Private Hush, O Babe

[Osytha]

HUSH, O BABE​

While the red bee hums
The silent twilight’s fall.​

Syrs Helena, Innis, Faramund, & Osytha
Summer of 352 EOD

A continuation of Now Hands That Build

---

Quite possibly no other knight has ridden so far, nor so hard, in search of a flower.

Hurt-sickle. Also goes by basket flower, bachelor’s button, bluebottle, or perhaps its best-known moniker, cornflower. Hardly a rare sight; in fact, ask the farmers whose scythes are dulled by the insidious stalks growing amidst their fields, and they’ll tell you those jolly lazuli blooms are a little too common. That’s the other thing folks know about cornflowers — they’re blue. Quite renowned for it, in fact. But, a pink hurt-sickle? Ask most anyone if they’ve heard of such a thing, and you’ll only get a mildly befuddled reply in the negative.

Osytha has seen a lot of blank, confused faces these last few moths.

She’s asked everyone she could at the monastery. Spiered at a goodly number of people in Hræfn Leah and various other settlements, as well as those along the roads which took her through such places. Scoured herbaria, gardens, and ivory towers from White Port to Cloud’s Keep. All to no avail.

Eventually, the road would take her back to Astenvale Monastery for a while, where she’d help a grandfather comb the hair and trim the nails of a little girl who won’t wake up. Help wash her, change her clothes, spoon-feed her thin broths, shift her tiny body to stop bed sores from forming. Help him watch his Lilia waste away. For a while, and then Osytha would return to the road.

It was amongst the Wagons of Elum that someone, at long last, looked at her differently in the wake of her question. As Forbítter walked beside one of those trundling carts, a dwarf possessed of beatific serenity and grey streaks through his beard simply nodded as he watched the road ahead.

“Albăstrea trandafirie,” he told Osytha, in a voice which rumbled alike the ceaseless roll of wheels about them. “‘Rosy cornflower’, or as some also call it, the pink hurt-sickle.”

Not the first time Osytha has found herself grateful to those generous souls on their endless pilgrimage, but, the first she’s been brought to tears by it. Month after month she’s carried the weight of that waning child’s face, just to crack then and there beneath a gossamer hope.

Yet, a glint of hope is not enough — she needed to make sure. One more stop at Crown’s Hold on her race back to the monastery, this time with fresh eyes. Armed with more than a single cryptic moniker. And there, with those magic new words, it suddenly appeared in an academic’s private collection, pressed dry between thick pages: corollas, pink; ray florets, marginal, fringed; disk florets, many. Osytha’s heart rose and fell as she read on, confirming what the old runekin had shared about its vernacular names, flowering season, but most importantly of all… distribution.

Could be worse, she supposes, as Forbítter ambles at long last beneath the shadow of Vayd’s Lookout. At least it’s on the same continent.

Mind still all a swirling mess, wondering who to bring this to first — a question answered for her when she spies a file plodding their way homeward from the wylds. There’s no mistaking the broad-shouldered shape leading his little sprouts along, each one in full kit, sweat-sheened and grimy from a day of field exercises.

Osytha urges her horse into a canter, quickly closing the gap between them. Heads turn at the thump of her approach; gangly Berengar, jumpy young Pask, and perhaps by fate, if such a thing exists, the surly countenance of Esota Laverock. The dusker passes each of them by until she’s reached the vanguard, at which point she slows Forbítter down to walk abreast of Syr Faramund.

No one spends weeks upon the road without fraying a little at the edges, but there’s something almost… wild, in those blue eyes locked onto the dawnling.

“Ah found et.” Her voice, practically buzzing. “‘When she returns in t’summer, to gather t’pink hurt-sickle just like they used to.’ Ah found et, syr. Ah kens where that thing is ’eaded.”

A sharp little noise emerges from Sotie when she says that. Osytha turns her head, and that madness alights on the girl a moment, before she looks back to Faramund.

“We mun bring this to t’Knight-Captains. An’ Akke, ’e’ll— ’e’ll need to ’ear this. ’E’ll…”

Tell me, though, is what her eyes are pleading. Tell me I’m not too late.

 

[Faramund]

Soft earth muffled their steps as the troop appeared one by one from the treeline. Betwixt the monastery's outer defenses and the wylds, a large clearing had been made, axe-hewn stumps sprouting like wildflowers from the rain-wet ground. A killing field, with good sight lines, watched by sentries bound by more conventional means of observation.

Wending his way towards the beaten path, Faramund turned to observe his charges; six heads total, ignoring the Dusker bringing up the rear. Sweat-slicked brows scrunched in effort. Chests heaved from the day's exertions.

'Nearly there now!' called the dawnling, using his best instructor's voice. 'Pick up t' pace, come on!'

Two and a half leagues. Full kit. A good warm-up for unruly squires. "The Whore" had split their march in twain - a rugged assault course, so-called because it fucked everyone, be they green as summer grass or full-blooded veterans. Everyone suffered her embrace sooner or later. And yet they always return for more, smiled the Dawn knight, adjusting his pack, the skirts of his blackened maile swishing as hooves pounded up the road towards them.

Haste has made a bird's nest of Syr Osytha's mane, though it's the dark rings around her eyes that Faramund notices first. The Road has left its mark on her and Forbs both. The dawnling cannot recall a time he saw the warhorse sweat so profusely.

“Ah found et.”

'I know.' Eyes forward, the Dawn knight donned his mask, feigning indifference in front of the squires walking in his footsteps. Glancing up at Osytha, the dawnling met her gaze, his own speaking volumes. It's not too late. But- 'Ride on. I'll join you shortly.' Before she could heed his words, Faramund reached up to grip her elbow. 'Send a runner to inform the Captains of your return, an' head straight for the infirmary.'

The mask cracks as he gives her elbow a squeeze.

'You did good, kid. Don't let anyone tell ye otherwise.'

 

[Osytha]

That pale face stares back. Blue eyes round and full, mouth slack; stupefied. Osytha’s ears ring with nothing but his words. Not ‘you’ve done well’; perfect progressive, a thing yet unfinished. You did good, kid. Simple past tense. Something which has reached its end. But they’re not done, not while Lilia can’t wake up. Unless. Don’t let anyone tell ye otherwise.

Why would anyone tell her otherwise?

She breaks free of the grip on her elbow. Heels kick into Forbítter’s flanks faster than he can respond to them, earning an angry snort along with a burst of speed. And with that, she’s galloping full pelt toward the monastery.

* * *​

Squire Mildred doesn’t deserve to be so harshly commanded that she report Osytha’s return, and Syr Kenneth probably deserves more explanation than simply having Forbítter’s reins shoved into his hands alongside a desperate plea that he take it from there. But it’s all Osytha has time for. Feels like she doesn’t even have that, leaping up the long flight of stairs from Rootgrot Burrow. She doesn’t have eyes for the startled glances from her fellows as she races by, only for the path which will take her to the infirmary. No ears for anything but the memory of Faramund’s leaden words.

She feels sick. Her legs have powered her all the way here, only for their strength to flee the moment she stumbles over the threshold. Her whole body set to trembling. Head spinning. A part of herself trying to stop Osytha from seeing what’s there. Or perhaps, that which isn’t. Pushes through it. She has to see. Even if she doesn’t want to.

Hand steadies her against the door frame of Lilia’s little ward. Spies a tiny shape still in her bed there. She takes a step inside. Another. Sees a child’s face, almost just as she’d left it. Uncovered.

She’s still here. Lilia’s still here.

Osytha realises she’s gasping for air; the off-kilter, long, ragged breaths of someone who’s been bawling their eyes out. Only for her, the tears have just begun. She staggers to a chair by the bedside, amazed. Lilia’s still here.

No Akke, though. He must have popped out, but, he’s likely to be back soon, even if he went to catch some sleep. The old man has confided in Osytha that he rarely gets more than a couple of hours at a time, these days. Can’t seem to properly rest if he’s away from his Lilia. Can’t properly rest when he’s here, either, but it feels better than either of them being alone.

The plain wooden chair makes a sharp, low screech across the floor as Osytha collapses into it, her own legs finally giving out. She watches Lilia, waits until she can see the shallow movements of the girl’s chest. A breath, in. Stillness… and out. The sound of it not even a whisper on the air.

A much louder sigh fills the ward. Osytha buries her head in her shaking hands, and just, tries to get her own breathing under control. After a few seconds, she looks up again. The changes have been so glaring every other time she’s returned; weeks of deteriorating health hitting all at once as she walks through the door. This time, though, Lilia’s barely any worse than when last Osytha saw her. Had she so wildly misunderstood Syr Faramund? The way he spoke, the look on his face… she was expecting the worst. Not a miracle like this.

The flood of relief is leaving her even weaker than the terror had, but at least she’s yet strong enough to lift an arm and stroke Lilia’s hair. Repeats that motion a few times, before her hand trails down to clasp the child’s.

Something sharp and jolting, like a static shock — it fizzles against the knight’s touch. Hand jerks away. It’s a feeling she’s encountered before, one she isn’t likely to forget. Osytha looks down toward Lilia’s wrist, where her fingers had brushed it. That dread is surging back even before she sees it: a faint, electrum smudge, twinkling below the palm. Weaver’s resin.

What…?

Looking closer, now, she notes traces of it elsewhere. One more smear on Lilia’s other wrist, and tiny flecks still sparkling betwixt those fair brows. Osytha knows there’ll be two more marks on Lilia’s body. She knows exactly where they’ll be, and knows, too, which of the five seals each had been before someone had wiped them away.

Her eyes rove off the girl, scanning around the bedside instead. Akke’s bandore has been left to rest neatly against the wall, next to Lilia’s bed. Even when he’s not here, there are still always signs of him left around — a cold, half-drunk mug of tea, a tome he’s bummed off one of the knights, bookmark lolling out between its pages, one of the infirmary blankets he’s commandeered for himself, slung over his chair, or some odd-job he’s picked up to help someone out, like a pile of half-darned socks. But there’s none of that here.

She can’t take her eyes off his bandore. Propped up so carefully, so neatly, beside his girl. Like a piece of him left to watch over Lilia.

Where is Akke?

“You did good, kid.”

One hand curls into a claw against her thigh. The sight of that instrument begins to waver like a mirage, and a word chokes its way out through her tightening throat. “L-Liar!” she wails, as if Faramund’s the one she ought be mad at. She took too long. She let it get bad enough they had to make this choice. She’s the reason why Akke won’t ever sing one more song to his grandchild.

Now, who does Lilia have left?

Osytha bites down on her knuckles, trying to stem the noises which escape her. She can’t bear to look any more, given what she’s done. Not at that bandore, not at Lilia. Leans forward, face pointed between her knees. Watches burgundy and woad hosen swim instead, wet splotches spreading dark over thighs.

This can’t be happening. It just can’t— can’t be…

 

[Innis of Astenvale]

Since she'd been back at the monastery, Innis had been spending a lot of time with Akke and Lilia. She became one of the regular volunteers at the infirmary. Listening to the old man sing his songs, letting him tell stories about Lilia and her mother. Brushing knots out of the girl's hair and mixing honey water and herbs for her to drink.

When Innis had first come to the monastery, she'd been in a similar state. Was that what she'd looked like, during those long, silent months after the accident? Face gaunt, the fat of youth all spent on survival. Small body buried under snowy white blankets. People she didn't know keeping her alive. Even though she had never said a word to the girl, never heard her laugh or asked her favorite food, Innis knew that they would be compatible. When the last of Lilia's strength gave out and the choice they'd all been dreading came up, Innis made it for everyone.

The girl's dreams were a long summer night. The sun set in perpetuity as she chased crickets through the grass, barefoot. Innis sat on the porch and watched her, accepting gifts of smooth round rocks and knotted up blades of grass as they were offered. With grubby hands, she presented a delicate little flower. Taking the flower between thumb and forefinger, Innis twirled it round. Within its petals, instead of evening dew, quivered drops of blood. ​

The weave frayed and fizzled out between them. When she came to, Innis was alone in the room. They must have asked Akke to leave, in case it went wrong.

With a wet cloth, she wiped the resin from Lilia's brow. The girl felt cold, so Innis went to fetch another layer for her. Got up with what felt like wet boots, all strange and sloshing on her feet. Took the long way to the linen closet, because she missed the right turns through the halls a couple of times.

When she returned, thin wool blanket draped over her arms, Osytha was there. Crying in a very ugly way. It made Innis afraid that something had gone wrong, but no. The threads of anima were still there, strengthened by her own. Innis sat down in the chair on the other side, blanket on her lap.

"How much is the life of one little girl worth?" Innis wondered out loud, looking at Lilia between them, eyes still closed in slumber. "I'm here right now because the egg-cracked knight who saved my life never stopped long enough to worry the question."

It was probably hopeless. Even the kid's dreams were sick with the Strigòi's rot. But everyone the last few days had been crying, crying, crying. Innis couldn't stand it anymore.

"It's my turn to do the same thing for Lilia," she continued, expression hardening to one of sheer stubborness. "So don't ask me if it can be done. Just tell me you found out what we've got to do."

 

[Osytha]

“Ah…”

Doesn’t need to look up to recognise Syr Innis by her voice, by the burn-scarred hand draping another blanket over Lilia. Fuck. Syr Innis with a front-row seat, hearing the words strangle in Osytha’s throat, seeing the tears and snot running down her face. Watching a Knight two years her senior crack apart like some prospect sobbing through their first night away from mummy. No. Fuck this.

Osytha kicks up out of her chair, sharp. Long gaits over to the window, shaky hands fishing around for a clean-enough handkerchief. Focuses on mopping up her weakness. Expunges some oozing mass of it with a good blow. Tries to breathe, before she even thinks about talking.

Doesn’t trust herself to. She’s so angry. So, fucking angry. Knows what she’s likes when she gets this mad; goes back to the old Osytha, the Osytha who’ll take it out on anyone except the person who actually deserves it.

Fucking Syr Innis. Where’s she been all this time, huh? “I’m here right now because the egg-cracked knight who saved my life never stopped long enough to worry the question.” Osytha’s hands ball into white-knuckled fists. Well, fuck you too, Innis. I’m sure it’s been so hard playing nurse here at the monastery, with its real beds and three square meals a day and not being utterly alone on the road for weeks on end, spending most your waking hours in a saddle, having nowt bar waking ones…

There. See? Some detached piece of Osytha needles away at the back of her mind; a dissonant voice she’s been carefully feeding these last few years, fattening it up. You’re looking for any way to twist the blame onto Syr Innis, say those cold, uncomfortable thoughts. This Knight two years your junior and who’s yet holding herself together far better, despite having spent so much more time watching Lilia slip away. Because, really, you’re scared. You’re scared she’d have done better than you did out there. Perhaps that’s even true. So what, then, would that say about you?

How much is the life of one little girl worth? Less than your pride, Syr Osytha?

Those fists ease off, slowly, falteringly. The hand drops away from her face. She closes her eyes, and just… breathes. When she opens them again, her gaze is blank. Dull, staring out the infirmary window, seeing nothing.

“Ah learned where et’s goin’,” she says at last. Words all sounding flat, mechanical. “Same place et came from. Lookin’ for them as are nivver comin’ back, ’appen. Anyroad… Ah’ll explain et all when t’others arrive.” Osytha turns her head away from the window, and settles her dead eyes upon Syr Innis. “Where is ’e? ’Ave they already… is Akke already—?”

“Am I awready what, nou?”

That voice. A timbre which has only smoothed with age, uttered through a mouth possessed of far fewer teeth than one would expect from hearing it. And tired. Always so tired whenever Osytha hears it, these days.

She gawps at Akke as he shuffles into the ward, dark crescents under his eyes to match her own. He’s stirring abominable sugar through a fresh mug of tea, that heretic. Apparently, the old bard isn’t that attached to the scant few chompers he still has remaining.

“Akke?” quavers Osytha, weakly. “But— Ah thought… t’seals, an’, an’— Ah thought tha wast…”

The old man just blinks wearily, waiting for her to start making a lick of sense. But a second wave of relief capsizes the already-floundering HMS Syr Osytha, putting such a feat beyond her. Toils, she’s such a fool. She’s been running around in a blind panic instead of taking a moment to think things through. At the same time, she’s dead on her feet, barely able to string two coherent thoughts together. She’s bawling like a bairn all over again. She’s completely lost the plot. She’s pathetic. And she doesn’t care. Akke and Lilia are alive.

“Ah th-thought tha w-wast— tha w-wast d-dead, Akke. Ah thought… Ah…”

 

[Innis of Astenvale]

If Innis had been in another frame of mind, she would have noticed Osytha's bleary-eyed seething, would have coiled up against that anger like a snake defending her nest. Instead, she's smoothing the blankets over Lilia a few too many times, making sure she's properly tucked in. And look how she's accidentally left a smudge on the wrist, there. Gently cupping the girl's hand in her own, Innis licks her other thumb and wipes off the residual resin. The touch is lifeless and paper-thin. A dying bird has more substance than the child's cold fingers.

“Where is ’e? ’Ave they already… is Akke already—?”​

It is a good thing that Akke came back just then and answered for himself. Innis hadn't know where Akke was. Wasn't even sure what time of day it had gotten to. The angle of the light outside the window -- well, it is overcast and diffused, so that gave no hint.

“Ah th-thought tha w-wast— tha w-wast d-dead, Akke. Ah thought… Ah…”​

"Aw, come 'ere lass." Akke sets the mug of tea down on the bedside table. He's quick to hold out his arms and scoop Osytha into a hug. No hesitation there, nor shame. He's been in this place enough times, watched enough people fade away, to understand how best to share grief. "I'm right 'ere. We're both 'ere, nobody's gone away."

"Not yet, anyway," Innis adds darkly. Her back is turned away from the other two, bent over as she is to tend to Lilia. Stable, for today. But it doesn't matter how many times one fills the cup, if there is a crack in the bottom.

"Innis, now's not the time..."

 

[Osytha]

Perhaps Innis also misses the resurging tension which flexes through Osytha’s hands. Tendons riled taut by the younger Dusk Knight’s bleak prediction, lulled back down under Akke’s chiding rebuke. No. Now is not the time.

“Ah’m s-sorry,” she judders, as his arms sweep her up. Godsdamnit— and this; this is completely wrong road. That’s his grandchild in this infirmary cot, so why’s the old man having to console Osytha? And yet, she sinks into his embrace, hands wrapping on tight about his frame. “Sorry. Ah din’t m-mean ti— s-sorry…”

Akke just gives her a few solid pat-pats between the shoulder blades. “Fur whit? Giein’ ae damn aboot an auld coot leik me? Hush, noo, lass. Thare’s naught tae gar us greet just yet.”

Maybe it is wrong, and selfish of her. But, Osytha didn’t realise how much she needed something like this until her face is buried against Akke’s shoulder. Had needed to be able to touch, and prove this wasn’t all just some awful dream — that she wasn’t forever chasing after smoke which danced away beyond her fingers, each and every time she sought some kind of purchase. Gods, she’s so tired.

This last return trip had been different, somehow. Lonelier. Osytha had only been able to feel things by their absence. All the familiar landmarks that would normally welcome her back, hollowed of their comfort. Welcoming her back to what?

And none of it close to the emptiness she could feel waiting at the end of that road…

… but here she is, and here Akke is, and here Lilia is. It hardly seems real, even with them in front of her now. The nightmares had been telling her otherwise for so long that Osytha can still feel their roots in her.

She pulls back, sniffling, and Akke lets her go. Not without giving her a deep, worried look in the eye, and a couple more encouraging pats on her cheek. Makes Osytha feel ten years old again, back when Syr Lefelen had taken pity on a young fish out of water he’d found crying aback of the stables. Bloody gramps, does he take her for some mardy bairn? And that’s enough to make her laugh. The first gasp of it in a long, long while.

“Thank’ee,” she murmurs. Another half-sob, half-chuckle, which Osytha clears away with the increasingly-unusable handkerchief. “Um. Ah hope tha’rt stoppin’ a while. Ah think Faramund an’ t’brass is on their way for a briefin’. There’s… there’s been a discovery.”

The change in Akke’s demeanour is subtle, but telling. Something like a daze comes over him, as the words sink in. Mind spins away with the possibilities, the implications. Wondering, perhaps, if he dare even have a little hope. He doesn’t press it just now, though, only gives Osytha a parting squeeze of the shoulder before he shuffles over to his chair, and his wretched sweet tea, and his Lilia. He lowers himself carefully onto the wooden frame, and stares the yonderly stare of one lost inside their own mind.

Osytha goes back to her seat opposite the bed to Syr Innis. Her eyes flicker over the fellow dusker’s hands as they fuss over the blanket, at young Lilia’s lingering resin-smudges, and the girl’s feeble signs of life. Innis also has a weariness to her, seems like. Pieces click sluggishly into place as Osytha watches her cradle a tiny wrist and work the stubborn twinkle out of its sallow skin.

“Et was you, then?” she asks. “You performed Communion?” Another thought strikes her. “What did you see? While you was in there.”

And why did you come back, Syr Innis? she does not ask. What, exactly, do you think you still have here? And why now, of all times?