With the field cleared and daylight waning, the decision was made to set camp for the night. Dismounting, the goodfolk fell into the rhythm established over the course of weeks: tents were offloaded and raised whilst the light remained to them; foraging parties went about gathering up kindling, and what sustenance could be eked from land as yet to suffer Man's ceaseless scrabblings.

Walking the perimeter with Tribe for company, Faramund set to drawing the boundary line, his mind blessedly quiet as dusk settled in. Red skies hinted as to a fair morrow, though the dawnling had never been one for putting his faith in omens.

'Mayhaps I'll be proven wrong,' he told Tribe as he scritched lines into the dirt, careful not to cross over any, lest the whole thing unravel. 'Tomorrow will dawn bright and beautiful, and there'll be no death, or dismay, and all will go to plan for a change,' he smiled to himself, the expression curdling like milk the longer he held it.

A nudge at his arm, and the knight sighed, reaching over to run his hand over Tribe's muzzle.

'Aye, I know, I'm being a fool-arse, and you be wantin' your oats.' Peering down at the symbol drawn into the earth, Faramund nodded, satisfied with his handiwork, though, Akmal knew he was no artiste.

Turning on his heel, Faramund walked the long way back to camp, slipping past the picket line in nigh silence.

'Halt! Who goes there?!'

Lutz' startled voice reached out from the half-light, more fear than furor. 'So, you are awake,' Faramund replied, doing as bid, if only to avoid rousing every other soul in camp. 'You need anythin', Lutz? Didn't surprise you, did I?' One of Conroy's favourites, that, sneak thief that he was.

'N-no, Ser- Syr! I, um, I was just makin' sure you weren't one o' them whatsits. Um. Deserters!'

'How vigilant of you,' the dawnling stared until he was certain Lutz got the message. No more naps! 'Keep up the good work.'

Venturing onwards, Faramund left Tribe with the other mounts, stripping the brave bay of saddle and tack, blanket and bridle, before checking the wound marring her flank. True to her word, Evelyn had cleaned the wound, applying ointment with a practised hand.

Grass crunched underfoot as a figure waddled into view, like a little gremlin up to no good.

'What're you still doing up, Lilia?' Faramund asked, shouldering the weight. 'Don't y'know it's dangerous to go wanderin' at night?'

'Uncle Fahamund! I- I'z came lookin' for you! Granpapa said it was okay if I came to look at the horsies, so long as you or Auntie Os'tha were pre- per-... around.' Taking a breath, Lilia turned her attention to Tribe, the whites of her eyes shining. ''S Tribe okay? William told me that she got hurt, and you got hurt, and that the bad men tried to hurt Auntie Esota an' the others!'

'We're okay, kid.' Faramund reassured her. 'Nothing the four o' us couldn't handle.'

The "bad men" were gone now, their bodies fed to the fire to prevent them from rising up and wreaking more havoc upon the world. How fortunate you are, Lilia, to have bad men of your own to protect you. Burying the thought with the rest of them, Mund tilted his head back toward the watchfires. 'Come on,' he said, 'let's get you back t' Akke, before we both wind up in trouble.' Of all the children, Lilia had been among the first to come see him after the skirmish.

The rest had hung back, afraid, wary of the knight in the blood-stained armour.

Perhaps they were right to fear him, what he was.

A snake in the grass. A puppet marching to the pull of strings, ignorant of the hand that guided him. Just who controlled him now was a topic for debate; chrysanthemums or cultists, friend or foe. The distinction mattered little to a mind that could not decide for itself. Not truly, anyhow.

Figures gathered up ahead. Long shadows lay in the grass at their backs. A roaring campfire kept the encroaching darkness at bay. 'Lilia! What're you doing awake still?' Sveta rose to her feet in a flurry of skirts. 'Come along, now! Akke will be furious if he finds you out of your bedroll.'

'Oh-kay, Auntie Sweta! G'night, Uncle Fahamund!'

'Good night, Lilia,' the dawnling nodded. 'Sweet dreams.'

Finding his gear piled next to Syr Osytha's, the dawnling set down his saddle, before following suit.
 
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Stars aren’t looking bad, tonight.

With up to eight moons up there at any one time, Khurun’s night sky isn’t always a crystal clear window to the heavens above. Sometimes the lunar glare is so strong that only a handful of those brightest sparks are visible to the naked eye. But tonight, with just the Sovereign, Beast, and Mirror in various stages of waning crescent, Osytha has a perfect view of the stars overhead; twinkling band of diamond dust trapped in black velvet. If she stares up there long enough to let her eyes adjust, she can even make out the soft emerald and garnet folds of insurmountably vast, and distant, nebulae.

She lies atop her bedroll, hands behind her head and doing just that. “Næddre,” she murmurs, eyes scanning along invisible lines from point to point. Guffy sighs at her hip, more content with closing his eyes for sleep than joining in on Osytha’s stargazing. “Ácweorna… se Earn ond se Hafoc…”

Even with night just fallen, this suffocating spring hot spell has her loathe to don her gambeson again, or get under the woollen blanket. She’s just starting to feel an evening chill prickling at her skin, and in truth, it makes for a refreshing change from the sweltering days they’ve been having. And today was especially bad. Roasting under her hauberk all the while, and then, the pyre. There’s an art to building a fire. A complex equation of surface-area-to-volume ratios, wood density, moisture, airflow, and heat retention. Someone had needed to stay back a little while and make sure it all caught properly; that it didn’t just smoulder weakly away, leaving the bodies scorched yet whole. Osytha had wanted to spare anybody else from all that smoke and the funereal reek of roasting flesh, so in the end, that someone had been her.

All that relentless heat and cloying smog… she’s ready for crisp air and feeling cold, for a change. Well, what she’s really ready for is a good bath like Evelyn had said. Wiping herself down with a nub of soap, washcloth, and splash of water out there in the copse had only done so much. But, in the absence of proper ablution and laundering facilities, she’ll gladly take this instead.

Osytha has just reached Sitha’s Hearth when she hears a familiar tread approach. Steps which belie her ranger’s size and bulk, though, not an actual attempt at stealth; Osytha knows the man is near a ghost when he chooses to be. She breaks her eyes away from their game of hunting constellations, and observes Faramund stowing some of his tack nearby.

“Eyup, me duck,” she says, softly. The dawnling settles down to his own sleeping spot, and Osytha turns her eyes back to the sky. “Tribe ’oldin’ up alreight? An’… what of thissen, after that naup¹ of thine?”


¹ ‘Naup’: a sharp blow to the head (and not a little snooze, though, the odds may be good that one follows the other).
 
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The Mund's eyes widen at the strange expression. 'Quack, quack,' he replies, his voice a whisper. Placing his sword belt aside, he crumpled backwards, arm tucked to cushion the back of his head as he joins in stargazing. 'She's fine, just a graze,' he says, idly brushing his temple, unsure as to how he might go about answering her second question.

'I'm... fine,' he remarks, after no small amount of silence. 'M'bucket took the brunt of it. Barely any swelling to speak of.'

Swords were not designed to hew plate. A strong arm and sure hand could offset that fact, to an extent. Faramund wondered if it would not have been a mercy, had his helm failed him in that crucial moment. No, no, enough of that. Listening to the fire crackle and spit, the knight forced himself to look, finding comfort in the blanket of stars overhead, so very far removed from the machinations of mortalkind.

'You did good today, Osytha,' said the dawnling, staring at something twixt the shine and shimmer, a brush of red amidst the silver. 'You're a dab hand with the bow. Who taught you t'shoot like that, if'n you don't mind my asking?'

Training the next generation of Knight had ever been a joint effort. Sworn, Pursuant, or Master. Dawn and Dusk. The combined effort of dozens, distilled, and refined over the course of years. The passing on of knowledge and values. Multiple pursuits, multiple teachers. Yet everyone had their favourites. Even lowly Field Sworn when they got put to the test.
 
“A few folks, I s’pose. Syrs Sando, Bebin, Rimebol… they does their share of instructin’. Good teachers, in their own styles.” The Archers; three bright stars close together form the bow, a couple others off to the side make up the arrow. Draw a line along where the former is aimed and another line following the latter’s flight, to the point where both lines intersect, and you have something close to true north. “But there was others as taught me in diff’rent ways. S’pose Syr Monroe comes to mind — now there’s a dab hand wi’ a bow if’n ever I saw ane. Whenever I caught ’er practicin’, I’d watch every little thing she’d do. An’ feelin’ jealous of ’er talent, seein’ ’ow hard she worked at et… that pushed me to push missen.

“Then there’s Kabilar of Svapna. ’E were a travellin’ Arshakan poet an’ ’istorian, oh, a millennium past?” Osytha moves her hands out from their spot as a pillow, resting one on her stomach and gently stroking the top of Guffy’s head with the other. “When I was first learnin’ High Imperial, I came ’pon accounts of ’is time among some of t’nomad peoples there — folks as spend their whole lives in t’saddle. ’E went into great detail on ’ow they fought from ’orseback; timing their shots wi’ t’gait of their steeds, shootin’ aback of ’em while in retreat, even standin’ up in t’sirrups so’s they could wield bigger bows for warfare an’ suchlike. Also mentioned ’ow devastatin’ et were. ’Course, et took a fair bit of trial an’ error to work et aht for missen, but I was already spendin’ that much time on Forbs, breakin’ ’im in. Ol’ Kabilar were reight about ’ow effective et is, an’ all. Sometimes, et almost feels like cheatin’.”

Almost. There’s no such thing, though, not in those sorts of situations. Today had been another reminder of that; of how low she’d be willing to sink if it kept these people she cared about safe. She wouldn’t settle for anything less than a sure killshot when it came to hunting pigs — but against those bandits? It’s hard for her to feel pity for their suffering. Because people know better. No one had been forcing them, and they knew better. But they’d still cut down some poor peasant for the hell of it, and Toils alone know what they’d have done with the column if they’d had their way.

“I en’t a Cathmore wi’ t’bow, though I’s still fairly decent. Shan’t deny that. But… a battle like we jus’ fought? Ane person’s skill only counts for so much. Fightin’ as a team, that’s what decides such things. An’ I din’t do that.”

Yeah. People should know better…

“I’m sorry, Faramund. Toils, I reckoned I was bein’ so clever,” and the bitterness in that word twists Osytha’s face as she says it, “splittin’ their forces up like that. But I underestimated ’em, an’ tha had’st to bail me aht. I en’t t’dawnlin’ ’ere — I should’ve followed thy lead, but I din’t. I got Tribe ’urt, an’ then… when I saw that blow ’gainst thy helm, for a moment there, I… gods, Faramund. I’m so sorry.”

No more putting it off. Osytha hadn’t really known what she was doing with Esota, either, but… she’d tried, and it feels like they’ve found a way forward. Even if it comes too late for Faramund, she ought to try. Who cares how wretched she feels about it all, if it ends up being what he needs to hear?

“When we set aht on this mission,” Osytha continues, her tone falling gentle and low, “last thing I wanted was to let thee down again. But I did. I failed thee for t’second time, now. An’ I can’t tell thee ’ow much I rue both.”
 
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Sando, Bebin and Rimebol. Three powerhouses, in their own right, though the Eight knew how much of a cunt Syr Rimebol could be given half a chance. As to Kabilar of Svapna, well, his was a name that echoed through the ages. History was chockful of lessons just waiting to be learnt. A pity. Most folk were so focused on the present, they gave no thought as to the past. Or future for that matter.

Sometimes one's past dictated their entire future; sometimes they just believed it did.

Osytha's apology drew the dawnling back to the moment. Words, like arrows, could not be recalled once loosed. Faramund's heart bled in sympathy. And understanding. 'Ah, kid,' his voice was firm but gentle, 'you ain't failed me a day in yer life. Not today, not ever.' From Sitha's Cradle to the Doldrums, Faramund's eyes flitted, his mind as wakeful as the rest of him.

'"Don't be sorry, be better."' They were each of them guilty. Faramund had lived his whole life recklessly, mistaking selfishness for selflessness, carelessness for courage. 'I did not stop you,' he continued, gaze softening. 'I should have. But I didn't.'

Something like guilt crossed his features, then. Faramund felt the hand gripping his heart squeeze tight.

'When you broke away, I should have remained by your side, like any good knight would have, riding in my place.' Dawn and Dusk. Blade and palm. Two sides of the same coin. How much of a fuck-up did he have to be to forget that time and time again?

'Don't be sorry, Osytha. You have nothing to apologise for. You live. Evelyn and Roy live. Our wards live.' Esota and Sveta and the rest. The little ones still possessed the joyousness of youth, though each and every one of them had been tempered by what they had experienced. The horror... and the longing for the past.

'You are young,' he said then, trying to smile. For her sake. 'You are entitled to your mistakes. Hel, find me a knight what hasn't made any. Syrs Sando and Bebin. Even that shithead, Syr Rimebol.' It was no secret that Faramund didn't like him nor he Faramund.

But then you didn't have to like someone to make an effective team, though it did help.

'You know he coughs up furballs, right? He tries to hide it, but there ain't no defying one's nature. Probably why he's so leery all the time.'
 
Osytha’s free hand comes and rests, palm-up over her eyes, as the corners of her mouth pull down taut in effort against a rising grin.

“Nay, I— don’t— I need thee to stop,” she pleads, almost chuckling, “’cos if tha goest on about Syr Rimebol like that, I will laugh, an’ then I don’t reckon I’ll be able to say what I means to say…”

The hand slips away, just leaving a little smile on her face as she peers back up at the stars. Underneath it all is the distant murmur of night-time voices, kept low so as not to disturb the bairns. Soft wind over fields, through leaves. Helter-skelter pop and snap of the fires. A faint, sleepy little canine wheeze, and the rustle of a twitching paw.

“Tha’rt kind.” And turning on a dime, that grin and laugh become something sad. “Not all who do this long as tha hast remember ’ow to be kind. That’s summat I’ve allus admired thee for. But I… don’t want thy kindness for this. Not if et costs thee owt, even a little.”

Her smile fades away completely, and she goes on, returning to that low cadence; “Mistakes is ane thing. But I knew better, which meks et summat else. Never mind we all got aht of et alive. I left too much up to luck, an’ I din’t stand beside you all as I ought to’ve. I’m afeared if tha’rt too kind now, I might’nt learn my lesson… an’ besides, I en’t tellin’ thee all this so’s tha canst console me. That puts t’burden on thee, an’ tha’rt already tryin’ to carry everybody else’s.

“But, who’s ’elpin’ thee to carry thy own, Faramund? Who should that body be, if not thy dusker?”

Osytha’s hair whispers as she turns her head to set her fire-glimmered eyes on the dawnling. He looks sad, to her, even if he’s trying to smile; perhaps moreso because of it. He’s seemed so much more sad in general since the change, and Osytha doesn’t know what’s worse — if what he’s suffered has left him this way, or if this is how he’s always been, and she just never cared enough to notice in the first place.

“When tha went’st away… I din’t ken what was goin’ on, jus’, could tell tha wert not thy former self. I left thee alone, convincin’ missen tha needed’st space, or that I’d just be a bother if I tried speakin’ wi’ thee. We all were told et was bein’ ’andled, that we ’ad no need to concern ussen, an’ I just accepted all that. ’Cos et was easier for me to do so. But I never bothered to ax thee. An’ I should’ve.

“So I’m axin’ now. Canst tha tell’st me — what ’appened to thee, Faramund? Is et still ’appenin’? An’ what dost tha need’st, that I might give to thee?”
 
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Kind. Faramund found that difficult to believe. I killed two men today, he thought, quietly. One of them couldn't have been much older than Osytha. I wonder what his life would have amounted to, had he not encountered me? Perhaps he would have ended his days dancing at the end of a rope, the last of his courage running down his leg whilst the rest of his fellows did the deadman's jig alongside him.

Or perhaps he would have found a way out. Sought redemption. A bad deed didn't wash out the good nor good the bad.

Nobody was born evil. Answering one cruelty with another left a bad taste in the dawnling's mouth, not that they'd been given a choice. If words are weapons, why, then, does everyone reach for their iron first? Nobody was born evil, but that didn't necessarily make them good. There was always a choice to be made. Desertion or death? Kindness or cruelty?

Words or weapons? Theft or forgiveness?

It took Faramund longer than it usually did to notice he had eyes on him. Unlike Osytha, however, he could not bear to look at his partner, for fear of what she might see written on his face: guilt, anger, despair and, above all else, doubt.

For a time, Osytha was answered with naught but silence.

The campfire crackled and spat. Low voices talked the night away. Syr Guffers shifted in his sleep, pressing himself up against Osytha's legs with a long, contented sigh. Of all the camp's denizens, it seemed, he was the one most at peace.

'Life happened,' the dawnling replied suddenly, as if awakening from a deep slumber. 'I supped too deeply from the cup of truth and discovered I could not stomach the taste.' Staring up at the sky, Faramund felt a lump beginning to form in his throat, thoughts and feelings he had long since suppressed gathering like stormclouds in the recessess of his mind, threatening to overcome him entirely lest he release them of his own free will.

Free will? The knight bared his teeth in a grin. What a joke!

Shaking his head, Faramund sat up, gaze alighting on the flames stinging his eyes. 'I... stumbled,' he told her then, 'and I fell. A part of me hoped I would not rise again, only life would not allow it. Our brothers and sisters would not allow for it,' he smiled wanly, turning away, so as to hide his burgeoning tears.

'The brethren showed me much grace... More than I deserve, in all honesty.' He paused. 'There's nought you can give me which hasn't already been given, Os. No weight you need bear to keep me from stumbling again.' There were others to aid him in that regard; folk in the know, like Bebin and Helena and Oliver.

Good people. Honest people. True knights deserving of their titles.

And my friends, thought the one whose name was Faramund. Though I likely do not deserve them either.

'What happened to me is still happening to me, and, I fear, it will continue to do so until the day I am finally laid to rest,' he blinked, finding within himself the courage to meet Osytha's eye. He smiled. 'Such is life! Either I destroy what's eating me up inside... or it destroys me.'
 
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This silence. And when Faramund breaks it, the raw edge in his voice. How he can’t look at her. His eyes, when he forces himself regardless. That sad, bloody smile again. Was this, one of those questions she should have left unvoiced?

Nay. Osytha answers herself in the same moment she wonders it. He was already feeling all this. Only difference now is he’s letting me see it.

It’s more, much more than she’d actually expected to hear. And at the same time, he’s explained nothing; merely that all these things are, not what makes them so. What does it mean to Faramund, to stumble? To fall? What does any of it truly mean?

Osytha sits up, too, after he does, and Guffy lets out a disgruntled huff in response. Ears twitch with Faramund’s voice, and his little head perks up, black on black eyes now open to the dawnling. Same as hers are.

She wants to tell him, of course he deserves grace. How could he not, just from everything he’s done for this caravan alone? There’s always room for mercy if one but takes the chance—

Kill them all

She’ll run them through she’ll skewer them she’ll cut them down with arrow with sword with dagger with her fucking teeth in their throats kill them all kill them all kill them all

… Osytha squeezes her eyes shut; reeling in the ugly light of hypocrisy as it shows to her, her shame. Can she tell Faramund he’ll always deserve such grace and not have her words ring hollow to his ears? Can she even tell herself there’s nothing he could say which would cause her to damn him?

If only Esota hadn’t done what she had. Were Osytha just able to get there in time… that Rodhan soldier was within their power. Maybe there would have been a chance for mercy. Maybe Osytha even would have taken it, and then she’d be able to tell Faramund in this moment: that chance is always there…

“Mebbe I don’t need to ’elp bear thy burdens, nay.” Her hands curl into fists against the earth. “I just wants to. ’Appen that’s what et means for me, to be a Knight. Not cuttin’ down brigands. But to do summat for them as are dear to me, while I’ve still a chance to.

“I want to be someone tha canst entrust wi’ thy troubles. If tha’rt willing to tell me more, here an’ now, I’ll gladly listen. But if tha durstn’t share owt else, then I… I can’t ’old that against thee, nay.”

More rustling as Osytha scrapes across the ground to stop, cross-legged beside him. Guffy, too; her boy can tell these things, so Faramund finds, on his other side, a little dark head resting upon his knee as its two big, mournful eyes look up at him.

“Et’s just — I see what tha dost for all these people, each an’ every day, an’ I can tell tha’rt at least tryin’. Whatever else tha hast done, or which shall yet come to pass, I ken for sure tha’rt tryin’. An’ for that alone, well, I can’t imagine what else would mean tha’rt ne worthy of some grace.” Osytha nudges Faramund’s knee with her own, and gives him a weak little grin. “My imagination’s pretty bloody good, an’ all. Just ax me mum.”
 
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'I trust you, with my life.' Faramund did not draw away or retreat within himself. Bad habits died hard, and yet, despite it all, Osytha was right. He was trying. But my troubles are my own, thought the dawnling, scratching Guffers between his floppy ears, earning a contented grumble, the kind hounds made when given the attention they so deserved.

'I've done... things,' said the knight, voice hoarse, eyes downturned. 'Things that make me sick, that would make you sick.'

Blinking back tears, Faramund struggled to hide the rankling sense of contempt he felt towards himself. The fingers of his sword hand curled into a fist, then relaxed as he took a breath in, seeking to settle his mind. My mind? Again, the old venom seeped its way into his thoughts, poisoning whatever good resided there, twisting his self-perception into something the Other found palatable.

The Order's Weavers had done what they could, wresting control away from the parasite, limiting its influence, though he heard it's voice still, incessant as rain in winter.

His handlers knew of his plight. How could they not? Someone had to keep an eye on him, make sure he didn't slip his leash.

To share my troubles, he huffed a grin, wishing he was what Osytha saw in him.

'Ignorance is no excuse,' said Faramund, feigning a smile. Who knew, maybe one of these days he'd mean it. 'You've done enough for me, lass, so don't go wearin' yerself out on my account.' Syr Guffers gave the dawnling's hand a nudge, tongue lolling, paws resting on the ranger's thigh.

'As t' yer mum, well, I ain't never had the pleasure,' he said, nudging her back. 'Seems she helped raise a fine young lady, though. Kinder than I, that's for certain.'
 
“I en’t too sure on t’ ‘fine’ part,” Osytha chuckles, softly, “but, aye, she taught me a great deal ’bout kindness. Too bad et took some stumblin’ of my own afore I really learned those lessons.”

She turns her gaze forward, levelling it to the gloom beyond the campfires. A night like this, those calm meadows and birch tops are barely awash with moonglow. Yet so long as Osytha doesn’t stare into the fires, she’s still able to tell the shape of things out in that darkness.

“Afore tha gost singin’ my praises… I don’t know. I reckons that ’twixt mum an’ t’order, I nivver ’ad t’chance to turn aht any other way.” It’s just the softness in her voice, now. “I wonders, though. Did’st tha ’ave what I ’ad, Faramund? Or did’st tha ’ave to figure things aht for thissen?

“’Cos there en’t nobody alive who learns that way wi’aht mekkin their share of mistakes. Nobody.”

“I've done... things. Things that make me sick, that would make you sick.” They’re heavy words. And they deserve to be considered, carefully. It’s easy to answer with sentiments like ‘it can’t be that bad’, or ‘I know you’d never do such things’… but asides from being naïve, it dismisses what Faramund is trying to tell her. He doesn’t say any of this lightly. Osytha told him she would listen, so she owes him exactly that.

What could he have done that’s so vile? Unfortunately for Osytha, she doesn’t have to leave much to imagination; memory, instead, is serving up some horribly real examples. She’s had to face her fair share of such things over the years, with no mean number of them from this mission alone. For only yesterday she’d been walking beside Hadelinde and twisting herself into knots at the thought of what might have befallen her. Of what might yet befall her.

Is it truly so bad, Faramund? she wonders. I just can’t see it. But then, what do I know?

“Tha wold’st ken thy own actions far better than I,” she concedes. “So what else can I do, but believe thee when tha say’st tha hast done such terrible things? All I can see is t’way et torments thee. ’Ow et’s changed thee. I get t’feelin’ tha dursn’t forget t’weight of thy deeds, nor art tha slow to ’old thissen accountable.

“I don’t ken what more there is to ax of someone than that.” A finger brushes to the grass. Absent-mindedly, plucking, rolling, crushing. A fresh green smell harsh upon the nose. Just for something that isn’t all… all this. “I don’t ken what condemning thee further would achieve. Nothing tha’rt ne already doin’ to thissen, surely. Nor does I ken what we’d win from justice in place of mercy. Neither ane will undo what’s done.”

Gently, she lays a hand upon the dawnling’s knee. “Like et or not, world spins madly on,” she says, turning to meet his eyes. “So, if us choice is to sacrifice thee to yesterday’s ghosts, a yesterday which shall nivver come again, or to wake up tomorrow an’ find thee still wi’ us… I ’ope I get to see you in t’morning, Faramund. An’ ivvery day thereafter.”
 
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Her words lulled him into a wishful state of thought. Soft. Melodic, almost. Aye, yesterday was done, and no amount of reflection on his part could undo that which haunted him. And yet emotion had never been a slave to reason. Letting go of the guilt, turning a blind eye to his fears and concerns... I just can't see it happening, no matter how hard I try. Raising his chin, Faramund turned his head to face Osytha, whiskers twitching in amusement.

'The feeling's mutual, Little Hawk.'

Despite his woes, despite the horrors of his creation, he had made something for himself, here, with the Order. 'Thank the gods we can choose our friends,' the dawnling remarked quietly, catching a glimpse of his former self in the writhing flames. 'I cannot reshape the past, true. But I would be a great fool, indeed, by allowing it to shape my future.' The world span madly onwards. All any of them could do was continue to spin with it.

'S'pose you should be gettin' some shut-eye,' Faramund sniffed, feeding a stick to the fire, so as to keep his hands busy. 'Might do a bit o' whittlin' while we wait for the sky to change. Don't much feel like sleepin' right now.'

Experience had taught him that staring at the back of his eyelids was not a good way to pass the time. Even monsters needed hobbies.

'Get some rest, Osytha,' said Faramund. 'You'll see me in the morning, I promise.'
 
“‘Little Hawk,’” she repeats. It actually makes her smile — a proper one, too. “I likes that.”

Happen we can choose our friends. But our oath makes us all kin; demands we do as much for all our brethren. And I reckon that’s a good thing. Happen they knew there’d be knights like thee, Faramund, knights who might be least deserving of friendship. But who need it the most.

Osytha pats his knee a couple more times, then starts to shift back into her bedroll. “Reight then,” she goes on, fiddling with the woollen blanket. “If tha’rt ne goin’ to find much sleep, least I can do is get enow for t’both of us.”

Stars above. Could almost believe there’s nothing else besides, staring up at them on her back; no camp, no fires, no droves of dispossessed, no sprawling fields and wending woods. Just her and the stars, out there in that forever black. Just her and Sitha’s cheery little fire, the Squirrel running messages between the Serpent and the Eagle and the Hawk, and the Archers, trading their arrows. The constellation of Osytha; now there’s a thought. What would she look like up there?

“Thank’ee. For tellin’ me as much as tha hast.” She closes her eyes, picturing a drama of the heavens. “An’… if tha’rt ivver up Hræfn Leah way, stop by an’ ax for Merifrith. Mum’d like that. Put my mind at ease an’ all, knowin’ tha wold’st be gettin’ a warm bed… hot meal…”

A yawn — well, that was quick. But it’s been a hell of a day, after all. Thoughts already fogged. Drifting slow, discordant. Stars in her head. And she’s there with them. Swimming in black waters.

“… sithee… mernin… ”
 
Sithee mern, thought Faramund, gazing into the flames as Osytha went away, off to the Land of Nod. Guffers settled down where the blanket overflowed the dusker's frame. Yawning, the pup laid down his head atop his paws, pitch black eyes holding true to Faramund a moment, as if committing him to memory.

Sithee mern to you too, syr, the dawnling shifted against his saddle, drawing a knife with which to whittle away the hours. Small, inconspicuous, it sat in one's palm like a figurine. Completely safe until it wasn't.

Faramund had lost count of all the nicks and cuts he had given himself over the years. Most would have learnt from their mistakes. Not I, alas. Quick on the draw, slow on the uptake. But then hasn't that ever been the case? Frowning, the dawnling thrust his thoughts aside, the knife he wielded chip, chip, chipping away at the first bit of softwood his roving hand had come across.

Slowly, he managed to find for himself some measure of peace, there, at the end of a blade.

It wasn't until some time later that he realised just how quiet the camp was. Looking up from the knight he had been working on, Faramund cast a glance about himself.

Beyond the reach of the Midnight Sun, the world was dark, and threatening.

It was the absence that tipped him off; the lack of nightsong, the silence of wakeful guardian dogs. Every night, the latter would rise to traipse about camp, growling and barking 'til a familiar voice called them to heel. Not so tonight.

Faramund was on his feet before he knew it, instinct compelling him to investigate lest his latent paranoia prove his undoing.

The figurine he left in Osytha's care - a knight, armed and armoured, though faceless beneath their raised visor. A nameless nobody. Like him. No, not like me, he mused, stepping silently beyond the ring of light and unto the black. A chill wind pulled at the fabric of his shirt as he stopped, and listened. To the rustle of leaves lost to the elements; to the whisper working its way through the long grass towards him.

A figure slouched in the grass none too far away. Their spear lay in the dirt next to them.

'Lutz?' Creeping through the darkness, Faramund reached out to give the figure's shoulder a shake.

'Lutz?' He asked again as the body toppled sideways, the puncture wounds on the poor farmhand's neck standing out against the expanse of his skin, deathly pale in the moonlight. Something crunched behind him. Faramund went still.

'Didn't. Surprise! You. Did I?'

Turning, the dawnling steadied himself as a fresh horror imprinted itself upon his memory. Sudden fear yielded to a decade's worth of resolve as he gazed upon the creature responsible for Lutz's death. Even half-submerged in shadow, a name kept popping into his mind: Strigoi Mort. Troubled spirit.

'How. Vigilant. Of. You!' The cursed one echoed his earlier words, its bloody maw opening, closing. 'Dangerous. To go. Wonderin'. At night.'

'Yeah,' agreed Faramund, easing his sabre free. The Strigoi tensed. 'Quite.'

Twisting, the knight brought his foot down on the ward scrawled upon the earth. The air shrilled in alarm.

The Strigoi struck.
 
Wading through the starry bog, every bit black and bright over as underneath her. Suspended in between; a mirror plane, visible only when it breaks with ripples. One can only swim so far, however, so when the little boat drifts by, Osytha hauls herself aboard. Lies down flat on her stomach, head and chest leant over the edge so she can trail her fingers through the water. Scoops up twinkling little somethings in cupped hands.

“Careful now,” the Siabhra tells her. He holds taut a line running to the sail overhead; eyes and course set on the distant edge of that glowing band. “Leave the arrow where it flies. Or else folks won’t find their way home.”

One star right below them shines so warmly, so invitingly, that Osytha recognises it the moment it catches her attention.

“I see it,” she announces. “The way home.” And she slips, næddre-like, into the black once more.

Osytha slithers down from the sky, down, until even the stars have gone away. So dark she can’t see herself. The moons are out, but it doesn’t matter; not this far into the woods, immured by mighty guardian elms. Lower she goes past those boughs, to coil herself about a familiar old trunk. It was the Vayd tree, and is the Vayd tree still, here in this place. She can’t see anything, yet at the same time knows, perfectly, where everything is. The other trees around her. The tail end of a path which leads back past a creaky old watermill. The scattered, ruined branches of Astenvale Monastery.

It’s so dark, and everything is broken. Osytha hugs her knees up to her chest, and waits. Because she knows it’s going to be alright. That star will come bobbing through the darkness, and then she will lift her up to carry her so softly it feels like floating. There’ll be light, and warmth, and comfort; with tender hands and gentle song. This is always how she finds her way home.

She hears her now. Mother, calling through the dark.

“What're you. Still doing up, A leanbhan O, my child. My joy. Come along, now!”

Osytha raises her head. Is that what her mother sounds like? It must be. It’s always her mother who comes looking for her. Never anyone else. Only… she should be able to see the lantern. Mother’s here, calling out. So where’s the lantern-light?

“Dusk is drawn. Don't y’know it's dangerous. At night? My love and heart’s. Desire.”

Quietly as she can, tiny little Osytha gets to her knees. She crawls around to the other side of the elm, putting its trunk between her and her mother’s voice. She’s never hidden before, not until now. But this is… wrong.

“The cricket. Sings his lullaby.” Closer now, ever closer. “Sweet dreams. Good night. Sweet dreams. Tomorrow will dawn. Beautiful, and there’ll be. No death.

“No death.

“No death.”

Doesn’t… doesn’t the song come later? Not in the woods. Not here, not yet. Osytha presses herself harder against the tree, as though she might be able to disappear inside it. Futile. The wood refuses to envelop her, just, presses back cold and unyielding. Leaves her stranded with darkness yawning out around her.

“Hush,” says a voice in her ear.

And then there are hands on her, and she’s screaming—

… eyes wide open, gasping in panic before Osytha starts to realise she’d been dreaming. But fear redoubles when she feels there’s something still touching her.

Her nose figures things out first. She can smell someone’s hair. Specifically, that of a child’s, one who’s wormed their way under the blanket with her. Osytha’s hackles finally, gradually, start to lower. Gods, but her heart is still thumping like crazy inside her chest. At least she can move her body now the rigor timoris is seeping out from its every clenched muscle.

With a deep, weary sigh, she slips an arm under William and wraps it around his little frame. “’Ey now, petal,” Osytha whispers, soothing as she can while the shakes are still ebbing from her voice. “Bad dream?”

There’s only silence, at first. She can feel his little breath, warm and uncertain, in and out against her clavicle. Even hears him draw the air in one, twice, thrice…

“… ’nty Ossyfa?”

“Aye, love?”

“When’s mummy coming back?”

Osytha gazes forward over that wee head, toward Faramund’s empty spot. Her heart sinks a touch to see it, until she notices the present he’s left her. A little wooden knight nestled in amongst her kit, staring right back at Osytha. As much as a faceless effigy can stare, anyway. A watchful warrior, holding vigil over her — her and William both, now. Seeing that does make Faramund feel a bit less absent.

“I’m sorry, William.” Her hand winds up a bit, and Osytha begins to stroke the child’s hair, slowly and gently. Her own eyes drooping closed. She can feel Guffy begin to stir against her on the other side, now they’ve rudely disturbed the poor boy’s slumber. “An’ so’s she, I’m sure. If thy mother could be ’ere, I kens she would. Et’d be t’first place she’d go to. But, ’owever much she wishes she could… I’m afeared there simply en’t any way for ’er to find ’er way back to us.”

“… Oh…”

Poor bairn. It’s possible that someone is indeed still out there looking for William, but Osytha wouldn’t count on it. They’d investigated as much as time allowed them to, the day they found him alone there by the road. And what they’d discovered, while not conclusive, has left her feeling like any concrete answers would come in the form of closure, not hope.

“’Nty Ossyfa.” the little voice tries again. “Is that like… what Unker Acky told Lilia about her mummy an’ daddy?”

The knight nuzzles William’s head. “Aye. Aye, et is. I’m sorry, my flower.”

“Oh.” Again, a flat, kind of acceptance, as young Bill takes that piece of information and tries to insert it into the working model of the universe there inside his noggin. “But… Lilia’s mummy did come back. She’s here now.”

At her side, Guffy starts to whimper.

Osytha’s eyes snap open. And then, all hell breaks loose.

She’s already finding her feet when the alarm screeches out, dagger brandished afore her in one hand and William tucked behind her with the other. Snapping around to the source of that claxon — north-east, facing the woods. Just in time to see the burly silhouette of Faramund above a prone figure at the watch post there… and another one, pallid as death, glide over the grass toward her dawnling. Its shape flows into something else, from white and shroud-tattered into a huge, black-furred beast; a wolf, its head standing as tall as Osytha’s shoulders. Massive and with hardly a sheen to its coat under the weak moonlight. But its fangs, they glisten wickedly long and sharp.

“To arms!” yells Osytha, while the camp scrambles awake in whiplash panic. “To arms, Knights!”

She’s already slipping her baldric on as she moves forward. People are looking around with alarm, and as they start to see the monster, no small number let their fear move them. Voices scream, bodies dash away from that thing without a thought of where they’re going — no thought but away.

And yet… there, in the middle of that chaos, Osytha sees her: ready with spear and shield, once again like she’d just been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Hazel eyes locked upon the fight to which she uncertainly, yet steadily, advances.

Well look at thee, my little greengage, Osytha thinks as she closes in on Esota Laverock. Green on the outside thou myghst be, yet happen thou’rt ne so yellow as all that underneath.

I’ll bet too many of thee would still give me the shits, though.

“Sotie!” she calls, and no sooner has she practically shoved William against the lass than she is yanking that pilfered spear away for herself. “Round up t’others afore we lose ’em to t’night!”

“But—”

But there’s no time for ‘but’; Osytha is already darting past, sheathing her dagger to get both hands on the haft. All she can spare is one quick look back at Esota.

“I am trustin’ thee!” she snaps. And then with spear levelled, Osytha is gone herself — charging toward that ungodly black beast.
 
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The alarm shrilled and the beast struck, quick as lightning. Throwing himself to the side, Faramund felt something sharp snag his sleeve. Pain welled in his arm as the Strigoi bore past, a figment of imagination made real, fur so dark it could have filled the space betwixt stars.

Warm blood wetted the soil.

Kneeling by Lutz' body, Faramund retrieved his spear as the creature circled, slinking through the long grass like silence itself. The alarm still sounded. Behind him, the dawnling could hear the camp rousing itself, cries of confusion and fear acting as the keynote to his courage. To get to them it would have to go through him. And the rest, thought the dawnling, moving to cut the creature off, spear and sabre poised to return the favour.

His wounded arm throbbed as the Strigoi hunkered low, its empty eyes searching his face, seeing through the mask he wore.

'Let's. Get. You back. Akke,' the creature's voice grated from its throat like nails across a chalkboard. 'Both get. In. Trouble.'

Faramund sensed movement behind him. Heard footsteps. Voices. Osytha's, Evelyn's, and there was Roy's sardonic drawl. 'Flare!' He heard his Dawn sister shout. Roy obeyed without question, drawing on the shroud around him as easily as one breathed in order to drive back the shadows and so bring some clarity to the situation. Up went the flare. Someone gasped, someone screamed.

The Strigoi remained where it was, shirking the light, its fangs bared in a grin.

'Good night. Lilia,' it said then, slinking backwards, disappearing amongst the swaying blades. 'Sweet. Dreams.'

'Bastard!' Faramund heard himself cuss as he charged forwards, all caution forgotten, spear raised to throw as the cursed one turned to flee.

The spear left his hand in a rush of air, hitting its mark in the flank, even as it dropped from sight.

Hefting his sword, the dawnling took a step, two. 'Faramund! Syr Faramund!' Evelyn called him back to his senses, and he spun about, chest heaving. 'Rally,' she said, eyeing the sleeve of his shirt, the way it stuck to his skin. 'Reconnoitre. We know not whether that creature hunts alone. Tend to our charges. Syr Conroy and I shall scout the perimeter, ensure nothing else haunts our steps.'

Sharing a look with her dusker, Evelyn went to examine Lutz' corpse as Faramund wandered back towards camp, head bowed, mind turning restlessly. 'You okay, kid?' He asked Osytha, pausing just long enough to scan the trees and trails, unsure of what he expected to find there.
 
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