Well, how about that? Osytha’s tomfoolery isn’t just her having a bit of fun with the man; she’s quite curious to see how Syr Sabinian chooses to respond. Would he play along with the joke, even add a few embellishments of his own? Awkwardly laugh it off? Scoff at her frivolity?

His actual answer turns out to be much more interesting: the truth.

She listens in silence, rapt to every detail. Unicorn Bay sounds a very different place to Hræfn Leah; in the latter, women are most definitely not spared the ardours of mucking out animal pens, and such an abundance of sugar is hardly iconic of her home (though, Merifrith does keep a little at hand for very special guests to put in their tea¹).

Not learning to read and write until he was over a century old. Much longer than that before he understood the opportunities he’d wasted in his youth. It’s a long life for an elf, right? There’s always more time to put things off; always a tomorrow to do what you don’t feel like doing today. Until there isn’t.

Curious… a life like Sabinian’s sounds just like any other in that regard. Does it hurt that much more to look backward over six hundred years and wonder how much of that you squandered? Or does that regret hit everyone just as hard at the end of things, whether they were here for eighty years or eight hundred?

Perhaps it’s more about how much you took your tomorrows for granted that makes losing them all the more unbearable.

“I couldn’t even write my own name when I first got to Astenvale,” Osytha remarks. “I came to et a little owder than most other bairns do, so everyone my age could already read and write. In fact, they was ahead of me on pretty much everythin’. That’s when I realised all I’d been doin’ up to that point was playin’ around. Et were a tough pill to swallow for a headstrong child, I can tell you — an’ I ’ave to keep swallowin’ et every day, for the fact is, I’ll allus be tryin’ to catch up. Truth be told, back then… I came closer to callin’ et quits than I cares to admit.”

She looks over toward Sabinian. “I’m fain I stuck wi’ et, though, an’ I’m fain you did too. Even if et would’ve been easier to give up just so’s we could pretend we ’adn’t let all that time slip through us ’ands. ’Appen et were that much ’arder for you, an’ all.” Then, she flicks him a smile before turning back ahead. “But you’re ’ere now, wi’ us. An,’ well — you ever feel summat of yours is missin’, syr, you just come and see ol’ Osytha. I’ll allus ’elp you look for et.”

A thought strikes her, then — visibly causing her to perk up in her seat.

“Do tell, syr… you still try your ’and at bakin’ these days, perchance?”


¹ … and even then no one’s actually meant to use it, because there isn’t a self-respecting tea drinker alive who’d dream of sullying their lovely cuppa by adding sugar. But those godless little cubes still come out each and every time, right there alongside the milk (which is its own Thing) and biscuits, because that’s just what’s done. It’s half some kind of hospitality flex, half some unspoken test that lets these people recognise one another, maybe; a test where if you’re asked if you take sugar, the correct answer is ‘no thanks’ (correct-er than that is, of course, ‘I’m sweet enough already, doh ho ho’).

Osytha doesn’t know how old the cubes in her mother’s little sugar dish are, exactly; she just has an uneasy suspicion that it looks exactly the same as it did the day she first left for Astenvale.
 
A sudden warmth folded itself over his chest like a blanket. It wasn't often that a human reminded the elf just how similar they could be, even less often that a sort of kinship could form after a shallow wave of nostalgia from one's youth. Mistakes were always made, regrets always present. There was no go back in time much like how there was no way to see the future. It should have made the present all that more romantic, a constant and secure lover compared to anxious future and reckless past.

In this moment, despite Midnight's disappearance, that peace did nestle inside him. A featherless baby bird warmed only by the nest meticulously made by its parents. Sabinian wondered if next time he could enjoy a ride with Syr Osytha without Midnight having disappeared, or any other sort of malady to fall upon the Monastery. Or, a mission involving doom and gloom, blood and bone, death and pestilence. He hated those sort of missions. It was why he did his best to hide in the library or stables, hoping the Captains could forget about him for a couple of years.

"Not giving up matches what a headstrong youth would find to be rebellious. Giving up would have been submission." Sabinian agreed with a nod. He doubt he had half the fire that Syr Osytha had inside her. He doubt he had half of any of her positive traits. Perhaps she should have been Dawn and him Dusk, and maybe in another life that would be the way for things to be, but in any world, they would always be opposites. He would be foolish not to appreciate it.

"I do," Syr Sabinian said, looking at Syr Osytha with a hint of a frown. "I have always enjoyed making my mother's medovik for the Festival of Lights and I bake the honey wheat loaves in the fall." Everyone always wanted pumpkin pie, pumpkin load, pumpkin bakes in the fall. To Sabinian, it was honey that was treasured the most in fall and winter, honey used only when very important guests came over or family holidays were to be enjoyed. Finding the hives in the spring and summer, working together to drug quiet the buzzing of the bees to get their liquid amber. "Of course, I think my honey cookies are my most popular treat. You must have had one. Once a year I make it for all the squires that don't get to become Knights."

One day they would be, if everything went well. One day they would be full of smiles, awaiting to be called Syr instead of Squire, to stand taller and broader and look forward to their future duties. And in case those squires never got to become Syrs, in case they watched their friends move on without them, in case death came to them unexpected and sooner than most, at least they could sweeten up the strange, almost shameful bitterness in their stomach with a cookie soaked in honey.

"It looks like a egg and I add crushed walnuts to it." Sabinian added, pushing away his sudden wave of melancholy. "You surely must have had one, Syr Osytha. They are very good. Unless Squire Roki is making the oven a mess with all that extra heat." He very much had enjoyed that squire being away on a long adventure, it felt too soon that he had returned and started sticking his nose back into the kitchen. "I cannot wait for him to finally swear his oath." He mumbled before raising his head with a snap of his fingers.

"I know. As a way to thank you, I shall make for you my specialty: creme brulee. It is very rich, and sweet, but the very top of it has burnt sugar thin as glass." The excitement in his voice was palpable, enough that even Evensong felt it, ears pricking as if he were offering her the fancy dessert. "You like sweet things, don't you Syr Osytha?"
 
The subject of Syr Sabinian’s (frankly divine-sounding) honey cookies seems, somehow, to embarrass the other Knight slightly.

“We-e-ell…” Osytha begins, and rubs the back of her neck in an awkward gesture. “Sort of, nivver ’ad t’chance. What wi’ mekkin et to Knight first try.” She gives Syr Sabinian another sheepish look. “Jus’ don’t ax me how, ’cos I still ’aven’t figured that ’un aht.”

She does remember Sabinian’s cookies from back then, even so. Osytha had felt some strange kind of pride in missing out on them at the time; in not needing any ‘consolation prize’. Now, though? It makes her a bit sad. Her fellow Knight, hardly the most extroverted of their lot, had nonetheless put in effort to share something with his fellows — something rather meaningful, it turns out. And her response had been to look down on that, for some reason.

As for having a sweet tooth… “Et, um, depends ’ow sweet we’re talkin’, I s’pose. Din’t grow up wi’ much in t’way of confections,” Osytha admits, “so some things are a bit… much… for me.”

Osytha looks far ahead, at the fields unrolling before them. They head not towards the remainder of the Wylds about Astenvale, but for distant stands of coppice and the march of drystone wall; where long wrinkles in the meadows betray the cut of yet-unseen roads through that windswept grass. Something she sees over yonder brings first a little furrow to her brow, but then, her expression lifts with a tender smile.

“Mind you, owd Mister Pellino did make ’is own lollies back in Hræfn Leah,” Osytha reminisces. “From this kind of orange tree ’e kept. Was called, um—” she snaps her fingers a couple of times, then her eyes sharpen, “—chinotto. Chinotto oranges. Eight above, I’ve nivver ’ad nowt so bitter as those sweeties. Bloody delicious, though, once you gave ’em a chance.”

She blinks, and suddenly, that sticky-faced young Osytha of the past gives way to the mildly less grubby Syr Osytha of the present. She gives a lone, little chuckle at that memory; of finding where a piece of her began all the way back when.

“Marmalade, marzipan, sesame halva, cacao… chinotto oranges. Guess I likes when my sweets ’ave a touch of bitterness.” She turns her smile to Sabinian, and nods appreciatively. “Burnt sugar, eh? Doesn’t sound ’alf bad. Ta, syr — I’m much obliged.”

This time, Osytha won’t miss out. Come what may — mobs of rambunctious tykes, curmudgeonly farmers, the myriad hazards of the Wylds — she’s determined to earn that crème brûlée. Or, more like she’s determined to have another reason for the two of them to spend a bit more time together… because, just like everywhere else, the monastery is filled with rather incredible people whom it had been easy for a young, self-important Knight to overlook. Now she’s bothered to scratch the surface with Syr Sabinian, Osytha is equal parts glad she finally tried, and ashamed it took her so long to get here.

Another glance at the tracks turns her thoughtful. Her eyes slide up, following their projected path. Then she looks skyward, gauging the hour. Midnight’s gait seems to slowed a little, changing from a mad dash for freedom to something more leisurely. Less about the ‘from’, and more about ‘to’ where. And if said ‘where’ happened to be a certain carrot-glutted farmstead, there are much worse routes one could take to get there.

“Reckon at this point,” Osytha remarks, slowly, “we’s goin’ to find ussen at yon Ploughman’s one way or another. What say you, syr — would you like to play et safe an’ keep followin’ these prints, or shall we go straight for the farm, on t’double?”
 
"Oh," Sabinian said upon realizing that she never had the chance to try one of his cookies. Ruddy cheeks belied his embarrassment for thinking that Syr Osytha had ever failed thanks to the sharp nip of cool breeze and warm sun. Clearing his throat, he added, "I had always assumed they were shared." But of course they wouldn't be, Sabinian had spent a century making the recipe perfect. He knew they were better than his mother's, if only because ingredients became ever more readily available and could stay fresher for longer.

Bitter. He hadn't expected Syr Osytha to have such a unique hankering for a dessert. He might need to change that creme brulee recipe to better suit her tastes.

"I never heard of chinotto oranges." It sounded like something from the Free States. Suddenly, though Sabinian had never been to Hræfn Leah or met a Mister Pellino, he was beginning to crave one of the lollies that Syr Osytha had just described to him. He imagined the bitterness to taste like a grapefruit peel, but something told him he couldn't be further from the truth. "I'd like to try one.

"It will be faster if we head to the barn," Sabinian said after a moment's consideration. Evensong's ears were pricked as Sabinian shifted in the saddle. "No harm in picking up the pace." He added, with a look in Syr Osytha's direction.

The Ploughman's farm was hidden by lilac bushes the size of draft horses. The Ploughmans and the Knights would know of the hidden side paths that were often hidden by wild grass and snow depending on the season. Sabinian tied Evensong to a spindly sweet chestnut tree that would soon fight with the lilac over the earth to spread more roots. Wit a gloved hand, he pushed away the branches heavy with green leaves and bunches upon bunches of the small blue, pink and lavender flowers.

Below the small, slow sloping hill that the two knights stood upon they could see the farm. Old stone steps would help lead them down to the prized pumpkin patch that only grew one pumpkin a year, a giant Atlalusian Giant pumpkin that had won Simon first place for largest and heaviest vegetable at the Astenvale Harvest Festival a few years in a row now. The elf sighed deeply in relief. Midnight had the brains to not go near Simon's pride and joy, the long and perfectly placed green vines unharmed, the giant main stalk unbroken and the start of the giant pumpkin still round and green.

Sabinian wished that Midnight had the mind to not go towards the farm in the first place. Squared and rectangular vegetable beds held the new growth of cucumbers, zucchinis, squash and tomatoes. Some of the plots were for medicinal flowers. Rows and rows of carrots, potatoes, onions, and garlic could be spied all the way on the other side. Even where the Knights stood, dark, upturned soil could be seen in piles along the neat rows.

Clucking of chickens and screaming of goats mixed with the buzzing of bees as Sabinian took the lead, choosing to walk by a thicket of berry bushes. The smell of sweet strawberries caught his nose as he passed by a small strawberry patch next to a herb garden filled with lemon balm, basil, and mint. Stepping under many trellises with hanging broad beans a mixture of yellow, white, green, red and purple, Sabinian was careful to make sure none of the pods got caught in his hair.

"There's yer sorry ass!" The gravelly crowing of Simon had Sabinian jumping in his own skin, unable to see the man with the thick leaves of the bean vines obscuring any view other than right before him. Clearing his throat, Sabinian dipped his head over the final length of vine twisting into the trellis, seeing Simon swatting away one of the older kids with a raggedy rag darkened with dirt.

"Good Morning --"

"Good Mornin'? Naw, not a good mornin' fer me, maybe fer yous." He pointed a finger at Sabinian, "Seein' as yer unicorn," Sabinian winced as Simon pushing his hands up in the air to make an imaginary rainbow over his head. "Gotta free breakfast offa me. Yew see that mess? Yew see what 'e did to the fence there and looky ova there, too, huh?" Striding up to Sabinian as if he might slap him, Simon smacked his dirty rag aginst Sabinian's chest. "I tell ya yew keep that monster outta my property, yeah? And yew said, 'yes, Simon, will not happen again, Simon, I am so-so-so sorry Simon, Midnight apologizes for the mess, he won't do it again, he learned his lesson. I will make sure it never happens again, Simon, you can trust me, why me, oh my, I swear it on my Oath as a Knight!'"

"Did I say that?" Sabinian's brow carried a slight sheen of sweat, it was hard to hide the smile as Simon impersonated him. He was quite good at enunciating when he wanted to. "Funny, it does not come to mind."
 
Now, Osytha could step in to give Syr Sabinian some backup. She just doesn’t feel like it quite yet. As much as she’s coming to like the reclusive elf, she’s not the sort to shield others from the consequences of their actions. The burned hand teaches best, as they say.

And, yes, she is also enjoying watching Sabinian squirm. Just a little.

“I’ll bet not,” Simon growls. He sucks his teeth in a sharp noise, and rests his fists on his hips. “You can’t be expected to remember some measly promise to a nobody farmer, right? You Knights are much too important to be concerned about somethin’ as triflin’ as a workin’ family’s livelihood, is that it?”

He seems especially peeved, even accounting for his already irascible temper. Man might be short of more than a few carrots and cabbages, reckons Osytha. With a fresh bairn on their hands? Belike they’ve already said goodbye to things like ‘sleep’ and ‘free time’… if they even had any to begin with.

Things sound like they’re turning in an unproductive direction, though, so Osytha steps out from the cover of trailing vetch, appearing from behind Sabinian to stand beside him. Simon’s glowering visage comes into view; short stiff hair over a frown-wrinkled brow, big bushy soup-strainer, and a few days’ worth of scruff.

His narrow eyes sweep over to her. “And here’s the other one,” Simon grumbles. “What’re you lot goin’ to do about this mess, eh?”

Osytha tips her head toward him. “Monastery’s already tasked personnel to assist wi’ repairs.” Person. Me. I’m the person. “An’ I’ve nay doubt we’ll recompense you once we reckon t’sum of your losses.” Out of Syr Sabinian’s budget, I’ll wager. “We also ken ’ow he escaped, so we’ll be tekkin’ steps to fix that particular owersight.” ‘Fixing’ Syr Noah is not going to be neat and easy, but we can find stopgap measures in the meanwhile—

—uh oh; bogeys at six o’clock. Guffy alerts her when he whips his head around, ears waggling upward. A glance over her shoulder, and Osytha spies a couple of small figures inbound back beyond the trellises. With a command of “Ġefriólíc,” she sends Syr Guffers to intercept, but it’s only a delaying tactic. Now they’ve been spotted by the piquets, the main force will be inbound.

“We en’t blind to all you an’ yours do for us Knights, an’ for a mort of other folk round these parts,” she goes on, over the backdrop of squealing bairns and happy yaps. “Lots of full bellies at the monastery year-round thanks to your toils. Please believe when I say we want to do reight by you. But we also want to round up Midnight afore ’e goes plunderin’ anyone else’s fields, so time is of t’essence. I hope you unnerstand.”

More shapes begin converging on their position, alerted to a familiar barking. This is it, Osytha decides. Operation: Knee-Biter is a go.

“Say, why don’t I get Isabelle an’ Frank an’ Yvonne an’ Jimmy an’, um, shitwhat’sernameagain — Rosemary, aye, Rosemary to ’elp me pick up us vandal’s trail while you twa go ower things?”

Osytha turns to join the fray back there, but before she does, stops and leans toward Syr Sabinian.

“Ax abaht t’sprog,” she whispers, and gives him a sly little smile.

Then she’s off, striding toward the gaggle of raucous, grubby little bodies rollicking around by the strawberry patch, as an even smaller body runs excited circles around them. At Osytha’s approach, a couple break off and make a dash for the knight instead.

“Ey up, me ducks!” she bellows, briefly tussling with the two assailants before emerging victorious, one child dangling upside down in each hand by the ankles. Squeals and giggles fill the air as she keeps striding on. “Lookin’ for a pointy ’orse, ’appen you might ken if et passed through ’ere…”
 
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What a frightening sound to hear. Some Knights might shudder upon remembering the moans of dead comrades or the particularly nasty warning call of a monster. Sabinian was hardly sent on anything such as that so he never had nightmares about demons, monsters, dead soldiers, suffering children or any of that grimsome stuff. His nightmares were strictly about a dead unicorn, all of his teeth and/or hair falling out, and snotty-nosed children. Some Knights woke up in a sweat remembering the snarling hiss of a leshy, Sabinian woke up in a cold sweat remembering the shrill squeals and screams of little kids.

It was a good thing that Syr Osytha could help bring down the temper of Farmer Simon, though he still looked suspiciously at the two Knights. He gave Osytha the sort of look of perhaps wanting to trust her words, whereas for the elf, the look held no trust whatsoever, Simon wouldn't even dare try. His eyes were as sharp as his nose and chin, both sharp as hawk talons.

Sabinian was admiring the good and honest and kind Syr Osytha to realize that Simon also was displeased by her saving the day and saving the two of them from all the yipping and yapping rascals.

"I need those kids weedin'!" Simon shouted after Osytha's back, "An' killin' the squash bugs eggs an' gettin' rid of all these goddamn hornworms goin' after my goddamn tamaetas!" For whatever reason, the farmer gave Sabinian another withering glare. "So yew go ahead and mess up my farm an' now ya messin' with my help." Syr Sabinian blanched, turning to look away from Syr Osytha standing as tall and sure as a redwood despite one of the neanderthals trying to tackle her into a patch of flowering sweet basil.

"Actually," Syr Sabinian said quietly, "She is helping more than you understand. The children were about to attack me."

"HO!" Simon's face puckered up even more as if he had tasted one of Osytha's chinotto orange from her childhood, peel and all. Syr Sabinian gulped, adam's apple bobbing. The silence between the two men stretched on and on, every second passing becoming more and more unbearable. "Yew haven't changed a bit."

"Am I supposed to?" That cracked a smile out of Simon, and Sabinian could see him get that faraway look in his eyes, much like Sabinian himself got when imagining one's youth.

"Bet ya still hate radishes and eggplants," Simon said with a smirk. It was hard for Sabinian not to defend himself -- he was not a picky eater and there was nothing wrong with a six-hundred-year-old elf refusing to eat vegetables that he had hated for centuries.

"I believe consistency is a virtue for a Knight, Simon, much like how it is for a farmer. We have that in common." The sourness returned back to Simon's face, like more lemon juice being added to the jar of lemonade with any sweetness now being an aftertaste.

"Naw." Was all Simon had to say. There was more silence between them and this time it didn't look like Simon would budge.

"Well, may we take a look around the farm to see where Midnight might have gone? And also to do our assessment of the damages incurred, of course." For a moment it looked like Simon might have said 'no' or to try an insult. Instead, the farmer gave up with a sigh.

"Let's go, Mister Snooty," That's right, that was one of the reasons why Sabinian hadn't liked Simon as a child, he would always call him Mister Snooty. Another thing to dislike about children - they had little qualms about being liars. "Yew better get that pen and paper ready. It's gon be a loooooong list." And off the two of them went, leaving Syr Osytha behind with the kids


"Miss Osytha," One of the small girls, Isabelle, tugged on Osytha's leg, seeking attention like all the other children trying to grab the Knight's attention. Those that weren't were playing with Guffers, trying to get him to play tug-o-war with one of their father's gardening gloves. Little Isabelle's voice was being drowned out by all the others. Isabelle tugged harder, reaching up to pull at her arm. The other children ignored her, continuing their onslaught of questions or stories or jokes, everyone wanting their piece of the woman.

"Miss Osytha!" Isabelle shouted, loud enough to silence her many, many siblings for a second. "I know where the horse went. I saw it this morning."

"Liar, Isabelle is always lying!" Said a brother.
 
“Am not—!”

“Er…”

“Are too! Are too!”

“’Ey now—”

Little Isabelle’s face screws up with indignant rage as she begins to yell, “Am-not-am-not-am-not!”

“Liar, liar, pants on—”

“Alreight!” Osytha shouts, gently intercepting the tiny girl’s upraised fist before it finds its mark on slightly-less-tiny Frank. “Enow of that! What’s this all abaht, eh?”

Frank peeks his disgruntled, seven-year-old face from around its hiding place behind Syr Osytha, and sticks a tongue out at his sister. “Izzy’s a liar,” he repeats.

“What I mean is,” Osy pointedly asks, cutting over the girl’s fresh wave of grizzling before it can fully douse the deck, “what’s actually ’appened to make thee say such a thing?”

Rosemary, a lass of nine years, speaks up as she hurls the glove away for Guffers to chase. “Oh, Izzy’s always saying she saw a bogle out in the fields, or a procession of the Fair Folk passing through the woods, or a dragon fly over,” she remarks, watching the dog trot smugly back with his prize between his jaws. He’s not prepared to quite give it up yet, however, and dances just a little out of reach every time Rose gets close. “Hah, silly boy! … anyway, just ignore her.”

Osytha looks up at the clear, brilliant blue sky above. “I mean, you lot are pretty close to t’monastery. You’d see Syr Petra gettin’ about on old Norvyk all t’time.”

Rosemary glances over her shoulder to give the knight a condescending look. “Norvyk doesn’t count, obviously.” With that, she turns back to Guffers and makes a grab for the glove. Fails yet again, and giggles. “Izzy says she sees, like, weird ones made out of fire, or rainbows, or stuff like that— stop running away!”

A rainbow dragon? Osytha muses, turning her attention back to Isabelle. The younger girl has fallen silent, sat down cross-legged by the basil and facing away from everyone else, although Osytha can picture the way she must be pouting right now. Those stubby little fingers pick and pluck at a bit of witches’ gowan growing where it oughtn’t. I’ve heard that one afore now, only, it weren’t a lie. Well, well, well, little Izzy. Bist thou what I reckon thou myghst be?

“Izzy, love,” she says, stepping up to the sulking child. Osytha crouches down, and Isabelle turns not-at-all-subtly away to keep from seeing her face. “I’d really, really like to ax thee for a favour. Is et alreight if I tell thee what it is?”

Silence.

“First of all,” Osytha goes on, carefully treading the thin ice of a young bairn’s delicate temperament, “I’d be fain if I could give thee a piggyback ride. How’s that sound?”

A subtle shift. A faint sniffle. Poor little Isabelle finally turns around and looks up at the knight with big, watery eyes. Broken scraps of dandelion in her hands cut the air with their sharp green scent. And Osytha doesn’t miss the tiny tremble in her lip when she nods.

One of her siblings pipes up. “Hey, no fair, I want a piggyback ride too—”

“Fine! Piggyback rides for everybody. Eight above, I’m ne a bloody mule… Izzy first, mind you. An’ she’s goin’ to ’elp me wi’ summat afterward. Then t’rest of you can ’op on my back but only if you get crackin’ on that weedin’ in t’meantime! What, you lot can’t ’ear me well enow?! ’Cos I can shout in your ruddy lug-oyles if you need me to — go on an’ shape yersen, hup hup hup!”

The other children grumble, groan, and move reluctantly in spite of Osytha’s pep off to their chores… though, the look of disbelief on Guffy’s face as he watches them all abandon him, grimy gardening glove still wobbling out of his mouth, is enough to break Osytha’s heart. Sometimes, sacrifices must be made.

She looks back to Isabelle, and smiles instead. “Ready to go?”


* * *​


“There. By the big pump-a-kin.”

Osytha’s eyes follow the little digit pointing toward Simon’s prize pompion in-the-making, and pauses. The old farmer might lose his ruddy mind if he catches them messing around in that field, but she’ll just have to take that risk. So, she kneels down to let Isabelle off her shoulders, and while the girl takes a few tentative steps toward their destination, Osytha’s hands retrieve a polished river pebble she’d collected on their way over, and also slip a small wooden case free from her baldric.

When Izzy looks back behind her, she sees the knight has slid the box open and taken out a brush. “What’s that?” she enquires, aptly fulfilling her duties as a nosy child.

“Et’s a special ink,” Osytha replies, wetting the brush with a lick of her tongue. Mmm, tingly. “‘Weaver’s resin’, they calls et. Jus’ a moment…”

She gets a healthy dab of that glittery, electrum pigment onto her brushhead and proceeds to carefully apply it to the stone. It’s tricky work, doing the sigils so small, but she’d needed something she could hide in either palm without Izzy being able to tell which one. Speaking of… the girl in question wanders back up and peers, curiously, down at the design Osytha is painting to the smooth rock.

“Can you really see them too?” a small voice asks.

“Only t’big ’uns,” Osytha replies, frowning in concentration. Steady, now… “Or if they been, sort of, ‘re-purposed’. Er… like if a witch adopts ane as a pet, that seems to ’elp a bit.” Yeah, that’s probably an explanation that a six-year-old might understand. “Still not that well, mind you. Tha canst likely see ’em much better’n I.”

“How do you know about the litt-le ones, then?”

“Oh, jus’ part of my trainin’. But I… I also met someone who could see ’em like tha canst. He,” Osytha’s hand slows, “um. He came through these parts a short while back.”

The child’s eyes bore into Osytha, now eager and hungry. There are others like her?

“Is he still here? Can I meet him?”

Hand, goes still entire. Brushtip kinked hard and motionless mid-line. “I’m sorry. He’s long gone, now.” Osytha speaks gently, in a faraway voice. “Though I wish very much that he could have stayed. He was…” Special. Dear. Breaking apart. Cured all the lonely feelings when he was here. Made them so much deeper when he left. “… he was one of the kindest, most thoughtful people I’ve ever met. But he was lookin’ for summat important, an’ was returnin’ to Aetochi once he found et.”

I hope thou hast, she thinks, and resumes the stroking of her brush. I hope thou hast found it, Momoshiro, and thou’rt safely reunited with thy kin.

One more dab, and with that, Osytha’s all done. She stands up, then starts walking on over toward the fledgling monster pumpkin.

“Anyway… what’s this ’un look like?” she asks Lizzy. A jarring change of topic, but it does the trick.

The lass blinks over at, not quite at the gourd, but with her eyes flitting lazily around it instead. “It’s like a… like a butter-fer-lye. Only,” her small brow knits with the effort of words, “… it has a bee-yoo-tiful long flowy tail, and, and, its wings are like, when daddy blows on a fire to make it hotter, you know?”

“As in embers?” Osytha huffs on the ink a bit to help it dry, then continues, “They glow?”

“Yeah. When it flaps its wings, they… glow…”

Isabelle trails off. Lass seems mesmerised by whatever it is she sees floating around there, but her eyes only widen in surprise when Oystha steps next to the pumpkin and holds her little pebble out over it. Based on where Izzy seems to be looking now, she can make a pretty good guess as to what just happened.

“Et’s around my hand now, reight?”

Izzy nods. “It’s sitting on you. Did the weaver wesin do that?”

“Sure did — wi’ t’reight magic drawin’. Think of et like a drop of nectar for these things. Butterflies like nectar, aye?” Osytha puts her hands behind her back, fidgets a little, and then brings them out in front of her in closed fists. “Now then. Which ’and is t’butterfly on?”

But Isabelle’s brown eyes give away the answer before she even speaks. “That one,” she says, pointing to Osytha’s left.

The knight opens up her palms. Right one empty. Pebble in the left.

“Mind doin’ that a few more times for me? Jus’ to be sure.”

They repeat the little game nine more times, in the end. And Isabelle, without fail, chooses the hand with the pebble in it each attempt.

“Well,” Osytha concludes, holding out the stone toward Izzy. She accepts it in cupped hands, and wearing a somewhat awestruck look upon her face — probably more at the spirit now attached to it than the rock itself. “Good news is, now we can tell t’others tha wert ne lyin’ after all.” Bad news is, I bet Simon’s going to blow his lid when I tell him one of his bairns has the Sight.

That stone disappears into a tiny trembling fist. “I told them I wasn’t lying. I told them.” So much wrathful vindication in such a pipsqueak little voice.

Osytha kneels back down into the earth, and motions to her back. “Come on. I’ll need to speak to thy father. Plus, I owe some bairns a few piggyback rides, an’ all.” She feels a small body clamber up, sees the legs come dangling out in front of her, and then rises to her feet. “Say, while we’re walkin’ — why don’t tha tell’st me where it is exactly tha saw’st our Midnight…?”


* * *​


Osytha, when Simon and Sabinian find her again, is busy supervising the hornworm cull. Inasmuch as she can while galloping around the plot with a probably-a-mite-too-old-for-piggyback-rides lad hitched to her back.

“Reckon tha’rt—” huff, huff, wheeze, “—tha’rt gettin’ a bit too big for poor owd Osytha to—” pant, huff, “—to manage, Jimmy. ’Ow owd is thee, again?”

“You did say for everyone,” insists Jimmy. He has rights, you know.

She spots the adults approaching, and with great relief, trots on over. Jimmy, not wanting more of an earful from his father than is absolutely necessary, takes this cue to slip off Osytha’s back and try to make his exit.

“Eyup,” she greets them. Puts her hands to the small of her back and leans rearward, wincing a little as things go pop. “Got t’latest on Midnight from our Isabelle. Saw ’im continue eastward in t’wee hours of t’mornin’ from ane of t’fallow fields. Lots of lupin coverin’ ’is tracks, so, that saves us a bit of time findin’ where they pick up. Anyroad, ’ow’d you twa go?”
 
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There had been a lot of time spent examining carrots and cabbages, sun going up higher and higher in the sky, air getting warmer, the shade of trees looking more inviting the more that Simon spoke and pointed. Indeed, Sabinian had to pull out his small leather journal and use pen packed well with a vial of enhanced soot that allowed for smooth writing. It did smudge quite easily, but Sabinian preferred comfort over utility.

It wasn't long until the elf was regretting the choice of writing instrument. Simon was as tough as a buzzard, and as Sabinian's mother used to say, sometimes one just needed to grasp the nettle instead of trying to figure out a better way. The Knight of Dawn complied with writing everything down, nodding his head and agreeing or nodding his head and apologizing. He had hoped that by not arguing with Simon all of it might have gotten him to shut up sooner.

Sabinian had never been more wrong in his life. Farmer Simon was enjoying this, he realized too late, bossing him around, telling the six-hundred-year-old elf what was what and how things were going to be. Simon had waited a very, very long time for this moment, in his mind it had been a long time coming, and gods be damned if he wasn't going to take every single inch he could get.

"Simon, you should be ashamed of yourself. Right now you are being absolutely ridiculous, Midnight did not take a bite out of that post." The wooden post was probably older than Simon's last name, and perhaps Simon didn't remember it, but his great-great-great grandfather had once been a pig farmer. Oh, Sabinian remembered those pigs alright, massive, lumbering terrors that were more violent than a bear. Make one mad and they would all charge at you, and if anyone thought their short tusks couldn't do much damage, they were always left with the ugliest of scars.

Simon gave Sabinian a look, eyes squinting as if he were looking at the sun. He wasn't, Sabinian had began to step into any shade he could find once he felt the bridge of his nose felt too tender to the touch.

"Fine," Simon huffed. "How many pages yew got there."

"Eleven and a half." Sabinian didn't need to count. Simon let out a low whistle, rather impressed with himself.

"Sounds 'bout right. Yew gotta lotta work to do once yew find yer unicorn, don'tcha?" Simon pulled out the same hankerchief he had been using all morning to wipe the sweat off the back of his neck, grinning triumphantly at Sabinian's scowl. "Come on, now, yer free to go wander about and see if yew can get any clues."

"I will need Syr Osytha for that," the elf blew gently on the final page before closing the journal and placing it back into the satchel strapped over his shoulder and across his chest. So the two of them went to Osytha, finding her hunched and bending beneath a child's weight. Sabinian wrinkled his nose at the sight, another thing to not like about children, they were all selfish, couldn't the boy see how he burdened Syr Osytha so?

Ears perked, verdane eyes widened, brighter than the squash leaves surrounding them.

"Really?" Sabinian said, "then we must go, to the East. Quickly." To the East, yes, it made sense, sorta, if one didn't think too hard about it and why. Simon looked perturbed, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, a subtle frown the only form of sympathy he'd give them

"Now, Knights, Isabelle is... well, she got quite the imagination in her. She hears too many stories and starts repeatin' a lot of stuff that ain't right."
 
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