A bright peal of laughter broke out of her before she could stop it, like sunlight cutting through storm clouds. It startled even her, the warmth of it, the way it cracked the crust of the past few hours and let something easier spill through. Her hand came up, fingers brushing her mouth as if to catch it and stuff it back in.

Then she leaned into him, shoulder to shoulder, turning to offer her own quip—

And stopped for the realization of how close their faces had become. How quickly the space between them had been eaten up by whatever hunger had slipped through the cracks of her walls. She allowed herself the quick tracing of eyes over his mocking smile, the crinkling around his eyes, before clearing her throat and pulling back to retreat to the solid, safer ground of her seat.

Still, she smirked as she glanced back over at the corner, where the men were watching the exchange with darkening expressions, their gift scorned and rebuffed.

"Perhaps lock your door and piss out the window to be safe." Burying her laughter into the rim of Aarno's mug, the sweeter for being his.

A few minutes passed, falling back into an easier rhythm of eating and speaking with her companion. Just long enough to forget them.

Then a voice grated behind her, low, slurred, and thick. “So you’re too good for us or something, girl?”

Farren stilled, jaw tight, chewing slow. She didn’t turn.

Then—yank—a sharp tug on her braid.

“Hey! I’m talkin’ to you.”

Her mug clattered to the table, spilling across the surface.

She froze. A white heat bled across her vision. And at her fingertips, silver flames began to lick and shimmer, her hand faintly shook for all the effort it took to contain the rage that boiled up her throat and choked her with a sudden mouthful of sharp teeth.

“Hey!” the bartender barked, loud enough to cut through the growing heat in the room.

The music stuttered to a halt. Voices died. The air went thick and taut.

“Enough of that, Bryron.” His voice carried clear across the common room, heavy with authority. “Ease up and sit the fuck back down or leave. That’s one of Hatya’s Bell Keepers, you fool.”

The name hit like a dropped stone.

Hatya. Her Ona.

Farren blinked once, hard. It seems they were still well within the territory that the Fell people wandered through. They were nomadic traders, so making relationships with the towns along their migration path made sense. It seems Orren was one of them.

Behind her, some of the men shifted. One muttered under his breath. Another gave a low, frustrated grunt.

There were no apologies.

Just a clipped, “Alright, Jakobir,” from one of them, like he was doing them a favor.

Then chairs scraped. Boots turned. A handful of dark looks raked over her, nothing more than dirt-smeared disdain dressed up like wounded pride, as the group stalked out.

Still, Farren didn’t move.

Her hand trembled where it sat clenched on the table, every tendon drawn tight beneath the skin. She kept her gaze forward. Controlled her breath. Quelled the silver flames until they guttered out.

The music slowly picked back up as if nothing had happened.

@Aarno
 
It was terribly pleasant until it wasn’t. The dumb fucks sure dared to stir like he wasn’t even there, right next to her, and that rankled almost as much as what they actually did. He’d rotated on his seat and swung one leg over the bench in an instant, about to get up and go acquaint the most daring of the fuckers with the dirt outside, when the thunderous Hey from the bar cut in.

The minute therein was long, but it passed. And though the tension didn’t let up, the men appeared to, defused by just a name. Himself remained stockstill, staring swordpoints and curses at each piece of shit as they walked away.

He leaned one elbow against the table, inclining just the tad to speak to her.

“ Want to go and see where those rooms are? “
 
First, she unclenched her fist, breathed slow through her nose, and the last of her anger bled from her shoulders, leaving them to drop with a sigh.

Even after a day full of monsters and conflicts of the heart, there was still the mundane blight of human nature to contend with. And somehow, that more than anything stole the last scrap of patience she had left. The interaction had left something ugly crawling beneath her skin—memories better left buried, of times when she didn't have the power to stop hands that were so much stronger than her, of times when silence had been her only weapon.

The thought caught jaggedly in her chest. Like a bird in a barbed net.

But Aarno was beside her, and his stoic fury steadied her enough that it brought her back to her body. The breath shuddering out of her, heavy with ghosts. She blinked quickly, embarrassed by the hot tears that had sprung too ready to sting her eyes.

“Yes,” she agreed quietly. “I think that’s wise.”

She reached for her satchel as she stood, gaze not rising. “That didn’t exactly bring up pleasant memories, and I can’t sit here any longer with all these eyes on us.”

Watching her. Studying how her jagged edges leaked her open and raw. Wounded beasts didn’t suffer to die in the open.

“Let’s go.”

@Aarno
 
No pleasant memories. He watched as she stood, bobbing his head just the once. Slid his arm off the table and levered himself up, slinging his pack over one shoulder. As they went, meandering past the revelry and the waking of a too damn early morning, he kept to her side. The mere inch apart, arm brushing hers as if by accident every couple steps.

Reminders. He gave the barkeep a little appreciative nod in passing, gesturing wordlessly amidst the din to doublecheck the direction he’d pointed out for the rooms. The man affirmed.

Out through the backdoor, then up some steps. No keys, just latches on the inside. The cold outside hit like a slap against the face, sobering him up from the warmth that’d sneaked the want of sleep into his marrow. He let her ascend first, demanding it with a toss of the arm. Watched the yard in a frown as he followed a couple steps behind.

“ That was some horseshit. “ He started, obvious enough and almost sorry he had to even bring it up. “ Will you be alright? “

Rose his look at the back of her head.
 
TW: MENTIONS OF FAMILIAL SEXUAL ASSAULT


At the top of the stairs, Farren paused.

Hand on the latch, breath misting faintly in the cold, she stared down at her knuckles gone bloodless on the handle. Her bones ached from the tension in her frame, the last bite of winter crawling up her sleeves.

Her chin turned, the barest of silver peeking at him over a shoulder. "I'll be alright," she lied, "I have to be, right?"

She turned back to face the peeling paint of her door, the pressure finally gone from being in that room with too many people. All that noise that had rattled against her hackles as the walls closed in, suffocating her.

Her eyes closed. For here in the quiet, the stillness made it worse. In it, there was no one to fight but herself— nothing but her own will trying to hold back those old memories, and so, unfair as it was, Aarno's concern unraveled her with unsettling precision. Her hand clenched on the handle. It had been too much— it was all too much.

Something snapped in her. The echo of it like a body dropping from a rope.

"Do you remember when my father reminded me of how much I look like my mother?"

A curdling whisper of shame coiled up from the dark, wrapping sticky tendrils around the skittered pattering of her rotted heart.

Dirty, it whispered. Dirty, dirty, used, unwanted.

Those sibylant chants grew in a steady clamor, beating the inside of her, drowning out every good touch she had ever chased, begging to be clean again.

She pressed her forehead to the door. Her other hand clenched. Nails biting into the heel of her palm.

“Whose bed do you think he drunkenly crawled to on the nights he missed her so desperately?”

Farren choked on a swallow, the words like acid in her mouth. Her heart breaking for the disgust she might see in his eyes.

Then she turned. Her face carved in lines of bleak grief, feeling hollowed like something dead.

Finally, a harsh whisper clawed from her throat, "Am I broken if I say I wanted nothing more than the chance to rip those men apart?"

@Aarno
 
No. No one has to be anything. He almost said it out loud too, but restrained himself. Merely hovered there, eyeing her shape in the gloom as it remained clutching the doorhandle. Almost thankful he couldn’t see her expression, nor she his.

He stared, terribly aware of the depth of his own breaths. Drawn in and let out, emptying the frame that was as tense as something so tired could be. Unnaturally defeated and rooted to place, a glorified stump of a long since felled tree stood mere couple steps away from her. Distance vanishingly small and yet leagues away. He wouldn’t approach, but when he spoke it was sure.

“ No. “ Heavy, from the chest. Rotated a touch and stepped closer to the wall with the row of doors, as if to give her way.

“ Do you still want to? “
 

Her eyes widened at the soft weight of his words— stricken mute by what she dared interpret as permission. The disbelief was not for the fact that Aarno had been the one to give it, but that it had been given to her at all.

As if it had been the easiest thing in the world to step out of the way and let her know it was okay if she killed those men. There would be no judgment. For if it made her feel whole again, then maybe the deaths she wrought would be worth it.

Her eyes fluttered closed.

And for just a moment, she let herself become the Farren who would walk down those stairs.

The Farren who would hunt down those men like a beast in the night, stalked them from shadows, and watched for the rolling whites of their eyes, and the stink of their fear. How good it would feel to hear them scream and beg for her mercy for once, mercy that she had no space left to give. And she would taste the hot blood of evil men, crack their bones, and drink their marrow. She would cull the men who took, and took. Because no one had stopped them.

If Farren walked down those stairs, it would not be as a Knight who upheld any vows of valor or goodness. She would be wicked, and cruel, and righteous, and she would not stop until her bloodlust had been sated. And every last stolen piece of power from the innocent had been torn from their spines and placed back into the small, trembling hands of the girl inside her that she’d never been able to protect.

And yet— as that beast of a woman took her first cautious step down the stairs, Farren felt those small hands press gently to her blood-slick muzzle. And her wolf turned, starving for blood, at a child. A girl from a time before she had earned her first bell, wild hair like bleached wheat, and her eyes, a spring green. Green like her Apa. Green like her Oba.

Farren looked at herself through that child’s eyes and felt sorrow—
deep and aching and old.

Sorrow for the future self that would carry these burdens like some penance she believed she deserved.
Sorrow for every sword she’d fallen on willingly.
Sorrow for how helpless she had been made to feel.

Things no child should ever have had to feel.

And looking at her younger self now, it was so easy for Farren to see that it wasn't her fault. It wasn't her fault. It wasn't her fault. Itwasn'therfaultItwasn'therfault.

It had never been her fault.

The girl smiled, a gap in her front teeth. And kissed the wolf’s muzzle.

When she pulled away, there was no blood.

Farren’s eyes opened slowly. Tears had spilled unchecked down her cheeks.

She hadn’t realized she’d moved. Not until she found herself above on the stairs, eye-level with Aarno.

Emotion stuttered her breath, and she heaved for the depth of it as she stared at him. trying to find the words that would encapsulate how deeply meaningful what he'd just said to her was. But the words felt too big to shape in a way that did them any justice.

So she inhaled and let the trembling of her heart ease out with her breath.

Hesitantly, she leaned into the short distance and ghosted a platonic kiss on his cheek, before leaning back, a hand to her chest, like she could contain the tender swelling of her heart.

“No,” she whispered, “And I am glad for it. Thank you.”

She lingered there a moment, then turned and climbed the remaining stairs. Each step, an easier breath.

At her door, she paused. Tired eyes turned back to him, beyond the obstacle of shyness and rejection.

“You have an open invitation to join me—if you want, I wouldn't mind a little comfort right now,” she said softly. “I sometimes... have nightmares when I remember.”

A pause, and a faint smile, but one that felt warmer in her chest compared to before when he'd first suggested it.

"As friends."

@Aarno
 
He didn’t know what it was he felt, watching her come closer with her thanks and then away again, extending invitation. With that bit of crucial detail added in at the very end. What was there but to nod to that, all of it, grave-faced despite the tension unspooling in his chest.

Still, what he failed to gain was relief. There were yet things to do. Vigil.

“ Of course. “ It was the least thing to do and actually yet in his power to give. Company. He adjusted the pack on his shoulder and begun finally from where he was stood, for the door himself had been originally promised. Pushed it in.

“ I’ll bring my mattress over. “

If I don’t fall in it first.
 
The relief that came was like when a shoulder is wrenched out of place, excruciating until it's reset back in its socket. The smaller suffering would come soon after, in the tender bruising of abused flesh that ached in the violent aftermath.

For now, Farren just felt emptied, wrung out of any big emotions like rage— it had taken everything in her to speak even part of the cancerous truth she carried. Something she had never done with anyone before, had never planned to, too afraid that her grandparents would never believe their son capable of such atrocities. That, or she couldn't stomach the possible fallout of what would have happened if they did. So instead, she had fled from her people, claiming herself unable to mantle the burden of being raised for leadership. She found that version of their disappointment easier to bear along with the poison of her other sins.

But now, having finally allowed those words to fall from her mouth like rotted teeth, emptied of any fangs she had left to snarl and bite with— her mouth felt hollowed by confession. Bared a part of herself she hadn’t meant anyone to touch, not even Aarno. Not like this. And in the vulnerability of it, a new anxiety rose, sharp and festering with the worry that she had shown too much of the ugly beast in her heart. And while, yes, Aarno had seen her naked, fucked her for crying out loud— in this she felt more exposed and stripped of anything left to shield her soft underbelly. And the cruel part of her waited for the disgust, waited to be discarded, a cold dismissal of all the pieces she had surrendered to the mud and the blood she had spilled in ripping them from beneath her ribs to reveal naively where she bled from best.

In the meantime, she busied herself with the fragments of her bedtime ritual she had the energy for, tethering herself back in the mundane. Sighing wearily, Farren finally sank onto the bed in the corner, the stuffed mattress sinking flat beneath her and creaking with the protests of weathered wood. Settling her back to the wall, she bent her knees and tucked them protectively against her chest, her gaze distant as she watched the door, sitting in the quiet aftermath, the air in the small room buzzing softly against her skin like a living pulse. Finding herself soon caught in that liminal roaring headspace that came with remembering. Like she was a boiling teapot that had run over. Now that she had poured almost all of herself out, all that was left were the dregs of her brew—growing tepid, bitter, and spreading numbness across her limbs as she waited.

But there was also a morbid peace in realizing that she had no control over how he perceived her, relief in the way that all she could do now was hope. Hope that his hands, if they reached for her, answered her prayers and stayed gentle now that they cradled the blood-wet shape of her wretched heart and all its silliest and heaviest fears.

@Aarno
 
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  • Satisfying
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He didn’t leave any of his things behind. Just pulled the bedclothes to a bundle, scraped together the remaining parts of himself and picked up the mattress off the bed. Thankfully, it was not just straw with a sheet over it.

He didn’t look at anyone on his way, just marched on with the thing over his shoulder. He had to let it down and drag the rest of the way to the her room in the gloom of a looming dawn, movements weary and face tight. For her, he tried to smooth out the harshest edges. setting all his bedding down a couple feet from hers and closing the door gently enough. The latch slid and clicked to place, slow and measured.

Closed away the outside and the pale morning, to dark and a candle’s light. Just the two of them in the room, quiet and yet heard in every fidget. The pack fell heavy off his shoulder, set by his mattress on the floor. Soundlessly, he drew breath and approached, levering himself to the edge of her bed. Dared sit himself down and linger there, leaned elbows against his knees and stared at his hands that rubbed together. Cold.

His tone came out terribly similar, once he spoke.

“ For all he did— “ The details didn’t matter. She’d said enough.

“ He yet walks amongst your people. So I’m going to assume— “ One had to lend some charity there, after all. “ You never told anyone. And still won’t. “

On his spot, he shifted the touch to glance at her. He wanted to ask why, but weren’t that obvious too. Just as the rest he’d relied to her.

“ I didn’t realize what it meant, in the moment, when he said that thing— “ Distaste rippled over him, for the recalled sight of it. “ To you. But that alone protects him. “

From being ripped apart of worse, he had to suspect. He’d seen enough to do so.

“ From your Ona, Oba — anyone who loves you. “ If the love is good and true, anyway.

“ You’d grant him that? “
 
Farren peered at him from the cage of her own arms, the curtain of her hair a pale shield. His eyes smoldered in the dark, and his scrutiny sent her nerves skittering like birds against their bars. And yet when Aarno spoke, the gentleness in his tone felt as if it might shatter her with the soft way his voice cradled her like glass.

But the part of her that wasn't numb bristled at the implication under his concern. Why protect someone who hurt you, when everyone who loves you would destroy him if they knew?

Because... what if they didn't? Had they not already failed in protecting her? What would stop them from failing her again? How much more disappointment was it her destiny to bear?

And how could she describe with any fumbling clarity that what she was protecting was not the man she called father abusing her, but protecting her kin from grief? From division and from the last parts of her family burning to ash on a funeral pyre, her hand carrying the torch.

But really, if she sat with that feeling, admitted to the soft tremble in her fingers, she could name it for what it was— fear.

It wasn’t the part of her that bore steel that faltered, but the softest parts, the places that could not armor themselves. She was afraid. Afraid of the shame, of the guilt, of having to be brave for herself when all her bravery had already been spent on others, on those who found safety beneath the long shadow of her sword. For them, she had always been fearless. But for herself? She had nothing left.

Her fist tightened to stop the quake, though it did little good as his words rang in her ear. "You never told anyone," he had said.

And in the quiet, she answered back, "But I told you," the shadows cradling her confession. "And now you're here. When I needed you. Even if my cowardice confuses you."

Her gaze slid away, catching on the door as her nails dug divots into her palm. “But I… I grant him nothing. My choices are for the good of my family, for sparing them what grief I can. For them, I can carry this burden.”

@Aarno
 
Confuses me? Despite himself, he kept his sombre expression exactly as it were. This time he could bear the accusation. Not let it settle on his shoulders, but instead shrug it away as one did any which feeble thing. Just words, his own remaining low and patient as he spoke in turn.

“ Yes. I am here. “ From where his mattress lay on the floor, his look bounced about the room. So small and barren, but at least it was warm.

“ And I am not confused. Nor have I accused you of cowardice. “ Not for this, anyway. He may have had in regards to other things, far as his memory went with the last couple arguments they’d had. A fucked up little haze, now.

“ It is natural to want to protect. “ He added and looked at her anew, despite how hard it was to do. For the way she cradled herself, fingers taut in their grip about everything and nothing. By some miracle, he kept his tone from faltering.

“ Farren. “ From her eyes, he dropped his attention to where her hands held on. Reached out his to take one of them, easing it off to rest in a gentler touch. Wouldn’t pry, just hold betwixt the palms.

“ You will have your choice to keep. But I do think it is a mistake. “ Meant, thoroughly as he dared search for her look. Where it liked to hide behind her pale tresses.

“ You’re carrying a burden that doesn’t belong to you. And your family will live right by injustice without knowing about it. Without you. “ Good of the family, my arse. It would’ve been different if she never wanted to go back. But he’d gotten the sense that wasn’t it.

“ How does your heart feel for the thought of someone else in your family, someone you cherish, doing the same? “
 
Woe be unto her own hubris for thinking herself ready for his answer, braced as she was for the sting of it. But the gentleness was worse. It sank beneath her skin like a splinter of light in the dark, harder to ignore than the bark of accusation she’d steeled against. His hand around hers was unyielding in its simplicity, undoing more of her composure than she wanted to admit. How could he still touch her after knowing the shape of her ruin?

Her jaw worked past the sudden tightness of her throat. For a long moment, she only breathed through her nose, shallow and uneven, staring at the wall past him as though its blankness could hold her upright.

“Don’t.” The word left her as a rasp, dragged raw across her tongue. “Don’t ask me that.”

Still, his question stuck like smoke in her windpipe. The script flipped, and in her stead stood her brothers, her nephew, any number of people she loved bent under the same silence she carried now. The image stabbed white-hot through her chest with the precision his words had carved out.

She blinked hard, lashes wet, and at last she looked at him with the eyes of a caged beast, traumatic memories hunting her like hounds on the blood of a hare.

“You don’t know what it would cost me.” Her fingers tightened around his defiantly. "I don't know how to be the person I'll become afterwards. What if she breaks, and I am left but a shadow of myself? What good will I be to anyone then?"

@Aarno
 
He felt at the way she gripped him in turn, tips of his fingers brushing over her taut knuckles in a whisper of a touch. Something idle as she spoke, a meager bit of comfort to make up for how he failed to hold her gaze, letting his own dip away to the sliver of space betwixt them. Suppose she was right — he didn’t know and never would, not any of it.

“ I think — ” He paused, like to measure grounds into a pot. Lest he lose count. “ You’ll always be good. Just different. “ The shade of which depends on the path you’ll walk — but different it will be all the same. “ Perhaps broken, perhaps not. “

Wasn’t she already? Threadbare and haunted. He’d not tell her what she already knew, instead holding a little tighter. Warm. He didn’t know if it was reassuring, or anything really, for how hollow he felt. Must’ve sounded it too.

“ You’ve told me. And now I know and will forever. “ He dared glance at her, just past the brow. “ Are you truly of the mind that’ll be enough? “
 

"You'll always be good."

Her breath stuttered in a wet inhale, like the words had pierced through her heart and kept going— taking all the weight of its' tired beating at the end of that arrow and disappeared into the night, where its heavy blood would sink into the hungry soil by the lake, joining the dancing fireflies and nourishing the still waters under the cover of shadows and pale moonlight.

Hot tears wept freely from her eyes now, scorching her cold cheeks in silver rivers as she caught his gaze.

A glimmer of hope strung a tentative bright cord in her mind. Maybe here she could let go? Maybe here she wouldn't be punished for losing control?

Because, he knew now. And Farren realized she wasn't alone in carrying her deepest grief. And though she could feel his cold anger that simmered beneath the surface, his gentle tone belied that rage, and she was surprised by the weightless relief it wrought against such a potent poison. That someone would see injustice in what had been done to her. That a righteous fury was still worth the effort of being rallied in her name.

It was a relief that came from realizing that she alone didn't have to be left justifying her anger as she screamed into the void. Left screaming until her voice was hoarse and all the strength had drained from her body.

That she was worth being angry for.

That thought alone broke her. And suddenly, it was all too much and too heavy— the siren call for comfort now too loud in her ears that rang with his questions. And Farren found herself shaking her head, unable to form coherent words as she slowly collapsed forward and into the harbor of his chest, their joined hands curled against her breast, an anchor against the torrent of emotions that swept her away in desperate shaking sobs, muffled by the warm fabric of his tunic and the breath of his name on her lips like a prayer of the dying— who begged for a soft salvation in the wake of their sins.

Wild geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
 
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