when sees it, though the Deva can't allow herself to relax, not yet.

Something warm and bright runs down into her right eye. The Wend washes it away for her, and rewards her with a mouthful of salty water for her toils. No good deed went unpunished, and not for the first time she felt herself slip beneath the surface.

Her fingers closed about a rung, and she pulled herself up, up, into the lashing wind and biting squall.

Xenovia's tail unravels from around Osytha's waist as she pushes the knight up the ladder ahead of her. The cold water has sobered her up, but even aware, she lacks the grace to make the climb with ease. Feet slip. Limbs tremble. A mix of adrenaline, fear and frozen nerve endings. Xen watches in real time as Osytha's hindbrain argues with her body. Then, she's climbing, slowly, so very slowly.

Below her on the rungs, Xen has to turn her head to the side to keep the blood from her eyes. She's pretty certain she's bleeding, probably from the kicking she received. Devahni bright burns hot. Steam rises from the wound like blood on snow.

Scaling the ladder, Xen braced herself against the boardwalk, chest heaving. what energy remains to her takes flight at an exponential rate, fleeing her body, and leaving her drained and exhausted. A voice reached out to her from the swirling black. Osytha's voice, thin and desperate, encouraging her the last few inches to safety.

Safety? What's that? The thought drew harsh laughter from the Deva, even as she fell down beside the knight, not so much unable as unwilling to move.

Rain rang softly against the wooden dock. The gods took notice. Storm clouds parted.

Rays of woven silverite pierced the darkness to illuminate the Wend as it continued to draw past. Xen could no longer feel much, but she could hear its song, the sussuration of storm-fed waters. The blood wasn't just in her eyes now. She could taste it on her tongue. Warm. Invigorating. Not quite so mettalic as human blood.

Human blood... Osytha!

Opening her eyes, the Deva pressed to her knees, her own woes forgotten as she ran her arms beneath the knight's frame, and lifted. Bad move. All she had left were bad moves. 'Y-yy-you okay?' Chattering teeth chewed the question to pieces. Bare feet padded against stone. Somewhere, someone was screaming. It took the Deva a full minute to realise it might have been her own mind.

The Planter's door flew inward with a kick.

Three figures rose from the blazing hearth, weapons already half-way drawn until they recognised Osytha held in her arms.

Relief hit the Deva all at once. 'H-help,' she croaked.

Then the lights went out.
 
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…

Snap…

… pop…

A comforting, little sound fills the darkness. A familiar sound. One that feels like warmth against numbed hands outstretched, and gives the air a hot, sharp, yet subtle, smell.

Pop—

Something shifts nearby. Gently; just the brief, dry, rustle of a log adjusting its weight. More pops and crackles flare up in response, but a new, cosy equilibrium is soon reached.

And it is warm. Eight above, could she ever again take this feeling for granted? And… soft. She’s in a bed, or something like it, swaddled up under heavy blankets. Nice and dark so long as she keeps her eyes shut. And quiet, bar the rhythmic hiss and snap of embers in a nearby hearth.

All of which would make a recipe for pure bliss, were it not for the perfect agony within Osytha’s own body.

The wretched, crashing queasiness in her stomach. A vile taste in her mouth. Eyes which take in light like daggers plunging through her skull. Sluggish, dizzy thoughts — and the all-consuming pain throbbing through her head.

There’s no escaping it. But, lying curled up here and pretending the outside world doesn’t exist; that helps some. She’ll just wait it out for a few hours… days… eternities… and eventually, she’ll get the strength to crawl out from under these sheets, into… wait, where is she? And how did she get here—?

“Os— pfft! Osytha! Hey!”

“Y-yy-you okay?”

Xenovia.

Osytha’s crusty eyes crack open. She stares out at an incomprehensible world, understanding nothing, with but one driving, overwhelming question on her lips.

“Buh…?”

Something larger than a smouldering log moves in the warm, orange gloom. “Well, well, well, look who’s finally — oh hey, easy now!”

Syr Sozzled the Invalid fumbles about halfway off the bedroll before she has to stop, propped up on her hands and knees with her head hung low and groaning. A warming pan thunks to the thick sheepskin rug, and another metallic clanking sounds as Syr Marta angles a pail under her chin.

1783233231478.webp“There we go,” her fellow dusker soothes, one hand rubbing Osytha’s bare back reassuringly. “Right in the bucket — bullseye, that’s it…”

More footsteps approach. A pair of fine, heeled, black leather shoes appear beyond the bucket’s lip as Osytha caps off her deposit with a few dry retches. This time, a man’s voice fills the room, possessed of not a particularly low pitch, but clear and almost lyrical in its smoothness.

volmar_zu_liesenbourg.gif
“About time,” remarks Syr Volmar. “I’ll fetch Enneleyn. You… keep making sure she doesn’t choke on her own sick, I guess.”

He turns to leave, but stops when Osytha makes a desperate sound at the other two knights.

“… wzzn…?”

Volmar stares down at her for a second. Then his eyes meet Marta’s. “Did you understand that?” he asks.

The raven-cropped dusker cocks her head. “Sounded like… ‘warzone’, maybe?”

“Nuh—!” Osytha shakes her head sharply, groans with fresh pain, and gags afresh, before pushing on: “Whe’… Xhn,” she insists. “Znn! Wh’ ishee? Whe’ — Xen?”
 
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Footsteps in the hallway. Voices muffled by old wood. The Planter answered both in turn, though not before its time. Outside the shuttered windows, Xenovia can hear the rain as it continues to fall in steady streams, a wet start to an otherwise promising day. 'Ah, still alive, I see!' Beyond the hearth's glow, all is shadow. The fire pops and hisses at Syr Volmar's approach. Or at least she thinks that's the knight's name.

The shoes were a dead giveaway, at least. Fine leather, too rich for a Sinker's blood.

Soft steps. Heel to toe. The mark of a competent sneak thief, or perhaps an accomplished hunter. Weren't much to hunt around the Hold 'cept people, and their pelts didn't go for much. Well. That's not strictly true. Upholders ventured downhold all the time on their hunts and no one seemed to bat an eye over the fact. So long as the right person died, all was fine and dandy.

Fine and dandy, aye, mused Xen, gazing at the man's feet overlong. Those really are some nice shoes.

'How're you feeling?' Volmar's voice drew her from thoughts of shoes and pelts. Smooth, like butter. And yet you couldn't taste a voice. 'I'm... well,' said the Deva, firebug eyes closing and opening, like shutters to the soul or something.

Yeah...

'Took a nasty bump!' Syr Enneleyn's wasn't as buttery as Volmar's but her smile was sweet enough. 'Head wounds always bleed a lot. I was more concerned with keeping you warm.' Aye, I remember. Xenovia had awoken to find herself cocooned beside the fire. Panic had set in swift as sepsis. Enneleyn had kept her from tumbling straight into the fire. She'd even cleaned and bound Xen's brow.

The spectacles balanced on the tip of her nose were mostly an affectation, she had discovered in the time since. The medicae satchel riding her hip was not.

Dusky skin, chestnut hair that falls in waves, and an unbroken smile make for quite the first impression.

Xen heard Volmar clear his throat behind her. Turning, the devahni hid her embarrassment in the folds of her blanket, palms throbbing in unison as the greatsword leaned against her seat shifted an inch, displaced.

'Osytha's awake.' Volmar addressed them both. 'Seems our girl had quite the party,' he chuckled. 'She was spilling her woes into a bucket when I left. Do you want to take a look at her 'fore she stinks the place out?' The knight's gaze shifted to Xen. 'You, too,' he said. 'Poor girl was asking after you. Reckon you've made quite the impression!' Another chuckle. Xen felt her face warm further still.

'Don't tease,' chided Enneleyn warmly. 'Come on! Let's go rescue Magda. She's paid enough for her sins, I figure.'

Rising to her feet with the help of Volmar, Xenovia pottered along behind Enne, her eyes adjusting to the half-light as they moved through the sleepy barracks. The room they'd placed Osytha in was quiet as the rest, if only for the moment. Suppose she had chundered all there was to chunder.

'Knock, knock,' Enne announced quietly, slipping in ahead of Xen. 'Look who's finally awake. What time do you call this, eh?' Peeking her head past the threshold, Xen held up a hand to Magda sitting in the corner.

''Sup!' Came the response.

Not much, thought the Deva, tail poking from beneath her blanket-cloak as she waddled inside, bestockinged feet tangling with the excess. A glance towards the bed drew a relieved smile from the devil. 'Hey there, Badger,' she murmurred, making it halfway to the bed when her feet finally lost the fight. Least the landing was soft.

'Where did you learn t' swim?'
 
Presumably it’s the badger in there, who’s sat upright on the mattress. It’s a bit hard to tell when Enneleyn first opens the door; whoever it is, they seem to be in the middle of a losing battle against a linen shift, which has taken hold at about the two-thirds point down and is refusing the budge any further, trapping the wearer’s head within an off-white prison. The chemise-thing twists groggily around at hearing the medicant’s cheery timbre, and this unexpected manoeuvre finally outwits the dastardly undergarment. Osytha’s tell-tale stripe appears through the neckline, and then, the rest of her sorry noggin follows.

She might be about to say something to Enneleyn. But she stops as soon as Xenovia slips in behind, and gawps slack-jawed at the woman.

Xen totters over, teeters, topples. Thwumps down on the mattress, looking none too upset by her fall. Simply grins up at Osytha, auburn locks wavering in the low firelight.

“Where did you learn t’ swim?”​

Osytha stares back in a stupor. “Um. Monastery?” she mumbles. “They… make us practice. In a lake, then, then a river—”

She snaps forward, like some addled viper. Arms wrap right around Xen, and Osytha’s hugging her close, cheek squished to copper hair and coiling horn.

“’M so sorry,” she whispers, and her voice is shaking. “Thank you.”

There’s a careful silence from everyone else in the room. Enneleyn kneels nearby, a couple doses of medicant’s mercy poured out and ready for a poorly knight, while Marta watches from the corner, currently distracted from her attempts to entertain herself with various tricks of knife-based legerdemain.

Well… almost everyone. Volmar steps in and, with a tinny rattle, picks up the pail.

“Going to swap this out,” he announces from under a wrinkling nose. Stops long enough to give Osytha an appraising glance, and adds: “Your shirt’s on backwards.”

Then he leaves.

Enneleyn takes off her completely functional spectacles and turns around to catch the light as she gives them a completely necessary wipe down, which is a completely genuine act and not, say, an excuse to hide her completely-not-a smirk.

“There’s a little something for your upset stomach there, dear,” she tells Osytha, once she has her face completely back under control. “And something else for that nasty headache you must have. You’ll still be feeling quite wretched, I’m afraid, but at least you’ll be able to keep things down and move about.”

Osytha nods, but doesn’t go to take either draught just yet. She has an inkling it might be better to wait until Volmar returns with a fresh bucket. In the meantime, her hands just ruffle slightly against Xen, taking reassurance from their tactile confirmation that yes, her timely angel is still here, and more or less in one piece.

“You alright, Xen?” Osytha asks, leaning back enough to look her in the face, then frowns when she sees the dressing over that wisteria forehead. “Shit… did Cuddle do that?” she growls. “That fucker. I should’ve known better… sorry…”
 
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'Least it's on,' Xen can be heard mumbling from somewhere inside her blankety cocoon. Arms encircle the devahni, trapping her, and for a second or two Xenovia wonders whether Osytha seeks to hug the life from her. Granted, there were worse ways to go. At least it's warm in here, she mused, working a limb free, so that the affection being heaped upon her wasn't entirely one-way.

Enne says something, likely medical jargon meant to confuse then comfort. Xen can't really hear much, what with the Badger smothering her.

'I'm alright,' she nods. Even that proves difficult, though the complaints are few. Blinking, slow-like, the Deva stares back at the knightess. The room smells of booze, dried sweat and chunder. And aromatic herbs, not-so-oddly. Perhaps Mags has been in this position before? Or maybe she'd been the one bent over a bucket whilst another knight watched from the sidelines, just in case she fell in? Xen could believe it.

'Yes... Cuddle.' Otherwise known as Cuttle. 'Caught me off guard when you went a cropper,' explained Xen, choosing to lie, 'cause telling the truth would've only earned her another apology. Besides, this one's ailing enough, she thought, burrowing down again, so that her head would stop hanging so heavily.

Enneleyn had warned her of potential side effects: dizziness, nausea, confusion.

What I get for playing the hero, she sighed. Next time she would leave the heroics to someone else - a brave syr knight, say, possessed of armour, and common sense. Maybe Magda. She looked tough. Had to be, to wear her tatts so openly.

'Need a hand there, Xen?'

'I'm good,' the Deva drawled, lolling sideways from the bed and back onto her feet. 'Thanks for letting me borrow your clothes 'n' stuff.'

'Oh, those ain't my threads,' Magda smirked, picking at her nails with a very pointy knife, the kind Xen had seen driven through plate, once or thrice. Xen looked to Enneleyn for an explanation. 'They belong to Syr Tilda,' she smiled warmly. 'I believe you two are already acquainted?'

'Oh.' Xen tugged at a loose button. 'Yes, we are. Kinda. And Syrs Adelard and Lanky- Wait, no, he weren't a knight.'

'Aye,' said Magda, glancing up from her knifework, 'and yet somehow he still fared better than thissun.'

'What it is to be young!' Enneleyn nodded, ignoring the fact there were only four namedays separating herself and Osytha. 'At least she made it home safe,' her eyes lingered a moment on Xen. 'Thanks in no small part to you.'

Yes. Well. 'Here's hoping there are better days ahead,' she answered, smiling thinly.

Cuttle had fled, but men like him didn't stay gone. Not for long, anyhow.

A knock at the door nearly had Xen jumping out of her skin. 'Hey,' said Volmar, stepping inside, a fresh pail in tow. 'What did I miss?'
 
Martigan shrugs from over in the corner. “Not much,” she tells Volmar, while the man clunks the fresh receptacle down.

Now that she’s freed, and now that Xen isn’t at risk of getting caught in the crossfire, Osytha reaches reluctantly out for her medicine.

“This one first, syr,” Enneleyn instructs, placing a cup in those clumsy hands. “The antiemetic. Just tiny, tiny sips. Imagine you’re tricking your tummy into thinking you aren’t even swallowing anything at all…”

Who, wonders Osytha through the neon fog of a rising migraine, at her age still says ‘tummy’? I’m not a damned bairn.

I’m just, not sure I can walk, and everything is too hard right now, and I want everyone else to do things for me, plus I think I’d be crying if it wouldn’t just make my head hurt more than it already is, and even though I’m bloody mad at her I kind of really miss my mum…

… But I’m not a kid!

Fortunately, the tides of nausea are ebbing from their high point, and over the course of this brief lull, the draught Osytha manages to down seems to stay down. Whether it’ll survive the next impending wave, though, remains to be seen. The fact Enneleyn’s mixed up more dose than necessary might give away her professional opinion on the matter.

Osytha clutches the wretched brew near her lips. There’s still a bit of a sway to her as she groggily regards Xen. “You’re—” cuts short, ambushed by a sudden gag reflex, but recovers, “—guh. Sorry. You’re staying for a bit, right, Xen? Wait, shit — your sword. You got your sword?”

Did Xen have her sword with her in the canal? Osytha doesn’t think so, though she can’t be sure. But you can’t just go leaving magic swords lying around willy-nilly. Some kid might put their eye out.
 
The medicine goes down and doesn't come back up. A good start, Xen thinks to herself, though she makes sure to stand at a safe distance, lest Osytha's tempestuous tummy prove her wrong. 'Thatagirl.' Enneleyn has a big ole smile on her face, the kind meant to encourage further obedience from unruly patients. 'Down the hatch!'

Rolling his eyes, Volmar nods to Xenovia before making his exit.

It's gotten late, so late as to be early, depending on who you asked. Sheathing her pigsticker, Magda swings to her feet, laying a hand briefly on Enne's shoulder before heading to hit the hay. 'G'night,' she bids without a backwards glance.

A comfortable silence descended over the room, then. Rain tap-tap-tapped at the shutters, like a visitor asking to be let in. The fire in the hearth licked and spat in answer. All was warm and cosy. If not for the dusker's rising gorge, and the faintest whiff of vomit, the three of them might have been able to rest, knowing all was right in the... Well, not world. Room, perhaps?

Perhaps not, mused Xen, glancing worriedly at Osytha as she settled into the chair Marta had vacated.

'Really think I'm going to head out into that?' The Deva smiled reassuringly. 'Aye, I'm staying, if only t' avoid the worst of the weather. And because Enneleyn won't let me leave 'til she's certain I'm in a fit enough state to venture out alone.'

'It's that head of yours,' replied the Medicant, lightly. 'I daren't call myself a medical professional if I allowed you to leave now.'

'Seems I'm to be your hostage, syr!' Xen's eyes glowed like embers in the shadowed nook. 'Though, I fear I won't fetch much of a ransom. S'pose there's my sword, only...' She trailed off. The scars crossing both her palms began to tingle slightly, and she held them out for the women to see. 'Marks of Bond,' she told the pair of them. 'I couldn't lose that thing even if I wanted to.'

Volmar and some fuzzy-faced squire had ventured out to find it, once she'd come to. There had been no sign of Cuttle 'cept a few drops of diluted blood, and neither possessed the nose to track him through the storm.

'And you?' There was a pause. 'Are you okay, Osytha?'

An innocuous question. And yet there was something in the Deva's tone to suggest she wasn't just talking about the dusker's excessive drinking habits, nor the cold clawing at her bones like Death itself.
 
“And you? Are you okay, Osytha?”​

The stillness with which she answers, could be such that Osytha didn’t even hear the question. Enneleyn knows better, though; she can see the tender machinery turning over behind those bleary eyes, trying to decide how much to bare. The young medicant gives her charge a comforting squeeze of the shoulder, and rises up.

“I’ll check in on you later, dear,” Enneleyn assures her. “Keep on getting that medicine down. You’ll feel better in no time at all, I promise.”

The door closes behind Enneleyn with a very careful, quiet click, leaving just Xen and Osy in the room.

That log in the fire gives up the ghost, finally crumbling into two charred halves. Fingers of rain play against the roof like a toddler on a keyboard. Low voices rumble through the Planter’s ageing walls, indistinct and lulling. For a while there, with the way her eyelids droop down, it looks like Osytha has forgotten all about what Xen just asked.

“I don’t think… I am,” she murmurs, at last. Her fingers curl against the mattress, whispering, as they make a rippling play of sturdy linen wrinkles. “I think. Um.” A ragged breath fills her lungs. “I.” Pauses. Draws in tighter on herself.

“… I did something awful. I think I— think I had to. But I just don’t understand it. Any of it. And, and now…” a louder, steadier rustling sounds out as Osytha drags her knees up, hugging them to her chest, “… I was so sure. Never questioned who I was, or, or — what I was doing. But now? It feels like I was only ever… pretending. Now I don’t, um, I don’t… don’t know…”

Osytha’s head thunks down to her knees, and she groans.

“Gods, I’m such an idiot. And I’m just so— so angry, which makes me do something stupid, and then I get even angrier—”

Fingers go taut, knuckles whiten from digging into forearm, as that seething temper seeks an outlet. She finds one she wasn’t expecting: a release valve for the steam of her boiling rage. It escapes her as a sharp, bitter laugh. A noise quite at odds with the ambient, found-music soothing lullaby which otherwise fills their ears. Osytha lifts her head and looks at Xen.

“Hey.” She’s smiling. A dark, rueful little thing across her frazzled face. “You wanna hear a secret? I haven’t even told the other knights this.”

Xen doesn’t speak, but the the way her gleaming eyes are so focused upon Osytha is answer enough.

So, she tells her. Everything.

Tells her about growing up in Hræfn Leah, being raised on the stories Merifrith told her about her father, Syr Grymmund. She tells Xen about being such an insufferable nuisance that the adults finally caved and let her go to Astenvale (her? Insufferable? Hard to believe, she knows). Tells Xen about somehow fumbling her way into squirehood, making a fool of herself time and again as the weird kid, but never quite giving up and going back to the Leah because she believed this was her destiny. That she was mighty Syr Grymmund’s daughter, and she would continue his legacy. That she was worthy of it. She tells Xen how proud she was to pass her initiation into knighthood on her first try. First try! She doesn’t actually know what she did, but it worked!

She tells Xen how, a month ago, she killed her first living, feeling, human being. How nothing about it felt right.

And then, of course, she tells her about her renewed search for ‘Syr Grymmund’, with all its dead ends. Until she finally went home, made mum sit down at the kitchen table, and pried the truth out of her. How she learned Merifrith off and studied medicine here in Crown’s Hold for a year before falling into bed with the wrong someone, and fled back to Hræfn Leah when the man’s enemies began setting their sights on her as well.

“So. No Syr Grymmund,” Osytha concludes, splaying her arms palm-up in a dramatic little gesture. “Dad was a scumbag, just like that lot currently spending all my silver to get their dicks bent at Violetta’s. ‘Artorias’… something, is his name. I don’t even know why I’ve been looking for him. So I can do something stupid again, probably.”

She lifts the second draught up for a sip, making a wretched face as she does so; somewhere along the telling, she’d begun to work away at it. And Enneleyn was right, the little miracle worker. Somehow it’s all staying down, and now, even the pounding headache is losing some of its edge. A vile taste in her mouth is a small price to pay for all that, especially since she already had that problem to begin with, too. Just a different kind of vile.

“Anyway.” Osytha takes another small gulp, and lowers her cup. “Mum was something of a ruined woman after that, what with having me out of wedlock and no one even knowing who the father was. She got some help from her mum for little bit there, but grandma passed when I was very, very young. Leofrun had been coughing up blood for a while, and I guess the pain just became too great. Mum went out to see a patient one day, came back to find the old girl had mixed up quite a cocktail for herself. They… do that in their line of work, you know? When there’s no other option, they can at least make it quick and painless…

“… still, hard to say how much more difficult that actually made things for mum. Leofrun was a pretty stern woman, to put it mildly. Mum always gets kind of sad when she talks about her. I don’t… I don’t think gran showed much love for her. And if you knew Meri, you’d know how much that would hurt her. But, either way, that didn’t change the fact she was a single mother and a pariah for it, with a tiny child on her hands. And when I got old enough to ask where my dad was — ’cos all the other bairns had dads, and I was getting teased for not — that was her solution: Syr Grymmund. Wanted to give me a dad I could be proud of, and boy, did it work. Worked so well that twenty years later I’ve up and killed a body for it. Likely not my last, either. Well. Barring that someone does me in first.”

The mattress fwoomphs as she reclines back, knees still propped up. Hands rub at her groggy face, and she half-sighs, half-groans a bit.

“And that’s where I’m at. Some ‘legacy’, huh?” Osytha’s hands fall away, leaving her to stare at the ceiling for a couple seconds. “Pretty patient of you to let me prattle on like that. Thanks. Also… sorry, I think?”
 
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'You keep saying "sorry" like you've done something wrong, something that offends me.' Loosening her grip on the linen draped about her shoulders, Xenovia rose to her feet in the wake of Osytha's tale, tail swishing languidly in the firelight. Her head felt like a top set to spinning; how she reached the bed without falling was anyone's guess. But she did.

Throwing her blanket across the Dusker's legs, Xen took a moment to tuck the excess away, before taking a seat beside her. That set the room right, if but for a short while.

'Mind scooching over?' the devahni asked, feeling drowsier than she had anticipated. With everything Osytha had told her floating around her skull, it was no wonder, really. To actually have lived it... Shit, I'd be angry, too. But she wasn't. Her life had been upended years ago, by folk that were long gone now. Dead as dead could be. And calm heads prevail and yada yada yada. Laying back, Xen stared up at the same patchy ceiling Osytha was regarding so intently. All she saw was a touch of mold in the corner. Nothing too alarming.

'The fellah you killed, guessing he woulda killed you, had you not done as you did.' It wasn't a question so much as a reminder, that even good people were forced to do bad things, now and again. 'Can't have been easy. The first time never is.'

The room spun slightly as Xen rolled onto her side, shuffling back a tad, so that she didn't cramp the poorly knight, or accidentally take an eye out with her horns.

'I was born in the Hold, y'know. Down in the Sink. Perhaps you've heard of it?' Not many outsiders went there, at least not in her day. Time had a way of changing things, though, and not always for the best. 'You told me of your past. Only right I return the favour,' she smiled, gently, easing herself into a topic that hadn't been broached in nigh a decade. Not by her. Not by anyone.

She started from the beginning, since the beginning was where it all started.

The Sink, Crown Hold's oldest, poorest quarter. A home insofar as it was where her parents had conceived of her. Growing up, it had not seemed so much a home as it was a prison. A place where lives were bought and sold for a pittance; where kindness was really just cruelty in disguise. No one had needed to tell Xenovia life was hard - it was one of the first truths she had ever come to understand. As to the rest...

Her father had belonged to the City Watch. Her mother had made her coin selling odds and bobs down at the market square. Neither had earned enough between them to ever hope of escaping the Sink. Most just gave up. Or gave in, since crime was the only way to make a decent living.

'Not ma and pa, though.'

They had tried to raise her right. But I was an unruly lil' shit, mused the Deva, saying as much to Osytha. 'Angry and stupid, jus' like you believe yourself to be. Birds of a feather!' She laughed, though, back then, there hadn't been much to laugh about. She had lied and cheated to get ahead. Eventually, she had even resorted to thieving, which, she supposed, was when the trouble truly started.

'It was around my eighteenth nameday I was approached.'

Some hard-nosed human in rich clothes had come sniffing about the tenement in which Xen and her family had lived, bringing gifts and offers of employment. She had been a woman grown, by then, tall and somewhat pretty. Of course, the so-called gifts came with a catch. So, too, the sort of work they had in mind for her.

When a gift horse bared its teeth, you ran the other way.

Her father had been the first to suffer for her refusal. During a late night patrol in a rough neighbourhood, anything could go wrong. By the time he managed to crawl his way home, he was already half-dead. If not for the efforts of a local physician, he would have been. 'The next day, a bunch of yobs ransacked my ma's stall, 'cause of course they did.' Intimidation masquerading as a random act of destruction. Could've happened to anyone, really.

The following week, two men showed up at the tenement with the same offer. No gifts this time.

'It was then we decided our time in Crown's Hold had come to an end,' she said, blinking away each memory as it came. 'I helped pack up our things, and then found a caravan for my folks to travel with. I stayed behind.' To tie up loose ends. Foolhardy, maybe. But necessary. They wouldn't have let her go, just like that. It would have set a bad precedent. And in the Sink, appearing weak was the same as being weak.

So.

'There were six of them, all told. Big men and small. Each and every one of them, rotten.' It had been six against one. Snow had carpeted the rooftops in thick drifts, though, in her truest form, she hardly felt the winter's bite. Odd, Xenovia remembered thinking, no one ever looks up.

'The boss was the first to go. Or at least I assumed he was at the time. Doughy guy swaddled up in expensive furs. Had a straight sword on his hip. I descended on him and... Well. That was that.' The other thugs followed swiftly enough, though their ends had been a touch... messier. 'I'd seen corpses before, obviously. A few folks killed over debts and the like,' she shook her head. 'Never heard a man try to scream with no lungs before, though.'

Xenovia didn't feel drowsy anymore. If anything, she felt restless.

'I s'pose... what I'm trying to say is... I didn't let that stage of my life define the person I've become since,' she said, wriggling a breath closer. 'Nor do you have to let this Grymmund... Artorias... Whatever his fuckin' name is define the woman you have become.' A knight of the hedges, granted. And yet truer than most knights Xen had encountered in her travails.

'Sorry if that sounded harsh,' she grimaced. 'A hurt that deep... Well. I'm not sure I have the words.'

Rain knocked at the shutters. Constant, and calming.

'What do you reckon you'll do, if you ever find the guy?' Xenovia asked quietly. 'Knowin' what you know now. About how he ran out on you... your ma.'
 
It’s a hell of a story. And Osytha thought she had it rough. It’s still a huge, jumbled mess up in that thick skull of hers, but after everything tonight, maybe she’s found one place to start with cleaning out: all these big useless boxes of self-pity. Feels like they’ve only been getting in the way, tripping her up. And then she goes and drags someone like Xen down with her.

“I’m sorr—” Osytha pulls up sharp before she can finish that, remembering what Xen had said earlier. “… I’ve only been to the Sink once. Hunted a krasue with Syr Volmar there. He had us in and out in a flash, so I only caught a glimpse, but…”

She recalls they had passed by this tiny girl; surely not a day over six years old, and with truly horrible scars across her face. When Volmar caught her staring, he’d explained in his own detached, emotionless way, that some people recruit urchins to send out as beggars to other wards. And that often, they maim them. To make folk pity them more, so they might earn more alms. And that’s why someone had taken a knife to this small child’s eyes, leaving her blind and mutilated.

One of the few times Osytha hadn’t been able to look away. She’d handed over as much silver as she thought she could spare, but really, it’s not like it would have actually helped the bairn much. Most, if not all, of her coin had no doubt ended up in the hands of whoever had held that knife in the first place.

“… I guess you don’t imagine such a place could possibly exist until you’ve seen it for yourself. I know I didn’t.”

A subdued flex to the mattress under her, as Xen sidles up a bit. Osytha glances up from the near-empty cup in her hands, at the woman beside her. That nasty bump on her head seems to have done to the devahni what it took a sea of lager all night to inflict upon Osytha; dizzy, unsteady eyes, keeping themselves awake through dint of agitated effort. “Nor do you have to let this Grymmund… Artorias… Whatever his fuckin’ name is define the woman you have become.” Osytha blinks at her. Then she shifts herself over a bit as well, so they’re shoulder-to-shoulder, and tilts her head until she feels the hard ridge of a black horn against her crown. Hopefully, giving Xen something comfortable to lean against.

“I think… that’s the problem,” Osytha murmurs. “I already have. Ever since I was old enough to understand the words coming out mum’s mouth. That’s the only me there’s ever been…”

“What do you reckon you’ll do, if you ever find the guy? Knowin’ what you know now. About how he ran out on you… your ma.”​

“Hmm.” One last gulp of wretched painkiller draught, then Osytha cradles the empty vessel down in her lap. “I’ve imagined how it’ll go in all sorts of ways. Bunch of self-indulgent fantasies. If I do find him for real, though…? I have no idea.” She chuckles darkly. “I think I just want another person to point the blame at. To be angry with. So… maybe it’s best if I don’t find him after all. Not until I’ve found a better reason to, anyroad.”

Fingers slide in a little displacement activity dance across the cup. It’s a small ritual Osytha has refined over countless cups of steaming tea and mugs of frothing beer. At first, just a little release valve for the piping hot steam of troubled, impatient energy, but now simply a soothing automatic reflex in its own right.

“How about your folks?” she asks Xen. “Where they ended up — do you still get to see them?”
 
'Been. Past tense.' The past was said and done; weren't no changing it. 'Your father mightn't be a knight, but you are. Whether you meant to or not, you've already started in on forging your own legacy.' Xenovia had the faintest inkling of what it was to be a Knight of Anathaeum. The tales she had heard told on the Road about them varied wildly. Some spoke of them as champions of the smallfolk whilst others believed them to be nothing but murderers and thieves in fancy threads.

Xen had known plenty of the latter but few of the former. And yet the Planter folk had been nothing but kind to her.

Strange, really. Once upon a time, she would have headed straight for the door if someone she didn't know offered her food and a roof to sleep under. Life with the Elum had taught her otherwise, though such freedom still came with its costs.

“How about your folks? Where they ended up — do you still get to see them?”

Sitting up, Xen rested back against the headboard, knees tucked slightly. 'Sometimes,' she confessed sleepily. 'Not as often as I'd like. They rode the wagon train as far South as Akke- On second thought, nevermind.' Even now, she was reluctant to give such information away. It was nothing personal. 'They got away, that's what matters. After what happened... Well. I fled the city. Nearly froze to death. If not for the Elum, I would have.'

Xen still remembered Vyn fondly. Her saviour and friend.

Couldn't help her in the end, though, could I? Perhaps that was why she kept sticking her neck out for strangers in distress. Pulling them from freezing cold rivers, rescuing them from men with more than money on their minds.

'Saw 'em a month ago. They're doing well. Met a lot of honest folk willing to help them resettle. Lotta devahni, like us.' That was the best part, Xen had found. The area her ma and pa had built a home in felt like a real community, not just a simulacrum of one. 'They tried to convince me to stay, of course. And I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted. But...'

The Sink didn't forgive and it certainly didn't forget.

Staring into the fire, Xenovia roused with a start, only to settle once she realised the banging at the window wasn't her past catching up with her. 'You, uh,' she wetted her lips, 'have much to do with your ma? What's her name?'
 
“They rode the wagon train as far South as Akke— On second thought, nevermind. They got away, that’s what matters. After what happened… Well. I fled the city. Nearly froze to death. If not for the Elum, I would have.”​

Osytha’s not so out of it as to miss that blatant show of caginess on Xen’s part. And fair enough, she supposes, given what the guardian angel has explained about her family’s situation. Not like she owes Osytha any of this to begin with.

“The Wagons?” she asks, choosing to steer the conversion elsewhere. That bit of Xen’s story sends a sympathetic shiver down her body; especially with its memory of their little dunk in the river still so fresh. “Lucky. If anyone was going to find you, I guess you could do a lot worse than the Elum.”

She crosses paths with them from time to time. They’re worth seeking out if Osytha finds herself in the same area; always hospitable to those who respect their customs, and quite happy to share news of the road — as well as hear it, if she’s any of her own for the telling. Also means Osytha gets to brush up on a bit of the old tongue with them, which is nice. Handy, even; especially if it helps her recognise a timely angel when one pops in on her.

“You, uh, have much to do with your ma? What’s her name?”​

Osytha doesn’t reply straight away. She waits in silence, her eyes resting on the low glow of embers. Until Xen has eased back down; and stillness has returned, underscored by its various hypnotic rhythms.

“Mearufryþu,” she says after a while, enunciating it in the proper Altalusian. “She and I… we see each other every now and then. But not often, no…”

A note of uncertainty enters Osytha’s voice. Why is that? she wonders. Obviously, things are a bit awkward with the old girl now. But before the truth came out, what was my excuse, exactly? Not like the Leah is all that far from Astenvale…

“She did marry after a while,” Osytha goes on, unsure why she is, only that she can feel a sort of momentum has been reached which is now drawing the words out for her. “The village smith, Hroþgar. He’s… a good man. Not so bothered by labels like ‘ruined woman’ or ‘bastard child’. Good to both of us. I remember being afraid I’d be, sort of, left behind. When they wed? Well, I know mum never would have allowed that, but still. Hroþgar made sure I knew I was his family, too.”

Osytha huffs, softly. Smiling at the memory of an old, old oath, made long before she’d ever laid eyes upon the monastery.

“Got a younger brother, too. Leofric. He’s just like her — imagine a couple of very well-meaning neuroses on legs. Though, mum’s a bit more confident in herself these days.”
 
The briefest moment of hesitation, and yet Xen noticed it plain as day. 'You should visit them, when next the chance presents itself,' she smiled sidelong at the Dusker, halfway between encouraging and wistful. 'Life moves in mysterious ways. Seems to me your ma only wished to protect you.' No doubt herself, too. But what's done is done. Time waited for no one, and regret lingered after death. Of that much, Xen was certain.

'Perhaps I'll visit them myself some day,' the Deva shifted, swinging to her feet, limbs leaden with exhaustion. 'These bones of mine grow restless, and a run would do me good.'

Glancing at Osytha, the devahni treaded softly towards the hearth, fingers furled, her palms itching for warmth only flames could provide. 'Leofric is a strong name, by the by,' she grinned, picking a few logs from the basket, before feeding them to the fire. 'He a knight, too?' Xenovia had been to many places and met many people in the process. Rarely did village folk travel far from home. To the nearest town, if that.

'I don't have any brothers or sisters. I always wondered what it would be like,' her tail swished from side to side as she squatted down in front of the hearth, close enough that the smoke stung her eyes. Good tears, they were, much better than sad ones.
 
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