Guffy grunts and squeaks with excitement as Osytha’s hands reach forward to accept the relinquished pup.“Art tha a feisty radish?” she croons. The wriggling, neck-licking answer she receives is certainly an emphatic one, whatever its meaning. “Mun Ah be chuckin’ thee into t’ pottage now, boyo? Or picklin’ thee for a compost?”

She nuzzles him softly between his skewed ears before setting him back down on the ground. Pale sand, grits of marlstone, water-smoothed pebbles, and the dark, swooping facets of flint crunch gently under paw and feet as Osytha, ever-shadowed by her wee mongrel, goes back to her saddlebags and excavates the bundled rations from earlier.

“Ee, nay.” The cloth comes out and its corners are peeled back to expose the medley within: dense and lightly fried purplish strips of dried dulse, robust havercakes, pickled rock samphire, and of course — a whole salted kipper. “Best not ’ave too much,” she continues, filling one of the cakes with a bit of everything for herself before offering it toward Lock once more, “just a bite to keep me goin’. Ah dursn’t get pogged when there’s, well… when there’s sae much to…”

Osytha stares over at the rows of laid-out bodies awaiting her. Their details are almost all recorded; now comes the arduous task of hauling them higher up to where the pyres are coming together. Down here, the smoke will likely spread and roll over the tiny village once it scales the cliffs, and a rising tide could well drown them before they’ve burned through, anyway. It should be better up the cliffs. And if they can get it all going hot enough.

“… Hmm?” She glances back at Krava as the words slowly register. Then, her eyes widen with unpleasant suprise. “Wait. A sea serpent? You’re sure?”

No. Not on top of everything else. We can’t handle something like that again, can we? It had taken White Port’s garrison, its battery of scorpions, and a fortuitous collection of weavers to prevail against that leviathan. We don’t have a fraction of those resources here. If it’s intent on destruction, we can’t…​

Directive: form plan of action and contingencies. Prioritise evacuation of Hytheness.​

Those worried eyes slip around Lock’s arm over to the rising waves. Osytha’s gaze seems as a mirror, reflecting blue depths and grey winds. “We still mun get t’ bodies moved off t’ beach,” she declares, “and jus’ now, but t’ rest shall ’ave to wait. We mun start preparin’ for whativver’s comin’ reight away. The people ’ere mun prepare.”

Not least because it’s going to take time and effort to get through to them. People rarely listen when faced with really bad news, particularly when it demands considerable action on their part. They will not want to deal with the thought of having to leave their homes and so much behind. Not when it is so much easier to chalk it up to some outsider’s nefarious, enigmatic plot against them. But they need to be warned. They need to be given every chance to get ready for whatever the tide brings.
 
Lock shook his head, but sat on his haunches, to loom a bit less over the rest and allow Forbitter to be the tallest loomer for a little while. That helped. Krava's fingers dug into his fur with a bit of something held close the palm. Lock twitched, shook like a dog wringing wet from his fur. The dry debris of rot puffed like clouds, carried downwind and down the beach. It stank slightly less, now. She wasn't content, tasting more than smelling, he also, being able to pick up distinct scents still. But at least both of them were less full of contaminants and deterioration, now.

That should have been a comfort, but it was not. Krava looked to the sea horizon, ponderous, until she felt a spike come through the thoughtwave with a rising cold, tense panic, action instinct being pushed into oversaturation.

Her attention snapped to the knight, only the brows expressing confusion.
'You panic. Why? It's not a clever beast. I just need to saturate... to eat properly, and...'
Disagreement. Lock puffed his cheeks and perked the whiskers in apprehension.
"What of the fisherrfolk?"

'Evacuate. Or. Put to sleep.' She waved away the notion of any danger if the combination was done correctly. 'The sustenance we gained means I've life in me, but it doesn't mean that's enough. I need someting proper, and then...'
Her mind was paging through flickering images, notions of different serpent-like things, seaborn and landborn, some vaguely draconic, some as tiny as skinks or salamanders. The actual on fire kind came up once.

'Do you think sea serpent has dragonite sort of tissue, the really tough but stretchy one, or abyssal eel more like, with a really smooth and quick impulse response?'
A tiniest touch of avarice.
If the creature would not submit and then be put to function somehow for the rest of the benefitted party, its body would serve in death as food and possibly some splendid material.
The plans were in motion to share around, considerations of some truly strange-looking buildings and the much less legible notions of the exact way to alter cartilage to make home pods instead of those rotting shacks, pale, ornamented, free of rot, flexible against storm winds and, in a pinch, bouyant against floods.

The thought snapped like a thread cut and tucked away.
'What do you do in these situations, Osytha?' Head tilted on the thin neck. Curiousity, light and idle, as Lock put her down, cocooned tightly and sitting on the sand now. 'Have your people ever tried taming them, or eating them?' Some sort of mockery was in that thought, slight and glimmering with what would be a chuckle if Krava remembered to express with voice.

"Point yourrr mind to the ones rready to move, syrrr, I'll go ahead not to waste ourr time while you plan," Lock offered, rising from his haunches, back to the full seven feet of height slightly slouched. Sans sailcloth - very naked. Didn't seem to be bothered by it on account of fur. He nodded, and started walking, taking off in a jog. The link remained.
Krava winced, and pulled the plaid around her, narrow long-fingered hands emerging from the top edge like pallid crabs.

If it were smaller, it could be a good fish shepherd.
 
The motivation for Osytha’s fear is shared first as a vivid piece of mind’s theatre, something from a night which has been carved deep into the great stone slab of her memory. A miserable, drizzling night at the White Port docks, when drowned had swarmed up out the tide in such numbers to form a solid press of ruined bodies. The drowned, and something so much more terrible.

Bees! said:
The leviathan was close, now. It rose itself to a great height, its shadow falling on the archers.

“Hold!”

Slime dripped from its fangs as it unhinged its jaw. Coil after Coil spiraled behind it, crushing forward only inches behind the barriers. And there in its cold eyes, the fire flickered.

“LOOSE!”

The captain slashed his hand downwards. Arrows rained up towards the beast. Clattered against scale and stuck in crevice. Some left streaks of burnt oil along its sides. Not a one made it flinch.

It slammed down hard against the ground. With an arc of neck and swing of jaw, it snapped up three guards at once.

Those who could, scattered. Those who couldn't became its next meal.
Click to expand...

Osytha frowns. “Ah jus’… haven’t ’ad particularly encouragin’ run-ins wi’ unspeakable horrors of t’ deep,” she mumbles.

Soon, though, a sense of staggering déjà vu strikes; a replay of the barrage of thoughts and images and demands when Krava’quiloor had opened up a link with her the first time, all machine-gunned out faster than she can catch up with and whiplashing her from one direction to the next without warning.

The locals — evacuate, neutralise; sorted. A picture library of sea monsters. What do you expect regarding the material properties of their bodies? What say you, syr, any thoughts about a feasibility study on their prospective domestication? Industrial applications? Do they taste better grilled or fried, maybe with a twist of lemon? Oh and just, real quick for me now, picture all the dead faces and their accusing stares—

“Stop!” Osytha squeezes her eyes shut. Scuffs up a tiny curtain of sand as she twists on her heel away from the other two, and stalks over to Forbítter, where agitated hands grasp at distracting little jobs. “Just — please. One fucking thing at a time, alreight?”

Air sighs through her lungs; in, deep, and slowly out. Works hard to uncrease her brow, look up at her saddlebags, and stow away her barely-touched provisions.

“Whativver Hytheness does — stay, leave — et mun be their choice. That mightn’t be tactically optimal, but you don’t treat people like they’re your things to do with as you please. Even when they’re bein’ insufferable pains in t’ arse.”

It’s taking Osytha longer than it ought to finish with her effects. That’s fine. Let them see it for the excuse it is. That brooding dark cloud over head would be clear as day even without the mind-link. Still doesn’t mean she’s ready for them to see her face just yet.

“An’ not just people.” A catch snicks closed on the leather slung over Forbítter’s back. Osytha’s hands rest on it, tracing down the glossy red leather towards an embossed weasel at its corner. “Ah ken of a few battles us Knights ’ave supposedly done wi’ various sea-beasts, but only when there en’t been another choice. You want to know what ‘my people’ do in this kind of situation? Sae long as et en’t blighted, then ideally we’d try encouragin’ et back aht to t’ open sea.”

Osytha lets her hands drop away, and finally, turns around to lock her blue eyes with Krava’s emerald.

“Just ’cause et might be dangerous don’t mean et’s malicious,” she says, perhaps a little pointedly. “No need to go condemnin’ a thing to death jus’ for followin’ ets nature. Nor ’cause you want to dismantle et to satisfy your own curiosity.”
 
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"My things." Krava repeated out loud.
The tides receded from Osytha in entirety as she dove into her own thoughts.

For all the parading of treating one another like equals - those were fisherfolk, human, and not a single one of them a weaver. Her potential put her into position of their superior, and any hiveman knew that entities like Krava'quiloor were a blessing from the Philosopher himself. She could direct them while focusing on other things... if only she was not weakened. Therein lay the rub. Not in the fact that some humans would go for a nap, walk out of the serpent-fighting range for a while, then return to the nap as if nothing happened. Now the actual problem was to lure the sea serpent into the area of the beach where it would not consider the village. Doable. If only she was not weakened.

Everyone would get a function, and those who would not would be out of harm's way, and free to go on once the danger passed. Although she supposed it might be entertaining for the hunger strain to watch them panic and do all things humans did when panicked once the serpent arrived. Possibly get eaten, too.

Frustration panged worse than hunger. The body needed further reinforcement after this was done. Perhaps a new immune system... later.

There was a thing rising in that tide, dark, for a moment, before it settled completely. She could show so many dead faces complete with biographies, dreams, and everyday routines, if that was the point of intense focus... but it would be out of spite, and she didn't think that torturing the poor knight was the correct way to build a friendship.
Very well then, they would help by helping themselves first. It was decided.

"Alright," she agreed, lightly. "It will be sent away. Unharmed."
And besides that, eel tasted gross with a side of lemon.

As the snow leopard looked to his lady, she blinked at him slowly, and he shrugged to Osytha, muttering, "I'm sorry, syrr. I only wanted to help. Do what you need."
And jogged the distance to grab his lady back up.
"We'll rreturrn the blanket laterr. Thank you. Sorry again. We will away, give you space, yes?"

Paused. Hummed to an internal query of some sort, and looked about for the direction in which to stalk, or bound, to find any sort of deer or fox or something of that nature large enough. Krava's search, meanwhile, stretched her thin in the same direction, and what she was looking for was picky as the lady was wont to get. As much as getting to choose between the kinds of food one didn't like got.
 
She doesn’t watch them go. Sets her eyes back upon the little weasel, but she can picture it. Krava all cocooned up protectively in those big fluffy arms, helpless yet so precious. Looking for all the world like a formless larva being carried to safety by a dutiful worker ant.

“I’m sorry, syrr. I only wanted to help… Sorry again. We will away, give you space, yes?”​

His sturdy toe-pads rasp away off the beach. Guffy stares after them, with a single, confused wag of his tail. Unsure why they’re leaving. Unsure why Osytha isn’t following.

“Ah wasn’t— Ah din’t mean to…”

Her words come out whispered, trembling with shame. The red leather groans under her digging fingers, and Osytha’s head thunks softly into Forbs’ riding tack. “Ah’m sorry. Please don’t go.

“You don’t h-have to go…”

A minute goes by like that. Two. Enough time that it becomes just her, Forbítter, Guffy, and the eternally patient dead upon the beach. Kept company by the rhythmic washing of waves. Of softly-howling wind in their ears. Sea-salt, tanned leather, and horse-sweat in her nostrils. And the memories of far, far too much.

Too many in repose beyond her help. Too many threads cut short, much too short. Too many of her own squandered moments.

Why had she just let him go?

A shadow falls over her. She’s barely turned around from the green scores of graffiti into an apple tree, when he’s suddenly there, his hands softly cradling her face. She doesn’t understand at first. All she can think, as she stares up into Momoshiro’s warmly-dancing red eyes, is that his touch is every bit as gentle as she would have imagined. Long and playful white locks, fox’s ears up tall. Those heavy-lidded, piercing eyes. Mischief in the point of his long canines, yet such tenderness in the lips of his smile.

His lips. She can still recall, so clearly, the way he’d leant down and pressed them to hers. She can remember his warmth. The taste he’d left behind—

Finally, her wave crashes. It had swelled so high, surged with such force. And for a while, riding it had made Osytha feel so alive.

But the cliff always wins.

Choking little noises come first, barely any louder than the wind. A deep, shuddering breath in. Emerging then as a low and wordless moan, stuttering out of control. Osytha’s fingers curl tighter as she tries to fight back, to force it down. But all that does is turn her voice into a high-pitched, keening whine.

It takes her over. Knees give out and suddenly she’s kneeling in the sand, bowed over, feeling something seize her chest and throat and it’s wringing her; wrenching out great, broken, sobbing cries that have the animals nuzzling at her in worry. A big, wet, horsey nose to the back of her head. Small dark paws scrabbling up her thigh as an undersized hound licks fretfully at her neck.

Osytha’s fingers reach for their comfort. Clinging on amidst hair and fur as her greet spills forth in juddering bursts, to break against the impassive white cliffs.
 
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She was not heartless, but she knew when the buzz in the air became so much that it stopped registering in anything other than the pure pain. They weren't close to the poor woman, and she was one of the strong ones. Strong ones grieved all alone when they were too used to their mold.
Poor thing. Alas, her and Lock could not help there.
They couldn't help Osytha do her accounting, either - especially since the faces of the dead bodies held some sacral meaning to her.

As she spread the tendrils imperceivably outward, eyes closed, Krava scanned as far as she could reach for prey. Lock's needs came first. A fox, then a badger, and as the drumming pace increased - she directed him towards a boar. He ran fast, across terrain horses would labor over, and his lady in the spare pare of arms willingly reduced herself to a sort of navigational array - and occasional wound-stitcher, luckily, the means to mend presented themselves in the former beasts. The rest, Lock ate, unceremoniously, unenthusiastically, but hungrily, and what he would not easily digest - was processed. They did not take much from one side of the food category. They did not take prey from animals with young. Careful. Passing like an afterthought.

And then, at the end of the third hour, she located humans.
Perhaps, if Osytha was along, she would allow them more ceremony. More privacy in their thoughts.
Not from here. Chased off their lord's land for...

She hated this, hate seeped like poison out of a leaky pot, like maggots out of the wound, it squirmed with abhorrent revulsion at what had to be done.
We would have finished the monoliths by now, the thought came dispassionately, from a distance. If they didn't burn us. If they didn't kill Lock. If...
She could have finished it by herself, if only she woke from that long hybernation in the ruins of their home. But they took her pod, thinking her dead. They brought her to that... Crorefell.
We would have finished the monoliths, by now. I wouldn't have to do this.
Revulsion, but not nausea. She has suppressed it in the systems. This needed to be done. More than two people would suffer if she was not at her best, Osytha would suffer more.

Their minds were simple enough, simple sentiments, simple wants, simple despairs. They could have been among the everyday folk on the streets of Witsfolly.
Oh, she should not have thought that.

Gagging, Krava curled her fingers wrapped around the now hollow skull. Her big eyes filled with silent, sob-less tears, and her face withdrew, regaining its not-elven shape for a moment. She was not strong enough to keep doing this.
I'm doing what needs to be done. To live.
Lock's tail rested on her shoulders as he undressed the former men. You are strong, mistress. You are doing what is necessary to survive at this juncture, and then live. You have neglected yourself long enough, and now we don't have a choice.
I don't want to do this anymore. Why, why did they have to ruin our home again, I was so close, we were so close to never needing to do this again. Her shoulders shook with spasmatic breaths, blind stare directed downward, at the bloody ground and her own pale fingers now digging through it, uprooting blades of grass and a stray twig. I want to make beautiful things again. I don't want to do this.
And she did it, anyway, and locked the hate inside so it wouldn't prick and slice at Lock.

Bones and all.


The snow leopard carried Krava'quiloor's weightless presence on his back, towards the beach. They were both clean - besides the running things, nature offered much for transformation, and small reliefs were sorely needed.

She was adjusting something, fingertips temporarily fusing to where she was touching atop the neck vertebrae, leaving small round imprints where she withdrew them.
And, once familiar places were in sight, and the familiar signature was found, they parted ways.

Lock, carrying a young buck for Osytha - surely some good meat would cheer the mood at least a little?
Krava - drifted towards the sand like smoke, and proceeded to stride, plaid blanket held close around her shoulders, towards the village.

They didn't have to like her. They didn't even need to remember her. Daev's foot. Mag's arthritis. A couple other pains here and there. An allergy. A growth. A bone growing wrong. Things like that could go, and the humans could go on getting new pains in their squallid little village or elsewhere, for the rest of their own lives.
This was her function. She no longer had anyone but Lock to execute it on constructively, day to day. It was enervating and irritating at the same time, somehow. To grow, change, fix living matter was at the core of her. It needed out. If she couldn't create something beautiful, she could at least fix something better than it was.
Surely.

"Syrr," the leopard called Osytha from the distance, before approaching. "Arre you betterr? I mean, to talk to strrangers? I brrought frresh venison, it's good. I can cook if forr you, if you want. Can I brring something else? Help you with anything? The lady says she will starrt gatherring knowledge of the serrpent afterr she sees to the villagerrs. So do not worry." My lady can solve problems, read in his tone. Even when she's disgusted, weakened, or afraid, or angry, and she is no longer two of those things.
 
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Lock finds her atop the cliffs. Sat and resting her back against the big dappled bulk of Forbítter, likewise lounging on the grass. Osytha is facing the sea; away from all the gathered driftwood, old beams, busted boards, dead branches, frayed rope, earthenware pots of oil and casks of blubber, and more. Away from the corpses she’s painstakingly hauled up the switchback path between those towering white facades, simply to lay them back down exactly as they had been upon the gritty sand below.

She’d started with the youngest ones first. The smallest ones. Just to get it over with while she still felt numb from the aftermath of her lament. Those like the young lass, she’d been able to carry those ones in her arms. The sailcloth ‘cloaks’ Krava and Lock had left behind have made for useful shrouds. It hasn’t entirely kept the miasma of death from clinging to Osytha, though somewhere along the way, she stopped being so bothered by it.

Those had been the easy ones. The bigger, sturdier cadavers, she’d had to haul behind her up that narrow track. She nurtures a hollow sort of guilt about that. Osytha feels like— no, she knows they deserve more dignity. Even if all the important parts which had actually made them ‘them’ in life, even if those have fled… surely it still matters…

Her aches and pains are back with a vengeance after all that. That doesn’t bother her much now, either. But she knows better than to push herself to injury before their next big problem comes in with the rising tide. So, here she rests a moment. Supping from her canteen, letting the wind fill her ears.

Until—

“Syrr.”​

A delay, like she didn’t hear him. And then Osytha’s head slowly turns. Her eyes, at once wide and impassive, settle on the approaching Lock.

“Arre you betterr? I mean, to talk to strrangers? I brrought frresh venison, it's good. I can cook if forr you, if you want. Can I brring something else? Help you with anything? The lady says she will starrt gatherring knowledge of the serrpent afterr she sees to the villagerrs. So do not worry.”​

That blank glue gaze shifts toward the buck in Lock’s grasp, its head lolling the way limp, dead things do.

Krava’quiloor has gone to the village?

The thought registers slowly. Osytha blinks as it goes down. She looks forward again. Then, stiffly, labours up to her feet. While she approaches the fluffy white Goliath, her stare is fixed entirely on the dark, glassy eyes of the young deer. How many ways could that go wrong? she wonders, distantly. Is Maddie ready to bring out the pitchforks and torches? And just what is the lady capable of, in turn?

A pale hand reaches up, and Osytha gently strokes the backs of her fingers along the poor hart’s crown. She knows Lock is being kind. But it doesn’t feel like much beyond that the day is serving her up another corpse.

“You din’t deserve me snappin’ at you like that,” she murmurs. “Ah’m sorry, Lock. Et was good of you to offer.”

Krava’quiloor has gone to the village. Osytha faces Hytheness next, with its distant shanty rooftops barely visible over grassy humps of earth. Makes sense she hasn’t seen the lady approach there, not from this far away. The pyres shouldn’t be too close to those homes, after all.

“Thank’ee for the gift, an’ all. That’s thoughtful of you. Far too much for me to handle by missen, but Ah reckon et’d do a lot of good at the village. You up for carryin’ et a bit further?”

She posed it as a question, but Osytha doesn’t act much like it’s one. She whistles Forbítter back up to his feet, then swiftly mounts into the saddle and urges him to a forward trot, while a familiar little mutt bounces happily on ahead. Making for those weather-stained cabins huddled behind their flimsy palisade.
 
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He doesn't reply in her head. His eyes are mostly blue. There is no presence beside him at this moment, no ghost of his lady, though she would come if he as much as thought that her attention required division in this moment.

"You arre sad," he purrs low, his eyes closing in a slow, compassionate blink. Arms move as if to gently support Osytha under the elbows. Freeze mid-motion, lower once again. "We show care thrrough doing. Or giving purrpose. And gifts. Such as the lady makes them. The deer makes you sad, too." His shoulders slump, then, in quiet defeat. It was his idea, not hers. "I would brring you orange marrmalades, but... therre is nothing to make them out of. I'm sorry, syrr. Lady is not of this worrld, she can be..." He thinks for a word, searches by how his eyes move. Gives up. It's been a day. He doesn't expect Osytha to listen, either.

Just runs, and lets Forbitter's hooves gain on him as he keeps on his two feet.

They are blocked from participating. They are not allowed to give gifts.
He hopes that the lady has made her way among the populace with the time won by them parting.
There is no doubt at this point, that they can not do right, not in those tired, sleepless eyes.
And the rub is, Krava'quiloor does not need anyone's approval. Or permission. She has decided to be useful, and in a sated state... Lock simply braces himself to do as needs be, whatever that might mean.

There is no mob nor any pitchforks behind the palisade. It's actually oddly serene, even slightly jovial. Maddie taking a big basket into what could be quickly surmised to be Daev's house, no strained defensiveness in her posture. Auntie Morna hurrying a couple lads with buckets of water. Loretta sitting on Daev's porch.

A small queue of people, more like a small crowd gathering from hushed whispers. None of them aggressive. They have no reason to be. The healer and her companion have been rescued on the beach this morning. They took some time to help the knight in her brave endeavor, and finally headed to the village to see to the needs.

Poor girl, she must have gone gray sooner than gods would will it. Such hard work. Such determined eyes. Shh. Don't disturb the healer. Don't peek, have you any shame? Go get some food for the cured, the lady said they must eat.

The tides are thick in this quarter, the closer to the house they get the more it is like almost touching something. Almost. They flow around Lock, around Osytha and Guffy and Forbitter, gently and certainly avoiding them. Lock seems to sniff at it almost, recognition in his feline features. He does not look to Osytha for approval, just purrs his greetings to the villagers from the earlier party, often by name he never got, and moves toward the house.

Daev exits the door on his two feet, a flush to the cheeks, less ricket to the movements as his joints don't bother him after many, many years. There aren't scars, or bandages, or stitches. He seems a bit dazzled, but he's grinning.
"Thought I was a goner," his voice trembles as he wraps his arms around his wife and holds her tight, her gasp surprised at the strength. "I'm dying to sup, do we have a bite left?"
 
“The deer makes you sad, too.” Osytha shakes her head, and manages to spare a little smile for Lock. Loose ribbons of hair cling together; lank with sweat, jostling back behind her from the horse’s momentum. Dark bay streamers against the pale blue sky, bar that one silver cloud wisping away.

“Think Ah’ve ne hunted my share of game afore now?” she spiers at him atop the steady thump-clop of Forbítter’s hooves. “Be a bit rich of me to get upset wi’ you ower that. Besides, yon buck’s a fine gift. Et’s not your fault Ah’m in a reight mood today.”

She levels her gaze forward at Hytheness as it rises fully into view.

“Mind you, Ah does ’ave a soft spot for marmalade,” Osytha adds, wistfully.

The situation inside the walls is… better than worst case scenarios, certainly. While still strange enough to keep the badger feeling alert and wary. Peaceful and active like a functioning little community ought to be, with chimneys smoking, midday meals being served up — and most of Hytheness forming an orderly queue up to one of the crude little houses? Osytha dismounts just outside and for the second time today, leads Forbítter between warped wood cabins, seeking out the one which holds Lady Krava’quiloor.

Hytheness’ suspiciously serene folk garner some leery glances from the knight. And as she goes, a piece of Osytha watches her own mind from afar. If there is something affecting her mind like it is the villagers’, though, then it’s too subtle, too masterful to catch a hint of. Especially if it’s leaving her free to hold such conscious suspicions.

She’s hitching Forbs nearby Daev’s shack and exchanging a friendly nod with Loretta, when the man in question strides on out into the arms of his wife. Nary even a limp to his step, as if he hadn’t had half his damn foot chewed off just this morning.

“Thought I was a goner. I’m dying to sup, do we have a bite left?”​

“Caught a young hart,” Osytha announces casually, if also a little enigmatically concerning ‘who’ did said catching. The answer to that, after all, means the difference between legitimate hunting and poaching the queen’s deer. “While Ah gralloch t’ beast, how’s about you round up some bodies to get onto cookin’ et? Should be enow to go around.”

Osytha gives the shack’s doorway another glance. She watches a woman aged before her time by a serf’s harsh life, hands gnarled and stiff with unforgiving arthritis, timidly cross into the gloom waiting beyond.

Say that she goes in there next. Faces Krava’quiloor over… all this. Then what? What’s her plan, exactly, and to what end?

A low sigh breezes out from the knight, who turns toward Lock with another weak smile. “See?” she lilts, tilting her head at the deer. “Et’s already abaht to prove useful. Come along — let’s get t’ poor thing butchered, an’ some bellies filled.”
 
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The tides that have permeated every mind and keep them all floating gently along the guided currents - keep their distance. No more words left to say that haven't already been.

Birds fly overhead, unbothered. The wind fills with a seagull's cry, then another, calling back and forth as the sea shuffles along. Peace.
Fewer of the livestock, however, not by much. Once saturated, she can work very efficiently. Less catch today, too.

Lock listens, quietly, to Osytha navigating the social routes, content to be a beast of burden. He hauls the buck along on the broad shoulders, one pair of arms tucked behind his back, the other keeping baggage about. If he knows what's going on, he doesn't offer any input, though he looks at Osytha with a gentle sympathy of the caregiver, not suspicion.
After all, he'd been a tender before he was a fighter. Perhaps, he'd one day return to it, even if there are never to be another fungal gardens or caverns of giant, green-gold lotus flowers, or the shivering spinner mass that spun gold silk but was never quite spiders.

He knows how to butcher a deer. He doesn't smile-snarl back to the knight, but inclines his head, and goes to the place that smells like butchery to find his tools, gently, quietly crooning until the man relents and lends him the space. Lock doesn't need help to disassemble carefully, though he makes sure to gather the parts that won't be used - scraps of ligaments and such. In a hart, a lot of things can be used for food.

The old woman who held Osytha's hands with motherly affection, appears on the porch. She looks slightly dazed, stands slightly taller. Most common folk live with the thought of pains and forgets simply mounting with age, bore until death spares further suffering. Sores, and joints, and bones, and body slowly weakening until it's time. In this moment, the biggest revelation to contend with is - it doesn't have to be that way. She takes that thought and lack of pains off the porch, and joins the bodies helping with the preparations.

Men drag out some tables and some seats. Looks like something spontaneous is brewing. The crowd besides Daev's house does not change for a few hours, new people replacing the old ones, until it slowly starts to disperse.

Somewhere, a small fishing boat is prepared, sail and all.
 
This feels like it was the right call. Compared to going inside that house and stirring up… well, who knows what; turning her back on it instead feels like a kind of release. A surrender.

And here, isn’t nice to let the peace last a little while longer? she thinks to herself, looking up to catch the graceful white arcs of a gull. The bird trills mournfully from its perch on thin air, seeming motionless on invisible winds high above. You may not understand it. You may not like it. But things are happening here; broken things mended, messes organised, a goal being worked towards. Let it happen. What good could come of fighting it?

Such thoughts are only more disquieting for the near-certain fact that they are, indeed, her own. But she can’t deny…

There’s a simple satisfaction to dressing the buck with Lock. He doesn’t need help, but what else is Osytha supposed to do? So she sanitises herself down, then gets to disassembling it for parts. Not exactly pleasant, but… she can see the good each freshly liberated component is going to do for someone. And also, there’s something comforting in the little hurdles of instructing these fisher folk on how to cook an unfamiliar flesh — take these cuts, parboil then roast; stew the ribs with some vinegar, parsley, sage, a bit of pepper, aye, Ah kens you lot found some in t’ wreckage, Ah saw Loretta sneak in a nibble… and then a sauce for the roast, of fried bread blended with broth and vinegar and, yes, more pepper. Oh, and don’t forget the salt!

It’s nice. To be amongst the living instead. Working together like this, seeing to people’s needs in a mundane kind of way. Osytha watches a young boy run up towards Aunty Ada, who happily strokes his hair with those motherly hands of hers as they bustle off together. Life goes on. If you let it.

Don’t worry about how silent Lock is being. How closely he’s watching her, like she can’t quite be trusted with that knife. Maybe not like she’s malicious, no. But possibly too clumsy for her own good.

Still, Lock and Osytha make pretty short work of the deer. They’ve three pairs of arms between them, don’t you know. And with a few other people’s help, the rich scent of cooking venison, vegetables, herbs, and pepper soon permeates through Hytheness. The first servings are ready within an hour, but the deer keeps on giving for a while after. It makes for some nice plates of roasted cuts, bowls of stew, and the nombles baked into a couple of wide, flaky pies.

The fare is readied up while some outside tables are arranged, drinks poured, and that interminable queue to the healer’s hut moves, and changes, but doesn’t shrink. Not until much later.

The sun is lower, still warm without searing the skin, and one can begin to see the bruise of night rising over the ocean. A hint of gold where the light falls, shadows a touch softer where it doesn’t.

Osytha is taking a leaf out of Loretta’s book and relaxing on a porch. She’d doffed her gambeson before working on the buck, and long after the fact, hasn’t yet put it back on. She can actually see Loretta working away at said coat now, doing what can be done about the smell by means of the lesser stink from a bit of black soap. Meanwhile, Osytha has Guffy in her lap and is hand-feeding the happy lad a few strips of venison. She’d polished off a slice of pie and some vegetables, herself. There in that peaceable, late afternoon light, with everything going more right than it reasonably ought to be — that’s when she notices. That at long last, the line into Daev’s shack is dwindling.

Osytha glances over to Lock. Even if he still isn’t outright saying what’s next, she looks for a hint of something in his face. Before she turns her attention back to the house opposite her, with its final dregs of Krava’s patients, and waits to see for herself.


¹ Cooking inspiration taken from In the Pursuit of Venison
 
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The tides betray no apprehension, they merely flow around, and leave the courtesy of memory to remain in place - a sentiment, for the most part.

Lock doesn't object. He works. He keeps an eye on Osytha, but doesn't try to strike a conversation, anymore. Just tries to purr something under his breath as he works. The vocal cords are ill-suited for singing, though, and so it is content, but somewhat discordant, a tune that starts repeating. Another passing glance, consideration. It stops.
He lets Osytha watch the humans and converse with them, and leaves her be on the porch peacefully, splitting off to gently request from the cooks. In a few moments, a couple steaming bowls and one spoon perched on the leathery pads of his palms, he heads inside the empty hut for a while.

Krava emerges, and the villagers greet 'Lady Kay' as she walks slowly, earthbound. She is not an elf, but a young woman, with features much like the locals. Her eyes are a palatable proportion, iris to dark reactive pupil, a proper shade of green. The skintone is interspersed with freckles. The long, white hair is in an elaborate basket weave that she had no time to do by herself - someone must have obliged. She wears a simple dress that fits as if it was custom-made, the dark skinsuit peeking from beneath. The plaid rests, folded, in her hands.

She measures the distance to Osytha with unhurried steps. The pressure of the tides is like staring into a wall - and yet, the thoughts flow everywhere but through the knight. She is offered the plaid back, clean and with an inexplicable blossom of white poppy tucked between the folds, just now dying fragrantly and slowly.
"There," the not elf says, in a voice that is hers. Offers a pale smile, fuller lips but not much more heart. "Get a good night's sleep, syr. Your rest and health, we would like that you'd keep them long into the coming years."

And begins to turn, clearly intending to offer no confession further.
 
It takes until Krava is almost right in front of Osytha before she takes her eyes off the humdrum, everyday movements of village folk, and brings her stolid gaze to bear against this new face. Then, down at her plaid as it’s proffered back.

But Osytha doesn’t at all move to take it. She only stares on, unblinking, with gentle words and the scent of poppy flowing around them.

Quite a change, she notes. Not just in Lady Krava’quiloor’s appearance, but her… everything. Walking on her own two feet, even after an afternoon spent chipping away at Hytheness’ various aches and pains. Such a far cry from the sorry, swaddled thing in Lock’s arms. He’s been different, too. Reserved — and watchful. Almost wary of Osytha, like she might blow up at any moment. Despite her feeling the most at peace she has all day by far.

Now this. “Your rest and health, we would like that you'd keep them long into the coming years.” It sounds like a goodbye. What happened to travelling on together? For Krava’quiloor definitely seems strong enough to meet the road, now. When all that nourishment she’d pulled out the ocean had barely taken her a step away from death’s door.

Osytha looks away, over stone-weighted roof slats and spiked wooden wall at a Beast moon in the deepening dark beyond.

Quite a change to see, indeed.

“You found them bandits, then,” Osytha says, as dispassionate as a comment on the weather. “Or near enough to.”

She slips a bit of deer tendon to Guffy for him to finish on. “How many?”
 
When the plaid is not taken, it is passed on to Lock, who rests it gently wherever he can find where it cannot be dirtied, and pats it on top, making sure to keep the claws in. Osytha is not an enemy. But, there is an unstable quality to her, from being pushed too much, from not resting. The tides are alien. The tides no longer ask permission. Not maliciously, so. Merely tired of waiting to be trusted enough to do things that need be done. They are going to leave this place a little more whole. And maybe some folk might hold their breath for much longer now, and some might find raw fish is not half bad, and maybe some will find they can tolerate much colder water for much longer if they put on a little bit of weight. That will be weeks after she's gone, most likely. Change is inevitable, stirring it correctly is what matters to the Creed.

Peace reigns under the darkened sky. For now.

"It doesn't matter," the voice falls duller. Krava doesn't look at her, either. Her hands come up, as if seeking something to hold, clasp at her abdomen. Eyes follow the movements of the fisherfolk. The hem of her dress floats instead of swaying, ever so slightly. "Not how I'd want it, but. The valorous and armored had seen to destroying the alternative, a long time ago."

She draws a breath, and watches the moon over the wall. The buds in her braided hair that look like simple, brownish beads, bloom in white, pink filaments bowing towards the centers.
A slow exhale, the unseen waves shifting in rhythm.
Her defeat is not about evoking any rescue. It is calm. It is coordinated. It runs on something deeper.

"You have been kind to us. We'll handle the last thing." There is conviction that she doesn't feel, in that. "In the way that you prescribed." A thousand subtle shifts snowballing if it was killed, but the material... safeguards could be made so that nature re-balances. It coming after bodies would mean not enough food, which might be fish, which might mean overfishing. Humans exclude themselves from that system, if course, they would object to shortening their population. Fine and good enough. There are other ways. She'll just dissuade it from ever getting closer to shore. "You should rest, in case we fail and that evacuation is needed, after all."
 
“The valorous and armored had seen to destroying the alternative, a long time ago.”​

Osytha blinks. Nods, thoughtfully.

“Sounds like summat we’d do,” she observes, gently stroking Guffers between the ears.

Sweet boy. Tendon held awkwardly between black-padded paws, heartily chewing away. So blissfully ignorant of… well, most everything. The tragic foibles of mankind, Osytha’s pretty sure that one’s beyond him. And he doesn’t share their distrust of the other. He only notices the things right in front of him. Things like: this person is sad. That person is kind. And so on.

The important things.

“You should rest, in case we fail and that evacuation is needed, after all.”​

Yep; definitely sounds like a goodbye in there. They could probably take their pick of them, should things go pear-shaped. Going up against a leviathan of the deep? Most of those potential partings won’t be the ‘see you later’ kind.

“A lot of cultures — human cultures, anyroad — they send off their dead wi’ all sorts of offerin’s.” Osytha shifts her eyes from Guffy, to the neatly folded cloth resting beside her on the porch. “Riches, scran, beasts… some even mek slaves join ’em in death, t’ poor sods. Summat to tek into t’ afterlife.”

Osytha does move a hand to the plaid, then. Fingers tracing against the rough, warm, warding wool.

“If ivver tha gavest hosen an’ shoon; ivvery neet an’ alle,” she murmurs, and softly smiles. “Where Ah come from… we believe t’ opposite. That you keep what you give away.”

Bloody daft. All of it — fussing over what comes after. No one can really know what, or if there even is a ‘what’. Not even ghosts like Syr Roebin. Just because the squires in his classes can throw paper aeroplanes through him doesn’t mean the old master has truly passed on.

“This cloak… these are t’ colours of my home, Hræfn Leah. An’ that meks et warm in more ways than ane.” Osytha slips her hand underneath it and, fingers splayed wide for support, lifts the bundle back up in front of her. Her eyes meet Krava’quiloor’s face, catching a moment on those blooming buds in her hair. “You ken better’n most ’ow cold human hearts can be to strangers. But wearin’ this shows you’ve earned favour wi’ us smallfolk — an’ that’ll earn you trust an’ warm welcome which might otherwise be lackin’ around ’ere. Sae Ah’d like for you to keep et, Lady Krava’quiloor. Please.

“An’ then you’re goin’ to let me ’elp wi’ yon beastie, actually help, instead of sittin’ around wi’ my thumb up my arse while you twa tek on all t’ risk for my daft bloody idea.” A firm little nod from the knight; it’s decided. “That just en’t my style, you ken? Can’t do et.”
 
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