“What happened to Lutz… What’s happenin’ to Lilia, well, that’s on me. Shoulda been me on watch tha’ night.”
“Don’t.” Osytha rounds on him in a slowness which belies the anger in her gaze. “Don’t tha bloody dare. What meks thee seea fuckin’ special, syr? Ah’m fairly sure there was three other knights there an’ all, sae why’s et thy fault alone?”
Faramund’s sturdy, grizzled face used to be so different once upon a time; stronger, more whole with humour and spirit. Where has that all gone? Why does he instead look so… haunted, these days? Asking him didn’t yield Osytha an actual answer at the time, only intractable hints at the depth of his own misdeeds. She hadn’t been able to comprehend his meaning back then, and in truth, she still can’t. Not really. But she does feel as if these last few months have brought her closer to seeing it. Though, less so in him, than in herself.
She looks back to the wee woody warrior, now in Faramund’s hand. “Nay — if owt, we duskers ought’ve known what was stalkin’ us. Ah ought’ve known.”
But she hadn’t. Even after finding the pig torn open like that, even after Faramund told her what he’d seen on the first night it appeared, Osytha still hadn’t put the pieces together.
That made her about as useful as Syr Heimchen there, the little bugger. No; not even. Perhaps her wood-carved comrade hadn’t been able to keep the strigoaică from defiling her dreams on that fateful eve, though to be fair, they’d only been whittled into existence the very same night. Nonetheless. Osytha hasn’t parted from the little thing since. When she was at her furthest away from all… this, whenever Lilia and Akke and the rest of it began to feel almost like something she’d imagined, Osytha had only to take out this figurine to remind her.
Besides that, they’ve also been quite a comfort on the road. Her own little pocket dawnling. She would talk to them when she needed to reason her way through to the solution for some problem or another, or if she simply had something to get off her chest. Bloody good listener, that Syr Heimchen — would let you ramble on for hours. A pleasant enough presence to boot. Not much of a talker themselves, no, but theirs is the comfortable, companionable sort of silence. And it was nice having someone else to watch over her while she slept. More than once, they made her feel safe enough that she could close her eyes and simply let go of everything.
Until a week or so ago…
Osytha watches Syr Heimchen returned to their post. Then, her vision lurches slightly from Faramund drawing her into a hug; one of those arms with biceps like pin barrels draped around her shoulders. Her form wobbles a bit limply, void of resistance, collapsing against his broad bulk.
“Don’t know about you but I’ve a full evening of fuck all to get back to. Get some sleep, lass. I’ll make sure the world don’t move on without you.”
Faramund means it to be a brief embrace. Only, when he lets go, Osytha doesn’t.
“Ah— Ah can’t…” her voice rises, muffled from where she rests her face against his chest. “… Ah’ve tried. Think that Ah’ve ne tried? Each time there’s— there’s this—”
Smaller hands than his wind their grip tighter on the fabric of his shirt. Her slighter frame, nesting in the high walls of Faramund for just a moment longer; just one more minute, please. Those slimmer shoulders slowly heave with a deep breath, taking up the day’s measure of sweat and wylds. In, and out.
The head below lifts, slightly, off his chest.
“Ah’ve been havin’ this dream,” she intones, staring dully forward at the man’s neck. “Began reight after Ah finally found some answers. How’s that for timin’? But t’ whole road back, whenivver Ah laid my head down…
“Ah’ve jus’ made et back to t’ monastery. That’s ’ow et starts off: ridin’ in after Ah’ve found summat that can save Lilia. Ah’m stridin’ up to yon infirmary, only, then Ah realise Ah’ve started, started to run, ’cause when Ah get there, et’s— her room, et’s empty. Completely empty. Bed made up, t’ sheets are even cowd, her an’ Akke’s things ’ave all disappeared… empty.”
Like she is in this moment. Osytha’s stare is vacant, unseeing; her words hollow. Burned out, like the charred corpse of a house gutted by fire. Hers had perhaps been let to rage too high for too long until it escaped the hearth, and now, there seems little as remains of the woman beyond smoke.
“Ah search for ’em high an’ low. But et’s like movin’ unnerwater — no matter ’ow ’ard Ah struggle, Ah can’t, can’t move fast enow… an’ all t’ while, Ah’m passin’ by other knights, an’ they’re lookin’ at me wi’ these, these eyes— Ah dursn’t ax ’em where L-Lilia an’ Akke ’ave gone ’cause Ah’m afeared of, of t’ answer, but et doesn’t… matter. They don’t even need to say a word. Ah kens et jus’ by lookin’ at their faces.”
Her fingers uncoil themselves. Osytha steps backward, once, twice — until the cot nudges into the back of her knees, which fold immediately. Then she’s sitting on its edge, legs skewed kind of awkwardly, gaze sunk to the upturned palms in her lap.
“The worst part, though,” she tells Faramund, “t’ worst part ’appens when Ah come to. ’Cause for a few seconds there, Ah’m awake, but Ah don’t yet realise et were all a dream an’— an’ Ah really think they’re gone. Lilia an’ Akke, that th-they’re… dead. Gods, F-Faramund, et’s sae r-real.”
So when she’d actually made it back today, only to sprint like that into the ward and find Akke wasn’t there… Osytha doesn’t have words to describe how that felt; what it was like to glimpse her nightmare break through into the waking world.
“Ah don’t want to sleep.” And if one didn’t know better, that this woman here is a daring Knight of Anathaeum who’s faced things plenty more terrifying than mere bad dreams, then one could almost imagine that is fear swirling in the eyes which drag upward to meet Faramund’s. “Please. Ah don’t w-want to see that ag-gain. Ah c-can’t bear et. Ah can’t— any m-more, Ah c-can’t—”
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