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?

 

[Innis of Astenvale]

"I saw a place. Green hills, old stone steps leading up to a gate without a fence. A house out in the middle of a pasture." It had felt so real and specific when she'd been there in the dream, but when Innis tried to draw up the memory now, the well was empty. What details she had left could've been any place at all in Ilica. "It's already starting to fog over. But I'm certain I would recognize it if I saw it again."

That was the problem with the Loch. One could go there anytime they wanted. Dredging anything back up from the waters was the real task. They would've gotten more if Akke had been there. The act of Communion strengthened with depth of the bond of the participants. Which is why Innis had gone and done things by herself, before anyone else could put together some desperate, tear-streaked plan. She was the only one who knew what it was like to wake up in an infirmary room alone, with no one left waiting by the bedside. Nothing in the world would convince her to do that to Lilia.

There weren't any more seats left, so Innis plopped herself down on the tile floor, cross-legged. It was a childish pose, leaning back with her hands on the floor behind her to prop herself up. She remembers doing this before, vaguely. Sitting on a green and white tile floor with barely bundled patience, while a knight in black armor and a healer in clean white linen spoke quietly over a bed recently vacated. A wave of fear buoys her chest up momentarily -- had Lilia seen that memory, too? Was it too close to the surface to contain?

No, there'd been no memory contamination. The court's put me in good practice, Innis reassured herself. I can keep my thoughts guarded from a child well enough.

 

[Osytha]

“Aye. That was oor house.” Akke sips his tea, eyes peering at Lilia over the rim of the mug. When he lowers it again, he turns his head to the window, and looks out at the glimpse of blue sky between overgrown, crumbling masonry. Gazing at something far away. “Me, an’ my Polly, an’ then oor wee Matylda cam along. Though it ended up bein’ just myself livin’ there fur a while, ’til our lass returned. Lilia followed no lang after. The three of us there… those were guid years. The auld house was startin’ to feel leik a hame again—”

Tap, tap. Heads turn toward the doorway, where the mildly scrawny, teenage visage of Squire Mildred regards them anxiously. “Er…”

Osytha rubs her tired eyes, and motions for the lass to enter. “Report, squire,” instructs the knight.

Mildred approaches, coming to stand not-quite-at-ease at the foot of Lilia’s bed. Her expression continues to oscillate between worry and something which approaches actual fear when those eyes dart over to the volatile caldera of Mt Osytha. Poor girl. She’s still at that stage to find reporting to one of the Knight-Captains downright intimidating, and the way Osytha had barked at her before now, probably she’s afraid she’s done something to earn the Sworn’s ire. Well, Mildred’s going to have to deal with much, much worse if she actually wants her knighthood. Sometimes the only thing for it is a bit of tough love. Or maybe Osytha’s simply being callous. She’s not quite sure, herself.

“Knight-Captain Helena of Dawn will be here shortly,” Mildred states, in a tight sort of voice. “She instructs that Syr Innis and Syr Osytha stand by for her and Syr Faramund’s arrival.”

That’s quick. Good. Probably don’t even need to send a runner for the ’Mund; after what she’d told him just now, probably no earthly force could keep the man from attending this debrief. Esota too, that firebrand, with or without anything as paltry as, say, ‘the Knight-Captain’s permission’.

“Alreight. Thank’ee.” Osytha rises a little laboriously up to her feet. “Ane more thing, squire — Ah need thee to fetch my saddlebags. T’smaller ’uns in reddish leather, brass buckles… got a weasel embossed on ane of t’pouches. Oh, an’ there’ll be a big owd bundle tied up wi’ red cord. Bring those up ’ere, please. They en’t that ’eavy, but still, might want to find a body to ’elp thee lug et all.”

“Um… yessyr,” Millie affirms.

Unless Innis has instructions of her own to impart, Osytha then dismisses the young squire. Meanwhile, she turns that weary gaze back around the room. Specifically, at her fellow dusker’s place on the floor: big old coat fanned across the tiles, hands dark against snowdrop chequers. The face underneath her bundle of black frizz, an inscrutable thing in this moment.

“… Ah’ll grab us some more seatin’,” Osytha declares. In part because there aren’t enough in this tiny ward for those already present, let alone further company, and in part because the woman still has some frantic urge to do something, to act, and she needs an outlet for this restlessness. “You at least ought ’ave a proper chair, given you’ve, uh, well… Given.”

She takes a step. Then, hesitates. Looks at Syr Innis again. Osytha has never herself Given through the communion, doesn’t even know what Shroudlash feels like. But from what she’s heard… “… You alreight, syr? Can fetch you a cuppa or summat while Ah’m at et.”

 

[Innis of Astenvale]

Syr Innis is standing by, hands still splayed out behind her on the tile as she mulls over Akke's words. A childhood home. Nothing to connect back to the strigoi. She knows that they would have found something more useful there in the dark waters of memory, if she hadn't been so damn sentimental about it. Akke would have found more.

"You at least ought ’ave a proper chair, given you’ve, uh, well… Given.”​

"The tile's nice and cool," Innis says absently, unmotivated to move.

One question asked, but something else needed. Normally, the misdirection would have annoyed Innis. Likewise, the assumption that her magic was somehow lacking, that she needed babying after a dive into her own element. But she is just frayed enough to lean towards sympathy for Osytha instead.

"A cup of ice," Innis gives a task that she knows will take up some space in an anxious mind, but not be impossible. Shoulders rolling all the way up to siting proper, she takes her hat off and fans herself with the oversized trifolds. "I'm burning up in here."

That wasn't the shroudlash. There were just a lot of people in the small room, and Innis was over-dressed.

 

[Helena]

"Then step out of the room, Syr Innis, and remove that ridiculous duster you love wearing so well," came a voice of calm command. There in the frame of the door stands Helena, Captain of Dawn, stance bladed to allow those inside, out. "Dramatic as it may be for all of us to gather here and crowd this sleeping child," she jut her chin. "Let us move to my office, we can talk along the way if the need dictate,"

Faramund at her wing, the Captain waits for the pair of knights of the Dusk Sanctum to heed her order. Dawn or Dusk, a Captain was a Captain.

"Master Akke, we will reconvene shortly, please, let an attendant know if any need arises, be it your own need for tea, or if young Lilia requires any attention." There was no time to feel the crush of it all. Not here. Not now. She but bowed her head. Turned back toward the hallway and began to step toward her office.

A pair of long rabbit ears, and a most amicable lepunnin countenance, watched from down some way as the four knights filed out. Syr Bartalomeo of Dawn had been stationed there in that ward, once Helena had heard of Lilia and her grandfather, Akke's fate. The refugees had both been through so much. Survived, so much. And Helena knew well enough how the grip of tragedy could uproot a soul. There was no blame in it. The loss of reason to the weight of grief. Sorrow. There was no judgement. It was a simple fact. And Helena would do what she could to stem the spread of more tragedy due to lack of foresight in assignments and duties.

With all the Order already endured. With all they faced day in and day out. What she asked of her Knights. What the oaths they swore dictated. She would do her part best she knew how. And they would save this girl from her curse. Eight so help her.

---

With the office door shut, Helena made ready tea. "Try and be at ease, Syrs," she said, letting the shroudcoil heat the stoneware teapot she'd already fetched the water for. Hands grabbing cups and setting them forth. Each ran with a motif of the wyld. The wolf. The stag. The raven. The boar. Set forth, and filled with dark assam, their part of the world was so famous for.

The scent of earth, malt, and baked bread slowly filled the room as the dark brew steamed. Helena, in her gold and green aketon, sat at her chair behind her desk. The old wooden monument there at the center of it all bared books. Reports. Missives. Maps. Pieces of stone carved to the symbols of houses. Eyes. Scattered across a landscape of ink, upon which little crysanthemums were scattered. Moving. Some woven shroudwork in the velum there that had the ink follow after trails unseen.

"At your readiness, Syr Osytha, I would hear the news," Helena said.

 

[Osytha]

“Try and be at ease, Syrs.”​

“Yessyr.” Osytha unconsciously shifts to ‘at ease’; feet about shoulder-width apart, hands clasped behind to the small of her back, spine ramrod straight. Chin up high and eyes staring dead ahead. Not even the welcome, bewitching scent of fine black tea is enough to make her gaze flicker to the teapot.

Five years a Sworn, and she still finds it hard to risk informality around the Knight-Captains. Even when it’s invited.

Of course, it can’t hold, because soon the shrivelled black leaves have unfurled themselves into a rich, garnet draught of steaming chai, and drill positions generally aren’t conducive to engaging in tea and bikkies. Osytha allows herself to relax just enough to offer polite thanks as she accepts one of Knight-Captain Helena’s beckoning mugs. Her choice is obvious in the absence of any badger motifs (or weasels, or hawks, or horses…), and she lays claim to the nihthroc.

“At your readiness, Syr Osytha, I would hear the news.”​

“Er… yessyr,” the Sworn repeats. “Jus’ waitin’ on—”

Knock knock. Right on cue, their redirected Squire appears with those requested saddlebags. Osytha fields Mildred from the doorway before quickly dismissing her, trying to spare the lass from a second harrowing encounter with their Knight-Captain.

When Mildred’s gone, Osytha looks down at the glossy, ruddy leather pouches now slung from her hand. Stuffed full with all the notes and intelligence she’s collected for this purpose. Ostensibly the fruit of some months’ work, yet the majority of these papers can’t claim to be any older than a fortnight. She goes to unclasp one of the flaps. And freezes, with her fingers stuck against its brass catch.

She’d been so certain. Now, though, after the way she’d panicked and rushed to the infirmary, after she’d got it all so wrong… can Osytha be so sure about this part, too? Or has she been so desperate for answers that she’s started to find them where they still don’t exist?

What if she’s got it wrong — again? What if she’s only wasted more time Lilia doesn’t have, rushing back here on a fool’s hope?

Osytha turns toward the others in this office, their faces waiting expectantly, watching. Baby-faced yet inscrutable Syr Innis. Syr Faramund, with the deep, sorrowful eyes. And the devoir of Syr Helena’s authority, filling her room up to its corners. Tea or no tea. All here to bear witness to Osytha’s folly; to see just how terribly, utterly lacking she truly is.

The visage which regards each of them back is sallow and unhealthy-looking. Osytha feels light-headed as her feet carry her along. Feels like she’s withdrawn from her own body, curled up and hiding in the darkness behind her eyes, watching events unfold with a degree of separation in every sense — sight is oddly two-dimensional, sounds are muffled, her fingers confused by the tactile feedback as they fumble with the clasp. A couple more steps, and then she blinks down at the clutter of books, reports, and maps in front of Helena.

“Per—” Osytha hears the quavering croak her voice has become. She gulps, and tries again. “Permission to, um, u-use the desk, syr?”

 

[Helena]

"Granted,"

 

[Osytha]

Osytha nods. Sets the bags down for a spell, long enough to delicately eke out a little more space on Helena’s desktop; books stacked, documents shuffled aside, magic maps… maybe nudged over slightly, but mostly worked around where possible (how wet is that animated ink? What will happen if Osytha puts her own absorbent papers atop it? Questions she would rather not answer the hard way).

Then, she finally rummages through her own effects, withdrawing first a linen-paper roll which she unfurls across her freshly-annexed domain, tucking the corners under some of those tomes to keep it flat. This is Osytha’s map, replete with her own, disappointingly static notations.

“Centaurea edjerensis,” she declares. More rustling, and out come a couple of untidy sheets scrawled with handwritten notes and botanical diagrams. They display a herbaceous sort of annual, possessing an inflorescence of densely-clustered disks surrounded by snake-tongue forked ray florets. “Summat us strigoiacă said, she — et — promised to take Lilia with ’er when she went ’ome. Somewhere t’ pink hurt-sickle grows. I’ll get back to that, but first… C. edjerensis. Related to t’ common cornflower, but this ’un ’as several differences, notably ets pink flower rather than blue, as well as a later bloomin’ season. An’ ets native range, as t’ name implies, is in t’ Edjer Highlands.”

Tap. Osytha plants a finger down on her chart of North Ilica, smack bang in a cluster of boundaries delineated by different-coloured ink and cross-hatch patterns across aforementioned highlands north of Altalusia. They form something like an over-microwaved Venn diagram, their melting borders overlapping with one other here and there. Osytha finds herself staring at the finger planted to that amorphous mess. Surprised to see how much it’s trembling.

“… further research,” she continues, her eyes finally wrenching themselves off her shaky digit toward the subdivisions she’s marked out, “revealed geographically distinct colloquial names for t’ plant. ’Ere,” tap “et’s called albăstrea trandafirie, while ower here,” tap “et oft goes by rosy cornflower. But ’ere,” tap “in t’ south? Yon locals refer to et as pink ’urt-sickle.”

A start. That’s all it was, and that hadn’t been enough. So she’d dug a little deeper, the results of which emerge now as more notes for the others to review with their own eyes, while Osytha summarises her findings aloud.

“Ah recalled summat Ah learned of much earlier, ’appen a month into all this? Some strange deaths around Plumhollow, three years back. They was chalked up to an unknown illness, but ivvery reported symptom matches signs of strigòi feedin’. They’re rare enow undead, and most folk wouldn’t recognise what they was lookin’ at, sae et meks sense they din’t suspect that as t’ cause. These deaths, mind — t’ first batch occurred in winter, an’ then after they thought et was all ower, another round of deaths in mid-summer. Like whativver was be’ind ’em was wanderin’ through town again. Perhaps, goin’ back north to where et came from?”

A rattle-clink-clink; Osytha’s butterfingers are now questing through her coin pouch. The reason becomes evident as she pulls out her pennies and begins to lay them down on her map, starting with Plumhollow.

“Ah learned of other possible victims,” Osytha continues. Her voice is starting to rattle with use, so she picks her mug back up with the spare hand and takes a gulp, while her other continues to lay down tokens. Each piece lands more like it’s made of lead than silver. “Ower t’ last couple years. Not enow to really establish much of a pattern beyond t’ fact there’s a lull ower t’ summer-autumn period, an’ that they corroborate my theory there’s a bloodsucker mekkin return trips from somewhere aht t’ Highlands. But Ah thought et were interestin’. That these deaths only began to crop up as of three years ago? Ah don’t know ’ow familiar you are wi’ strigói mort, but yan of t’ less contended facts is that for their first seven years, they mun return to their final restin’ place afore daybreak. After those seven years is up, ’owever — nay such curfew. For et to roam sae far, we mun ’ave an owder strigoiacă on us ’ands. A decade, to be precise. Which gave me my final lead.”

Osytha’s finger whispers over the thick paper. This time, it seeks out various symbols of settlement within the region of interest. Larger, hollow circles for townships, little bullet points for smaller villages. Most have their names scrawled beside them. In addition to that, many have a number suffixed to the end. Generally in the mid-to-low single digits, but some, going a bit higher.

“Yan more better-established fact concernin’ strigòi: they typically start off targetin’ those who was closest to ’em in life. But they don’t stop there. After family, et becomes friends, an’ neighbours… if a strigòi en’t put down, et’ll work ets way through t’ entire community. For whativver reason, folks obviously din’t or couldn’t tek care of this ’un.” That finger comes to rest underneath a smaller dot, a place labelled as ‘Trivara’. Parentheses enclose a fat number ‘4’ next to it. “Seea, Ah looked at other maps, focusin’ on those which cover t’ geographic distribution of this ‘pink hurt-sickle’ colloquial moniker. Goin’ back, oh, twenty years? Originals, masters, revised an’ updated — those made wi’ fresh information on t’ area, ne copied from owder charts. Ah determined t’ mean number of years since each settlement was last recorded… er, this—” rustle, rustle; yet more sheafs of papers procured for inspection, “—is t’ rundown of my statistical methodology an’ list of sources. There’s a bit of uncertainty, ’cause cartographers don’t allus bother wi’ t’ smaller villages, but… ’ere.”

One more tap-tap of her finger against those smallest of dots; Ezereț (11)

“Ah noticed this ’un starts droppin’ off t’ map entirely when you look back abaht ten years. Like et don’t exist nay more. Ah din’t find anyone from that specific area when I axed around in Crown’s Hold, at least, nobody who’d lived there recent enow to tell me what’s ’appened to Ezereț. But Ah did get lucky trackin’ down a cartographer what ’ad done some of t’ more recent surveys. ’E knew what Ah was talkin’ abaht reight away — ’e nivver went to et hissen, an’ t’ locals wouldn’t even say t’ village’s name aloud. But ’e recalled ’ow they warned ’im away from there. Said t’ place was cursed.”

The digit withdraws. Osytha steps back, now steadying her mug in both hands as she lifts it up for another long sip. It’s just past that ideal temperature, hot enough to fill your fingers with life when you wrap them about the porcelain, and accelerating fast into tepidness. A swansong in steam coils up before her eyes, then all the assam’s refreshing bitterness hits her tongue. Grounds her some. Gives her listing mind something to focus on besides the sea of anxieties smacking at her battered hull.

“In summary… Ah believe t’ strigoiacă chose Lilia ’cause she reminded et of somebody. Somebody who were important to them, when they was alive. Ah believe et’s been settin’ forth lookin’ for ets family these last three years, ivver since et was no longer bound to ets grave, an’ Ah believe t’ same thing keeps et returnin’ to Ezereț when t’ pink hurt-sickle is in bloom. Expectin’ to find those people ’ave come home an’ are waitin’ for ’er. Ah ken et don’t mek sense — those poor souls were likely t’ first she ivver killed — but that’s t’ restless dead for you.”

‘Believe’. Not ‘know’. Osytha stares through the lazy wafts of steam down to her map. She could almost buy into it, hearing herself speak. Some echo of that conviction was still there; the feeling she’d had when it finally all seemed to be coming together and connecting up, of a fisherwoman who’s just sensed the tiniest, nuanced difference in the twitch of her line compared to the deceptive tug-and-release from lazy waves. A real bite. But—

“Ah’m sorry.” And now that fire, that frantic energy, is gone. Osytha’s claws curl tighter about the mug as she stares past the sum of research there on the desk. About a thousand yards beyond, by the look of her. “Goin’ ower everythin’ now, et’s more— more guesswork an’ assumptions than Ah realised. Maybe et’s not… et’s n-not, um…”

 

[Helena]

As the Knight of Dusk had spoke, the Captain of Dawn had taken out quill and folio. Scribbling notations here, and notations there. Feather bobbing with the smooth dip and twift that marked attention. Her eyes, following every weary point, and shaky jab of fingers that looked pallid and too moist.

The quaver in Syr Osytha's voice. The glassy look in her eye as chords and fibers tensed while all the same breath looked like they had hardly anything there to draw tense with. Any more, and they might snap.

From what Helena had known of the Knight, Syr Osytha of Hræfn Leah, less than half a decade her own Junior, someone who Helena had stood at the Ceremony of Oaths, and watched recite their hallowed words, while she herself wore that same Oathbound rank of Sworn Knight. Honor that it was to be part of such a dutiful vigil. Helena had known Osytha was a steadfast, sure footed and persistent sort. Cheeky. Dogged and tenacious, but not unwilling to bend. Someone who did what they could to learn. However they could manage to achieve it.

There was much to respect in that.

Yet now, that same Knight almost seemed to cower before the Captain's gaze. Unsure. Not only sympathetic to a squire's eyes, so fat with fear at the mere idea of rank, but resonant. No firm bond of memory, or experience there to bolster any comfort, nor trust, despite all that was shared amongst their order. Training, duty, their shared toils and suffering, sure, but more so life. Those laughs, drinks, tears, dances, and every day beauties that were the core of all their teachings. Life. Which was what kept their ranks from breaking. That helped them win the trust of those small folk they so endeavored to help. Those wylds they so dared to protect.

They were not lord's men. They were not bound by crown. They were not mercenaries. They were Knights apart from such traditions. Captained by the common. Brave for those who had not. Read for those who could not. Numbered for those without.

Yet this same knight, who so rode across the land, chasing trails of a Strigoi, had been bold enough to strike out alone. No second there to her side, despite the months her quest had taken. Never a request for such support that was their mandate, despite the burden such a task must have taken.

It made Helena wonder. As the report went on.

What sort of Knight had become of this, Syr Osytha of Dusk? What ideas had she, of their Order, its demands, and how they, as the collective they were meant to be, operated. How many other knights, were so bold as this, so sure in how they flew from these grounds that raised them, and yet, so quivering with all their certainty. What did they hold as important? What did they deem true?

Her eyes set to Faramund. Who had been there when first the caravan was hit. A Knight, many years his junior, had written this same report that almost seemed to haunt her now. Plague her with that same curse that kept the child locked in the slumber of their curse. A thing to be fed and cared for. Less the potential of her life be lost to this, Strigoi Mort.

Had it been right then? To believe in him? To trust him? Allow him afield once more? There was no way of knowing yet. Gambit after gambit. And all the dangers grew the sharper about them.

None of this, of course, would be noted. So full was her parchment of note from the report. She set it down, and took the boar cup, and supped of its brew.

“Ah’m sorry.”
​

"Do not apologize," Helena bade. If the haggard Dusker took it as anything more than concern, well, such was the weight of Rank in some minds.

"Goin’ ower everythin’ now, et’s more— more guesswork an’ assumptions than Ah realised. Maybe et’s not… et’s n-not, um…”
​

Helena shook the doubt away. "It is a lead, and it is what your efforts have yielded. Now, trust your fellows to carry some of this weight you've seen fit to carry so alone up to this point, and rest, if only for one night. You've returned to our Monastery." there was no smile to it. No anger. No judgement. Simple fact. "You have done all you could, as you saw fit, Syr Osytha," she would trust the knight to speak to her own condition. This was clearly important to Syr Osytha. If she willed herself to be here, despite seeming to be at the point of collapse, Helena would not rob her of her dignitiy. Osytha would not be the first Knight to collapse, in the pursuit of her oaths, and she would not be the last.

The Captain of Dawn turned her eyes unto Syr Innis. "As a second knight of Dusk, have you any insight to add on the matter?"