Daniyah watched him as he spoke, her bowl forgotten in her lap. Her lips quirked, one-sided.

“Brayan had this way about him... All riddles and dust, and his fucking vendetta against the moons. He was old. Mean. Smart as hell. He knew things, deep things. Never once asked me what I wanted to be. Just saw what I was and handed me the tools." Lessons in bruises. Said pain made things stick better.

She paused, gaze fixed on the river. She heard the fish jumping to catch the dragonflies, but never saw them. Brayan’s voice lingered like smoke in her ears, rough, always with a lesson buried somewhere beneath the bravado. And for a heartbeat, she was still that half-starved teen with blood under her nails, hunched under Brayan's shadow.


“You? You're not my apprentice,” Brayan said, tossing a smoking jawbone onto the ground.
His robes reeked of wax and old swamp, basilisk blood and tobacco.
“You’re a fire. I keep you in a lantern for now." His grin flashed gold beneath his beard. "The world’s dark," he had said.
He gestured wide to the midnight wilds, to the stars, to the thing they’d just buried.
"Always been dark. Always gonna be. One day I’ll be bones in the dirt, I won’t be 'round to carry you."

"When that day comes, you will be wildfire. You burn clean. You burn clever. And you burn loud."


“Sinns was a name Brayan cursed at least twice a year. What was it like? Learning under Sinns?”

She watched as his fingers worked the buttons free from his doublet. A line of sweat-darkened fabric parted down the front of his chest, clinging like it didn’t want to let go. She bit the inside of her cheek. Forced her gaze away from the cut of his throat, the flush along his collarbone.
 
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A long rumbled hum came from his throat. "Sounds like someone I know," he nudged her with his shoulder. "Smart as hell, and mean," a smirk tugging on the corner of his lip. Saw how her eyes seemed to look past the moment. Made him blink, and gather his lips.

Saw how tender she looked then. Felt the buzz of dragonfly wings there against his ribs, spurred on by his lungs pull for breath. Didn't right know what to do with that.

Come her question, and whatever spell had fallen over him broke as a laugh fell out of him. Like a hot breath pushed out after heels bounced back and forth with a measure of steps.

"Man was an absolute menace," he said, and pulled off one boot. "When he wasn't beating me around with the flat of his blade, he was proving how many ways I could have died in a day," then the other. Laid them neat beside the mailed shirt and bowl. "Would say," voice dropped an octave. More gravel and rasp put into his throat. "A hunter is only as good as the last blade he crosses," Clicked his teeth. Settled back down onto his sitting bones. "So he would have me fight in duels." he laughed, let his toes dig through the soil, as if it helped him remember, "Take bets," he shrugged. "Helped us earn coin to move around," a bit colder there. "Stepped in the few times they had gone wrong, like when Count Elefrad's champion lost his sword hand. The bastard had his guards stick a spear in me," he laughed. "Sinns set the feasthall to blaze, can still remember the court weaver's eyes when he saw the old bastard call down a lightning bolt!" excitement in his voice, wore a weird grin across his face. Let out a sigh. Shook his head.

"As I got older, he leaned more into his... Other talents. His body started betraying him," he let that sit a bit. Remembered the trembles and the cold sweats. The shouts of rage when Garrod had dumped out all the booze the old bastard had stashed away. "Mind was still sharp, and he knew his numbers and letters like no ones business, so, he would talk pretty, pull on his old rep, and would cheat real hunters out of their coin," his eye fell down to his left hand. Fingers digging through the soil. "Guess I didn't fall too far from the old twisted branch," he said with a bitter smile. Shook his head.

Seemed to pluck something from the melancholy. "Hey," he said, "Is it true, the Brayan tamed a great Cockatrice once?" looked to her. Ghost of a smile there on his lips. "Sinns used to love telling that one once he had a few drinks in him," he laughed. "Could never tell which parts were true, or which parts he just, conjured up," brow scrunched. "There was always a Witch, her managery of monsters gone crazed, The Silver Hook, and how he burst through the trees, atop a fire breathing cockatrice!" Just one of those stories you heard enough times. Took you back to when you first heard them. And he just, saw her there. Beneath the moons. Remembered how she had tensed when she started her telling. His eye on the line of her shoulders. Fingers digging through the soil. He saw her hand there. "Can I hold your hand?"
 
"I’ve seen the blackened streaks across the rafters up there."

Garrod’s words tumbled over the banks of memory, rich with grit, and she drank them in like water from a blessed spring. Every scrape, every misstep, every reckless bravado of his youth, so close to her own, yet never crossing paths, made her chest tighten with a strange mix of amusement and disbelief. Sinns had not wasted his time; every bruising, every duel, every dangerous gamble with blades and beasts must have honed Garrod into something lethal. She had mostly seen him weep, but underestimating him would be a fool’s death.

His body started betraying him... Mind was still sharp...
"When the body go soft, the pride can't take it."

Their masters got older, sure. Slower. Shaky hands. Brayan wasn’t the kind of man to fade. "Brayan always said he’d rather be torn apart in the jaws of something than spend his last days shitting himself into obscurity." The kind of man who never accepted aging, despite all the wisdom he had possessed. "That’s exactly what he did. Found some horror in the caves of Mornshackle. Woke it up on purpose. Said it was our ‘swan song.’" His fucking words. She exhaled a hard breath through her nose, sharp and bitter. "He died on his feet. A good death, if you want to dress it up. Glory and guts, all of that." But she had been there. She watched it take him apart like meat coming loose from the bone that had been boiling for days. And she couldn't stop it. He thought he was sparing her something. Giving her one last story to carry. What he gave her was a front-row seat to watching one who had cared for her die screaming. “Glory’s a dumb, stupid, fucking word,” she muttered.

“Oh, it’s true,” she said and let out a short snort, somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. “At least, the part about the cockatrice. Big bastard, feathers black as coal and spines like spears...” She shifted her weight, drawing one leg up to brace her elbow on it. “He named it Phoenix. Rode it into an elven wedding once."

“Was before my time. Brayan was young... He’d gotten it in his head to impress a witch." Daniyah gave a low laugh, a sound that sat too easily in her throat. She leaned forward now, the shadows carving hollows under her cheekbones, and she dragged her fingers through the round riverstones. “So what does he do? Not send flowers, not gifting her a cursed dagger. Nooo. He tried to charm her with some flashy display. Riding that big bird. He sets fire to her hut and garden. Whole place goes up like tinder soaked in oil. Mushrooms screaming. Banshee grass howling. Her favorite blood-willow? Gone.”

Shifted her weight, picked up a stone, and tossed it towards the water. “She sent her whole menagerie after him. Golems. A werewolf. Mylings, redcaps... I think there was a blind unicorn in there, too." The stone landed in the water with a ploup! "Brayan fought his way through all of it, bleeding, cursing, shirtless the whole time. His sword bent to shit.” That's how the Silver Hook was born. She snorted again, eyes narrowed. “She might have liked him before that. After, though? Not so much."

"Can I hold your hand?"

She let the silence sit there for a breath. The fire crackled softly behind them, popping like marrowbones in the coals. She looked down at his hand, then hers. Too much blood in the lines of her palms. Bruised from years of grasping at things that never stayed. She slid her fingers to his, intertwined them.
 
The silences that fell between them seemed, easier. Like breaths taken between another push or pull across the currents that swept them up. Rawness there to it. In his chest. Heart pounding as it was. Between his ears. Neck all flutter and warm. Ears tickling with the sound of her laugh. Mind full of the stories she had shared. Mixed with the memories he had spilled out.

A bloody end. Dealt by a nightmare in a cave. A fire breathing cockatrice, parading about an elven wedding. A younger Cazadore, setting to blaze the works of someone they fancied. Found it all, painfully and sweetly familiar.

He quirked his white brow. Smile still tugging at his lips as the fire popped. Head turned so he could get a full look at her with his lone right eye. Her fingers bumped against his. The bones slipped passed. All tingle and scrape, as callous and scar rasped easy against the other.

A pleased hum came from the back of his throat. Let the meat of his digits slip up to the hilts between her knuckles. His hand, heavy, rest its weight easy. Thumb happy to explore the side of her pointer. Felt the knob of first knuckle. Then second, and third.

Didn't say anything. Just looked at her there beneath the stars. River running and fire popping.

"Glory is a stupid word," he found himself saying.
 
She felt it, that of Garrod's gaze, before she even turned to meet it. Could feel the weight of it like a blade half-drawn, full of unsaid things. The kind of look that settled in her marrow and stayed there, rattling around long after the moment passed.

"A hunter is only as good as the last blade he crosses"

Some old mantra passed down from Sinns, it seemed to sit like a shard of steel buried in his heart.

Daniyah’s gaze lingered on Garrod. All shadow and sharp edge, the light of the dying fire caught in the white of his hair and cast gold along his jaw. The lean of him, looked more like a monument to survival than a man. She wondered what it looked like, Garrod, at his sharpest. His most dangerous. His best. Not crawling through old memories like broken glass. Not drowning in guilt and fumbling over ghosts. She wanted to see what Sinns had shaped. What all those bruises and duels had carved out. Not because she needed proof. But because she bet it was fucking grand.

Daniyah stood. Gravel cracked underfoot, pebbles slithered from the bank as she rose, one hand still in his. Tugging him with her. Walked backward, carefully toward the fire’s glow. Beckoning him to follow. Eyes locked on his mouth as she muttered “Come here.” Voice equal thread of command and invitation.
 
He felt his chords pull taught as she pulled him up. Sinew stretched, and the hurts of the day's hunt gnawed at him and his want to move. Felt alive, for all the pain of it, even if he had to adjust his footing for the first two steps.

Mind alight with the sound of crunching across rocks and river silt. The way her eyes seemed to glow with that cold blue fire. Something she just was. The way her voice stirred the air like a spell he wanted to learn. Wanted to feel come from his throat. Rumble across his chest, and wriggle in his ear. A spell he would gladly fall under.

He closed to her. Steps all stride right up to her. Wrapped right arm around her. Held her hand up, all dancer at court at how his feet gathered, and his weight pressed to hers. Just so. A wicked grin showed on his teeth. His green eye full of fire light and play. "Right here?" he teased, voice almost welcoming a slap. Bent his head, just a bit lower, pallid tresses spilling over the patch on his missing eye.
 
The distance between them had already collapsed.

That damn grin of his, all sharp and playful like a blade tossed hilt-first in a gamble. She didn’t slap him, though maybe she should’ve. Maybe she would later. For now, she let him come close. Her smile curved. All old aches forgotten, at least for now.

“Right here,” she echoed.

Fingers slipped up past the edge of his doublet, over the corded muscle of his shoulder, and came to rest behind his neck. She didn’t drag him down. Her chin just tilted up, rose to meet him. Her mouth found his in silence and slowly. Less fire this time, more smoke. Lingering and thick.

Her lips parted against his in a kiss that wasn’t trying to steal anything. Not blood, not breath. Not the kind of kiss that cracked from pain, grief or loneliness. Just heat for heat. Her hand tightened a little where it rested. Her hand tangled in the back of his hair, silver as moonlit bone, strands caught between her fingers.

She angled her head, deepening the kiss until it burned low and thick in her belly. Fingers weaving into white hair down to the roots. She tasted firesmoke, metal, and salt. The heat of his breath, not desperation this time. Only when the breath between them ran thin did she break it.
 
A pleased hum through the teeth as she came up. Breath between them thick as soup. Their lips pressed to each other, and his eye watched the fire paint it's gold and red glow across the snowy swell of her cheek. And he could swear she was blushing with the same heat that pumped through his lungs. Beat in his heart, and lulled his eye to shut.

Twist some about the neck. Clumsy still. Too eager. Excited. Lips moving in presses and pulls. Gave to nibbles and draws against teeth. He moved a little too fast with one rock, turned bump. Slowed the next.

Felt her between his hands. With his arms and chest. Felt where her hands laid, pressed, and held. His throat rolled with sweet sounds at the pull of his hair. His fingers worked smooth into muscle. Palms pressed across bone. And they tended to each other. Gentle for all the warmth.

And damn, did he burn the brighter for her. Down his spine, and through to his feet.

Lips parted, and he was all pant and smile. Nose nuzzled across her cheek a moment. Kissed the side of her face. Felt the brush of her wintry mane against his cheek. Cool with rivermist, and pale as sunlight through the clouds. Painted sunset peach by the fire. Warm bounce of a laugh in her ear. "Daniyah," he whispered, voice all throb and knock with his heart in his throat. "Lets make beds for the night," he said.

He would untwine himself, hand slip down her arm to her wrist, raise it up as he bowed down, and pressed a kiss there. All duelist at court. Stole away. Made the bed rolls. Put them close. Wool blanket at the base against soft pine litter. When it was done enough, neat, tidy, almost stiff, if a bed litter out in the wilds could be described as stiff, he gathered up the bowl with rose scented suds. The waterskin, and his lavender oil. Set them down by the bed, and sat, legs folded under him, all ceremony and serious.

"Now, I know you said I smelled like a whore," he said with shameless smile, pat the spot beside him, beckoned with flick of the chin. "But," shrugged. Grinned wider. "Maybe you just have good taste in whores," said it like dare.
 
His lips were all sudden hunger, pressing and pulling, teeth skimming and grazing. A bump of noses. He had the frantic rhythm of a storm. She grunted against him, part frustration, part amusement.

She smirked, breathless and sore. "Fuck's sake, Garrod" she muttered, dragging the back of her hand across her mouth, checking for blood. “You always kiss like you’re trying to knock a few teeth loose, or am I just lucky tonight?” She was not angry. Just battered. A little amused. A little tempted to bite back, harder.

Her heart kicked hard behind her sternum. From want. From exhaustion. From the pressure of his hands where he gripped her. Her lips tingled, bruised, maybe. She watched him flattening out a fold, fussed over the bedrolls like some brothel madam prepping silks for a visiting prince.

That sharp-toothed grin, the glint in his eyes like he owned the night and everything in it. She just stood there for a beat longer than she meant to, lips twitching, arms crossed. "I've got good taste in knives too. Doesn’t mean I want them in me." She grinned back.

When she finally eased down beside him, her knees cracked. She shifted back onto the wool, with a glance at the bowl and the oil.
 
"Not into knife play then," he said easy as she walked over. An excited wiggle to how he shift to give her more room. "Good, to know, not too fond of it myself," he made a face. All shared distaste at the mention of a disinteresting wine. When she sat down next to him he smiled the wider. Easy and soft. Sharp teeth hid away. If only for the moment. "And," he said, low voice more grumble than whisper. All pop of fire and warm breath. "We don't have to do anything," eased a heavy hand over her shoulder. Let it glide over chords with a pressure meant to ease the tired and hurt out. Slow and steady passes that followed lines of strength he'd seen tense and go taught. "We can maybe," felt his tongue heavy in his mouth. The edge of his teeth. Remembered himself as breath went hot. "Get some rest," he let his hand slip. Poured a little water into the suds. Took the cotton rag he had set there with his little kit, and lathered it up with the block of rose scented soap. Wrung it free of white frothy water.

He ran his fingers through her hair. Gathered the long trails of pale gold, and combed them over her shoulder.

"As to your earlier question," he pressed the cloth to her neck. Wiped down some of the sweat and grit that stuck there. No hitch or hesitation to how he followed her lines. Leisured over the run of her bones. Watched the water bead and trickle against her skin. Let the quip die as his mouth said "hags teeth and roses," like it was some strange new truth he couldn't keep to himself.
 
She sagged in posture when his hands began working through the knots of muscle and fatigue along her shoulders and spine. Daniyah let herself close her eyes and let herself lean into it.

The scent of soap and rose mingled with smoke and pine. The scent of rose drifted up like a memory that didn’t belong to her, too soft for a world like this. Too sweet for a woman like her.

"Hags' teeth and roses? Could be worse. Could be wet ghoul and regret.”

The rag slid lower, scraping along the planes of her collarbone, leaving clean trails behind on her skin. She shivered, caught halfway between chill and heat. The cloth dragged slow over her throat, up behind her ear. Fingers combed through her hair like he was winding yarn around his knuckles, and she felt herself come undone one quiet pass at a time. The world shrunk to the steam rising between them and the rasp of the cloth against skin, over bone, over old scars and sweat-earned ache.

Her hands fumbled at her shirt, yanking it off over her head in a rough, decisive motion. Didn’t bother being graceful about it. She’d stripped out of worse, in worse places, under worse eyes. “Don’t feel like sleeping in a wet rag.” Tossed the shirt down near the fire and sat back again. She leaned back on her hands beside him, bare skin prickling against the cool night air.

“Go on, then,” she said, smirking. “If you’re gonna play handmaid, don’t stop now.”
 
"Wet ghoul and regret," he laughed. "That does sound fucking awful," he mused. The warm trails of where his hands and arms had pressed against her still steaming off of him.

Come the jostle shimmy and shrug out of the shirt, the visible hiss of the cool water turned to ghostly vapors and Garrod sat, bent and breathless. Mouth ajar, halfway between a grin, and a gasp. All want for the muscle and bone, and grit. But most of all the secret softness of her. Stubborn fat he could sink his teeth into. Come the splat of the shirt, and his eyes trailed a banner of stories and poems stitched together with threads he knew too well. Silvered scars al glowing gold there by the fire. Droplets of water running down the well of her spine. Died on the hem of her trousers.

He managed a gulp. Lips tugged up in a lop sided smile.

"As the Lady commands," words he had said before. Rarely so warm. With nerves rent raw and tingling. Throbbed full with want.

He wrung out the rag, and set new suds to it. Worked the hard won grime off her. Up and down the back. Along her arms. Attentive to how she moved. Listened to the sound of her breath as his own lungs pumped deep full rythms.

His fingers climbed her ribs like the rungs to a reliquary. Rounded over her breasts. Toothy grin across his face at the give of pert nipples under his clothed digits. Trailed up to her collar bone. Then down the middle line of her stomach. Rivulets of scented water run down. Down. Down. Ahead of his hands. Guiding his eye.

His chest pressed to her back. "You know," he croaked as he shift, all stiff and tight in his own clothes. Heat welling where she pressed against him. Breath hot against his smile as he loomed behind her. Eye on his work, right hand clutched about her stomach, left, with wet rag low to her waist. "I think I make for a poor hand maiden," Lips tingling about her ear.
 
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It was a simple thing. Water, warm cloth, soap, firelight. A hand that didn’t demand. Didn’t hurt. Didn’t ask for coin first.

Daniyah sat still, breath heavy and deep in her chest. She let her head tip forward slightly, breath slowing, shoulders easing. A strange, lovely heaviness in her limbs. Her muscles ached, but under his hands, they began to melt like thaw in spring.

The soap-slick rag moved, dragging rivulets of rose-scented water over skin rubbed raw by leather and steel. It lifted days of sweat, grime, and smoke, left a clean chill behind that prickled like fever. Under the dirt was skin that still stung from brambles, that still remembered the cold hands of ghosts, and the bone-deep chill of river water at dawn. She hadn’t washed properly in… days? Weeks? Too long. Long enough that she’d stopped noticing. You got used to the stink of yourself after a while.

And his hand.

Not just any hand. She’d forgotten how nice it felt to be tended to by hands that didn’t want to break her down or use her up. Most touches she knew were quick, cold, or paid for. His wasn’t. There was nothing cruel, bored, or angry in the way he touched her. His hands were warm and calloused, strong enough to break her if it wanted.

“You're not doing that badly,” she said, voice wry with amusement. She leaned back against Garrod's chest. “I say you’re running the risk of making this a regular chore.” Daniyah murmured softly, moving even closer to him. She reached for his left hand, guiding it slowly down her body. She led his fingers under the waistband of her legwear, to the place where her need pulsed hot. Already wet, not just from the soap and water.
 
She leaned into him, and he bit his bottom lip. Breath hissed hot through his teeth as she pulled his hand down between her thighs. Rag still worked between his fingers like some damned wet glove. "I could imagine," the words ached on his tongue, and his teeth hung by the clam shell of her ear. Breath swirling about his lips. Off her skin. "Worse fates," all tingle and sting.

He ran the rag down the swell of her thigh. Right hand eager to pop knots loose from her leg wear. Chords rasping free their greedy cinch. Fingertips digging into, goose prickled skin. His head turning, neck twisting, coiling about heat and hair, face rubbing along the side of hers. Blood full in his fingers, and right arm draped across her as he flexed a careful pull toward him. A longing grunt. Play and yearning frustration.

"You're casting a damn sweet spell" his ear still buzzing with the sound of her voice. The sound of her breath. "Daniyah,"

With the fingers of his left he passed over bristly hair, all wild and scratch. And oh how he liked the scratch. Fingers a little more eager to it. Then slowed. Eased. All hand maiden at his chore. Because that was just too much fun. Remembered how she had said the word. Torment. And how much he liked knowing that. For all the fear and arousal she inspired in him. He could torment her. Just as much as her hot cunt tormented him. His fingers careful around, and gently across the fire slick mess of her sticky desire.

"You gonna sleep in those wet rags?" He snapped his teeth shut about pale tresses. Breathed in her scent, full in his lungs. How it mixed with his soap. How he liked it. How he wanted her. Throaty laugh that all but begged to be released.
 
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Teeth in her hair. On her skin. At her ear. A lover's mouth where once there had been only hunger and hurt. He didn’t bite, not really, but the ghosts in her blood couldn’t tell the difference. They remembered too much. She'd been bitten before, real biting, not this teasing scrape on flesh or the biting from a brawl. Scars like pale coins were scattered over her collarbone, her ribs, neck, wrists, and on the meat of her thigh. Marks left by beasts with no names and those who’d fancied themselves worse.

So when his teeth grazed her, part of her tensed like a whip drawn taut. There’s a twitch in her jaw. A heat curling low in her gut. A rising instinct to elbow him in the throat and roll away, to get space, to get clear. Her fingers curl, ready to strike before thought catches up. She could break his nose... and some raw little piece of her wants to. Her body thrummed with tension. Muscles tight as bowstrings.

“No spells here,” she said, voice hoarse. “I don’t do that sort of magic.” Her mouth twitched. Then she recited it, his own words.

“With needle dark as ash-stained bark,
plunge to then, oh worm so hooked.
Soil rich, with tears so shed...
Feed it then, still biting heart.”

She let it hang in the air for a beat. Just long enough to see it land. “That sounds like a spell to me,” she grinned and arched into him when he pulled her towards him. When he became too teasing, she clasped her thighs together and pressed his hand against her. Moving her hips to meet his fingers. Her breath trembles.

"Oh, so you want to sleep?"

She had to wiggle her hips and lift her ass to slide the legwear down, past her knees, she could kick them off. Wools and linnen pooling at her feet in an unwanted pile.
 
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