A low grumble of agreement, mixed with his own pained breath. But her warmth was like a balm unto itself, familiar and comforting, as they meld the more together in that moment.

"All the less, together," he huffed. Let his hands ease loose about her. Smoothed up her side, and brushed a bit of snow from where it had landed on her brow.

The villagers were gathered about, awe struck at the sight they had witnessed.

A few rushed toward the knights. Elated. "You stood against the beast's wrath!"

"You showed that demon!"

"Next round at the tavern is on us!"

They crowded around and threatened to lift and carry the pair, were it not for strong hands slapping their way through the crowds. Vanka pulled men away and shoved them, while Petrov followed in her wake.

"Well," Petrov called over the din. "Not every day such well meaning strangers come into town," he said with a smirk curled at the corner of his lips. "Lucky to have you two," he stopped, seeing how close the pair had become. Cleared his throat. "Didn't mean to interrupt,"

Bebin glowered, and brought his sword out from behind their backs. Put it back into its sheath with a scrape and a click.
 
The brush of fingertips across brow brought the warmth back to Selene's cheeks. She let out a breath, and it misted in the air, alive with heat. One of her hands landed on Bebin's chest as she balanced herself against him. Pressed closer not by her own passions, but by the enthusiasm of the crowd that'd gathered on the bridge around them.

And then there was that loud little man again.

This time around, Selene was a smile. Even as Bebin separated from her, the thin hard edge of his sword scratching against its sheath. In the absence of her knight's bracing hand, she had only her own staff to lean on.

"Forgive me, I don't believe I properly introduced myself the first time we met." Moon-slit eyes squinted down at the mercenary. She reached out a hand in greeting, palm down as a lady does. "My name is Selene, formerly of House Lamothe. We've come this way to attend to the great spirit Segale."

A sloughing off of ice and snow from the cliffside behind them landed in the water with a great crash. A few in the crowd startled at the splash.

"... and not a moment too soon, it seems."
 
1753951181570.webpPetrov stared a moment at the offered hand. Took it gingerly and bowed his crown to it. "Lady Lamothe,"

1753951197037.webpVanka raised a brow at that. "Lamothe, eh?" she looked the woman over, clear blue eyes drank in those eyes of midnight. "Heard tell they were gone,"

Petrov rose up, as the hiss of the river surging and spraying in the near distance settled. "No, not a moment too soon," he offered, and looked over the beturbaned knight.

Bebin stayed stone still and silent. All hard eyed and sure of where his feet were planted.

"The name is Petrov," he nod toward his accomplice. "Vanka here, is my second," he grinned. "I believe you've met Hyld," he pointed with a jut of his chin out to the snow field, where the loud little man shout at some of the villagers helping with the mess of the aftermath.

"We have," Bebin gave.

"He speaks," Vanka laughed.

A quirk of the brow. Something like a smile. Sharper in its knowing. "He is named Bebin,"

A bow of the head from Vanka.

Petrov huffed. Nod. "Well, let's go and find us a place to, discuss," he motioned them to follow.

Horns of mead for the table. Only a slight spill on the old wood.

Bebin's eyes narrowed, and lips down turned. Pulled a rag from inside his jacket. Wiped it down.

"So," Petrov starts. "You came to uh...attend the great spirit, my lady?"

Vanka laughed, and drank deep from her cup.
 
The mead was sweet and warm. Selene sipped at it tenderly, hoping it would do something for her growing unease. Laughter bubbled between the motley crew, and she frowned all the deeper into her horn mug.

"A river is not a kind thing," she said in return. "It cuts whatever path it pleases. And this is not the first time that Prathil has been in its way."

A shake of the head, dark eyes glancing away. Why was she bothering with tenants and conviction? These were not her knights. They were strangers, mercenaries with an unknown benefactor.

"Surely you have noticed, the hunters beginning to gather at your crossroads," she began again, looking at the horned one. Petrov. "What can you tell us of them?"
 
Petrov raised his hairless brow. Single ash colored eye widening at the lady of late night eyes. "I meant no offense by it, Lady Lamothe," the old mercenary captain said. Clear.

Venka still wore her little smile.

Bebin kept his dark eyes on the both of them. Snapped the rag off to the side of their table. Folded it. Put it back into his jacket with sure presses of his fingers.

Petrov cleared his throat. "Usual lot of blood thirsters, far as I can tell,"

Venka shook her head. "Lousier than the usual lot, really,"

Petrov gave a slow nod to that. "Few are the seasoned swords that go after Spirits, that's true," took up his mug, and gave it a turn. Lift it to his lips and pulled a drink. Set it down. "Hungrier, mangier, less sure behind the eyes," he amended.

Venka nod to that. "North and south, plenty of people pushed out by famine, plenty more dealing with the skirmishes of their lords, and the ruin left in the wake of wandering bands of raiders,"

Petrov clicked his teeth. "Townsfolk whispering about a new Wave on the horizon,"

Venka sat with that a long and quiet moment. The wind howled. "Then there is the three eyed Witch,"

Petrov's eye narrowed, craned his neck to regard her.

Venka was already looking at him. Just as pointed. Just as sharp.

He nod to her.

Bebin didn't miss any of it.

"Promising them the world, should they bring the Spirit's head in," Venka added.

"Whips them into a frenzy. Few brawls turned to blood already. Made our jobs a whole lot uglier it did,"

Venka scoffed. "Putting it lightly,"
 
The pair of mercenaries said what was already known. But it wasn't the information that Selene was after; it was the telling of it. She watched the waft of air that pushed away from the wet rag Bebin shook out. The invisible current echoed the swirl of amber in Petrov's mug as he took it up and set it down. Snow was melting in the folds of Venka's sleeves. Damp clung to the crowded room just as thickly as the shared glances and cupped words.

"The witch," she intoned. Looked to Bebin, who sat by her side. "That must be the Lady of Three which you saw."

She noticed, he had not touched the horn of mead the mercenaries had ordered for him. In a delicate motion, Selene ran her ring finger around the rim of his mug. Its sides dewed with condensation, cold and clean.
 
Bebin followed the trail of Selene's fingers. Round and round the horn it went. Glistening as it glided across the rim.

None the resonance of glass. But the motion. The trails of the water. "It must be," he said, as eyes followed up the length of robed arm, and unto dark and starry eyes. The Hierophant. "We are close, then."

Petrov stared at the two. Looked to Venka, who just shrugged. "You, know this witch?" the horned mercenary asked. Eye on Selene.
 
Selene did not answer right away. She went over several responses in her mind's eye, and found some trouble with all of them.

Bebin saw her in the mind of a dying man.

That would definitely not do. The reputation of witch-knights and necromancers was not kind in these lands.

The witch may be connected to a fanatic cult we have been tracking for some time.

That would only invite more questions.

The same treatment she'd given Bebin's drink was applied to her own. Condensation wet her fingertips when she lifted them. She took the horn up and had another sip of mead. It was marginally better served cold, its bite tamed to a fresher crisp.

"We have not yet made her aquaintance," she finally settled on the words, flat and peculiar.
 
Bebin's eyes followed the drink down to clack on the table. How the droplets gathered on lips full and dark. Huffed a smirk.

Petrov mulled the words over. "Nor have we,"

Venka scoffed. "Lucky break, that,"

Petrov tilt his head. Shook it away. "Only means the trouble's brewin well beyond our reach,"

Venka made a sound of thought. "What'd we do about it, even if we could touch it?"

Petrov shrugged. "Touch it," shook his head. "Try."

Bebin's eyes shift to the mercenaries. "Have you any leads?" he asked to the point.

Raised brows. "Leads?" one of them asked.

The beturbaned knight nod. "Leads, trails, hunches, directions, need I scribe it onto the table for you?" he said with a cruel smirk.
 
"...need I scribe it onto the table for you?"

Bebin's threat sank in, though maybe not in the way he intended.

"Not on the table!" Venka put a hand out defensively, hovering it above the hewn wood. "Valgerd carved this herself."

But the question went unanswered. Words broke and scattered into hesitant glances. A long pause was shared between the mercenaries. At the next table over, a broad-shouldered man laughed raucous about his own joke. The barmaid waltzed through with wood flagons in each hand, refilling anyone's cup that needed it, in a deft little dance.

"Well," one of the mercenaries broke the rumination. One who hadn't spoken yet, and by the looks the others gave him, one who was usually encouraged not to speak. "There is that odd fellow with the kids. What was his name, Denney?"

"Who?"

"The one who stops in town twice a month for supplies and such. He ranges out further than the rest of the hunters. And he's got that look about him. Like he sees enough to know how to mind his own business. Bet he's got a lead or two."

"Oh, you mean Demiex," Venka said, nodding along. "Ex-knight, I heard. Might not like getting found."

The chair scraped hard against the floor as Selene stood straight up. Her hands gripped the edge of the table. "Legault Demiex," she said, biting off each word. "Is here?"

Petrov squinted one curious grey eye at Selene. He leaned back, hands folded neatly in his lap. "Now, I take it you've made his acquaintance?"
 
Bebin grumbled. Cruelty came hard when the name of the very woodworker whose craft they were prepared to ruin was mentioned.

Such was the power of names. Things that not only bound you to all they carried, but could inspire, illicit, drag up from the cold buried past every manner of feeling and memory the symbols, sounds, and movements that rendered those spells were made of.

Denney?

Demiex.

An utterance that dove him back beneath the depths of the Loch. Adrift in the dream sea with no line of sanity's silk there to anchor him to his waking mind. Adrift. Until he found Selene there in. Cast into the aphotic realm, where saints, and spirits drift and scuttled across the murk.

It was Demiex's great heron that had set him so loose. That pale spectre of his prodigy. Solemn in what more and more seemed a duty he felt need be performed.

It was the screech of the chair's legs against the stonework that pulled him back to his frigid breath. His eyes on the stiffness of her shoulders. The rigid line of her arms, and the white knuckled grip she held the table with.

His hand slipped over hers. Fingertips up the tendons. Round the knuckles. Laid over the long bones of fingers he knew so well. Worked his grip there betwixt them and stood beside her. Looked to the two mercenaries.

"He is our son,"
 
Cold grip softened as she felt warm fingers lap against hers, bone settling between bone, the friction of skin melting tension set. Selene laid her wrath to rest, and sat back down. Perched on the edge of the stool to a touch closer. She placed her other hand atop theirs entwined, thumb brushing the back of palm.

"Yes," she agreed, looking to none but Bebin. "We thought him lost."

Striking a thinker's pose, Petrov regarded them from across the table. "Pardon," he said after a moment of watching the two. He rubbed the stubble on his chin with a loud scratch. "I'm still looking for the family resemblance."

Venka was squinting at them sideways too, lips tilted into a curious smirk. "Naw, I believe 'em. See that furrow on the sour one's brow? That's the same look Demeix gave me when I said I wasn't gonna let him skimp on the bridge toll no more."

"Venka, there isn't a toll on the bridge."

"'Xactly," she didn't miss a beat, as she gave a proud little nod. "Didn't think it was funny at all. All bluster and duty, I can tell he comes by it honestly from the pair a you."
 
A squeeze there between the clamshell of her bones. Condensation warm in the heat that swirled betwixt the spread of their skin. Rare, to be made a pearl, so far from crashing shores.

Eyes black and bottomless as all the splendors she contained. He gave a single nod, and sat there beside her.

Let his breath rush out. All hiss of waves through the bristles of his mustache.

Patience practiced as the gallery of legumes gathered what thoughts they could muster in so desolate a place. He could not blame them. So near to the Enemy, and all the mindless villainy they wrought.

In fact. He admired them. To remain so true as people as they were. Diligent. Cunning. As fools so often were. As he had so often been. Fallible. As he so often was.

To lose his son. To befriend a mindless doll, who still wondered what they were. Oath Sworn Brother as he was. To so readily give himself to that ebon scaled spirit that always lurked beneath the waters of his skin.

...See that furrow on the sour one's brow?

Furrow the more the sour one's brow did. Dark eyes flit to the blushing strawberry, frostbitten as she was. Smiling as she was.

Xactly... I can tell he comes by it honestly from the pair of you.

A break from his throat, called a laugh. "Well then," he said with a deathgiver's smile. "Where is he?"

Petrov huffed. One eye that he had seemed to like the look of them, just a tad more after Venka's vouching. "Suppose I see it now," shook his head, rubbed the stubble and scars about his jaw. "Its a whole day's march, north and east, according to the shadow off the Vayd's boughs," looked to the woman with eyes like a starry night. "You take some horses, and you can get there in half the time,"

Bebin looked to Selene. Brow arched there with the tilt of his head. Hand squeezed about her bones. "Come dawn then?" Irony of ironies. But the journey had been hard as it was for his Captain. He would not risk lose her as well as the boy they raised. "A nights rest would do me well," he uttered softly between them. Mind half there, and half adrift in the treacherous dreams of memories so swirled it was hard to say which way was up, and which was down.

Still. Composure was an art he had long practiced.

Venka nudged Petrov. "See, look at him,"

Petrov huffed with a shake of his horned head. "I said I saw it now,"
 
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Her son was alive. Alive, and a threat to the Order. Branded a traitor for slaying his partner in Dawn. Merrycourt's blood on his sword, lying abandoned in the middle of the stone hall. Moonslight pouring through the stained glass. Merrycourt's body, nowhere to be found. And a faint reflection flying above the Loch, blue feathers stirring not a sound nor a ripple.

It was Selene's duty to protect the sanctity of Dusk, to kill the things in the night that could not be saved. Knights were no exception. How many of her fallen comrades had she faced? Maddened by the blight, hungry for power, fiend-stricken. Demeix should be no different. If he could be saved. If he couldn't.

If he was here at the same time as the Sightless, if he too was hunting the great spirit for its hide.

"A nights rest would do me well,"

Selene realized she was leaning against Bebin, head tilted in a weary way. Rising a little, she turned towards the soft rustle of his voice, fabric against fabric. Not startled, but anchored by it.

"And something to eat," she echoed the sentiment. Nodded toward the horned captain and his crew. "Does old Bavol Bronzejaw still run the place at the corner here? What I wouldn't do for one of his pies."
 
Petrov smirked. "Only thing half decent to eat round these parts, these days,"

"Aye now, you weren't sayin that about that duck I cooked last week," Venka cut. Eyes wide and glassy with hurt.

Petrov's eyes narrowed. Lips taught, like he needed to measure out each word about to fall from his lips. "No, the duck's great," he tested.

Venka grinned. Smacked a heavy palm against her thick arm. "The secret!"

Petrov sighed with a slight smile and the shake of a head.

She leaned toward Bebin and Selene. All hushed. "Is salt,"

Bebin couldn't help but laugh. A crack turned bark turned rumble and warm.

Petrov smirked at that.
---
Bavol's, as the little hovel at the corner of the Green Witch Inn was known, always seemed to be ensorcelled by a shroud of steam, and white smoke.

The thick stews that filled the crispy-crunchy-buttery-pastry that formed the shell of their famous pies, always sitting in tall fat bottomed pots, roiling and boiling over the cookfires as they were. Smelling of spices far beyond the frigid grasp of Prathill locked in winter's snow. Still billowed

The old wooden door opened with a rust choked groan. The bright brass of the bell overhead ting-a-ling-linged as the pair of Duskers stepped in from the ice laden cold. A pool of slick frost melt there at the door where a wall of swirling heat hit them.

"Welcome to Bavol's!" a young rosy cheeked lady called out from behind the counter. Arm deep in a bowl of some golden brown colored paste that looked every bit sun painted earth.

Bebin huffed a breath. "Surprised the curry still smells so good," he said absently.
 
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