Knowing ahead of time the situation in Stella D’Mare, and the destination of its denizens, it did not take Briery or the rest of her troupe by surprise when they found themselves bottle-necked for entry by several other wooden caravans. The walls outside of the fortressed city were lined with tents, a myriad of temporary housing likely for those who were fit and healthy enough to sleep under the stars with naught but hemp or canvas shielding them from the elements. While this was not the Missing Links’ first foray into Braighdath to perform (and in fact, they had performed for the citizens around the very same time the year before), she had a feeling the city was too knee-deep in crisis response to be expecting them.
However, the ringleader did not appear concerned. “We are performers; we are here to entertain, and to meet the people’s need for entertainment.” She explained, hopping off the front of one of the caravans to tend to the horses. “I have a feeling that denizens of Braighdath and Stella D’Mare alike will be in need of some well-deserved distractions. If we need to set up the show out here, then hell, all the more space for us. And more of an opportunity for you and Rycen to play with fire.”
“Now I love the sounds of that,” the illusionist grinned, stretching his arms outwards and cracking his knuckles.
Briery cast a curious glance at Hadwin when he conceded to getting them into the city “legally”, raising a delicately shaped brow at the claim. “I thought you said you’d never been to Braighdath, before.” She commented, giving the faoladh a nudge in the ribs with her elbow. “Just what connections do you have, here? Regardless, I don’t see a need to find the rest of us a way into the city, save for stocking up on some provisions before we leave, if possible. Though I wouldn’t mind seeing Alster again; to thank him for… opening wild and new possibilities for me.” The corner of her mouth quirked into a grin, as it wasn’t anyone’s guess as to just what ‘possibilities’ she was referring to.
“I’ll go with you.” The young summoner had since emerged from the caravan, and sidled up to Hadwin before his conversation with Chara and Briery concluded. “I need to speak with Alster, too. I need to know how soon I can see my brother… he’d told me that he was not well off, in Galeyn. I don’t want to delay any longer than I must…”
It was so abrupt, how Teselin’s motivations and reasons for finding her brother had changed so drastically over the past handful of weeks. When she’d first met Hadwin, and first met Alster, and learned of Vitali’s new condition, she’d wanted nothing more than to find him. Not only to help him, but to seek help, knowing well that he could talk her through the enigma that was her magic. But now… It was not so much that the urgency had changed: she still wanted and needed to find him. But not once had she mentioned her magic, on the long trip from Mollengard’s prison to Braighdath. And not because it was not an important topic, but because she no longer believed that he could help her… or that anyone could, for that matter. While she managed to stay relatively hopeful for Hadwin, who had, in fact, given her ample reasons to hope for the best, an undertone of deep-seated melancholy and defeat had settled in the depths of the summoner’s dark eyes. One that would not so easily be lifted, if it could be lifted at all.
So she traveled with Hadwin to the west-most gate of the city, which was, understandably, guarded by a couple of tired-looking soldiers dressed identical to the blonde woman, Sigrid. They were patiently answering the questions of a handful of D’Marians, who, while appearing less than satisfied with the answers they received, finally left and drifted back towards their tents. One of the soldiers opened his mouth when he took note of Hadwin and his young companion, presumably to tell him what he had been telling everyone all day: the gate was closed to all but the elderly and infirm, and that they were sorry, but they could not permit either of them access. Of course, that did not stop the shapeshifter from working his usual charm, and dropping a familiar name that would hopefully change the negotiations in their favour.
“You are acquainted with Sigrid?” One of the Dawn warriors scrunched up his nose, as if trying to detect a lie, hesitant to believe that his sister in arms (and bearer of Gaolithe) would ever have cavorted with someone in such a way that she ‘owed them a favour’.
“Well, he wouldn’t be the first. There’s that Kariji woman who asked to speak to Roen upon arrival,” the other warrior commented, shrugging his shoulders. “Turns out, she is a friend of Sigrid’s. Seems as though our sister had made many a strange acquaintance in her travels.” He turned to Hadwin and Teselin, then, and pressed his mouth into a thin line. “If what you say is true, then wait here. I will go and fetch Sigrid, at your request.”
Upon her arrival with Alster, Sigrid, understandably, hadn’t managed to find a moment to breathe. First was the matter of storing Gaolithe safely back within the temple from which it had come, and immediately after, she had taken to aiding Alster with organizing the D’Marians to get them situated safely and comfortably, either within the walls of the city, or without. She hadn’t even found time to check in with Naimah, who had been part of a group that had arrived ahead of time; she hadn’t had a moment to speak with Roen, and as if a Kariji woman had mentioned her name. For all she knew, Naimah might not be there at all, but she did not allow herself to dwell on that possibility. It isn’t her fault that you fell hard, and that she may not have fallen at all, a voice chided her at the back of her mind. Now wasn’t the time to consider matters of the heart, when the well-being of an entire city (well, two cities, technically) was the foremost priority.
The Dawn warrior had just left a general store, inquiring about provisions for the sick and elderly that Alster had asked after to keep them well, when she was approached by one of her Dawn brethren. “Someone has asked after you. Said that you owe him… a favour?” He raised an eyebrow, as if disbelieving his own words. “Said his name was Hadwin Kavanagh. There was a young girl with him, as well.”
“Hadwin is in Braighdath?” Sigrid raised her eyebrows, and while she seemed surprised, there was no longer any doubt in her brother’s eyes that the strange man must have been telling the truth about their acquaintance. “I did not expect him to reconvene with the D’Marians, here… where is he?”
“He is waiting at the west gate. I’ll take you to him.”
Sure enough, a handful of familiar faces were waiting for Sigrid at the westernmost gate of the heavily-protected city. Hadwin, accompanied by Teselin, stood patiently by at her arrival. They did not appear exhausted or in rough shape, though there were shadows under the young summoner’s eyes that suggested she must have been at least a little tired. “You choose a rather dire time to call in another favour, wolf-man.” Sigrid declared, folding her arms, though her stance was not entirely uninviting. “Nonetheless, for what you did to help me find Elespeth, let alone what you did back for us in Stella D’Mare, you are more than welcome here. And… Teselin.” A whoosh of air rushed from her lungs, and she offered the young girl a smile. “When Alster told me he could not detect Chara’s star, and was not able to hone in on you, I feared the worst. I am so glad to see you are alright. But,” her blue eyes flicked back to Hadwin. “What of Chara Rigas, then?”
Evidently, the faoladh had a lot of gaps on which to fill her in, and he promised to do so, but stressed that it was imperative they retrieve Alster at this moment in time. It did not require many leading questions to discern that it was, in fact, Chara who asked after him. “So she is alive.” The Dawn warrior sighed heavily, as she led them into the city. “That will come as a relief to Alster--that the young summoner, here, and his cousin did not fall to Mollengard. I daresay he has had a lot to worry about, with his fiancee missing for as long as she was.”
“Elespeth was missing?” Teselin furrowed her brow and shook her head. “Wait… Hadwin, did you know this? And you didn’t tell me or… oh.” Only when the words were out of her mouth did it dawn on her just why the shapeshifter had chosen not to discuss Elespeth’s absence around Chara, or her, for that matter. He had been looking for her, those nights when he and Cwenha had both mysteriously been away. He knew she would’ve worried for him, taking off for hours at a time without anyone to watch his back in case his sister found him, and Chara… she wouldn’t have been in the right frame of mind to know that Alster was preoccupied with Elespeth’s absence. It did not particularly make her happy to realize he’d kept such pertinent information from her, but in the end, she understood his reasons.
“Despite that you’ve found one another, it sounds like you have just as much catching up to do as I do.” Sigrid raised an eyebrow and shook her head. “I’ll take you to Alster, and in the meantime, why don’t you tell me how you’ve managed to come this far with both Teselin and Chara Rigas?”
During the time it took to track down Alster Rigas, Hadwin went into detail about how he’d reunited with a familiar troupe of circus performers after saving Chara and Teselin from Mollengard’s clutches. Were Teselin not standing right there with them, she might have thought his story had been embellished. “Well, now, you’ve certainly been busy making a hero of yourself.” The Dawn warrior commented, a ghost of a smile on her lips. “And the Missing Links are here in Braighdath? I happened to see them in Eyraille, as well. Very talented group of people. Alster got drunk and tried to force me to dance with their ringleader, but…” Colour bloomed on her cheeks, and she cleared her throat. “She bears far too distinct a resemblance to the woman who broke my heart. I was a coward and ran off before he could make me dance with her.”
Of course, this lead to the topic of Naimah, whom Hadwin asked after, only causing the colour in Sigrid’s cheeks to grow brighter. “I… haven’t had a chance to see Naimah, yet.” She confessed and shook her head. “If she is here, and I am sure she must be, then all that matters is that she is safe, along with the rest of them. I cannot assume that she is asking after me; we only spent a short time in one another’s company, after all… I do not want to be a bother.” However, there was a note to her voice that suggested she hoped to chance a glance at the beautiful Kariji woman, sometime soon--more than a glance, with any luck. Though not was not the time to put a voice to those desires. “Anyway… Alster has been loathe to leave Elespeth’s side, since we arrived. She is resting and recovering in a private room in our barracks; I suppose that is where we will find him.”
You had an accident… You’re safe… This is temporary… Alster. He was here, and he was talking to her, but his words meant nothing to her ears. They didn’t even register as having meaning, although she could understand them. He was clutching her hands, but it didn’t cease their erratic shaking, or the spike in her heart rate. He was smiling at her, likely trying to be reassuring, but she could not understand why. She had been in the woods. She had been looking for Braighdath. She…
It was all of a sudden that Elespeth noticed a bitter taste in the back of her throat, one that also seemed to cling to her tongue, though she couldn’t remember eating. Yet, it was so distinct, and so familiar…
That herb.
It came back to her, then, in a rush. Why she had been wandering the forests alone; how she had been wandering, for days on end, without sleep. And what it had resulted in… No. It can’t be… What have I done to myself…
“No… get away.” Her voice was hoarse, to the extent where it almost hurt to speak, but she raised it anyway. “I don’t want this… get away, Alster!”
With whatever meager strength she had, Elespeth pushed the bowl of broth away, landing it on the floor, its contents entirely spilled. “Go away! I don’t… I want to be left alone! Do you understand me?” Tears had gathered in the corners of her eyes, as she clutched her arms to her chest. “I want to be alone! Alone!”
“Alster…” Sigrid arrived just in time to witness the Atvanian warrior’s adamant refusal to eat--or to be in anyone’s company for that matter. And she did not miss the stricken look on Alster’s face as his own fiancee told him to leave. Stepping inside, she placed a gentle hand on the Rigas caster’s shoulder. “I need you to come with me, anyway. Someone I think you’d like to talk to is asking after you.”
It didn’t take much encouragement for the Dawn warrior to convince him to step outside Elespeth’s room, and closed the door quietly behind her. “Don’t despair, Alster… try to understand what she’s been through. Let her process it. She’ll be open to company once she acclimatizes.” Though she wasn’t sure if it was enough to reassure him, it was the truth. Insofar as she believed, at least. She had seen how devoted they were to one another; Elespeth’s addiction, and what it had done to her body and mind, wouldn’t be the end of them. “I’ve got some good news; well, you might as well hear it from Hadwin, actually.”
Stepping aside, she diverted his attention to the two who had come to see him: Hadwin and Teselin, who had been standing patiently in wait, having been instructed not to try and see Elespeth for the moment. Frankly… it seemed to be for the better.
“Alster.” Teselin said quietly, making an attempt to pull a smile. “It’s good to see you again.”
An uneasy silence rippled the air between Alster and Elespeth, charged with a prickling sensation not unlike whenever Sigrid hit a nerve in his arm with a needle. He sensed the shift, a low pressure storm, which descended and turned the sky orange. Confusion and anger, fear and disgust all gathered around Elespeth, and though he anticipated the downpour, he clung to delusional optimism, which insisted the clouds were clearing and all would pass. It came as no surprise, then, when lightning struck him, a simplistic target, repeatedly in the chest. Recoiling from the outburst, he withdrew from her bedside in time to watch her hurl the bowl on the floor.
“Elespeth!” Amid her desperate shouts for him to leave, he lingered by the foot of her bed, too stunned to register the heft of her request. “It’s me, Elespeth. It’s Alster. I can help you. Please--”
But her shouts tore from her throat with increased force, and her limbs flailed with a frenzy that frightened him. The way her feeble muscles twisted and popped--if she didn’t cease thrashing, she’d cause injury to herself. But how could he oblige her request and leave her in such a condition? In a state of compromised reason, she was incapable of making sound decisions. No. She needed him. Someone who loved her enough to invest in her well-being and health. Someone she trusted.
Unless…
Her mistrust of him ran so deep, it affected her emotions on an intrinsic level. How he must have hurt her!
“I’ve always been able to reach you El,” he said, soft, but with a resonance that carried over her shouts. “This is no different.” His feet pushed forward, braving an attempt to edge nearer to her. “If you’d let me--”
A gentle swing of the door interrupted his plan of action. He twisted his head to see Sigrid standing in the threshold, urging him to leave.
“No!” His answer came out louder and more emphatic than he wanted. He cleared his throat, and whispered, “no. I can’t leave her, Sigrid. Not when she’s like this.”
You’re only making it worse. Vestiges of the Serpent slithered into his thoughts, a once dwindled presence revitalizing its place within his consciousness. Walk away, Alster. He ground his teeth, at a loss for how to proceed. The Dawn warrior attempted to redirect his attention by mentioning good news, but it hardly fazed him. Good news? What constituted good news, anymore? But, remembering his duty to the Rigas family, and by extension, Stella D’Mare, he obliged Sigrid with a shaky nod. With once last look at the berserking Elespeth, he bid her a breaking farewell and exited the room, closing the door shut behind him. He couldn’t go further than two steps before slumping against the opposite wall in the hallway and clutching his head. Breaths shuddered out of his body. When he tried to inhale, nothing but gasps sucked into his mouth. His head grew heavy and his arm, even heavier. It hung limp at his side, threatening to weigh him to the floor, prostrate and in defeat.
“This can’t be happening. This can't be." Words panted out of him, useless phrases he muttered in a futile try to talk himself into composure. “She’s going to be okay. We’re going to be okay. Even if she doesn’t love me…” He lost himself at love, and despite Sigrid’s reassurances, it took a great deal of patience to guide him back from the precipice of a mental breakdown.
“I’ll be fine,” he tried again, this time with more positive reinforcement. “Just give me a moment. I’ll be fine. Everything will be fine...when I count to ten.”
One, two, three. His breathing eased. Four, five, six. Limbs straightened and detached from the wall. Seven eight, nine, ten. He opened his eyes, sighed away the hitches still pinching his throat, and nodded to Sigrid. Some approximation of a human being had returned, but held with sinews by the Serpent’s jaw. “Let’s go away. I mean...let’s go.”
His guests waited for him at the entrance to the barracks, far enough out of earshot not to have heard his emotional spiral, though he was certain they picked up on Elespeth’s agonized cries. Unless it was Hadwin; he probably registered everything, if his human ears worked as well as his wolf ones. Though he expected to see the faoladh, as Sigrid had informed him of his arrival, he was not expecting the familiar dark-haired girl to appear as part of the entourage. “Teselin.” He grasped her hands like he was giving her a double handshake, the force of his greeting jiggling her arms in a frenetic jolt of energy. “I...don’t know what to say. You’re...you made it. I knew you were alive, but I wasn’t sure what happened to you. Are you well?” He searched her world-weary eyes for the answer, and nodded in resignation. He knew those eyes; they were his own, but in brown. “What,” he hesitated, dreading the hypothetical response. “What...do you have any information on Chara? You were there with her, when we lost contact.”
“Now that’s a loaded story,” the wolf-man chimed, rolling his tongue in the indecorous way he favored. “But it has a hopeful end. Chara and the kid here were captured by Mollengard. Rest assured, I got ‘em out. Chara’s with us.” He thumbed over his shoulder, in the direction of West Gate. “Outside these walls. Lodged with a certain circus troupe you know and love.”
Alster's mouth twitched from the news; he wasn't sure if Hadwin was joking around or if he spoke truth. He looked to Teselin and Sigrid for confirmation and they bobbed their heads in assent. “Chara...she’s alive? And she’s with--”
“The Missing Links. Yup. They owed me a favor, so we rode with them from Hospiria to Braighdath. I’m well-acquainted with the ringleader and I heard you are, too. At least with her insides.” He twitched a smile, but the Rigas head was far too gone for scandalous remarks to faze him. “But I don’t fault you for poking around down there. Whatever you did, worked. Anyway, you’ll get to catch up with everyone, including Lady Chara. She wants to meet you at the caravan.” At Alster’s expression of alarm, Hadwin batted away the fears with a lazy, dismissive hand. “No, she didn’t grow two heads or anything. She’s in one piece. But I must warn you, she's a changed woman, inside and out. Keep that in mind when you see her.”
With Hadwin leading the way, they traveled through the gates to the tent city beyond, meeting little refugee resistance during the after-supper hours of the evening. Assuming Chara meant to keep their meeting--and any trace of it, to and from camp--clandestine, to prevent detection, Alster had thrown on a cloak and pulled the hood over his head, concealing his features and his distinct steel arm. When they reached the painted caravans, a whimsical, off-kilter sight parked as such on a crooked slope, a certain acrobat stood from the campfire to greet him.
“Briery.” He dipped his head, curt but cordial. “I didn’t think I’d see you again so soon. Nonetheless, it’s refreshing to see that you’ve been keeping yourself safe, in these trying times. And healthy, too, from the looks of it. Hadwin tells me you haven’t had any major complications since Eyraille. How are you on tonic?”
“Small talk is cheap, Alster. I see you’re running headlong into a welcome distraction, rather than face the entire reason you’re here.” A woman stood on the steps exiting a caravan, dressed in plainclothes of a washed-out dirty blue. A mismatched shawl wrapped around her head, and beneath, stringy tufts of distinctly brown hair swept across her brow. To a first time observer, she looked like a stranger, but there was no mistaking the blue pierce of eyes, the elegant slope of a Rigas nose, and the edge of steel in her voice. Alster’s mouth about hung open, but he remembered Hadwin’s earlier warning. A changed woman. Inside and out.
“Chara.” He stumbled in the grass in his haste to reach her on the stairs. But he halted his own advance, the memory of Elespeth's rejection, and his failure to placate her, fresh on his mind. Did Chara call him to the caravan just so she could wish him gone, too? The burdens of the last month accentuated the lines around her thinning, pale face, and the rest of her was...so shrunken. No star essence illuminated her dull, darkening aura. Any remnants of brilliance had long faded; it was no wonder he couldn’t sense her, despite their blood relations. With Chara so obviously shaken from trauma, how would she receive him? Don’t turn your back on me, he pleaded with her in his head. And when she threw her arms around him and sobbed against his shoulder, he whispered a silent thank you to the universe--and reciprocated the embrace.
“It’s all gone, Alster. My magic. My city. Everything. I’m not a Rigas. Don’t make me go back. Don’t make me lead again,” she rapidfired in between sobs. “And don’t tell Lilica...don’t tell her anything. About me. That I'm here. Don’t tell--she can’t know. She can’t know. I died back there. I’m nothing now! So don’t--”
“--Sssh.” Alster crushed her into his arms. “We’ll discuss all that later, Chara. I’m just glad you’re safe, and that you’re here. I thought I lost you, but you’re not lost at all. You’re not lost...” His eyes glittered with tears. He didn’t think he had anymore left in him to cry, so constantly driven past the brink of his unmaking. And what, now, did the future have in store? Where did he stand, without Elespeth, without Chara’s strength, thrust into an authoritative role he didn’t want?
He shut his eyes tight against his skull.
Just keep walking…
The bittersweet reunion between the two Rigas brethren lasted well into the night, with Alster keeping conversation light, and Chara struggling not to annihilate his fragile attempts at levity. It didn’t last long before the topic inevitably shifted to Elespeth, and Hadwin was forced to reveal to the new brunette his contribution to her rescue. Though peeved at the shifter’s earlier nondisclosure, Chara was more invested in the state of their most recent addition to the family--even as she claimed she no longer identified as a Rigas.
“I would like to see her,” she mentioned to Alster, who avoided her eye contact and instead stared at the campfire they’d gathered around, for warmth.
“I don’t think she’s ready for visitors right now.”
“Then I will not be a visitor.”
Alster raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, Chara?”
“In that dreaded caravan, I was holed up in tight quarters for heavens know how long and I had only a curtain for privacy. I’m used to it, now. So stick us in the same room and throw up a curtain between our beds. The city does not have enough space to divvy up private quarters for everyone, anyway, and you need to put me somewhere.”
“You’re welcome to share my room at the inn.”
“And chance encountering the dunderheads of the Rigas council, appearing as I am?” She barked a humorless laugh. “No. Arrange to place me in Elespeth’s room. As a fellow patient, she has no authority to send me away. Especially me.”
"She's got a point." Hadwin said. Chewing on some late-night jerky, his affirmation came out half marbled and inaudible. He swallowed a chunk of the meat, clearing his mouth to elaborate. "Your fiancee's not going to cross Chara. She's kind of afraid of her. A lot of people are." Chara, in spite of herself, smiled at the faoladh's comment.
Alster bit on the inside of his cheek, considering the proposition. “I would feel better not leaving her in isolation all day.”
She slapped her hands on her lap conclusively. “Then it is done. Come tomorrow, you will move me in with Elespeth.”
Alster nodded. It comforted him to see a vestige of Chara's personality shining through the morass of her dark aura. Perhaps he would not have to delegate alone, or for long, with her at his side. “Very well. I’ll make the arrangements. Speaking of arrangements,” he tilted his head at Briery, who had joined them by the fire. “I can’t thank you enough for hosting Teselin and Chara in your caravan for these past several weeks.” He gestured to Hadwin. “And to you, for rescuing Chara, Teselin, and finding Elespeth. My gratitude is endless. Consider the troupe provided for, always. I’ll start by finding you all a proper lot inside the city. And if there’s anything else you need, whatever other honors I can bestow, you need only ask. Allow me to grant you any comfort, monetary, health-related, or otherwise. Anything at all.”
“You’re going to bleed our limited coffers dry,” Chara muttered, but did not protest his decision. After all, she was not Rigas head--and she supposed The Missing Links--and, she shivered, Hadwin--deserved good fortune and high honors, after withstanding her company.
“That’s only if you’re dealing with people who would take advantage of your generosity,” Hadwin said, throwing small clods of dirt into the fire. “Beware the opportunists--for I am one of them. So with that said,” he turned to the Rigas caster and pulled his lips into a smirk, “set me up, Alster, so I can sin in style. And for the kid--for Tes," he looked over her shoulder, at the caravan where the summoner had retired for the night, "get her to her brother.”
“Alster Rigas.” Briery was ready and waiting for Hadwin and Teselin to return with the Rigas caster in tow, with the addition of a familiar blonde-haired warrior. “I’m sure I mentioned how frequently my troupe travels. You’re bound to run into me now and then; I’m like a bad habit you can’t quite shake.” The ringleader smirked and winked playfully. “But yes, I am doing better than ever, thanks to you. Not going to lie, I keep expecting a flare-up at any moment--as you’re wont to do when you’re so used to being in pain--but it never comes. I’ve already performed several times and in several different places since Eyraille, and haven’t had to bow out once. Thanks to that tonic and your healing me from the inside out, I’ve got my life--and organs--under control. But,” she motioned to Chara, as the Rigas woman stepped out of the caravan, “I believe you have more pressing matters to discuss.”
The acrobat hastily turned her attention to Sigrid, who stood by, but not in a way that was particularly intrusive. Not that Chara even had to ask, but whatever secrets she wished Alster to keep, the Dawn warrior would keep, as well, even if it was against her better judgment. Considering that Lilica was only a night steed away, an hour’s ride a most, waiting with bated breath for the woman she loved to return to her… How was she faring, alone in the crowd that was a kingdom she had never asked for?
Thoughts of Galeyn were hastily interrupted by Briery’s presence, which was one that refused to be ignored. “I recognize you. I believe you stood me up for a dance.”
“I, ah… I apologize. That was… I mean, I…” The Dawn warrior cleared her throat and straightened her shoulders. “I should be getting back to matters within the city. Feel free to send for me if there is anything you require.”
The ringleader raised an eyebrow as she watched the oddly bashful Dawn warrior depart, but shrugged her shoulders and took a seat by the fire, where Alster and Chara had finally settled. “Don’t worry yourself with finding us ‘proper lodgings’.” She assured Alster with a shake of her head and a flippant hand gesture. “We’re nomads. The caravans are our home and our comfort. Besides, we figured we’d stay out here as a small comfort for those not fortunate enough to find lodgings within the city. What better time for a few performances than during a crisis, when people needs their spirits lifted? Although, if you can spare it, the occasional meal would be greatly appreciated. None of us is all that great at hunting; well, there’s Hadwin,” she flashed a grin at the faoladh, “but sadly, I can’t seem to make him a permanent fixture here among us.”
Meanwhile, following her rather hasty retreat, Sigrid had gone in search of her cousin. It had been some time since she’d had any words with Haraldur, and the way the Eyraillian prince seemed to withdraw more and more was beginning to worry her. With only the Forbanne for company… After the way Solveig had managed to get back into his head, it could not be good for him.
She found him among the Forbanne’s tents; sequestered off to the side, as if they either wished to exist apart from the rest of civilization, or they expected that they would not be welcome to begin with. Regardless of boundaries, it did not stop her from searching the tents until she found him, sitting quietly and keeping to himself.
“I know… that nothing has unfolded as our ideal, from the moment we left Stella D’Mare.” She began, keeping her distance at the front of the tent, so as not to crowd his space too obtrusively. “And I know that we have not been on the same page with regard to Elespeth. But… you have been spending a good deal of time among the Forbanne. You’ve gone quiet, and I know… you might benefit from alternate company. I was wondering, in fact,” she offered a smile, “if you’d come into the city, tonight. Meet some of my brothers and sisters, my mentors… I’ve already dropped your name. Some of them don’t believe I’m related to an Eyraillian prince.” Her smiled pulled wider, into a grin. “You don’t have to stay the night. But come and sup with us, at least… long enough for you to remember why we are here, in the first place.”
It was hours before Elespeth calmed to a state of exhausted placidity, even long after Alster obliged her request to leave. Fortunately, no one else tried to see her that day, to force her to eat or drink or to function as any semblance of a sane human being. And it was all for the better, because she could hardly fathom what she was seeing: those thin, bony hands, attached to equally thin wrists that disappeared beneath a gown that was several sizes too big for her, but shouldn’t have been. Not in terms of the person she remembered being; strong, healthy, muscular, a form that was filled out, not… not hollow.
She lost count of the hours that she stared at those hands. Lost count of how many times she would close her eyes for seconds, moments at a time, and then open them again, thinking that the dream would lift, and she would be staring at herself, again. It must be a dream; I must be dreaming. I can’t even remember how I got here… Yet the bitter taste of stimulant, though it had been some time since she’d last placed one of those leaves on her tongue, still clung to the back of her throat as a bitter reminder that there was a reason events had not panned out the way she had planned. No matter how many times she shut her eyes and opened them again, those bony hands stayed the same. She had not heroically made it to Braighdath ahead of schedule, to prepare for everyone’s arrival… quite the opposite, she’d arrived as an afterthought, as something far less than the person she had been back in Stella D’Mare.
Who am I… what am I, now?
At some point, she must have drifted off, folded in on herself to maintain whatever meager warmth the blankets offered, though her skin would not retain heat. Even the incessant shivering did not produce enough friction to smooth the goosebumps on her skin, and she only realized they were no longer there when she opened her eyes again, feeling far, far too warm--completely contrary to before. Night must have passed, as the first rays of sunlight pierced the glass of the windows, not overly bright, but enough that her tired eyes were forced to squint. It was strange… she couldn’t remember sleeping or falling asleep, but she could remember waking up, however briefly, several times throughout the evening, from her heart racing for no apparent reason. Eventually, it would calm down, and she would drift off again, but never for long. Those precious minutes when she actually managed to sleep, the former knight was once again plagued with nightmares--but now, they were different.
Before, it had been all about Farran. Watching him die over and over again in her dreams, with nothing that she could possibly do to change the outcome, no matter how she tried. But not this time; her late brother did not make an appearance in these new nightmares. It was not his dead face she looked upon; it was her own. Broken and bloodied, discarded on the floor of the abandoned grain storage, where their fight against Solveig and her Forbanne had taken place. But the worst part wasn’t that she was dead; no, it was the unrest on her pale face, the furrow of her brow, the tug of her lips into a straight line…
...and then dead Elespeth’s lips would part, dead, green eyes both accusing and forlorn, as she uttered the words to the only onlooker in the room: another version of herself. “Why couldn’t you leave me to rest in peace? To rest with honour…?”
The image of that face haunted her, and though her trembling body felt heavy, and she could’ve used a good several hours more of sleep, the Atvanian warrior did not want to close her eyes again in the event that she’d be tormented by her own face in her dreams. Farran’s was one thing; it brought on sadness and guilt. But this… this, she could not fathom, and could not tolerate.
Staring down at those thin hands once again, fingers that trembled and shook and hadn’t been steady for a good long time, Elespeth couldn’t help but wonder what was the extent of the damage her body had endured. This was just her hands; but what of the rest of her? Just what had she willingly erased with the extended use of that stimulant, thinking that it would bring her to heights that no mundane human could reach…?
She didn’t want to know. And yet, she knew, eventually, she would have to find out.
Noting that someone must have cleaned up the spilled soup she’d pushed out of Alster’s hands the day before, Elespeth dangled her feet over the side of the bed, felt the cool, smooth hardwood beneath her soles. She fell forward the moment she tried to carry her weight with her legs, and caught herself against the wall, her heart racing. This was ludicrous… it was as though she had completely forgotten how to walk! When was the last time I’d been on my feet…? How much time has passed? These were all questions that Alster might have been able to answer, had she not sent him away, but… she was not ready to face him, or anyone else, without knowing the extent of what she’d done to herself. What she had become, with no one else to blame but her own dire negligence and poor decisions. Alster could have helped her, before… before all of this. Hell, Haraldur and Sigrid could have helped her to titrate, to rid her system of the Mollengardian stimulant bit by bit, until it no longer had a hold on her…
But hindsight was untouchable, and she could only move forward, one feeble step at a time--which was precisely what she did, leaning heavily against the wall as her weak legs carried her to the other side of the room, where a table and wash basin sat beneath a small, square mirror. It terrified her, the idea that that very face that now haunted her dreams might now be one that she wore.... Though as it turned out, what she saw when she at last reached the reflective glass was so much worse than that.
Elespeth didn’t even recognize the face that stared back at her. Everything about it was foreign, from its paleness and pallor, the sunken cheeks and jutting cheekbones, the dark hollows beneath her eyes, which compared to the rest of her shrunken face, appeared larger. A wraith… she was little more than a ghost of the person she had been before. Once strong and bold and honourable, with colour in her cheeks and determination in her green eyes. But no more. That woman… that person she had been, who she had strived to be her entire life, she was… she was…
A despairing sob wrenched free of the former knight’s--the former warrior’s, really--chest, and with what little strength she had, she pulled back her dominant arm, frail hand clenched into a tight fist, and assaulted the mirror with her knuckles. Well, in all honesty, it was more the other way around, as fragments of shattered glass left her hand bleeding, though a jagged sliver of the reflective glass did fall from the once pristine mirror into the wash basin below. “No. No, no, this isn’t me.” Elespeth sobbed, supporting her small frame against the end table as her shoulders shook. “This is a mistake… I’m dreaming. I’m dreaming…”
Why couldn’t you let me die in peace? Leave well alone?
That voice… it sounded familiar. It was familiar, because it was… it was her own.
When Elespeth looked up again, it was not the hollow woman who looked back at her through the spider-webbed shards of the broken mirror. Instead, it was the image of her the way she remembered herself. Long, chestnut hair tied back in an expert braid, a face full of colour, wearing armor with a sword strapped across her back. Elespeth Tameris, once knight of Atvany, turned Elespeth Rigas, devoted soldier for the city of Stella D’Mare. All of the parts of her distant past and recent present that she loved most, that made her the honourable person she was today--or, rather, that she used to be.
You did this. You, and only you. The knight accused, but not with anger; worse… with disappointment. Sadness. It was not enough to shame my family name; to watch my brother die in your place. But now, you have brought shame to the Rigas name. After all they have done for you; after all of those years of life they bestowed.
“I didn’t… mean for this to happen.” Elespeth’s voice trembled as violently as the rest of her body. “I couldn’t let myself be useless to them. I was hurt; I thought… I thought I had the power to turn myself around. That they would have faith in me again…”
You succumbed to shame the moment you let that drug touch your lips. The mirror-Elespeth went on, her verdant gaze fierce and unyielding. You could’ve died with honour. You should have let me die with honour, then and there. But you couldn’t let me rest in peace; you had to go on, and now… look at you. Look at what you’ve become.
“No! People were counting on me to stay alive. To survive. Alster… he…”
Alster Rigas did not fall in love with you as your are now. This thing you have become. He fell in love with me. He’d never have forgotten you, never stopped loving you for the sacrifice you made. But now… now, he is forced to care for a shell of the person you used to be. How can you think for a moment that you’d deserve him, after the choices you’ve made? And after he pledged himself to you. After the Rigases pledged themselves to you, gave you years beyond your natural life… The mirror-image frowned. You’ve sullied yourself. Sullied their gifts, and shirked any and every chance at redemption. Farran died in vain; just so you could live on… as you are, now. Nothing but a broken shadow.
All those years… The gift of the Rigas name, the ceremony, hadn’t even occurred to Elespeth until just now. The drastically extended lifespan, reduced aging, all things that she had thought she’d earned; that she’d have had to continue to live up to, through her honour and service to the Rigases. By being the person Alster needed her to be. All those years, all those gifts… she’d taken them. But she was no longer the person who deserved them.
Hot tears spilled from her eyes, streamed down her cheeks and dripped into the empty wash basin as the once honourable knight’s chest heaved with sobs. “I… don’t want this. Don’t want to live a disgrace…” Each word was cut off at the beginning or end by a sob or a sharp intake of breath. She could barely hold herself upright, for the strain of her sorrow. “Can’t I… I make it right? Tell me. Tell me how to make it right, again…”
The face of the proud knight in the mirror softened; suddenly, she appeared less disappointed. You cannot undo what you have done. But you can right your wrongs. Give back the years that were gifted to you; give up what you have left. Make the sacrifice you should have made before leaving Stella D’Mare.
Elespeth’s eyes traveled to the jagged piece of glass in the wash basin. She wasn’t afraid; not of death. But she was hesitant. “But… Alster…”
He loves the person that you were; not the one that you are. You know it won’t be long before he realizes that. The edge to mirror-Elespeth’s voice softened, ever so slightly. He survived without you, before; he will be alright. His future has always been full of promise. If you love him, you won’t compromise that with your continual presence.
“I do… I do love him. He deserves more… and better. I don’t want to sabotage his future…” With trembling fingers, the former knight picked up the broken piece of glass. The way it caught and reflected the early sun’s rays, it appeared beautiful; like a true tool for salvation. “This… will this make it right? My honour… is it too late…?”
Not too late. Not if you do what is right, now. Elespeth in the mirror almost hazarded a smile. If you have it in you to do what is right… then only I will remain. The face and the memory imprinted on everyone’s minds. The brave knight who fought ‘til the end; not the shell of a human too far gone to ever be of use to anyone, again.
“I’ll do it. For the Rigases, for Sigrid and Haraldur…” She heaved a shuddering breath, and touched the tip of the jagged glass to her throat. “For Alster…”
Arriving at Braighdath brought Haraldur no relief. Once, he believed reaching the city would herald the possibility of returning home, to Eyraille and to Vega, who needed his support during an already difficult pregnancy. But everything had changed for the worse, regardless of, perhaps in spite of, his forced positive outlook, which blinded his ability to make practical decisions; namely, avoiding Mollengard at all costs. Stupidly, he relied on the emotional ties to his kingdom, to his wife, and to his future family in hopes to remain an uncompromised pillar of resilience in the face of his oppressors. And now, he was well and truly trapped, positioned at a checkmate exactly where Captain Solveig wanted him: at her command. To move against her was to incite the Forbanne who, above their commitment to him, could not resist the pull of their former leader. Even his most loyal soldiers would fall at her feet if she ordered them to kneel, her compulsion was that strong. Just like them, he was receptive to her influences. In his current state, he was a liability, too dangerous to mingle with Sigrid, Alster, and the others--and far too risky for Eyraille. No. Until he could figure out how to break free, and how to help the Forbanne who he promised to sever from their masters, he was locked out of his home, indefinitely.
It was useless to contact Vega and explain his situation. Alster possessed the resonance stone linked to Eyraille, and if he asked, the Rigas Head would hand it over to him to make his appeals. But no manner of delicate wording would conceal the fact that he belonged again to the Forbanne. Sensing his trouble, Vega wouldn’t hesitate to fly down to Braighdath on an impulse, endangering the lives of their unborn children in the process. For now, his choice, or lack thereof, was solidified. He was alone in the fight over his autonomy. To invite others into the battle was asking for their defeat. Few survived such an assault, whenever Forbanne were concerned. They, after all, excelled at destroying lives, not preserving them. Stay away, he told himself. You’re not one of them, Forbanne Prince. You’re inaccessible. Incompatible. A body without a soul. You and your ilk are a plague on this city. That’s how they see you. That’s how they’ll always see you.
To cause the least amount of stress on Braighdath, its citizens, and the D’Marian refugees, Haraldur stationed his unit near the north-most gate, an unobtrusive plain that did not blockade the east entrance, the most common approach to the city. However, a new problem sprang up, after a few days hunkered down in obscurity; without aid and without support, their resources would dwindle to nothing. Already, provisions were down to hardtack and whatever game the more able Forbanne hunters could manage. Unfortunately, Haraldur could not raise an army on his own tenacity. Managing an untrustworthy and bloodthirsty crew known for laying siege to cities and slaughtering children, he knew that their reputation far from secured them any type of long-term arrangement, outside Mollengard. No wonder Solveig wanted to claim Stella D’Mare as an independent nation for the Forbanne. As it stood, no one desired their presence, unless for the surety of a quick and merciless annihilation.
On their third evening in Braighdath, Haraldur was about to emerge from his tent to feast on an unremarkable supper when two soldiers appeared at the entrance flap. “Sir,” one said, “we intercepted the woman from the Dawn Guard, your former traveling companion. She was seen sneaking around camp. Friend or foe, we apprehended her accordingly.”
“She is a friend. Don’t harm her.” He marched to the mouth of the tent and wrenched the flap open. “She’s an ally and my blood. Treat her like that again, and there will be consequences. Now,” he eyed them with a disinterested intensity, “send her here.”
Minutes later, Sigrid entered, looking a little ruffled, but nonetheless untouched. “Good,” he sighed, waving his hand for her to enter. “Please excuse the welcoming committee. Ever since Elespeth’s escape, and my reaction to it, they’re on high alert for anyone leaving or entering camp. A precaution. But a poorly executed one.” He clasped his hands behind his back, a polite but detached movement, one that bespoke business and nothing beyond. “What do I owe this visit?”
She did not mention logistics of any sort. Instead, she addressed her concerns for him, and invited him to either spend the night or dine with her brothers and sisters in Braighdath proper. He frowned at the proposition, not so much in a rejection of her company, but from the impracticality of it all. A Forbanne, under Solveig’s influence, inside a fortress city amidst her trusted comrades-in-arms...it was disaster waiting to happen.
“I appreciate the offer, Sigrid. But I can’t leave the Forbanne unattended. Not until I have their full, unerring trust, and vice versa. And taking them into the city with me is...it’s a poor idea. On another standpoint, my presence at the barracks, among other Dawn warriors...I can’t say I’d mesh well.” A strain of something approaching regret passed over his eyes. In them lay a desire to go with Sigrid, to meet like-minded people, to eat well and chat without consequence. But...he couldn’t. And it hurt more than he could properly voice.
“If it’s not too much trouble, though, I would like to arrange a meeting with your leader in regards to our position, here. Our provisions are low, and we can’t travel without a full resupply. In exchange, we’ll offer protection and any other auxiliary support you find useful. We’ve contributed to building shelters for the D’Marian camp, but we make the people uneasy...so we’re staying put, for now.” His hands unclasped, and one found the ring still fixed on a chain around his neck. He scooped it up in his fingers. The surface felt warm, almost burning. “Eyraille is too far to provide sufficient provisions on an as-needed basis. Their rocs require rest after the constant back and forth of the last few weeks. And I can’t ask for their support, because I can’t return to Eyraille. Not like this. We’re a threat to national security.” He dropped the ring as if it had burned him in protest. “I don’t know where we’ll go. But we can’t stay in Braighdath, either. Preferably, somewhere where we can do the least amount of damage, until I figure out a long-term solution.”
Aside from holing up in the wilderness somewhere and forming a tiny, self-sufficient village guaranteed to fail, he had only two options. Two places in which to go.
Stella D’Mare, to regroup with Solveig and her Forbanne army.
Or to Mollengard. ...To surrender.
He’d rather die.
“I’m sorry, Sigrid,” he said, and he truly meant it. “I wish things were different.” If they were, he’d be in Eyraille...with his family.
Before it got too late, Alster departed from the caravan with promises to visit and to see a show before The Missing Links moved on to another locale. He did not return to the city gates alone. In tow were Chara, Hadwin, and Teselin. For all his bluster about living the rest of his life on Rigas handouts, the faoladh and his philosophy seemed exaggerated, or at the very least, impermanent--as evidenced by the knowing look he exchanged with Briery before he left. It was a look that spoke the words, ‘I’ll be back’. And as they put distance between themselves and the caravan, Alster noticed how Hadwin changed, in Teselin’s company. How his tone shifted from rankling and jocular, to brotherly and protective. Through their interactions, Alster suspected his entire reason for relocating to Braigdath was not purely for his own gain, but for Teselin’s sake. To keep her safe...and to be safe. He remembered a passing comment about how his sister had almost killed him and was likely to try and finish the job. The walled city of Braighdath, while not completely impenetrable, held a certain allure, an illusion of safety, and it swept over the summoner in a wave of relief. ...An incremental wave, at least. There was no mistaking the tension she held in her shoulders and the smallness of her hunched form.
When they entered his room at the inn, Alster stood aside to illuminate the wall sconces with a fire spell. The space, while small, accommodated a bed fit for two, extra bed-sheets, a clothes chest, a desk and chair, and a table with a wash basin.
“You and Chara can take the bed,” he said to Teselin. “It’s no imposition. I know I won’t sleep, tonight.” He gazed out the darkened window, which, in daylight, offered a partially obscured view of the barracks across the street. He sighed, drew the curtains tight, and turned from the window. “Stay here as long as you need to. I know you desire to go to Galeyn to reunite with your brother, and we will. I have to make a trip there as soon as possible.” To meet with Lilica, he wanted to say, but Chara, as if reading his unspoken sentiment, withdrew from the gathered group, and shed away the concealing cloak that he let her borrow. As she slid off the hood, the shawl slid, too, exposing an ear. Alster stared at it. At first, he thought it was a trick of the light or of his overworked, emotionally-spent mind. But by her wide-eyed expression and the hasty placement of the shawl over her brown hair, he had seen correctly.
“Chara…”
“Don’t start, Alster,” she snapped, and he flinched. “I told you, I’m not a Rigas anymore. No magic, no blonde hair, no ears. Nothing.”
She threw herself on the bed and closed her eyes before he could find the voice to speak. But what could he say, or do? No one wanted his help. Even Chara…
A brusque cough filled the room. Alster looked over his shoulder in time to see Hadwin stripping off his tunic. “Well, I sleep as a wolf, so I’ll just crash by this door. I’ll stop on by to see your lady love in the morning with some bed things to set up Lady Chara’s nest. And, of course, to make sure she hasn’t smashed her head against the wall or anything.”
Alster’s expression was profound, twisted with enough pain to make even Hadwin feel a twinge guilty for his phrasing. “I would know,” he whispered, in little more than a choke. “The moment she causes grave injury to herself, I would know, and I’d be there in seconds. No matter where I am.”
Hadwin couldn’t help but ask, “And if it’s too late?”
The Rigas caster didn’t hesitate. “The necromancer owes me a favor. And I’ll get her there in time.”
And so either of those outcomes would have come to pass--if Hadwin didn’t step inside Elespeth’s room when he did the next morning, carrying, as promised, a bedroll and sheets for Chara’s upcoming move-in. He saw the emaciated woman before a bloodied mirror, talking to herself whilst placing a jagged shard to her throat. At his slamming of the door, she startled out of her trance and whirled around to face him. With an intrigued half smile, Hadwin set aside the bedding and inclined his head at her implement of destruction.
“Oh, no, Elespeth, by all means, don’t let me interrupt your suicide. Hells, maybe you’d prefer the company? I could report to your beloved on how exactly it went down before he pops in here with his uber-magic and revives you by way of necromancer. But,” he shrugged, “he also made it pretty damn clear that he’d get to you and heal you before you croak, so really, have at it. Hack away and see where it gets you. Pretty piss poor reason, though, if you ask me.” He crossed his arms over his chest, eyes narrowing with a secret he knew, by way of her fears. “Come on, it’s not even premeditated. This isn’t like it’s something that’s been whispered into your ears every day for seven years straight, slowly building, and building, until that’s the only end you can see for yourself. There’s no strong, unyielding desire in you, Elespeth. It’s an impulse. You’re looking for a quick and dirty end to the pain, because you think you can’t live with the shame and guilt. But you’ve been awake for what, like a day now? Did you even give yourself a chance?”
Having edged close to Elespeth during a speech he wasn’t even sure she was listening to, he plucked the shard out of her hand and squeezed himself in the space in front of the mirror. “Want to know Alster’s greatest fear, right now? Even if you don’t, I’ll tell you anyway. He fears your death, above all else. Doesn’t matter who you think you are right now. Your death will kill him. So no, you’re not setting yourself free, and you’re definitely not setting him free, unless you want to make this a double suicide. Since you’re all about honor, tell me; is that honorable? To drag him down with you?”
Rummaging into his pocket, he fished out a familiar object; a gold wedding band, beset with diamonds and filigree. “Here. You dropped this.” He reached for her wrist, wrenched open her hand, and placed the piece of jewelry on her palm. “Do whatever you’d like with it, but if you mean to give it back to its original owner, you should do it in person before you die. Or try to die. Whatever. Oh,” he punctuated with the snap of his fingers, “and you’re getting a roommate. I’d say the timing couldn’t be better, Miss I’m-no-good-for-this-world. Here she comes, now.”
He pointed to the door, and sure enough, it clicked open. Chara entered the utilitarian space, eyes flicking over to the messy scene between Hadwin and Elespeth in the corner. “What in the nine hells is going on?”
“Ah, nothing.” Hadwin picked his teeth with the edge of the glass shard. “Suicide attempt. You know, typical fare for someone going down the addictive drugs route. I’m sure the two of you have a lot you can discuss. Trauma partners, if you will. Chara, here,” he nodded to the brunette with a shawl, “was captured by Mollengard, stripped of her magic, tortured, and slated to die. She’s out, now, but one night she sawed the tops off her ears when no one was looking.”
“Hadwin!” she cursed, throwing self-conscious hands to her shawl-covered ears in horror.
“So you bet we’re keeping you together and under close watch. When you’re alone and idle for too long, it does things to your thoughts. Unsavory things. Fucked up things.” After cleaning up all the glass and taking the mirror, as well as any other sharp objects, out of the room, he waved his farewell to the two women. “Have fun, you two! And Elespeth,” he winked, “I’ll be sure to tell Alster you almost slit your throat. You know, just to paint that image for him of you gurgling in a puddle of your own blood so he can cry and wonder what he did wrong and moan over the fact that you’d rather die than be with him. I’m fresh out of mercy--not like you want it anyway--so take an extra heap of guilt with your guilt, and fear with your fear. Or you can choose not to register anything I said and stare at the wall, instead. Your call. Ta-ta!” With another slam of the door, he left the two women stewing in the aftermath of his loud, violent cloudburst.
“Haraldur… has it occurred to you that you may never have the unerring trust of these soldiers? That they are really only following you because Solveig is allowing it?” It was not something the man wanted to hear--that much, she knew, and it had been a suspicion that she’d kept to herself only because she knew Haraldur suspected it as well. And if his blind hope that it may be otherwise was keeping him from doing what was best for himself… then it needed to be addressed. “You’ve been too much time around them. I know it is because you empathize, because you have been there, and you want to save them from themselves, but… what if you do not save yourself, first? Then, who will be there for them?”
She hated that look in her cousin’s eyes. A look that suggested he wanted so badly to be a part of something that he thought he did not deserve. It had been this way, from the moment they’d first lost Solveig. This guilt, mingling with the fear that he had never really shaken free of being Forbanne… This venture was never supposed to render him so helpless. It was supposed to empower him to see that he could make a change--that he could be that change.
And there wasn’t an hour that went by that Sigrid did not regret refraining from slitting Solveig’s throat when she’d had the chance.
“I may not have Hadwin’s fearsight, but I know what you are dreading. You’re afraid that you’ll regress, and become a danger to those you love and care about. Because it already happened, once, when you were forced to turn on me. But your greatest fear is less likely to come to pass than you think. Don’t you remember what drew you out of Solveig’s hold the first time?” Pressing a sigh from her lungs, Sigrid shook her head and stepped forward, picking up the ring that Haraldur had dropped against his chest. “She is not the woman with a hold on you, Haraldur; compared to Vega, her power over you dims, to the point of being extinguished. That power is love, and if there were any way your love for Vega wasn’t infallible, then I wouldn’t be standing here right now. You’d have killed me under Solveig’s influence back in Stella D’Mare, because I’d never have it in me to kill you.” Her lips managed to form something of a smile, however difficult it might have been. “You had plans to take the Forbanne back to Eyraille to be rehabilitated, and I am holding you to that promise--because your wife is holding me to the promise that you will return safely to start a family together. So you and the Forbanne… for now, you are not going anywhere. Promise me that.”
Sigrid let the ring fall against his chest once again and stepped out of his personal space, feeling she had already overstepped her bounds. “I picked this up after packing up one of our camps so that it wouldn’t get left behind; I’m sorry, I forgot to give it to you before.” Reaching into a pocket in her trousers, the Dawn warrior produced the companion resonance stone to the one Vega held in Eyraille, and placed it in Haraldur’s palm. “Promise me you will talk to her, and tomorrow, I will have my mentor speak with you about provisions. I think you’ll find that he--and my brothers and sisters in arms--will be more receptive to you and your soldiers than you think.”
All she could see was the accusing face in the mirror. Those familiar green eyes that she felt no longer belonged to her, the shining armor that she’d once worn, that proud and honourable glow that had once belonged to her. Do it, the image of her former self urged, her green eyes cold and entirely void of mercy. Why are you prolonging your existence? You are already dead… I am already dead.
But I don’t want it to be too late for me… the new Elespeth--the wrecked and disgraceful Elespeth--thought, knowing full well that it didn’t matter, that the only remaining path to honour and salvation was to spill her own blood. To bleed for the last time, and to live on as a memory of the person she once had been… not the person she was now. But just as the former knight felt the sharp edge of the jagged shard pierce her skin, she was startled out of her concentration by the sound of a door slamming nearby. Startled, she averted her attention from the broken mirror, at which point the Elespeth staring back at her vanished entirely, and she found herself gazing upon a familiar figure. In her emotion-wrought state of distress, it took a moment the Atvanian warrior to peg a name to a face, to search her exhausted and drug-addled mind for the relevance of this man standing before her.
“...Hadwin…?” The name felt foreign on her lips. One she hadn’t spoken in a long time; one she hadn’t thought of for just as long. “What…” What was he doing here? Where was here--Braighdath, or elsewhere? She had so many questions, so many that didn’t matter at this point in time. And they mattered even less when the faoladh brought up the matter of her fiancee, and how this decision--if you could even call it that, for what did she have left but to tread this final path?--would affect Alster. And just what the Rigas caster would do about it, if he found her dead. He’s right, she thought with dismay and sadness that felt distant, compared to the turmoil that currently had her heart racing too fast. Alster doesn’t understand… he doesn’t know that I am not the woman he proposed to. Not the woman he fell in love with. That woman… she is dead. Already dead…
As the shapeshifter’s revelation slowly sank into the vestiges of whatever reason her mind could handle, she didn’t have time to react as he confiscated the shard from her hand. She wasn’t sure she would’ve had the agility or the balance to react, even if she’d had the forethought to realize he would take it at the first opportunity he got. “You don’t understand…” She whispered, tears clouding her vision as she tried in vain to explain where this decision had come from, and why it was necessary. “I don’t… I don’t want to die. But I have to. Those years… the Rigases, they’ve extended my life tenfold, because they thought I had earned it. And that I would continue to uphold my honour and carry the name with the pride it deserves…” Just saying it aloud made it all the more real. Made her chest ache anew, pining for the past that she would never get back. For that time when she had been a life worth something, with so much to offer to the world. To the Rigases… to Alster. “I’ve failed them. And myself. And Alster… I don’t deserve those years. I have to give them back. I’ve no honour left, and I… I am not that person. I am not Elespeth Rigas, anymore; I am not even Elespeth Tameris. I don’t… I don’t know who I am…”
Elespeth felt the weight of something small and cold in her hand, as Hadwin grabbed her wrist to deposit an object in her palm; the one that wasn’t covered in blood leaking from her torn knuckles. The engagement ring glittered through the fog of her tears, but it brought no happiness to her injured heart; one that she had broken all on her own. It was yet another memory of something that was, something that she may have once deserved, but… no longer. Noting its size, and the state of her shrunken hands, she wasn’t even convinced that it would fit the intended finger of the intended hand. In fact, she knew for a fact that it wouldn’t; it must have fallen off, at some point during her blind trek through forests on little sleep and no food. It wasn’t even until now, that Hadwin returned it to her, that she had even realized it was gone. Which was only all the more reason to argue that it was yet one of many things she did not deserve, in her miserable existence.
“It is not…” She nearly choked on her words, as her throat grew too tight. “This… doesn’t belong to me. You don’t understand. This belongs to the Elespeth that earned Alster’s love and devotion. But that Elespeth is dead… I killed her. I killed her the moment I agreed to take that stimulant. She died back in Stella D’Mare, and I… I am all that is left, but I am not that person anymore. I want to be; I wish I could be, but I am not.” Her trembling hand closed around the beautiful ring. One that he had enchanted to keep her alive, to ensure she was always able to evade death. But it hadn’t worked; not really. The Elespeth Rigas that he’d known and loved had died in spirit, anyway, leaving behind an emaciated body and the mind of someone who had made too many mistakes to forgive herself. “I have no honour left, Hadwin. I’ve forsaken it too many times. Once, when I soiled my family’s name. And once again, when I soiled the Rigas name. I don’t have a name anymore, I don’t deserve one… I am already dead! If Alster hasn’t realized that yet, then he will--he will, because he is no fool, and it is only a matter of time…”
But what if he didn’t realize it? What if he was too stubborn to see that his beloved fiancee was already gone to him, and he willingly chose to follow her--or what was left of her--to an early grave? What if he did not know how to move on, regardless of whether or not he realized that Elespeth Rigas was a thing of the past? No… that is not his future. That is not his fate. He needs to survive, he deserves to love again… he deserves someone deserving of his unconditional and undying love.
And as if matters could not get worse…
The former knight frozen, matching the wide-eyed and dumbfounded expression of Chara Rigas when she entered the room. It was Chara: there was no mistaking that perpetual expression that screamed don’t cross me, but she, too, appeared different. Smaller, somehow, and her silken blonde locks were now coloured a faded ash-brown. Hadwin ventured to explain the change in the once proud Rigas Caster, but truth be told, Elespeth only registered about half of it, if even that much. What had happened to her? Alster had said he feared she was no longer of this world, having entirely lost touch with her star. Mollengard… tortured… stripped of magic… Evidently, she was not the only one to emerge from this journey unscathed, but she could hardly fathom how all of that would have resulted in a drastic change of hair colour. Perhaps not the detail she should be focusing on, but that she was able to notice anything at all beyond the pain in her heart was nothing less of miraculous.
Elespeth watched with a sense of paralyzing disorientation, not knowing when to step forward to take a step back, as Hadwin gathered the remains of the mirror with which her fist had connected. It wasn’t until he made it to the door, and made her a horrifying promise, that she took a risk to sprint forward on her weak and emaciated legs to grab him by the arm before he left. “You can’t!” She cried, tears springing anew from her tear-clouded eyes. “Please, you can’t… don’t hurt him. You want to hurt me--I understand that. I won’t stop you, because I deserve it. But don’t hurt Alster like that. He’s done nothing to deserve it… he doesn’t need this on his mind. And I have already hurt him enough. Hadwin, please. I am begging you not to tell him…”
Of course, her grip was far too feeble and unstable to keep him around long enough to change his mind, and he walked away without saying another word. The faoladh left with such abruptness that the slamming of the door almost upset Elespeth’s delicate and tenuous balance on her shaky legs, which could no longer seem to find the strength to hold her up. The former knight collapsed then and there in a fit of sobs, because it didn’t matter. Chara had already walked in on her at her worst; there was nothing left to hide. The glimmering engagement ring fell from her weak grip and rolled across the room, only stopping when it hit the toe of Chara’s boot.
Resting her forehead on her knees, the former knight’s entire frame shook violently with her sobs. She was stuck, and this purgatory was worse than any hell. Elespeth Rigas was already dead, but what remained… what remained still couldn’t die, for what it might do to Alster. And she didn’t want him to hurt; she didn’t want to be the reason that he hurt. It is too late for that, the voice of former Elespeth hissed in her ear, gone from the mirror but ever present. It is too late for everything. You’ve come undone, and everything attached to you will also come undone. You’ve no one but yourself to blame.
“Chara…” During a moment of semi-lucidity, she croaked out the Rigas woman’s name. There was no hope that a confession would alleviate her wrong-doings, or put her on the right path, or make her feel better at all, but Chara deserved to know. After all, she had been the one to conduct the ceremony that had blessed her with an extended lifespan, because at one point, she had been honourable. And a future with Alster… simply deserving Alster had been possible. “I’ve let you down. I’ve let your name down, and everything affiliated with it. You extended my life, and I don’t… I don’t deserve it. To be a part of your family. To have a future with Alster…”
It hurt to speak her truth, but frankly, everything hurt at that moment. If the turmoil in her unhinged mind weren’t enough, she wasn’t even certain as to whether she was too hot or too cold. Goosebumps had risen on her exposed skin, and she hadn’t ceased in her violent trembling since she’d regained consciousness, but the room itself felt stifling all of a sudden. Like someone had lit a fire in every corner, and the flames were building. “He could have helped me. He offered to… he tried to. But I was too stubborn to relinquish control. And I chose a dark path, instead. One that… that ruined me. That killed the Elespeth that once may have deserved to be a Rigas. I’m not asking for your forgiveness, because I know I don’t deserve it.” She pulled her knees to her chest, as a meager attempt to steady her trembling arms. “But you deserve to know. And if there is a way to give back all of those years that I no longer deserve, then I will do it. I’ll do whatever it takes. I cannot hope to regain my honour; I relinquished it the moment I chose the wrong path. You and yours… should not have to pay for my mistakes. Maybe…”
Elespeth’s verdant eyes stared at the wall without really seeing anything at all. Too far gone in her own living nightmare; and with no way to awaken from it. “Maybe… he will listen to you. Maybe he will understand, when you tell him his Elespeth… the Elespeth he loved, and that deserved his love… she is gone. I am all that remains, and it is not enough. It will never be enough… not after what I’ve done.”
Hadwin was not far from Elespeth and Chara’s quarters, broken mirror tucked under his arm, when his path was cut short by none other than a familiar blonde-haired warrior. Sigrid did not bother with a greeting, and judging by the stern cut of her determined face, she was not in the mood for greetings. Without a word of explanation, she grabbed the faoladh by the collar of his shirt and slammed him against the wall, heedless of the crash of the mirror as it fell to the ground, splintering into even smaller pieces than before. A handful of Dawn warriors nearby stopped in their tracks at the sound, but upon laying eyes on Sigrid and a particularly unlucky man, by the looks of it, they decided that it was not their business, and frankly, did not want to know what incited the situation.
“You really have a way with words, to someone who is walking a very fragile mental tightrope as it is.” She accused, and by the way she worked her jaw from side to side, she was holding back. This was as close to mercy as Hadwin would get from Sigrid Sorenson. “I cannot deny that you saved her. You were the one who led me to her, and I am not certain I’d have stumbled upon her in time, otherwise. But that--what the hell was that?” She motioned in the direction of the former knight’s quarters with her free arm, not once looking away from Hadwin. “I heard it. All of it. I was just coming by to see if she would eat something, but it seems she was already preoccupied with someone who is taking a bad situation and making it worse.”
The Dawn warrior’s grip on his collar tightened, and the arm holding the faoladh at bay did not look as though it would fatigue anytime soon. “I don’t care what vendetta exists between you and Elespeth. But you will not bring Alster into it--do you understand me?” Her wild sapphire eyes burned with meaning; with a deadly promise that should he not reconsider what he’d told the distraught former knight. “Whatever just happened in there, you are not to tell Alster, because he is not in any state to know. He nearly lost his own mind last night, when Elespeth pushed him away in a hysterical fit. And just how in all hell do you think telling him she tried to take her life will make anything better?”
With a final glare, she released the shape-shifter so abruptly that he fell to the ground. “I don't have the time, resources, or energy to micromanage you and your decisions, so I will only tell you this. If I catch wind that you had breathed a word of this to Alster, then not only will I remove myself as your own personal protector, but you are going to want to run from me. Are we clear, shapeshifter?”
Glancing to the side, where the mirror lay in tiny pieces, the Dawn warrior simply stepped over the mess with her sturdy boots and frowned. “This is your only warning, Hadwin. Braighdath and the D’Marians are too damned fragile right now to tolerate your need for chaos.” She then left without another word, knowing well there was nothing more she could say that would improve an already awful situation. The D’Marians might have arrived safely and in one piece, for the most part… but that did not mean Braighdath had the means to keep them from falling apart in the aftermath--starting with Alster Rigas.
“I’m already a danger, Sigrid. A danger and in danger--along with anyone who stands in our way.” He sidled closer to the Dawn warrior so that his whispered words would not carry, in case the soldiers crossing outside his tent heard. “I’m Solveig’s underling, now. If I abandon my post, what’s to stop the Forbanne here from hunting me down and capturing me--or worse yet, killing me? They’re loyal to Solveig, foremost. Many of them don’t have a choice, but her compulsion is strong and she has longevity of command on her side. In comparison, I have nothing. Just a flimsy promise. Enough people believed in it, to follow me. ...but it’s not enough.” He rubbed a thumb along the jagged scar of his killing hand, forever a reminder of the severance between himself and the Forbanne. But it had failed. He had failed. For true severance, he’d have finished the job. An operation that would have guaranteed his death, if the universe didn’t intervene, and send him a healer in time.
”Maybe I could break free from Solveig and her directives. I’ve done it before, you’re right. I did it over ten years ago when I initially broke from the Forbanne, and I did it again, under your assistance, and with this ring.” His eye caught the glimmer of gold, branching forks of light emerging from the metalwork tree at its center. “But if they don’t or can’t break free, it doesn’t matter. Anywhere I go with them runs a tremendous risk. As long as their loyalty over Solveig is near absolute, I stand little chance of changing their mind. But in the meantime, I have to do something. That something requires me to be far from anywhere that will cause too much collateral damage. Relocating them inside Eyraille...that is my eventual goal for them. With everything in question now, though…”
He released a long, low sigh, and stepped away from Sigrid, retreating further into the darkness of his tent. “I’m playing this out so I can survive. So I can return to Eyraille, alive and in time for the birth of my children. I was reckless before, in following Stella D’Mare’s plan. In observance of my mistake, I’m erring on the side of caution. The Forbanne, they...we…”
But he didn’t finish the thought before Sigrid pulled a stone out of her pocket and handed it to him. It was a familiar cracked-green, and one that he beheld once before, the last time he spoke to Vega. “So you stole this from Alster, in other words.” The calcite-smooth surface felt like slippery soap in his fingers. “I can’t talk to her. Nothing I say will help. She’ll just try to come down here, and I can’t have that. So I won’t.” However much he protested, he still pocketed the stone, in case of an emergency, or in case Sigrid, in repossession of the stone, contacted Vega in secret, against his wishes. “The only promise I can make to you, Sigrid, is that I’ll get through this alive. And I will see my family...once it’s safe.”
Before the Dawn warrior excused herself to leave, he stopped her with a gentle arm on her shoulder. “If you fear Vega’s wrath for failing to look after me properly, don’t worry; I’ll take the brunt of the blame.” Somehow, he managed the lightest of smiles. “We’ve already had the conversation. She’s too impulsive and I’m too stubborn. This is just me holding up our end of the relationship. Nothing you can do. Oh,” he added, still gripping her arm, “when you arrange for your mentor’s arrival here…” a fleeting ray of an idea streaked, like a shooting star, spurred into inception by her words, “if you want to bring along any of your comrades, as a delegation into this camp... you know, so they can deem us safe to linger outside your city gates...I wouldn’t mind. It might be good for the Forbanne, to witness the lives of other soldiers. Maybe they’ll even carry on a conversation. Reintegration is important, and they won’t get that with me and only me. Not entirely. But while we have time to kill here...it’s a start.” I need it, too, he thought. So I don’t lose myself, either. I can’t help the Forbanne if I don’t embody the reason they chose to follow me…
As Hadwin leaned against the door, he harrumphed, brows digging into the bridge of his nose. The more he absorbed the air around Elespeth and the endless parade of fear in her eyes, the more his feet riled him into a quick escape. I don’t deserve to live, after what I’ve done to you. Those were his mam’s last words. Last living words. In death, she changed her tune, spouting out tirades of hate, condemning him for her actions. Condemning him for everything that went wrong. Why did you have to look so much like your father? Why did you lead me on? Why did you reciprocate? You wouldn’t have, if you didn’t want it, too. You liked it but you were too cowardly to say so. You took no responsibility and for that, it’s your fault I died. Die, Hadwin, and maybe I can learn to forgive you.
She spoke the truth. In some ways, it was his fault. Too shaken over the physical exchange between them, he withdrew from her company, leaving her alone to stew and despair and plan her way to freedom. As faoladh, her Sight honed in on sadness. It explained her desperation to escape, to seek happiness and joy, however transient or misleading. In that moment, he was her happiness, and he gave her what she wanted, fully knowing the seed of self-destruction he planted, by engaging in her impulsive fetishes. For, once her happiness crashed, nothing else existed in her but barren emptiness and regrets too numerous to name.
He was her regret, but he didn’t care. She sought his forgiveness, cried to him for help, but he ignored her pleas. Now that she was dead, his punishment was simple. He could never ignore her again.
“That is the most bullshit concept imaginable, and you know it. Pah. Deserving. If we break it down, and take an average of all the people alive in this world, most of us aren’t deserving of shit. Like yours truly. You think my cheating ass has earned anything honestly a day in his life? Fuck no! Should we all just lay down and die, then?” He lightly punted the edge of the door-frame with his fist. “You know your life has weight. If it didn’t, you wouldn’t be so damn terrified of hurting your beau. But to hurt him is to hurt you, Elespeth. That’s how it works. So yeah, let’s see how long it takes for me to get him to break apart. Not long, I imagine. He’s teetering on the edge as we speak. It may only take one push. Don’t like it?” He shrugged. “Feel free to stop me.”
But someone did stop him, once he shut the door and ambled down the hallway, broken mirror in tow. Too slow to parry in time, Hadwin found himself launched against the wall with such force, his head cracked and the wind left his lungs. In a crash, mirror shards rained around their feet and crunched like bones as Sigrid ground upon the pieces with her boots. “Oh spare me,” he spat, returning the Dawn warrior’s glare and revealing no signs of struggle or discomfort in her ever-tightening grip. “It’s a fucking strategy. Besides, I didn’t see you rushing into the room to silence me, my oh-so-concerned guard-dog.” He gurgled a laugh. “Yeah, I get it; you don’t want to let her down again because of what happened before, so you’re over-protective. But sometimes, extreme action is required, and the lot of you are too spineless to do it. At this stage, I’m not trying to make her better, because she’s not going to get better. I’m just trying to keep her alive, and motivated. Give her a reason to fight, even if it’s me. The rest is up to you. Up to him, actually.” When she wrung the fabric of his tunic, and yanked him hard, he gave an exaggerated cough, throwing air and spittle in her face.
“His fiancee tried to kill herself and you don’t want to tell him?” He grimaced, the effects of his throttling manifesting on his features, and in the strain of his voice. Though at first glance, it was hard to tell if it was from her man-handling, or from his own rising anger. “He has every fucking right to know, so he can take precautions and do something about it. Because he’s the one who can get through to her. Yeah, the news will make him a little loopy at first, but he’s not going to leave her to suffer alone.” If I knew beyond a doubt of what she was planning...I could have stopped her, he thought. Fiona would be alive...and out of my damn head.
She released him, then, and he landed on the glass-shard floor with a thump. He returned with a spring to his feet, absently brushing and plucking the bits of glass from his tunic and trousers. “Sure thing, Siggy. Run me out of town, like that’s going to fucking solve anything. He’ll find out anyway. He already suspects it. He’ll see that the mirror is gone, that her hand’s busted, and he’ll think the worst!” But she’d already turned the corner and made a brusque departure, leaving him alone to clean up the mess that she created. “Damn,” he hissed aloud, rubbing the tender spot at the back of his head. “Thought that behemoth was going to break my neck. She’d be a contender for the Forbanne.”
After sweeping all the glass into a corner and depositing it in a bush outside, he made a beeline for the inn--not to fess up to the Rigas head, not yet, but to drink everything the bar could offer him, and then some. What did it matter if he lost Sigrid’s protection? It didn’t amount to much; nothing, outside of Braighdath. He’d be dead soon, anyway. But for the time being...he still had Alster’s protection.
Back in the room at the barracks, Chara, who watched the proceedings with a twisted brow, winced at the slamming of the door and Hadwin’s swift egress. And when Elespeth collapsed into tears, she stood by, awkwardly shuffling her feet. At a lack of any additional means of comfort, she crouched beside the woman and laid a cold hand on the back of her neck. But as she opened her mouth and spoke her confessions, Chara’s body stiffened, and she drew away her touch, less out of repulsion and more out of fear. Every word she spoke was like fusing the broken pieces of mirror and holding up a slightly distorted reflection for her to see. She, too, questioned her place in the world, among the Rigas family, among her loved ones--whom she neglected. Barring Alster, she refused to visit her poor father, who likely worried over her well-being every day, or deign to contact Lilica, if only to tell her that she lived, and had arrived safely in Braighdath. Did she, too, find herself undeserving of their affections? Or did she believe any regard for her existence was a waste, now that she had lost her city, her status and her magic, the prime three aspects of her character, the only three, that ever mattered? Without them...she was nothing. A nobody. In her current state, no one would accept her...because that Chara had died under Mollengard’s hands. Even if someone did, like Alster, or Teselin, she didn’t accept it. Who she was becoming. Who she had become.
Perhaps that was why she sought out Elespeth’s company. Suspecting a compatibility in her newfound ideologies, Chara knew she wouldn’t need to hide behind a curtain and feign stability just so she could deflect the infuriating and ignorant advances of an upstart circus ringleader. With Elespeth, she didn’t have to worry about stares of concern or annoying kindnesses. Aside from her own private space, sharing a room with this broken-down woman was the next best thing.
But she didn’t realize how deeply it would cut her, to hear the warrior’s self-condemnation in the same spoken dialect.
“When they took my magic, Elespeth, they took my years. I know this, because every day, I feel myself dying. I shrivel, and recede, and dry out like a husk in the sun.” She leaned back on her heels and took a seated position beside Elespeth. “Through ceremony, I may regain those lost years, and my magic, but the Blood Seal is in Stella D’Mare, and returning there isn’t feasible. So no--you can’t give back your years any more than I can regain mine. But given the option,” she paused a beat, “I would not accept the ceremony. I abandoned my city. I did not fight; I ran. For my insolence, I paid a hefty price. I was supposed to die, and it would be better if I had. I did not, so instead, I shall treat this shortened life as an interlude before death. I renounce my Rigas name and all of its benefits. So,” she withdrew a clean cloth from the inside of her tunic and pressed it on Elespeth’s ravaged knuckles. “you are appealing to the wrong person for revocation; that is Alster’s duty, now, and he will refuse. Besides, you cannot quit a family once you have pledged yourself to it. Do not disrespect one of my final decrees as Rigas Head. I have chosen you as an Honorary Rigas and that is final.”
She stood from the ground, dipped the cloth into the water basin and returned to clean the blood from the warrior’s wound. “I will tell him no such thing, Elespeth, because we both know that whatever you or I say to convince him otherwise is meaningless. The man is infinitely accepting, and loving to a fault. You will always be enough, to him, and he will never give up on you. And if you ever try to give up on him again, like that stunt you almost pulled...you really would kill him. Because you have his heart, and it would die with you. So,” her hand tightened over her wrist and her expression grew hostile, “if you do that, Elespeth, if you kill yourself and you destroy him, then I will be the one to force that necromancer to revive your corpse, again and again, so I can continuously rip out your heart. And only when there’s not a shred left of your soul, would I release you into complete and utter nothingness, and not even your ancestors will recognize you. Do you understand me?”
“I don’t want to tell him now. Not when he and she are both so damned fragile.” Sigrid hissed her clarification. “Of course he will find out eventually, and yes, I agree--he deserves to know. But I do not think he should be hearing it from you. Even if he bounced back, he does not need your brutal and merciless honesty in finding out his fiancee tried to take her life. He should either find out from someone who can take his mental state and the condition of his damn heart into consideration, or from Elespeth, either by way of taking note of what she almost did, or for her telling him herself. This is not a situation that should concern you, Hadwin. You’ve done your part--you helped me find Elespeth before it was too late. But you’re finished with the matter, now. I am asking you,” the ferocity etched into her features softened in a sort of tired defeat, all of a sudden. Perhaps from the realization that she had no real hold over the faoladh, and that he would do as he pleased, regardless of her threats. “Leave it to someone who can really help--and who had both Alster and Elespeth’s best interests at heart.”
It was futile to negotiate with someone as strong-headed as Hadwin, even if she could match him for stubbornness. But Sigrid had already felt that she’d entirely lost control of the way events had unfolded; from the moment before they’d left Stella D’Mare. Haraldur’s loss of agency under Solveig’s control; Elespeth’s grave injuries. Losing Elespeth’s trust, which led to endangering her safety. Solveig’s escape. And now Haraldur was beginning to lose faith in himself and his ability to safely return to Eyraille with the Forbanne, Alster was only a hair away from completely falling apart, and Elespeth had fallen apart. And none of that was even considering what the summoner and Chara Rigas had endured at Mollengard’s hands; neither of them had spoken about it openly to her, but she could only imagine that they had come to Braighdath just as wrecked as everyone else.
And then, as if to add insult to injury, there was still the issue of Gaolithe. Why it had chosen her to wield it; why it had chosen now, and what ultimately was its purpose? If the details of its legend proved true, she would know when it was through with her. She’d feel the severance of that connection, the divide between weapon and wielder, but as it stood, the Dawn warrior still felt drawn to it. Like a phantom pull, no matter how far she traveled, how much distance she put between herself and the blade… it always pulled her back. Even now, tucked carefully away in its temple, she could feel it call to her, yearning for that place across her back, its hilt in her hand… and no matter how much she wished it were otherwise, she wanted to oblige it.
But now was not the time, for a far more tenuous battle was currently being fought. She, as part of the Dawn Guard--and wielder of timeless Gaolithe, no less--was in part responsible for keeping everyone and everything together, at least enough that they could work through the damage and begin to rebuild. But she was no longer confident that she could be that adhesive; hells, the entire Dawn Guard was helpless in the face of the grief that ravaged these people. The last thing she needed was for Hadwin to pour oil on what was already a wildfire. “I know you don’t really want to do harm, Hadwin. I believe that.” She told him without turning around, just before she had wandered out of his earshot. “You’re too invested, and you wouldn’t have done what you did if you only wanted to witness this world burn. Please… please, don’t make it worse.”
Sigrid brushed past her brethren in the Dawn Guard as she exited the barracks, moving into the frenetic streets of a once calm city. It wasn’t just the Dawn Guard; everyone in Braighdath was sympathetic to the plight that the D’Marians faced, and knowing that their stay would only be temporary before moving into Galeyn, did not hesitate to offer all that they had, including but not limited to food, shelter, and clothes. Families had taken in those too sick or frail from the long journey to fend for themselves; some had even given up their homes altogether, opting to pitch tents and sleep beneath the stars, since it was so clear that the number of people in need far exceeded those who could go about a day on their own. Of course, Sigrid had expected no less of the city and the people who had taken her in without ever being obligated to do so. And yet, despite all of the sacrifice, the tireless hours of organizing and mediating and tending and planning, it was not enough. None of this was enough to put out the flames of these raging fires of doom and gloom…
With her azure gaze fixed on the toes of her boots, putting one leg in front of the other with no real destination, she did not hear her name carried on a familiar voice, and only turned when she felt a hand on her shoulder. It was a moment before she could even register Naimah’s beautiful face, which, though tired, was no less lovely as she remembered. The Kariji woman had made it, just as she said she’d would, but… despite that she’d reimagined their encounter over and over again in her mind, Sigrid found herself at a loss of words for the woman who still held her affections.
“Naimah.” She breathed her name, and there was apology in her tired eyes before it even reached her lips. “Forgive me--I know you’ve been here for some time, now. Roen was kind enough to inform me, and I wanted to see you. From that very moment, I wanted to see for myself that you were alright, but everything…”
Her gaze drifted to the chaos of her city. To everything that had demanded her undivided focus before the person toward whom she only wanted to direct all of her attention. Suddenly, everything felt so heavy… “I’m sorry.” She wasn’t even sure what it was she was apologizing for; her absence? The chaotic state of a city that she had promised would welcome the Kariji woman? The fact that she was miserably failing at keeping even one of her trusted comrades from falling apart and losing themselves?
“...I’m sorry.” She said again, but this time, her voice sounded broken. “It’s… been bad, Naimah. Everything, everyone… is completely falling apart. The Rigases, Alster’s fiancee, my cousin… no one is okay.” Something wet trickled down her cheek; a tear? Since when did she cry? Her frustration manifested as anger, never such a profound and despondent defeat… “And I am helpless to all of it.”
“But, Chara…” Contrary to what Hadwin had thought, Elespeth was far from catatonic or in too much shock to properly pay attention. She heard all of the faoladh’s hurtful words, and listened just as carefully to Chara’s. Chara, toward whom she’d used to harbor hard feelings, who now suddenly seemed so… so familiar. As if for the very first time, and under he absolute worst circumstances, the two of them were finally on the same page. “Can’t you see that it… none of what happened to you was your fault. You did not abandon your people; you stayed with Teselin, because you wanted to see her be successful. To help your people. But your capture, and what they… what Mollengard…” Somehow, the word ‘torture’ could not roll off her tongue, and it was probably for the best. She could only make a wild guess as to what the conquering nation had made her suffer, and there was no gain in having Chara explain it and relive it. “It was not your fault. You were at their mercy; you did not do those things to yourself, and when you reclaim Stella D’Mare, you should revisit the ceremony. Regain your magic, the years you deserve… if I make it that far, I’d give you mine. All of them, because I… what I did… there is no excuse. I have no one but myself to blame, and I do not deserve kindness or mercy. Alster said… I was found, unconscious, in a forest.” She closed her eyes, stray tears dampening her worrying pale face. “They should have left me there. I made a terrible mistake, and as a result, I… lost myself. I killed the Elespeth that Alster loves, and everything she stood for. Everything that made him love her. I am not that person anymore, Chara, and Alster deserves that person. And if not her… then someone better.”
The pain in her torn knuckles was distant, compared to everything else that hurt. Her head, her heart, her lungs, every joint in her body felt as though it was burning. All of this heat, this fire, and she couldn’t even sweat. Instead, she shivered uncontrollably. “You don’t understand; I’m no longer the person Alster is bound to.” Why was this so hard for everyone to digest? Couldn’t they see her? See what she had become? She didn’t even recognize the gaunt, sallow-faced creature that had stared back at her in that mirror; she wasn’t certain that she could ever bear to look at herself in a mirror again. “He fell in love with an honourable woman. Someone who knew right from wrong, with a fair sense of justice. Not… not some creature that willingly allowed an herb to change the rhythms of her body. Not an addict.” The former knight had avoided the word up until now; but that was before. Before, she had been in denial. She had been so certain that she was doing the right thing, that she did not need Alster’s help, or Haraldur’s, or Sigrid’s, or anyone else’s. Hope had not been on the horizon; for a brief moment, it had been within her reach.
But then… it had disappeared completely. And she hadn’t even realized it was gone before it was too late.
“You know it’s true, Chara. Deep down, you must know why he loved… that woman. Just as you know that were he to see me now, for the first time--were it not for our history, he would not look upon me with love. Wouldn’t even consider it. He is holding on to someone who is already gone, and the longer he does, the more he is going to hurt himself. Can’t you help him see that?” Evidently, that was not Chara’s intent. Elespeth had thought, for a moment, that they had reached an understanding, or common ground. But Chara Rigas--yes, still a Rigas, by the ferocity in her blue eyes--was ever unrelenting in her opinions. Even now. Holding her wrist too hard, making threats… no, this was the Chara Rigas that she remembered. No different, not really, save for a lack of magic, and different coloured hair.
For the first time, however, the former blonde’s wild threats didn’t even begin to resonate. Because she had already come to terms with the fact that this was what she deserved, if not worse. “...why are you here, Chara?” The ex-knight asked all of a sudden. It was not an accusation, but rather, a question borne of curiosity. “Is Lilica not awaiting your return to Galeyn?”
That was when she saw it. That recognizable flicker of hurt deep in the Rigas woman’s eyes, at the mention of her lover’s name. Chara withdrew her hand. “I see.” Elespeth said, before the other woman could explain anything. “So, when you say that you wish to renounce your Rigas name, as well… you are also renouncing Lillica. For the same reason that I cannot be with Alster.” There was no judgement in her voice; not in the slightest, but on the contrary, a deep, painful understanding. So we are not so far from the same page, after all. “Does… she know? Have you made her aware of your choice? It is none of my business; you do not have to answer, but… do you believe that her affections for you are entirely contingent on your name? Or your magic? Do you really think she would not love you, now, as you are?”
It was not a challenge; they were genuine questions. Elespeth was already assured of the answers to her own queries, insofar as Alster’s feelings were merely a result of him holding onto a dead woman. But Chara… she had not changed. Not really. Hypocritical as it may be, she wondered why the Rigas woman could not see that. “I’m sorry. This isn’t something you want to discuss, I know.” She apologized at last, folding her bloody hand in her lap. “But your circumstances and mine… they’re different. I think--I know you have suffered. And I know you have lost something; magic, years of life… but I do not think you have lost yourself. There is still too much about you that commands the title of Chara Rigas.”
With more than a bit of a struggle, the fallen knight pulled herself to her feet--and not without Chara’s help, which she wished she could have refused, but knew better than to try. “...if I cannot die, and I cannot give back the years you have gifted me… then I can promise you this. If, and when, I become some semblance of a… a human again, let alone a warrior… I will pledge the remainder of my time on this plane to the Rigases, and to Stella D’Mare. I am not a knight anymore. I don’t even know that I am a warrior, or that I ever will be again. But I will honour what you did for me. I will serve your people; I will… serve Alster.” Her gaze flickered to the wedding band on the floor, where it sat, growing cold, without a fitting hand to warm it. “But… but that is as far as I can promise. I do not deserve him, Chara; I don’t deserve his love. He’ll see that, eventually, and he’ll understand. He’ll come to understand why I can only be a subject, and no more.”
Clutching her bony elbows, feeling so hot while her body was somehow so physically chilled, she glanced toward the spot on the wall where the mirror had once hung. She was glad Hadwin had taken it away; she wasn’t sure if she’d ever be able to face mirrors again. “I don’t know what my vows are worth, at this point… but if it is worth anything at all, I do pledge myself to the Rigases. I’ll aid them in whatever way they can find me useful. That is my promise, Chara, with you as my witness.” And maybe, just maybe, someday she would become an honourable woman deserving of love once again. But by then--and the idea in and of itself was farfetched--Alster would surely have moved on. She was alone, now, and from this day forth, she would be alone… but at least there was opportunity to put her extended years to good use. To pledge them to the very people who had given them to her.
Dutifully, Naimah had followed instructions from Chara and Alster Rigas and of Sigrid Sorenson of the Dawn Guard. During the evacuation, she queued up among her designated group, descended the dank, narrow-fit tunnels from the height of the mountain to the valley below, and embarked on a lengthy march that even those of high stamina had difficulty keeping pace. She met the misfortune of being placed within the second unit to depart the city, which meant their section commander excelled at punctuality and speed, foremost. Days were endless slogs tread by blistering feet, frequent collapses and swoons from dehydration. Although the weather never grew hot, sticky, or overbearing, and in fact, remained quite pleasant throughout long-stretching diaspora, by the time they reached Braighdath, most of the group fell ill, or at best, contended with bruises, wounds, and infected burns filled with oozing pustules.
For her part, Naimah remained relatively unaffected save for the soles of her feet, which had taken a beating. Her boots fell apart at the halfway mark, and she needed to tie them together with cloth until her slapdash construction crumbled to nothing. At her arrival in Braighdath, she sported makeshift slippers made from the same cloth, torn through with holes so massive, she was essentially walking barefoot. As they were of the early arrivals, the gates opened with magnanimous fanfare and the Dawn Guard invited the refugees inside, supplying temporary barracks, tent-spaces, and others’ homes for lodging.
Along with a new pair of slippers.
While she could have followed suit with her fellow travel companions, she did remember Sigrid’s offer, and more to prevent the blonde woman’s disappointment than out of actual need, she inquired among the Dawn Guard for an audience with Roen, mentioning the woman who referred her. They were surprised to see someone of Naimah’s like associated with their sister-in-arms, not because of her preferences (which apparently was no secret), but because she had cinched the Kariji’s company at all. One man came forward and said as much, categorizing Sigrid as shy and too cautious to take risks, as far as romancing went. In turn, Naimah smiled but did not lead any of the soldiers into thinking she and the blonde-haired woman shared in a relationship with each other. It was too soon to tell, considering they knew each other for mere days, and the last time they locked eyes or hands or mouths was nearly a month ago. For all she knew, Sigrid had brushed aside her memory of Naimah as a dalliance. A nice one, that ran its course, but as all rivers must, it found the ocean and disseminated into salt water. No one ever stayed for long in a whore’s company.
In meeting Sigrid’s mentor, she received a warm welcome to the city, was asked if everything was up to her standards, and answered inquiries over the well-being of his protege. Obediently, she detailed her first meeting with the Dawn Warrior and all subsequent meetings. Of course, she omitted the specifics of her profession, though she suspected Roen already knew. At the conclusion of their little interview, a conclusion that proved to Braighdath’s leader that she was trustworthy, he showed her to her lodgings, an annex behind the barracks that had been converted into rooms for refugees. The room he introduced would be her own, until other D’Marians arrived, looking for space.
Over the next week, she bided her time, watching as other groups crowded the city and outside, which spidered out into a tent town of web-like complexity. Since then, she had acquired a roommate, a woman of Rigas pedigree who said little and whiled her days staring out the window with hollow eyes. To occupy her mind and to stay active, she took part in aiding Braighdath in housing projects, or distributing provisions to the growing crowd outside the city walls. When at last, all groups from Stella D’Mare were accounted for, including a small Forbanne army of hundreds led by none other than the prince of Eyraille, Naimah’s eagerness spread. Sigrid made mention of a Forbanne assemblage that they hoped to acquire, and which she would be joining alongside her cousin. This had to be it. Soon, Sigrid would call upon her and together, they’d reconnect.
But several days passed, and nothing happened.
She knew the blonde warrior had returned to Braighdath. Roen informed her the day of. Still, she heard not a word from the woman herself, and reasoned that it was business which kept her away. The city had erupted into chaos, the Dawn Guard, stretched thin and wrung to exhaustion till evening of each day. It was preposterous to think Sigrid would prioritize her over the needs of the city, and so she carried on with the assumption that, when the time was right, the two would reconnect.
She was right.
“Sigrid.” Naimah had exited the annex building to make useful among the city volunteers, when she turned the corner and spotted the warrior, haggard of face and pallid (a majority-shared appearance) but otherwise alive, and well, and receptive to their chance encounter. Closing the distance between them, she spread her arms, and pulled her into a warm embrace of greeting--followed by a customary kiss on the cheek. Though it was a traditional Kariji greeting, she had an ulterior motive, and a small, sly smile spread on her face when she saw her success in implementing it; a rash of color streaked across Sigrid’s cheeks.
The joy behind the reunion was short-lived, however, when Sigrid expressed the extent of her troubles since, and even before, returning to Braighdath. “What has happened?” She frowned at the tear that streaked down the warrior’s face. Gently, she weaved their arms together. “Walk with me, and I’ll provide an ear. I cannot guarantee I can help, but you have my attention.”
As they meandered through the crowded streets, Sigrid shared in the epidemic of tragedies that had infected all her companions: the sorry state of Alster Rigas’ fiancee, Elespeth, his handling of the situation, Chara’s torture at the hands of Mollengard, and the death of Haraldur’s freedom of choice. She lent a genuine air of sympathy, especially as she had a passing familiarity of the affected people in Sigrid’s life, and wouldn’t wish them any misfortune. They had extended warmth and kindness to her in the past, and to hear of their trials caused her some upset.
“I am sorry,” she said, gripping to Sigrid’s arm as they crossed from the main thoroughfare, to a quieter street. “It’s not easy, to hold strong when your fellow companions are falling apart around you. But Sigrid, it is not your responsibility to save them from tragedy. Yes, you can provide a role of support, but you cannot singularly solve all their problems. Doing so will open yourself to tragedy, as well. It cannot be helped, though. When everyone around you has fallen, you’re helpless but to assist. Unfortunately, there is no easy solution.”
She tilted her head at the taller woman, meeting her eyes. “Let me know if there is anything I can do for you, Sigrid. Even if it is remaining here as a--relatively--sane presence.” Her lips pressed into a smile. “Perhaps I can even contribute more than that. Beyond the obvious.” Her smile turned sly. “But you mentioned a gathering of Dawn warriors, led by Roen, heading to your cousin’s Forbanne camp in an attempt at integration? If you allow me to accompany you, I may be able to sweeten the deal for those repressed Forbanne soldiers. Among those who have not been castrated, of course. I know a few whores who are quite bored and are looking for a little stimulation, and are rather...interested in the Mollengardian model. Bulls, in human form.” At Sigrid’s questing look, Naimah rolled her shoulders into an elegant shrug. “Nothing says integration like carnal lust.”
“It does not matter if what happened to me was my fault!” Chara, already riled up from the aftermath of almost walking in on Elespeth’s blood-soaked body, shook with some of the requisite anger she believed had been washed away by a rogue wave. “They still took from me, and I was powerless to do anything! It is far easier to cast blame on myself; I am able to make decisions going ahead if I admit that my actions led me to ruin. If I blame it on bad luck, or fate, or on the whole of Mollengard, where can I direct my change? Nowhere; it will reside in my body, and fester. Even if my decisions seem inexplicable to others, like forsaking the Rigas name and living the rest of my days in obscurity, removed from the people of my previous life, they are still decisions that I have made. I, myself. Not as a representative of a family, or a city, or at the behest of a loved one or my kin.” She jabbed a pointed finger to her chest. Without proper management, her nails had grown jagged, unruly, and brittle. One almost snapped as it pressed against the fabric of her tunic. “Me. Yes, it is selfish, but I do not care. I will own my failure at Stella D’Mare by washing my hands of the place and people that I love, including all rights to leadership. Own your failure, Elespeth. Admit you did wrong, and do better in the future. Change for you will not happen if you refuse to move forward out of some guilt-ridden belief that you deserve nothing in your life, based on one misstep.” In her hand, she had crumbled the blood-soaked cloth into a matted-up ball, having squeezed it in her anger-fueled discourse. Unwrinkling it until flat, she resumed her half-hearted clean-up of the warrior’s knuckles.
“Look no further than your fiance, if you still wish to call him that. That man made so many missteps. Catastrophic ones, even. He lost himself so many damn times, I cannot even innumerate them. And yet he is still here, today. Alive and doing as well as can be expected.” She shot Elespeth a fierce look. “Because of you. That is why I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he will not view you as less, or as forever dead inside, or not Elespeth. He will not ascribe to your semantics, because he is more invested in what you mean to him, rather than what you mean to yourself. Because you stood by his side when he considered himself less, or useless, or a monstrous creature undeserving of love. In your current state, Elespeth, you will only draw him closer to you. He will see your struggle and relate, because that is what he does. He takes the pain of others into himself, and bleeds from within. And if you do not know that by now,” she shook her head, “then you are truly lost.”
All momentum of conversation halted, however, when Elespeth dared to utter Lilica’s name, and in so doing, regurgitated her own words, but replaced Alster with...with…
She dropped the cloth on the warrior’s hand and slipped her hands beneath her shawl, feeling the tender nubs of her scarred ear-tips. All fire characteristic of Chara’s usual rhetoric had doused, leaving behind dark smears of soot and crumbling charcoal. “In this, your situation and my situation are not the same,” she muttered, her eyes trained to the floorboards. “You are renouncing Alster because you think you are undeserving of him. I am renouncing Lilica because there is no love left in me. My vessel has emptied. There is residual rage, but it, too, will fade. It is easier for her to believe that I died, than to reopen the wound by contacting her. We have not seen each other in months, and spoke only once, via resonance stone. Time has numbed our connection. It would be far crueler to reveal myself and disappear, than to just disappear.”
“But you,” she lowered her hands into her lap, “will never fade in distance under Alster’s watchful eye. He transported you from the woods. Nursed you on the road to Braighdath. He can sense you, wherever you go. The two of you are bonded by blood. It is impossible for one of you to move on without the other. But with me,” a pitiful laugh rumbled past her lips, “my relationships are hardly binding, and they will fade. Like my magic. Like Stella D’Mare. Like my name. All proof of my existence--gone. Only the memories remain. What use is there holding on to a shadow? So,” with a tone of affected indifference, she proclaimed, “I respectfully withdraw from my duties as Chara Rigas on the grounds that I am unfit to rule. That is my most selfish of decisions, but sooner or later, they would all see that, as I am, I am a mere simulacrum. A hollow representation of the real thing.”
Blessedly, she didn’t have to linger on the topic; Elespeth, apparently tiring of her position on the floor, stumbled to her feet, wobbling with so severe an angle that Chara had to rise just to catch her in time before she fell. Together, they hobbled to the bed, where Chara bid her to sit down. “Elespeth,” she clicked her tongue in disapproval, “it is meaningless to pledge your services to me; you must pledge to the Rigas Head, in person. Using me as your proxy to Alster weakens and dilutes your integrity of service. Also,” she wrinkled her nose at the woman’s hand, “marring your body, your sword hand, no less, further cheapens your vow. If you are serious about your service, seek out a healer, first. Then,” she crossed her arms over her chest, “you are to strengthen your body. No skipping meals, and no stimulant. You eat what you are given. The Rigases need soldiers, post-haste. This is not a vacation, Elespeth. Prove your loyalty by following these rules, to start.” The commanding presence of Chara Rigas, the one she so vehemently dismissed as a fading shadow, made its presence known as a looming figure over Elespeth’s bed. “Are we clear, Elespeth Rigas?”
The Dawn warrior wasn’t sure as to what to expect from Naimah, when at last she saw her again. Would the Kariji woman scorn her for not making contact sooner? Would she even care that she’d return in one piece, or have long since moved on from their dalliances in Stella D’Mare? Perhaps she did not give her enough credit, for she had not anticipated quite this level of undeterred understanding. Without judgment, Naimah took her arm and solicited her thoughts, all that had come to pass on the journey that Sigrid had taken apart from her. On one hand, Sigrid did not want to burden her with what weighed on her own shoulders; on the other hand, she hadn’t had anyone to lend an ear since she’d returned to her city. Perhaps getting it off of her chest was the first step in sorting out her own feelings through all this chaos.
So she did. She informed her of the state of Alster’s fiancee; and the state that that left Alster in, particularly given that Elespeth did not currently want to see him. She touched on what had happened to Chara and Teselin, though there were few details she could provide on the summoner and the Rigas head. And finally--what hit her most painfully of all--she divulged how Haraldur had begun to doubt himself, all over again, thanks to the tactics of Captain Solveig. All of this was happening around her, and all she was able to do was watch as it unfolded. She was powerless. “If I cannot be there for those who matter to me, Naimah… then what do I matter at all? If I cannot make a difference? A soldier of the Dawn Guard, and wielder of the enchanted blade, Gaolithe… and there is not a damned thing I can do. And now, Hadwin--the shapeshifter that led me to Elespeth in the first place--has seen fit to go and divulge the news to Alster that his fiancee has tried to take her own life. He will go mad with grief… I almost wonder if I should tell him, myself. At the very least, I have no grudge, and could word it delicately, however it might hurt him…”
Naimah did have a way of lifting the atmosphere, though, and her mood along with it. The Kariji woman made mention of the plans to have some of Dawn Guard meet with Haraldur’s Forbanne, that Sigrid had only barely touched on. The Dawn warrior hadn’t thought much of it, but… wasn’t that making strides? She couldn’t help everyone, but if it was up to her, she would help Haraldur. He was family; and she was determined to get through to him. “I do not know that anything will come of it. The Forbanne almost didn’t let me see Haraldur; they do not know what to do with free will, but if helping to integrate them will give him hope, and get him back to his wife in Eyraille faster… then it is worth a try. But… what do you mean? How might you help, Naimah?”
Years of guarded shyness and caution had made Sigrid relatively oblivious to a good deal of innuendo and double-meanings, so of course, she needed the Kariji woman to explain her train of thought. And, though it came as no surprise, it spread colour across her cheeks once again. “I… really? You’re serious?” She all but had to pick her jaw up off of the ground in an attempt to regain her composure. “I… I don’t know, Naimah. It is nothing against those who share your profession--you know I harbor no judgment by that. But… you are talking about soldiers who, up until just recently, knew nothing but following orders and bringing death. I do not know that Haraldur’s hold over them is substantial enough for them to be deemed safe, by any stretch of the word.” The Dawn warrior nervously scratched the back of her neck and shook her head. “I could not guarantee your safety, or those of your… those who share in your profession. And that in and of itself gives me pause to decline the offer. I’ve already seen too many people torn apart, in a wild number of ways.” Her blue eyes softened, and she rested her calloused hands on Naimah’s shoulders. “I could not stand to see you hurt, Naimah… or to put you in the position where you might be.”
“I don’t know, Sigrid. Your companion might be onto something.” As Sigrid and Naimah spun to acknowledge the voice from behind them, they were greeted by Roen’s easy smile. He nodded his greeting. “My apologies; I was not eavesdropping. I was actually looking for you, Sigrid.”
“Wait… Roen, are you saying…” Sigrid furrowed her brows and looked from Naimah to Roen. “Are you condoning sending… I mean, along with willing members of the Dawn guard, that we…”
“Send whores to appease the Forbanne?” The leader of the Dawn guard had to bite back a laugh at the mortified look on Sigrid’s face; and so did Naimah, by the looks of it. “Sigrid, your own companion does not take offense to the term; let it be, and get your shoulders down from your ears. But… to answer your question, I think there might be something to be said in providing a very human service to people who are on the road to regaining their humanity. Not without precautions, of course, but I have faith that the Dawn Guard can look out for the safety of anyone who might be willing to mingle with Forbanne in such a capacity.”
Sigrid was at a loss for words. She had known Roen a very long time, and not in a hundred lifetimes would she have thought he would deem Naimah’s idea to be feasible, let alone good. “I… I do not know that Haraldur will take kindly to the idea,” she confessed, so red in the face that she could feel her pulse in her cheeks. “If it is not within the realm of his plans to rehabilitate those people…”
“I will speak with him this evening. If he is not comfortable with it, then we will forego the idea. But I would give him more credit than that; after all, sexual desire is just another part of being human. Besides, I have a good deal of respect for your companion, here.” He nodded kindly to Naimah. “She has been profoundly helpful since her arrival, here, and has a good head on her shoulders. Any suggestions she has are worth considering.”
Although the compliment was not for her, hearing those words from Roen, himself, warmed Sigrid’s heart, such that it elicited a smile on her tired face. She had been right; to think that the Dawn Guard would welcome Naimah, here, and treat her with respect, regardless of her profession. In a way, it indicated that Roen held a similar respect, for her, insofar as he approved of the company she kept. “Alright,” she agreed, with a firm nod. “I can go and speak with Haraldur, myself; he is my blood, he may listen to me. But first… have you seen Alster Rigas? I need to speak with him first--”
Roen lifted a hand and interrupted. “Actually, Sigrid, this was the reason I wanted to find you. It’s occurred to me of late that you have taken on a great deal of responsibility, and it is beginning to wear on you.”
“I am only doing what I must. So many of my comrades are unwell, Roen. It is imperative that someone look out for them.”
“In fact, they have many people doing so. All of Braighdath and the Dawn Guard are extending a hand to the D’Marians, and to your friends. Healers, soldiers, and mere civilians alike. What you are embarking on is no job for a single person.” The leader of the Dawn Guard furrowed his greying eyebrows and folded his arms across his chest. “You are burning out. It’s written all over your face; by the looks of it, you’ve even been crying. And I don’t know you as one to shed tears, unless it is in grief.”
Sigrid bristled, and hastily wiped what remained of tear streaks from her cheeks. “I certainly was not crying!”
“You’re also a terrible liar. Which is something I’ve known for quite some time.” Roen shook his head and stroked the stubble of his beard. “The truth is, you will be of no use to anyone if you are not taking care of yourself in the interim--which you clearly are not. So I am asking you to step away, for the time being. And if you cannot oblige… then I will order you to step down.”
A mix of surprise and betrayal drained the embarrassed flush from Sigrid’s cheeks. “You cannot ask that of me. You cannot ask me to abandon my comrades in a time of need--that is not the way of the Dawn Guard!”
“Stand down, Sigrid. I am not asking you to abandon anyone. I am asking you to step away so that you might heal, yourself. And it is, in fact, my duty as leader of the Dawn Guard to ask you to do this--otherwise, you only hurt all of us.” His expression, though brief, turned serious and stern. “You bleed, we all bleed. Do not look on this as punishment, because that is not what it is. Take some time to breathe and to believe that all will be well without you, for a while. In fact, I’d encourage you to spend some time with your dear companion, here. She has been asking after you since you arrived, but you hadn’t the time for her. So--make time, now.” The corner of Roen’s mouth turned upward in a knowing smile. “The comrades that need you are not exclusively those experiencing a time of great need. Go on, then; we will reconvene in a few days and discuss how to go about integrating the Forbanne.”
He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze, but said no more, leaving the two women to themselves as other matters required his attention. It was a moment or two later before Sigrid could even comment on what had happened. “I… did… what the hell just happened?” She asked no one in particular, but since Naimah was the only one nearby, the question came from her. “Did he just… did he forcibly relieve me of my duties? How… how can he do that, in a time of need, such as this?” It dawned on her, only after she spoke the words, that they could be taken the wrong way; that Naimah could be left feeling inferior, compared to everything else that was unfolding at a terrifyingly rapid pace. The startled look in her sapphire eyes softened as she turned to the Kariji woman. “...I am sorry, if I made you feel as though you did not matter. I wanted to see you from the moment I arrived. I… I guess it just surprises me that you wanted to see me, too.” She hazarded a smile and shrugged her shoulders. “I find it easier to prepare for the worst than to expect the best… but I am more than happy that you’ve proven me wrong.”
Elespeth listened, because listening was about the full extent of anything she could do right, for the moment. She heard Chara’s words, took in her reasoning for her own self-proclaimed type of exile, and how it all pertained to Lilica. Truthfully, she was neither close enough to the Rigas woman, nor to Lilica to understand the full extent of the relationship that they shared, but she could not forget the times she’d glanced in the dark mage’s direction, and saw nothing but admiration on her face for the woman she loved. She could not discount the change she had witnessed in her, either, evolving from something dark and sly, to something… more. And she was observant enough to realize that that change had not come about on its own, and that it might not have come about at all, were it not for Chara. The Rigas head (well, former Rigas head, if Alster agreed not to step down from his temporary position) did not appear to be important to Lilica because of her name or her position; no, that admiration and love ran far deeper. Perhaps Chara didn’t even realize it, didn’t take note of the profoundness in Lilica’s dark eyes whenever she cast a glance at her; or, if she knew, perhaps she was in denial about the truth.
Whatever her reasons, however, they were her own, and the former knight was certainly not in any position to encourage Chara to change her mind. Nor was she in a position to argue over just how dissimilar their situations were. So she merely nodded, only venturing to add, after Chara had finished explaining, “Perhaps I am wrong, but… I do not think that Lilica will believe you to have died. And I do not believe that is a lie that you can hide behind for the rest of your life.” With reluctance, she leaned heavily on the former blonde as she helped her back to bed, her own legs hardly able to bear the full extent of her weight. “She will find out, one way or another… and it may hurt her more to find out by her own means than through your words. I… I have already sent Alster away, with mine.” With shame, her green gaze fell to the floor. “When you are ready… you might consider offering Lilica that closure, as well.”
Elespeth’s empty stomach twisted at the thought of having to face Alster again, regardless of her own advice, however. To look him in the eye and tell him that she could not be with him--she did not deserve to take the place of a woman who had died, a woman he so dearly loved--but that she desired to serve him as a subject. As a soldier. Just another tool for Stella D’Mare and its denizens. A hollow existence, but… at least it would not be one that forced her to bask in shame, for the remainder of her exceptionally long life. “I know that my pledge is weak.” She confessed, glancing at the lacerations across her bloodied sword-hand, which didn’t even have the strength to wield a sword, at this point in time. “And I am aware that given… after what I have done, my words may mean nothing. I may mean nothing. But it is a promise, nonetheless, and I have already dedicated myself to this family. Even Alster already knows this. But I swear to be of service to the city and its people. I… the person I used to be, she was raised, a soldier. I still have the vestiges of that training, somewhere, in this body. So I will apply what I know, and create myself anew. I will earn my honour again; even if it takes me my entire lifetime.”
You will never amount to the honour you had, a voice hissed from across the room. Startled, Elespeth’s gaze shot toward one of the windows, where she was sure she saw that reflection, again; the one that had encouraged her to take her life. You could not even make right, what you have done. Worthless… Do you really intend to live your life as a sorry waste of space? To taunt Alster with the image of the woman who he once loved, without even being that woman anymore? That is cruelty. And you will exhibit it willingly…
The former knight flinched suddenly, as if she’d been burned, hastily looking away from the window. She’d only caught the briefest summary of Chara’s words, but the message in and of itself was simple: get better. Regain your strength. Become worthy enough to serve Stella D’Mare and the Rigases, again. She would do it--if she could think straight for long enough to make good on her word… “...the curtains. Close the curtains, Chara.” Though the sudden sharpness of her voice might have alluded to the possibility that she was giving an order, the stricken distortion of her features made it clear that she wasn’t ordering: she was begging. “Please… please close them. Don’t open them again--don’t let anyone open them. I don’t want windows, in here. Or mirrors… I don’t want mirrors.”
Chara flashed her a confused look, but obliged nonetheless, drawing the curtains so that the window panes disappeared behind them; and the reflection of the woman Elespeth had once been, along with them. The former knight’s shoulders drooped in mild relief, but she did not relax. On the contrary, she appeared on edge; where else would she find the merciless voice of her ruthless conscience? Where would she next see the face of the woman who had died, by her own, senseless and selfish decisions? How long would she continue to haunt her?
“...do not make me face Alster.” Her voice was soft, barely a whisper on her breath. Elespeth folded shaking her hands in her lap. “I can’t… I am not ready… facing him will only make it more difficult for the both of us. I do pledge myself, to him and the Rigases, as a soldier. I’ll make the necessary strides to regain my strength, but Alster… he does not yet understand that I’ve changed, or how I’ve changed. I cannot return to being the woman that he fell in love with. She’s gone… he needs to understand that she is gone.”
In an attempt to still her trembling body, the former warrior gingerly reclined in a fetal position upon her bed, trapping her shaking hands between her knees as she expelled a shaky breath. “I don’t know who I am, anymore. But I… want to be someone. Just… give me time.”
Naimah stood aside and unlinked arms with Sigrid to allow space for Roen to join them. She bid him a good morning, curtsying in her greeting. Intrigued by his receptiveness to her idea, especially as it came from the leader of the Dawn Guard, an organization close in resemblance to knighthood and chivalric codes of honor (a mindset where whores did not always slot into nicely), the Kariji woman raised one curious eyebrow in question. “You would condone such an arrangement? Typically, whores,” she shot an amused look at Sigrid, whose face still glowed red, “a certain caliber, if I am precise, follow military encampments during various campaigns, either in more sedentary locales or on the road. They serve no lord, have no affiliations in the outcome of the war—unless they double as spies, of course.” She placed an emphatic hand to her chest. “I am not a spy—but I digress. Seldom does one city-state or nation sponsor a collective of whores as a tactic to ‘retrain’ well-trained soldiers—though it is quite a brilliant tactic, if all goes well. Here I thought I would have to act independently, but Braighdath backs me, Sigrid.” She nudged the blonde woman’s ribs and presented her with a triumphant smile.
“Yes, the plan is contingent on your cousin’s response. I hate to generalize; apologies, Sir,” she bowed her head, “but the prince of Eyraille is a man most interested in women. He will understand the appeal of what I am offering to the Forbanne.” A stray thought gave her pause, as she cupped her hand beneath her chin. “Hmm...we should cover all preferences, and invite some men of ‘loose morals’ to attend. Relax,” she couldn’t help but giggle at Sigrid’s visible shudder and grimace of recollection, “I will not ask Hadwin. He has professed to have done some whoring, but his attendance will do little good, within the realms of your health and well-being. This exchange is too far delicate a matter for his brand of chaos.”
“If you find this a true and viable option,” she said, addressing Roen, “leave the organization of candidates to me. They will expect some compensation, but nothing outrageous. We all have fallen under hard times; a good, woven blanket and warm food is greater currency than gold, in these economic straits.”
As soon as Roen departed, wishing them well on their affairs, Naimah found that she could not react on the same level of outrage as Sigrid over her new “assignment.” She did purse her lips with some sympathy, but overall, she agreed with the man, and wasn’t shy enough to admit. “He does have a point, Sigrid. It was as I told you, before. Taking on unnecessary responsibilities in this resource-starved situation is dangerous. And yes, I say ‘unnecessary,’ not as a way to undermine your aid, or belittle your priorities over your friends and kin. Unnecessary as far as expending too much work for unknowable results. Try as you might, your efforts may not be enough, because their suffering is too great, and it will drain you.” She waved her arm to indicate a few Dawn warriors hustling down the boulevard, hassled into some task of utmost immediacy. “As it is, many of your own comrades are burning out from the intense workload, and they don’t carry the same emotional burdens as you. Compared to them, you are encumbered by double the load. So listen to your mentor; he is a wise one.”
Tucking a stray curl behind her ear, Naimah leaned into Sigrid, shoulder to shoulder, a plush-lipped smile rounding out the apples in her cheeks and adding an extra crinkle to her kohl-lined eyes. “You worry too much, Sigrid. I meant no offense at all, and it would have flown over my head had you not mentioned your imagined faux pas. But if you want to make it up to me,” her lips parted into a grin, “take me on a tour of your city. I know it is not the most ideal conditions, but if I am not a drain or a burden, then I would love nothing more than my own, personal Dawn warrior escort.”
That evening, Haraldur met with Roen at the Forbanne encampment, where they primarily discussed provisions for the needs of seven hundred soldiers, the majority whom boasted enough bulk to rival two humans combined. Requirements for their army doubled that of a normal regiment of the same number. Though Forbanne were known to survive and subsist on leftover scraps, spoiled food, dirt, or whatever their commanders deigned to offer them, Haraldur endeavored to end the tradition of treating soldiers as disposable underlings too unworthy to feed with a proper diet. From what he learned, on his long, self-disciplined path to rehabilitation, food, when prepared with the right ingredients, rubbed in spice and smoked under the fire just so, gave off an almost magical effect on one’s mood. For the love of the experience, he taught himself how to hunt in earnest and how to cook his kills, instead of relying on raw meat to satisfy the role of mere satiation. While some soldiers wouldn’t find salvation through what they consumed, like he did, he still wanted to provide them with better meals--and a little swill, too.
Along the lines of introducing Forbanne to worldly pleasures, Roen proposed an intriguing solution--albeit a dangerous one. In addition to introducing the soldiers to some of the Dawn Guard’s best, why not interest them in a little carnal entertainment, by way of whores? Not sure if the leader suggested the idea in jest, Haraldur blurted, without thought, “Might as well hire that circus troupe I saw in Eyraille, too. The one with the caravans all set up in the D’Marian sector. Make it a whole event. Let’s invite D’Marians and Braighdathians over here while we’re at it.”
All sarcasm aside, the more they talked through the hypothetical scenario, the more ambitious its development. What once began as a small get-together was transforming into a full-scale celebration--and he was reticent about organizing something with the potential to overstimulate and backfire. If all went wrong, did they have any failsafes for controlling them? According to Captain Solveig, they would obey his order without question, but if they broke from their hardwired compulsion, as he did, so many years ago...what then?
Easing the soldiers in was key to success. A little at a time. “Invite the whores, but tell them it won’t be their primary role,” he concluded, before they parted ways for the evening. “Our priority is in replicating an authentic human experience. Receptiveness and conversation, patience and empathy. The whores can offer their services, but they shouldn’t expect any commitment. Or even an answer.”
When the leader of the Dawn Guard returned to his walled city, Haraldur retreated to his tent, peeling off some outer layers of armor in preparation for sleep. As he washed his face in the small basin set upon a haphazardly constructed table of sticks, his eye caught the unnatural glimmer of the resonance stone beside it, its cracked green surface wavering like the sun on water. On reflex, his hand reached for the stone. It was cold beneath his palm. At another angle, a dim, dead thing, with no messages to convey from Eyraille. But if he were to speak into the stone…
No.
He returned it to the table, where it made a dejected clunking sound on the uneven wood. Turning away, he shook his head and muttered to himself. “Not yet, Vega. But soon. I’ll figure this out. Then we’ll talk.”
...Soon.
“Closure?” Chara refrained from barking a laugh. “Yelling at someone to go away is not a form of closure. As you well know, I was often the offender. Never did I utter such words as a method for easing someone into rote acceptance. I wasn’t trying to make any friends, or ingratiate myself to an undesirable crowd; only to garner results, and push aside people who I deemed obnoxious or unworthy of my time. And that’s what you did, Elespeth. You pushed Alster away, and gave him the farthest thing from closure; you’ve dangled him over a cliff-edge, and he will stay there unless you do one thing.” Once she slid shut the curtains, and the room darkened into a gloominess similar to her experience in the caravan, with its shoddy furnishings and garish color palette, she swerved on her heels to face Elespeth. “You have to state your case; tell him exactly what you want, with cold, dead logic. That is the only way he can move on; if he hears it from you. Not from me, or from others who report to him. This, you will need to do. Maybe not now, but eventually. To serve by his side requires you to communicate. To minimize his pain and the hurt of your uncouth rejection. Perhaps, if you do this,” she rested her hands on her hips, “I might open contact with Lilica, and give her the closure that you have decided to withhold.”
Why was she bargaining with the woman? Putting herself in a position of compromise, and for what? She had intended never to see or speak with Lilica again, but in her efforts to reason with Elespeth, was she changing her mind? I am looking out for Alster, she assured herself. For his future as Rigas Head--or whatever path he decides to pursue. He cannot hope to move forward if she denies him like this. And if I must lead by example, and make the first move, then I will.
It is not for Lilica…
“Rest today.” She replaced Elespeth’s bloodied cloth with a dry one for her hand. “We shall commence your training tomorrow. I will see to a healer before then.”
Several days had elapsed since Elespeth’s impassioned request that Alster ‘go away,’ and he honored her request, however much the separation dissolved his insides. Nothing worked properly; whatever he ate, he vomited. His heart could not maintain a reliable tempo; it raced in the evening and stalled during moments in the day that required his focus and energy. His mind fogged; basic concepts escaped his grasp. Words melted before they reached his tongue. Breathing alone generated coughs and gasps bordering on panic. His arm, rendered useless by near constant pain, remained in its sling against his chest. Even walking presented difficulties, like stepping on needles. Every nerve flared, and reacted, and overreacted. Pressure built behind his eyes, ballooning with a force that was sure to pop them out of their sockets--if he didn’t claw them out, first.
But all his bodily malfunctions paled in comparison to his own undoing. Something black and fathomless orbiting from within, slowly sucking away joy and fulfillment and any sense of accomplishment, past and present. How soon would despair consume him, in full? It won’t. I can’t let it. He pushed back from the blackness and commanded his eyes to face each sunrise, as it broke through the horizon and ushered in the dawn. For Elespeth...for when she’s ready. Stay together, Alster. This isn’t the end.
Hadwin found the Rigas caster on the other side of Elespeth’s door one evening, his untampered hand pressed against the wood and his eyes looking at a distance that belied the impermeability of the obstacle before him.
“It opens, you know,” Hadwin said, leaning his shoulder against the shared wall of the doorway. “Or you could poof inside, like you did in the woods.”
Alster blinked out of his trance and retreated, his arm sliding from the door in defeat. “Chara told me she doesn’t desire to see me, still.” His voice was softer than a whisper. The whisper of a ghost. “But she won’t tell me any details. I don’t know how she’s faring, only that she’s in pain because I can feel it so...so strongly.”
“Then you’ve felt it already? From before?”
“From be…” A sudden tremor jolted him into realization. “You can see her fears. What else have you seen? I know you’ve told me she’s afraid she doesn’t deserve me, but there’s more, isn’t there?” His eyes probed into Hadwin’s with an intensity that broke the faoladh out of contact. “There has to be more.”
“Ah. Man.” Hadwin sighed, rubbing two fingers against his pulsing temple. “It’s not going to be easy for you to hear.”
“I need to--”
“--Yeah, yeah, I know,” Hadwin interjected. “Come on.” He slung an arm over Alster’s shoulder and led him out of the barracks. “Let’s go for a walk. Some air will do you good. When was the last time you ventured out of these cluttered city walls?” When Alster didn’t answer, Hadwin sighed again. “Thought so. Don’t worry; I’m gonna tell you everything. But I need to go and make some arrangements with Briery outside, about the upcoming show. I promised I’d make an appearance at her caravan tonight. So tag along with me, and keep me company. We’ll walk and talk together.”
Walk and talk they did. From inside Braighdath’s walls, they traveled through the gates, into the maze of tents and slapdash structures, and beyond, to the crooked hill where Briery’s caravans awaited. Except...Hadwin had arrived, alone. When Briery rose from the campfire to greet him, he did not reply with his customary bombast or cheer. Instead, he looked over his shoulder, at the well-trodden grass where he saw Alster, last. “I was intending to bring you a guest, but he disappeared. Literally. One moment, I was walking beside him and the next, he cloaked himself in magic and ran off.” He rubbed again at his temples to lessen the effects of his splitting Sight-induced headache. “I dropped Alster some bad news, on the way here. His lady love tried to off herself the other day. Thought that maybe he’d do well in your company, but it looks like he had other plans.” He jerked his head in the direction the Rigas Head’s scent wafted. “I think he’s going to need someone, right now, and I’m not the best man for the job. I can track him, but you’d better come with me.”
It didn’t seem as though Sigrid had much of a choice but to oblige Roen in his not-so-subtle “request” that she step down from her duties, for the time being. She could have fought it; could even have riled up some of her brothers and sisters in arms to argue her case, to convince him that her role in this crisis was imperative. Except… she couldn’t deny that he was right. She could object, of course, but Naimah had borne witness to her tears not long ago. She was taking on too much responsibility… but then, what was Gaolithe’s wielder meant more, if not to take on more responsibility than the rest of the Dawn Guard?
She watched Roen walk away wordlessly, not missing the mischievous grin on Naimah’s face for the fact she’s gotten her way--in more ways than one, in fact. “I expected that Roen would take well to you,” she confessed, and narrowed her eyes ever so slightly. “I did not expect that the two of you would conspire against me.” Of course, she was not really angry with the Kariji woman; nor was she truly angry with Roen for his decision, because the both of them were right. She just didn’t want them to be right. “Alright; I’ll concede and step down. Not like I was given much of a choice in the first place…”
Truth be told, it undid her just to have Naimah around, again; to be in her company when they had been apart for almost a month, without any contact. The Kariji woman had a way of making one feel at ease, even in the most frustrating of situations, and whatever frustration she so stubbornly held onto in Roen’s wake drained away before she could do anything about it. “I wish I could show you the city under better circumstances,” she confessed, though she was no less reassured by Naimah’s touch. It was no wonder her companion was so successful in her chosen profession; her mere presence could change a mood in a heartbeat. “And don’t think for a moment that I don’t realize you’re just trying to distract me from the fact I have been temporarily relieved of my duties. But giving you a tour of this place is the least I can do. Even if you are not offended that I have been here all this time without seeking you out... you are neither a drain nor a burden. On the contrary, you are the first good thing to happen to me since returning to my home.”
While it had been Briery’s intention to provide some entertainment to Braighdathians and D’Marians alike in this bleak time of temporary crisis, she had not expected that she would be extending her talents and that of her troupe’s to include Forbanne soldiers. It was surprising enough to see the leader of the formidable Dawn Guard approach her one evening, with perhaps the strangest proposition that she had ever heard, let alone coming from someone of his calibre. Evidently, he had recently been in contact with the newly crowned Prince of Eyraille, who had by some means come to lead a large troupe of Forbanne soldiers. His explanation was only brief, as he appeared short on time, with other matters to which to tend, but he made his proposition clear. Between him and the Eyraillian prince, who desired to rehabilitate the Forbanne soldiers and help them to reconnect with their humanity, they’d devised the idea for a city-wide celebration; one that included not only the Forbanne, but D’Marians and Braighdathians as well. The idea was to spare no expense: entertainment, good food, and good company--of any and all persuasion, it seemed. The ringleader couldn’t deny that it was a good idea, and of course she was more than willing to support, as it had always been her intention to try and bring a bit of joy into this utter bleakness. She had but one concern, which she voiced firmly to the Dawn Guard’s leader.
“I think the idea is splendid; and more than necessary, on all counts. The Missing Links will be more than happy to be a part of it.” She assured the man, huddling close to the bonfire, as a chill had crept into the air that evening. “I have but one request, and it must be met, and taken with the utmost care. Believe me when I say it is not often I dictate anything with regard to venue for our performances.”
“If it is within the realm of possibility, then I assure you, we can comply.” Roen assured the ringleader with a solemn nod. “What are your terms?”
Briery leaned closer to the fire--and to Roen, who sat across from her--and lowered her voice. “I understand the reason why you might want whores to mingle with the Forbanne; it is sound reasoning. However, one among my small troupe has… experienced a good deal of trauma, during the time that was her trade, as well. She does not easily feel safe, and her trust is tenuous, at best. Being among women and men who willingly give an sell their bodies would without a doubt trigger something terrible in her, and I refuse to let her feel unsafe, for even a moment. So,” the ringleader leaned back, tucking loose strands of wave brunette behind her ears. “If the Missing Links are to be a part of this, then I must request that the whores do their very best to remain clandestine in their affairs. I am sure it will be obvious at some point; she is not an idiot, but it cannot be the sole focus of this affair. Only if you can promise me this, will I dedicate my time and my troupe to the cause.”
“You have my word. I will relay the information to his Highness, as well.” Roen bowed his head in earnest. “The safety and well-being of your troupe is of the utmost importance, on par with our goal of rehabilitating Forbanne soldiers and offering D’Marians and Braighdathians a reprieve from this turmoil. I will relay a solution to you as soon as I have one. I can assure you we’ll do whatever is necessary.”
It was not long after the Dawn warrior departed that Briery found herself in other, more predictable company. She offered a warm smile at the faoladh’s approach, and rose from her sitting position. “Ah, just the man I was hoping to see. I was just visited by none other than the Dawn Guard’s very leader. Evidently, he and the Eyraillian prince are looking to put together some festivities to draw everyone out of their melancholy, and the Missing Links have been requested as entertainment. We’re going to have to work on a few more routines so that they don’t get bored of us; and,” she flashed a wide grin, “I’m going to make use of your skills for as long as I can have you. Not sure that this will be a paying gig, beyond food and accommodations, however, so we may have to work something else out if you’re looking for compensation.”
Hadwin was not hear to discuss the troupe or their routine, however, and he did not match her grin with his white canines. On the contrary, he looked… troubled. Not an expression or wore often, or wore well, for that matter. “But I suspect something is amiss… care to tell me I’m wrong?”
The shapeshifter went on to explain what had happened with Alster’s fiancee--and how the Rigas mage had likely not taken the news all that well. Performing and festivities would have to wait, as there appeared to be a whole new crisis amidst the bleak circumstances of this lot. “Oh, no… I can only imagine what he must be feeling, right now. And that poor woman, to think her only option was to take her life…” Briery blew air from between her lips and pulled her indigo cloak more tightly around her shoulders. “Of course you’d bring him to me. I can’t deny that I have something of a history with helping people navigate trauma. Maybe I am wasting my time in the wrong damned field. Well, let’s go find him before he does something stupid, but if I’m to be any use at all, you need to give me every last detail of what you know of the situation on both of their parts. Going into this blind isn’t going to make him want to open up to me.”
And so he did, as they set off in search of the distraught Rigas caster in the dead of night. Though Briery was acquainted with him, she did not know him well enough to locate his whereabouts, and as such left that part to Hadwin, who had a far better nose for sniffing people out. And even with that to their advantage, the man was not easy to find when he clearly did not want to be found. When at last they came upon him, it was at least an hour out of the city, among bushes and bramble, cloaked from moonlight by the cover of trees. Alster Rigas was a mere shadow of himself, in a number of ways: couched on the ground, knees pulled against his chest, his breathing laboured with what was either grief or exhaustion, or maybe both. Hadwin promised to quietly keep a safe distance and remain out of sight as the ringleader approached the wrecked man, holding out the oil-lantern she’d remembered to take with her to light their way prior to departing. It announced her presence before her footfalls did, but Alster did not flee upon realizing he was no longer alone. Could’ve been a good sign; or a very bad one.
“Alster. Hadwin told me he was bringing you by for a visit; did you happen to get lost along the way?” There was no judgement in her tone, even while the both of them were aware that she knew the truth: that he had fled, and that she knew precisely why. Placing the lantern on the ground, the ringleader took a seat across from the grieving Rigas caster. “I have yet to meet your fiancee. She must be an utterly amazing woman, for her attempt at her life to cause so much grief. I will admit, when Hadwin found her ring on the ground during our venture towards Braighdath, I encouraged him to look for her. Any way that I can be of help… well, after what you did for me, that is a debt that I know I could never repay. All the same, I would still like to try.”
He did not respond, and she did not expect him to. That he wasn’t running from her words was about the best that she could expect, given the condition of his broken heart, amidst all of the other weight on his shoulders. And even so, there was no guarantee that he would listen, but words were all she had to offer. “You remember Cwenha, don’t you? The two of you seemed to have a grand time on the dance floor at Eyraille’s Festival of Equinox. She doesn’t take to many men, you know; won’t let most of them near her, let alone touch her. You’ve really got to be a good someone special for her to ask you to dance.” She smiled at the memory--Cwenha really had looked like she was having fun--and the smile it elicited was not contrived. “I know that I have briefed you once on Cwenha’s history without going into detail. But the truth is, the day I met her, she was about to take her own life. Atop a bridge, and ready to cast herself into the water, below. She does not know how to swim.”
No matter how many times she told the story (though really, it had not been many), reliving that memory in particular was unpleasant. She could still see Cwenha, a younger and even more vulnerable version of herself, in her torn and tattered gown, looking to the raging river as if it was the only thing that had answers for her. Her only hope of escape… “To make a long story very short, I managed to encourage her to get down. Even encouraged her to come with me and have a meal with Rycen and Lautim. She did, but at the time, she did not promise to stay--and in fact, it was about a week before I managed to convince her to travel with us. Because, you see, I hadn’t saved her… and I still haven’t. I can only imagine what she experienced at the hands of older men, young and beautiful as she was and as she is now. Trauma like that is not treated in a day, or a week, or a year. It takes time, and she… she is still not quite there. Far more stable, yes, and with a goal and a purpose, but her eyes are still haunted. I don’t know that I can ever change that, but I do hope that for the time being, I can give her the means to overcome it. She trusts me, because I did not push her. I did not invalidate her struggles, and I did not suggest that the grass is greener on the other side. All that I did was provide her with another option, and respect her boundaries while she contemplated those options… and she came around. Enough to travel with us, and become a part of the Missing Links. Not through coercion or begging, but patience--a good deal of it--and respect.”
Despite the damp earth, which had become sodden with spring rain the night before, Briery folded her cloak beneath her and took a seat. Alster still said nothing, but she noted, by the tension in his shoulders, that she at least had his ear. “I do not know the full extent of what Elespeth has gone through; I am sure none of us does, really. But it appears to me that she has done something she regrets, something that almost cost her her life, and now she does not feel deserving of that life--or of you. But I can tell you this: her situation, in my opinion, yields a much more favorable prognosis than Cwenha’s ever did. Because it is not a matter of convincing her to trust you. It is a matter of convincing her that she is still worthy. And I believe that that is possible.”
Briery reached forward and lay a hand upon Alster’s flesh and blood arm, her voice growing softer with her proximity. “She feels different, right now. Not about you, but about herself. And I cannot tell you how long it will take her to forgive herself, but convincing her that she is worthy of you… is not a tactic that I believe with resonate. She wants time, and space, and the best that I believe you can do for her is respect that. Because she is still among people who care for her, and it is only a matter of time before she realizes she cannot part from you. I know, deep down, that you know that to be true.” She smiled, for both of their sakes, and to make it clear she was not simply providing lip-service to appease him; her words were genuine. “Right now, she is grieving the loss of something she hasn’t lost at all: her identity. Be patient with her… and with yourself.”
Straightening into a standing position, she picked up her oil lantern with one hand, and offered her other hand to Alster. “Will you come back to the city with me? She is going to need someone to come back to, eventually; and you have the hardest job of all. Standing strong, in the face of all of this.”
Echoes of Hadwin’s words reverberated in Alster’s skull as he ran.
“Busted her fist on the mirror…”
“Shattered bits on the table…”
“Held a shard a glass to her throat…”
“And pressed…”
“Pressed.”
Alster said nothing during the faoladh’s recount, but his mind raced with all manner of rhetorical questions. If Hadwin didn’t stop her in time, what would have happened? Would she see the deed through till the end, or would she have stopped herself? If she succeeded in cutting her artery, and he couldn’t reach her…
If she died…
His pace slowed to a crawl. Hadwin practically dragged him to the caravan. No. He didn’t want to go there. Didn’t want to withstand his captor, or his forceful arm preventing escape. Trapped. He didn’t want to be trapped. Surrounded by the pitying faces of near strangers. Didn’t want to pretend. To put on a brave face and go on representing Stella D’Mare as an impartial, magically-adept figurehead. He just wanted to be alone. To run, and let the darkness swallow him.
So he vanished beneath Hadwin’s grasp, slipped away…
And kicked his legs into a frenzied gallop.
It was difficult to keep a reliable pace, with a weighty arm consigned to its sling, an inert and unresponsive burden pulling, and pulling, threatening to send him careening to the ground. Gritting his teeth to brace the upcoming pain, he tore his prosthesis from the sling. A ripple of nerve pain shot from his shoulder down to his spine, almost paralyzing him on the spot. With a grunt of effort, he persisted, and even started to swing the arm in pendulous motions, using its weight as a propelling force to boost inertia. He gained traction, but at a cost. Lopsided in gait, he leaned dangerously off balance. Unused to such physical demands of the body, his heart pounded in his ears and his ears lost their harmony and his eyes filtered over with black and red spots of overexertion. Still, he wouldn’t stop. He would run until it killed him.
What use is there in remaining alive, anymore? My only reason...was her. Everything I did...was for her. For us.
His breath hitched, but he swallowed the panic, and aimed his sights on the copse of trees on the approaching hill. With only moonlight to guide him, he pushed and he pushed and he pushed. The incline changed. His legs shivered and buckled, but he did not teeter. Grabbing onto stray branches, he yanked himself through the rising path, leveraging past the trees and into the thicket, until at last, his footing slipped, and he fell, face first, to the uneven ground.
There, he lay, unmoving but for the gasps of breath that rattled his beleaguered body. The magic that had cloaked him had since worn away, but it didn’t matter, anymore. Let them find him. Let them see the pathetic boy hiding beneath strong magic and pacts with monsters. Let them see the infamous Alster Rigas, stripped of all his resources, and maybe they would deem him unworthy of assistance. Write him off as a lost cause, a poorly excuse for a human being. He hadn’t changed, at all. All his talk, before, about desiring to harden his skin and build resistance against the world that strove to defeat him...it meant nothing. He never evolved from the lost, supplicating whelp from his past, a desperate soul clinging to whomever expressed the most sympathy for his plight. He clung to kindness, suckled on it like a babe on his mother’s teat. No wonder why his own mother expressed such disgust for his existence. How will you stand on your own, Alster? Her words joined the unrelenting chorus flooding every crevice of his mind. You cannot rely on me forever. When I am gone, who next will suffer your insufferable need for dependency?
“I need her.” He gasped aloud, in answer to his mother’s outcry. “Who am I...without her?” He regained enough of his strength to push onto his hands and knees. His lip, split in half from the fall, dribbled blood down his chin. More blood gushed when he bit down on his lip. “Who am I?” he repeated, his eyes stinging, flooding him blind. “I can’t...without her. If she goes…”
Then so will my heart.
Despite the strain of his tired limbs, or the overworked state of his lungs and chest, he screamed, an soul-shattering roar that doubled as a pained sob. He screamed and sobbed until he coughed, coughed until he choked, and choked until he heaved. He vomited all the meagre contents of his stomach, and when there was nothing left, he vomited water. Reduced to a mess of shivers, he crawled from the puddle of regurgitated refuse and curled up against the base of a tree, rubbing one arm against the other for warmth.
In the silence carried forth by his emotional exhaustion, a voice crept into the newfound calm of his mind.
You cannot die, the Serpent said. Your commitment is to me.
“Then you can have this empty vessel,” Alster whispered. “Use it...and let me rest. I need...rest.”
No sooner did he close his eyes than a sharp light shone a narrow wedge across his face. He squinted against the source, but didn’t react until he heard a familiar voice call his name.
“Briery,” he managed, using the last of his strength to prop his ragged body against the tree. It slumped, but held firm. “If this is for business...what can I do for you? If you’re looking for a conversation...you’ll be severely disappointed.” Though pleasant of voice, and polite, they were inexplicable words, coming from a man who wanted nothing more but to sleep. To forget--if only for a day or two. The Serpent reminded him of his responsibilities, and he could not renege on his duty as Rigas Head, or his bargain with the Eldritch beast. Against his desires, he put on the brave face, though it was a mere battered-up version of the polished facade that his predecessors donned with ease--Chara included. “There’s no need to worry about me. If Hadwin sent you on this search...it’s a wasted effort.” I’m not worth the effort. “I am the Rigas Head. To surrender my good senses in this wood, alone, would be...irresponsible. My duty is here, to my people. So rest assured. You don’t have to stay here.” Leave me be. I won’t cling to you. I won’t take the inch you’ve given me and stretch it into a mile.
But she refused. Ignored his request. He hadn’t the strength to retreat, or to command her gone. Nor did he have the forbearance or willpower to deny her kindness. So he accepted her company, and listened without interruption. Listened to her recollections of Cwenha and how she compared to Elespeth, yet differed. Both had reached the threshold of despair, but both had been driven to the edge for dissimilar reasons. With a patient air, he nodded. He understood. But it was an understanding that needn’t require a lecture. However well-meaning her words, Briery could only relate so much--not through any fault of her own. She couldn’t know about the extent of their bond, the promises made over spilled blood, the depth of their interwoven destinies, the push and pull of their souls, and the true impact of Elespeth’s fall. How could he remain strong, when her fall signified his fall? Like links of a chain, pressure on one link transferred as pressure to all links.
That is not true, the Serpent hissed. You survived without her, before. When you severed the bond and she left you with no intention of returning...you agonized, but you did not die.
That was different, Alster returned. As long as she was alive, and safe, I could move on. But if she truly wishes to die…
He bit on his lip, again. Fresh blood oozed from the wound and streamed over the dried, caked-up rivulets down his chin. “She’s saved me, so many times,” he said, his eyes fogging over with the memory. “Twice, from my own hand--or something like it. The first time, I had given up in the middle of a battle, and allowed the enemy to slaughter me. But she stepped through in time, killed the opposition, and dragged me out of there. The second time,” he traced the faint scars on his left hand, the ones still visible beneath the diagonal line that indicated his and Elespeth’s renewed bond, “I tried to sacrifice myself in a binding ritual for the sake of Stella D’Mare. She disrupted the ritual to save me. It was an excuse, though. I wanted to die, then. I wanted to die so many other times, too. Life seemed to agree with me, and threw countless survival situations at my feet. Happily, I would have accepted my fate. I was tired. I am tired. So very tired. And in so much pain.” His eyelids, red and puffy from his tears, weighed themselves shut. “This world is too much. It weighs, it drags. I can hear it scream as it stretches and tears itself apart. Its seams are visible; I can travel through them. But if dealing with the world is the price to pay to be with Elespeth, then that’s fine. I’ll pay, until I have not a coin left to my name. She’s the reason I want to be here at all, Briery. The reason I want to live. But if she doesn’t want that for herself...where does that leave me? It would be cruel to keep her here against her will. I’m not enough…”
Another round of shivers assailed his body. He flinched and hugged himself tighter, despite the pain of squeezing the connectors between raw flesh and steel parts. “I’m not enough to overcome her doubts and fears. She won’t let me in. I just want her to let me in...in any capacity.” Tears streaked down his shuttered lids. “I’ll play any role, I don’t care. I just want to be there for her, as she’s been there for me. But if that’s not feasible, then above all...I want her to make it through. That’s all that matters to me, Briery. With or without me...let her be alright. I can manage, if I know she’ll be alright. However long it takes. As long as she finds a reason to live.”
When the circus ringleader extended her hand for him to take, he shook his head, and remained unmoving from his position. “I appreciate your concern. Thank you for checking on my well-being. But...I said I will be fine, because other people are depending on me to be fine. So I’ll find a way. If you don’t mind...I’d like to be alone here...for a little longer. I’ll make my way back to Braighdath before others wonder of my whereabouts. As it stands, though,” his steel arm gave a reflexive twitch and jolt, “...I’ve overexerted myself. It doesn’t look like I’ll be moving until near morning. Go on, Briery. And thank you, again,” he dipped his head. “For looking after Teselin and Chara...and for contributing to Elespeth’s safety. You owe me nothing.”
Take it, he told the Serpent. Take control. ...I can’t do this alone. Mother is right. I can’t stand on my own, let alone stand strong. No one else can help me. I can’t let them help.
I’ll bleed them dry, leach that I am.
Briery wasn’t sure what to expect when she encountered the shrunken form of Alster Rigas in the wood, for everyone was unique in their response to grief and how it manifested. Some became violent, beyond their control; others slipped away into themselves, parting temporarily from the world to live in a safe space inside their mind. Others, still, harboured such sharp denial about their reality that when the truth finally surfaced, it would cut them and bleed them dry. The Rigas mage did not appear to be in denial, nor was he violent or catatonic as a result of discovering his fiancee’s attempted suicide. But he was, as she’d expected, resistant to help and company of any sort. Little did people know, when the world crumbled around them, that the last place they should be is alone. She would not press the matter, but until he told her outright, she would also not leave.
“Well, I would be lying to say I did not worry for you, Alster,” she mentioned, shaking her head slowly. “You took off running as soon as Hadwin divulged the news to you. I also realize you’d rather be alone, but alone can be a dangerous place when you are grieving and in pain.” As was evidenced by Elespeth’s attempt on her life, after sending everyone away… but that went without saying. “I do not question your leadership for a moment, though. I know you are dedicated to your cause, and you can continue to be a strong leader even while you are hurting so badly inside. And, sadly, I cannot claim to provide any solutions for you… But what I have to say may clarify the vestiges of a path on which to move forward. For yourself--and for Elespeth.”
The ringleader, in turn, listened to Alster’s every word, just as he had listened to hers. Listening was half of the process of being there for someone in a time of crisis. To validate their thoughts and their feelings… to help them feel justified in their pain, and not to resist it. What he had to say did not come as any surprise, either. The extent of their relationship, their dedication to one another, was strong, and not just in mere essence. When he said he lived for her, he was not exaggerating--and therein lay the crux of his agony. That the reason he pushed on had, in a moment of weakness, decided it was time to leave this world. “You are justified in your grief, Alster, and you are right. There was a moment when you fiancee could see nothing but death--but realize that it was just that. A moment, an impulse, not a premeditated plan. And I am to understand that she has not been left alone, since then. That dear Chara is sharing her room and looking out for her--which, frankly, is the best place for the both of them. I saw what your cousin suffered, too.” Her eyes gained a softness around the rims, empathy evident in her words and posture. “And her plight is not dissimilar from Elespeth’s. She has lost her magic, and believes that she has lost herself. I am inclined to believe that caring for Elespeth as she has been doing may remedy her own dissociation from her identity--and that she can model that for your fiancee. I realize such an outcome is not guaranteed, but it is a possibility. A light in the dark.
“But the point I am trying to make is… I do not believe that Elespeth would rather die than to be with you.” Briery sat back on her heels and pulled a handkerchief from a pocket beneath her cloak, which she offered to Alster as blood dripped from his lip. “She has not made any more attempts since then--am I right? If your fear is that she still wants to die, then I am betting you can rest assured she has changed her mind. What may take some time is her ability to reconnect with herself; which, I think, may be possible through you, if you are able to meet her where she is at, and respect the space she needs right now.”
It had always been within the realm of possibility that she would not be able to convince Alster to return with her to Braighdath, and Briery was not ignorant to that fact. Just as Elespeth needed her space, so, too, did Alster. What mattered was that she was certain he had heard her words, even if they did not yet resonate. He would be okay; because, not only did he need to be okay for his people, but he needed to be okay for Elespeth. In the event that she finally reached out to him…
“You’re a survivor; I have no doubt that you will continue to stand tall for Stella D’Mare, and for everyone you care for.” Briery placed the lantern on the ground, next to Alster, and unfastened her cloak at her throat. “In case you mean to find your way back tonight, or if you care to start a fire for warmth.” She nodded toward the lantern. “And take this. I know my way back and am not much bothered by the chill.”
The ringleader draped her cloak around the Rigas caster’s shoulders and offered one more smile. “Have faith, Alster Rigas. This is a hurdle along the journey, but it is not the destination.” She then left him to be alone, respecting his wishes, and returned the way she had come, where Hadwin had been waiting nearby. It was obvious by her lack of Rigas company that she had not been overly successful. “I think he will be alright, as soon as he realizes that his fiancee doesn’t really have a deathwish. Her situation is different from… it is not the same as Cwenha.” Her voice grew soft, articulating the young singer’s name. “Elespeth’s attempt was a desperate lapse in judgment, and I am confident that Chara will not allow such a situation to reoccur. I daresay that the two of them are good for one another.”
Just as Alster suffered in the days following Elespeth’s attempt on her life, so, too, did the former knight, and it many of the same ways. After all, aside from his grief, Alster’s afflictions were merely empathetic shadows of what wracked her own physical body. Since regaining consciousness, the Atvanian warrior had become all the more aware of the incapacitating effects of withdrawal. She could not stop shaking, and was no longer certain whether she was hot or cold, for she would break out in sweat when her temperature was at its lowest, and could not find enough blankets to cover her body whenever fevers built. Despite her efforts to follow Chara’s advice, she wasn’t able to keep anything down, even the thinnest of marrow broths, or cold water, which left her constantly dehydrated and weak. And the arrhythmic pace of her heart had not steadied into something more predictable, often waking her up in the middle of the night as it raced, or dropping so suddenly during the day when she struggled to be more active and regain the muscle mass she had lost, those who tended her quickly found she was at risk of fainting.
Nonetheless, she was determined to make progress. Even if it was as simple as pacing around the room for an extended amount of time, Elespeth regained the function of her legs and arms. She was no longer unable to reach for a glass of water, or to lift a sponge to clean herself (though she was limited to sponge baths only, as her caretakers in the Dawn Guard firmly expressed that she was not to be left alone in a tub of water after her attempt on her life, and she refused the indignity of anyone watching her bathe). A week had passed; and then two, and finally, at two and a half weeks following her suicide attempt, the former knight had begun to look much less like a corpse, and more like a human. She was still worryingly thin; her muscle tone had yet to return to the standard she was used to, and it was impossible for her to find clothes that fit her properly. But she was awake, and mobile, and regaining her independence; and, most importantly, she had not made another attempt on her life since that day.
“I want my sword.” She said one day, to the Dawn warrior who had accompanied her outside for some fresh air, to relieve Chara of the burden of adhering to her side indefinitely.
The warrior only shook his head. “Not after your attempt on your life, I’m afraid. And it is still too soon for you to start training; it will be too heavy for you. Wait until you have regained the full strength of your upper body and core.”
“I am not looking to train with the sword, yet. And it should be obvious to you by now that I have chosen another path. Taking my life is no longer on the table… not if it will dishonour everything that the Rigases have done for me and have given me.” Elespeth stopped in her tracks. “I don’t care that it’s my sword, either. I just want a sword.”
“For what purpose, then?”
“For a change. Give me yours.” She nodded to the short blade strapped to the warrior’s hip, and rolled her eyes at his obvious mistrust. “You are right here with me. You’re more than able to stop me if I wanted to bring it to my throat, and it isn’t as though I have the strength or coordination to use it against you.” She held up an arm as evidence, which still shook with the vestiges of withdrawal. “Just let me hold it.”
After another long hesitation, the Dawn warrior relented, and handed her his blade, leaving barely an inch of space between them in case he needed to snatch it back in an instant. He’d been right; the steel felt heavy in her feeble hand, but she lifted it, no less. And then, without explanation, she took her haphazard braid from over her shoulder, and sliced it clean off. It fell to the ground like a dead snake, as her brunette locks unfurled and hung just past her chin. She then handed the blade back to the warrior, who looked on with confusion. “I told you,” she said with a shrug. “I needed a change.”
“You… just wanted to cut your hair?” The Dawn warrior looked terribly confused and scratched the back of his neck. “Why didn’t you just say something?”
“Because I am tired of having to explain myself. And I will be doing a lot of it this afternoon.” The ex-knight ran a hand through her newly shortened locks. They felt… softer. Far more manageable; and not nearly as beautiful or regal, which was precisely what she was going for. I am not Elespeth Rigas, anymore. That steadfast voice in her head reminded her. What is the sense in looking the part?
“I’d like to go back to my room, now,” she said, rather enjoying the new breeze on the back of her bare neck. “I know you don’t trust me to go there on my own.”
That was yet another obstacle that she faced, since her attempt on her life. Nobody trusted her, anymore, and she couldn’t rightly blame them. No matter how many times she assured them that taking her own life was no longer in the plan, everybody, including the Dawn Guard (especially the Dawn Guard) appeared to be walking on eggshells around her. Such behavior wasn’t likely something that was apt to change anytime soon, so she accepted it, just as she’d accepted Chara’s guidance. Following something was better than floundering in an abyss of nothing--which, without the Rigas woman’s attention, she was sure would’ve been her more frequent state of mind. It never would have occurred to her that one day, it would be Chara Rigas getting back on her feet.
She found the woman in their shared room, and was already prepared for the perplexed look of surprise that registered on her face, more than likely from the abrupt change in Elespeth’s appearance. “You can’t rightly judge me for cutting my hair, when you turned yours brown,” she pointed out, with a shrug of her shoulders. “You want me to talk to Alster. And I want… I need him to see that I am not the woman he loves, anymore. I am someone else. Maybe if I look different… it will make it all easier for him to digest. But…”
A pale look of uncertainty befell her face, and she turned her slate-green eyes to the floor. “I need you to come with me, tonight. To talk to him. I can’t do this alone, Chara. There’s no way… Just come with me. Please.” Looking up, she pressed her lips into a thin line and sighed through her nose. “I am not allowed to be alone at any other point in time, anyway. But this is the time that I need it most. Will you do this for me?”
She knew Chara would agree, because she had put her in a position where she wasn’t rightly able to refuse. Not given the concerns surrounding the assumed fragility of the ex-knight’s mental state, and the fact that she had been cooperative to this point. The Rigas woman agreed to accompany her that evening, on the condition that Elespeth did the talking. The words for Alster had to come from her and her alone--and the Atvanian warrior agreed. So that evening, just before the sun had set, she and Chara made their way to the inn, where Alster was staying, along with Teselin and Hadwin. This wouldn’t be easy for him--but it wasn’t easy for her, either. To have to face the consequences of her terrible mistakes, the result of her loss of identity…
I deserve more. I deserve worse…
Elespeth held her breath, from the moment they ascended the wooden staircase, to the moment Chara knocked on Alster’s bedroom door. She’d been informed that he was sharing his space with others, but they appeared to have arrived at a time when he was alone. It was he who answered the door; he who looked at her with tired eyes, eyes that had probably been crying, and she couldn’t look back, because it hurt too much. And she didn’t know where Alster’s pain began and hers ended; ultimately, it was all the same.
“...I came to return this. It… doesn’t belong to me.” The former knight held out the wedding ring, which still did not fit her too-thin finger. Residual tremors still shook her hands, but not to the same extent as before. “It belongs to a woman that I killed with the decisions I made. You were engaged to Elespeth Rigas, Alster, and I… I am not her, anymore. I am not even Elespeth Tameris. I don’t know who I am. Maybe you don’t see it, now, but you will with time. I’m not the woman… you loved.”
She dropped her hand to her side when he took the ring, still unable to meet his eyes. Her throat and chest felt unbearably tight, but she was no stranger to those symptoms. “I cannot amount to who Elespeth Rigas was; and I cannot become even a shadow of her. But you and your family gifted me with years that I cannot return. And so… so I must do the only honourable thing, and that is to continue to serve you, and your family, for as long as I can stand. I ask, then, that you accept my pledge to you, to the Rigases, and to Stella D’Mare.” Say it like you mean it, Chara’s sharp gaze seemed to say, and so Elespeth raised her eyes at last to Alster’s. “When I am able to fight again, accept my sword as your protection, and let me be your shield. I wish to be of service to you and yours in whatever way suits you best. But not as Elespeth Rigas; just… as a soldier. My sword is all I know, and though I cannot lift it yet, it is all that I have to offer.”
Alster’s silence was the worst part of it all. She wasn’t sure if he was even listening, or too lost in some mixture of hurt and betrayal that was quietly drowning him. She’d have preferred anger, or some accusation of her betrayal to him and the promise she had made upon accepting that ring. “...Please. Accept my offer. I don’t… see another feasible path, for me. Not one that leads to the potential to regain some of the honour I have lost.”
The longer she stood there, facing him, the more it hurt. That pain in her throat and her chest, like something was lodged in her heart. She took a step back and pressed a hand against her chest; she couldn’t wait for his answer. “...I need to leave,” was all she whispered in explanation, and promptly turned on her heel and left Chara behind in Alster’s room. She didn’t have time to wait for his answer, not when she could feel his pain so thoroughly that it felt like a physical attack on her heart. If he refused her, if he did not want her as anything, if he could not have her as Elespeth Rigas… then he would have to come and tell her that, himself. Until then, she would make strides to regain her strength, and justify herself as a warrior that could carry her sword. One worthy of serving the Rigases; and of serving Alster.
The following two weeks saw progress and preparation from all avenues. Hadwin spent more time with the Missing Links, lending support for the upcoming performance for Braighdath, the D’Marian refugees, and any Forbanne willing to fill the open slots in the audience. The cumulative crowd estimated in the thousands, and one way to cull the unsustainable numbers that would and could present a safety hazard was to split the set into two back to back shows. It didn’t matter to Hadwin what plan Briery ended up choosing for the troupe, for he decided to opt out of performing.
“Better off this way,” he explained to the ringleader the morning after they found a distraught Alster Rigas in the woods. To make sure the caster had returned to his room at the inn, they looped back to the copse of trees where he allegedly spent the night, and discovered him gone. “A lot of those D’Marians in the crowd, especially ones of Rigas persuasion...well, they aren’t the biggest fans of me. And the Forbanne,” he cut the air with his hand, in a gesture of decapitation, “would kill me where I stand. I fucked over their precious captain something fierce. Killed her officers, her not-so-secret beau, bed companion, what have you...just to stick it to her--and yeah, I got a little vengeance-happy. No doubt the memory’s emblazoned in their hive mind. The hit’s on me, if I’m so bold to show my face out there. And I can’t say the new Forbanne leader is too fond of me, either, even if we have put aside some of our differences. So,” he rubbed his hands together, “I’ll keep firmly to the shadows, and root you on from behind the curtains. A shame, though.” He captured her in his arms and threw her into an experimental spin. “I’ll miss our little dances.”
On the logistics side of the Missing Links performance, and by extension, the festival, Haraldur, in league with Roen, gathered for frequent meetings in discussion over the best location, whether to build a temporary pavilion for the show, game acquisition and how many hunting expeditions to allow outside the walls, number of ale and wine barrels to reserve for the occasion, and any other details they missed. Haraldur still had reservations about involving the Forbanne in a full-scale festival, for its scope far-surpassed his original intentions for a smaller and somewhat more private affair. But Roen insisted on sharing the celebration with all, in an effort to boost morale. While he couldn’t deny the appeal in a city-wide bacchanal, the Eyrallian prince worried that larger meant more chaotic, and more chaotic meant harder to control, monitor, and mediate the soldiers under his command.
In follow-up meetings, he almost withdrew his and the Forbanne’s participation in any and all activities, preferring something quieter and more manageable over loud and intractable. He remembered his experience at Eyraille’s Equinox Festival, a nerve-wracking, overcrowded, flashy stretch of days without end. Charming, yes, culturally relevant, and of course, the prelude to his impromptu marriage, but he could only enjoy it for moments at a time before tiring. What then, of the Forbanne, who did not, like him, have years of reintegration as a reference? How would they react to the sights, smells, and sounds?
He knew he was exercising caution bordering on paranoia, but in the wake of his risk-taking gone awry in Stella D’Mare, he could not be cautious enough. In the end, however, he conceded, not only because the celebration would go on with or without the Forbanne, but because he couldn’t pass up the rare opportunity that Braighdath (and its coffers) afforded him. A few days before the major events took place for all of the city, Haraldur still intended on providing small feasts for the Forbanne in a progression leading up to the celebration proper. And they would get to choose if they wanted to attend or not.
Among Stella D’Mare’s governing body, Alster Rigas and the council spent the weeks dedicating their attention to communications between Braighdath and Galeyn. The Rigas Head returned to his seat with cold fire in his unfamiliar eyes, a look associated with Chara--but that was where the similarities ended. He did not rile into bursts of emotion like the rage of his predecessor, or drift into the sorrowed deterioration of days past, that he’d been wearing like a funeral shroud. Though he appeared worse for wear, hollow-cheeked, wan, and tremulous of body, he offset his health by sitting taller and straighter than the council-members in attendance.
They held meetings at the inn’s common room. Congregating around the largest table in the back, they would discuss the most prevalent matters. Now that the night steeds had recuperated from the long-distance travel between Galeyn to the roads outside Braighdath, the council was ready to implement the next stage in their plan for D’Marian relocation. With full cooperation from Galeyn, the steeds would act as a ferrying service, taking any willing volunteers to their long-awaited refuge. At most, the steeds could perform two round trips per day, allowing up to twenty people each trip.
One evening, Alster met with Chara outside his door at the inn. Dressed for the wind, in a long, fur-lined cloak and riding boots, he closed a hand over her arm, his expression rigid, his skin-to-skin contact cold, dry...scaly. His eyes were pointed, a flash of gold in the blue, but regarded Chara with thoughtfulness. Alster still existed inside, though the domain of his outside was occupied by the ostensibly helpful, but parasitic Serpent. “I’m going to Galeyn tonight. What should I tell Lilica?”
Firm, straight-forward, a reasonable request...but it still took Chara aback to answer. She tensed under his uncanny grip, squirming from the discomfort. He released her. “Tell her,” she hesitated, “that...I am alive. I have made it safely to Braighdath, but I am too injured to see her at this time. It is not a lie.” She lowered her eyes to her feet. “‘Injured’ and ‘injury’ are broad terms. They can fit under many brackets. I happen to occupy the ‘invisible injury’ bracket. Do not tell her that,” she hurried. “Just...say an injury. Better yet, a curse. Or an illness so contagious, I am under quarantine. Come up with something...anything that will encourage her to stay away, until I am ready.”
Whatever Alster had said, worked, insofar as Lilica did not race to Braighdath on a night steed, or send a healer to facilitate a cure. He never dispensed the details, and she never asked. However much Lilica knew, or didn’t know, the decision to inform her, via proxy, about Chara’s status among the living was a bold step forward--but it felt right. It didn’t account for much, but it was a start for providing the dark mage with a sliver of closure.
Now that her mind had cleared, somewhat, Chara volunteered her efforts to Elespeth’s “training.” Every day, she constructed a To-Do list and dictated each item, in order, as she stood by the warrior’s bedside, forcing her to wake by the sound of her domineering voice and the splash of cold water on her face. The tasks started simple. Walk from one end of the room to the other. Drink at least two pitchers of water a day. Consume three bowls of broth, if that. As Elespeth grew in strength, the list of demands doubled. Go outside and walk the perimeter of the barracks ten times. Twenty times. Interact with other people. Robe and disrobe without help. Strengthen each limb by repetitious exercises. Though spartan in her curriculum, Chara did recognize Elespeth’s need for rest, as her recovering body was too weak to perform for long stretches at a time. But the next two weeks showed improvement far greater than Chara’s conservative expectations. Elespeth desired change, speedy change; that much was apparent when she walked into the room with her long braided hair shorn off to the shoulders.
“Yes, I am judging you,” she bit back, “because you copied my look. And now our hair length is almost the bloody same.” She flicked a piece of faded brown hair, for emphasis. “I will need Briery to redye this,” she muttered. “But,” she tilted her head at the woman’s new appearance, “at least you look like a proper warrior, now. Long locks have no place on the battlefield.”
Elespeth’s next bit of information paled in comparison to the hair reveal, and the shock of it propelled Chara from her bed. “Well, well,” she nodded in approval, “you’re facing him, at last.”
Alster Rigas didn’t know what to expect when he answered the door summons and saw Elespeth standing on the other side. Since the evening when he had fled from Hadwin after news on her attempted suicide, Alster walled away his emotions, and allowed the Serpent to dominate his body. It wasn’t a complete domination; he made certain that part of him always laid roots, which he kept attached firmly to the earth, to the world. But the Serpent’s logical influences were enough to help him coast through the days that required a clear, impartial head and the ruthlessness to stand against any detractors who thought him easy to manipulate, due to his mild-mannered personality.
However, all progress fizzled away when he gazed at Elespeth. The Serpent’s grasp retreated, and Alster, in unadulterated, pure essence, flooded into his mind, and pumped into the ventricles of his heart. The pain he held at bay for so long intensified, paralyzing him to the spot from weeks of disuse. There she was: Elespeth, emaciated but no longer skeletal, weak but standing, pale but for her cheeks, stained red with a purpose... Life had claimed her and with a guiding hand, led her away from death.
He continued to explore her face. Eventually, he lingered on her hair, which she’d hacked up to her neck. His heart leapt and bounded in his ribcage. He commanded his body to swallow his nerves. To cease shivering. To utter a word. Words. Desperately, he squeezed out the first thing he could think to say. “I, your hair, it’s--”
But she acted first, sliding forward to deposit a familiar round object in his hand. A ring.
No…
He listened to her words, understood their meaning, but they did not register until she turned and hurried down the hall, stranding him within the residual energy her bruised aura had left behind. In his sweaty palm, the ring burned a hole, branding his skin, and electrifying the area of intersection with his oath scar. All he could do was stare at the winking diamonds, so bright, so fading like stars shuttered out of the sky by thick, lowering clouds.
“You had better grace her with a response.” Alster jolted back to reality, not realizing Chara was even there at all. She huffed a knowing sigh, and tilted her head in the direction whence Elespeth had gone. “It took her every ounce of courage, coupled with my nagging, to bring her to your door tonight, and here you stand, gawking like a fish. Alster,” she cupped her hand atop his, “it is not an ideal situation, but it is a hopeful one. She wants to stay with you, but in a specific, albeit limited, capacity, which befits her current state of mind. She’s not ready to love again. Nor am I...but have patience. Honor her request.”
Chara’s words paralleled what he recalled several weeks ago, in the woods. A summary of what Briery had said to him. Patience. Hope. Moving forward…
He closed a fist around the ring, and nodded. “I lapsed,” he said, tightening the fist until it stopped shivering. “My emotions got in the way...like they always do.”
“That is not what I--”
“I can’t accept her service if my heart bleeds whenever I see her. I can’t do anything unless I..shut it down. For now.” He uncurled his hand, poking a steel digit at rejection in the form of a ring. “She has my heart...so I have to partition our bond. Close it off. That is the only way we can interact without it causing so much pain between us. To move on, to move forward...this is what I have to do.”
Before he retired to bed, he erected barriers around himself, disturbing the free flow of empathy and harmony between him and Elespeth, via their bond. The procedure left him feeling numb, loveless, half-human…
Because the other half was ruled by the Serpent.
The next morning, he knocked on Elespeth’s door. The demeanor about him had changed since their encounter from last night. While no harsh or cruel lines wrinkled his emotionless eyes, a filter of lifelessness prevailed, coupled with a passive curiosity of one unfamiliar with humanity; two warring states of being struggling to meld as one.
To his satisfaction, the warrior opened the door. He greeted her with a polite bow. “I must apologize about last night, Elespeth. You took me by surprise, but I am better prepared, now. May I enter?”
Despite her answer, he entered the small room, shoulders straight and with a bearing that rivaled Chara in regality--though not pompous or haughty in gait. The former Rigas Head, upright in her bed, looked on with a furrow of suspicion.
“First, I must preface this meeting by saying that I am not the man you loved, either. This has been brewing for quite some time now, if you recall the events from Stella D’Mare. If we are not who our lovers love anymore, then there shouldn’t be any problem between us. Besides, Stella D’Mare is in far better hands as I am now. As for your pledge,” he nodded, “I accept. I’ll take you on as my personal guard. You’ve done it before, so I know you’ll succeed. There are no battles to fight, and my life is not currently in danger, but it always helps to have an extra pair of eyes. Concentrate on building your strength and we’ll see how you’re faring in the coming weeks. In the meantime, you will need a sword.” He pulled out the one hanging from his belt and presented it to her with both hands.
“This is your sword. I have removed the enchantment connecting it to my magic, so it is nothing more than a sword of minor bolstering abilities. I trust that you will not use it to cause injury to yourself.” The slight pause in his dialogue indicated his awareness of her suicide attempt. Once she removed the sword from atop his fingertips, he extended his steel hand toward her. “Repeat your pledge, Elespeth, and clasp my hand. This is an oath, not of blood, but of steel. A promise which binds us anew. In fealty and fidelity--swear by this hand, my sword and shield.’
What is wrong with me? Why did I run…! After her pitiful attempt to speak with Alster, Elespeth could think of nowhere else to go but back to the barracks, feeling both angry and humiliated. What was wrong with her? She had spent all day practicing what she would say, to the point where it had become so rehearsed, she could have performed it in her sleep, with the skill of a master thespian. She knew what she needed him to hear, and how to clarify her current position, where she needed to stand in order to… to become something, again. Something not wretched. Something--someone worthy of regaining honour. She had known it would hurt him, to see her this way, as someone different… but it hadn’t occurred to her that remaining by his side, not as someone he loved, but as a soldier, would hurt him even more. Had she done the right thing? Made the right call, in begging him to allow her to serve him?
What was more, she hadn’t realized just how much it would hurt her, in turn. That sharp pain in her heart, like there was something lodged in it, something that transcended mental and emotional agony and made it physical. Putting space between them had helped, and eventually, the pain ebbed. But not before it hurt even more.
After she had managed to calm herself, and prepared to sleep, the former knight was startled by yet another unexpected pain in her chest. But this one… it felt different from before. Not as though something akin to a blade was lodged within it, but as though something had been extracted from it. This pain was very brief, but intense enough that it drew a gasp from her lungs. And then she felt… She felt…
Elespeth couldn’t find a name for the feeling that enveloped her like a fog. Perhaps emptiness was as close as she could guess, but it was more than just that. Emptiness and loss, all akin to the feeling of falling as a result from a rope being severed. Immediately, her gaze went to her hand, which bore the scar that represented her bond with Alster. Her sudden gasp, like someone coming up for air, had even roused Chara from whatever semblance of sleep she striving to get. “...something feels wrong.” Was all she could find to explain. She clutched her heart, no longer so concerned with its arrhythmia, but with something else. Something that she could not quite put her finger on. “I don’t know… I can’t explain it. But something is… wrong…”
It wasn’t until the next day that she was able to determine precisely what it was.
The only blessed reprieve that her hours and days of tireless training and rehabilitation offered were sound nights of deep rest. Elespeth didn’t dream, anymore; no dreams, no nightmares, nothing but a merciful, black void, devoid of pain and burden. She slept well, that night, but for the first time, the void felt different, the empty space feeling… emptier. In want of something, though she could not venture to guess just what that might be. And when she awoke to sunrise the next morning, that emptiness persisted, sitting in her chest like a hollow space. Like she was missing something, but… she wasn’t sure just what it was.
Chara was still asleep, but the former knight did not feel inclined to shut her own eyes again. So she rose, and dressed in her modest tunic and trousers which were increasingly fitting better and better every day, as she acquired more muscle and put more meat on her bones. She’d just finished washing her face in the wash basin (mercifully, the mirror had not been replaced) when there came a knock at the door. With Chara still asleep, she was the only one who could answer, despite that she was not expecting an escort outside so soon. As it turned out, it was not an escort who awaited her.
“...Alster.” But he was different. Immediately, upon meeting his eyes, eyes that she thought she’d known so well, Elespeth realized that the Rigas caster was different… and that this different resonated with that empty feeling of cold numbness that had befallen her. In fact, she wasn’t certain as to whether she was beholding Alster Rigas, at all, or… someone else. Something else. “...what did you do?” The words, so soft that he may not have heard them, passed her lips before she could.think better of it. What did I do to you…
Otherwise speechless, the Atvanian warrior stepped back to allow Alster space to enter. Everything, from that oddly inhuman look in his eyes, to the way he carried himself with a sort of assurance that she had never noticed, before, made her feel strangely uneasy. As if she had not only killed Elespeth Rigas, but in doing so, Alster, as well…
“You… you don’t need to apologize. I showed up unannounced, as well…” She stammered, but her words fell short as he claimed not to be the man that she loved, either. This has been brewing for quite some time, now, if you recall the events from Stella D’Mare. Those words alone confirmed her fears: that the Alster she knew and loved, even in a position where she did not deserve to be love back, was locked away somewhere. Not gone, no, not so soon, but… unreachable. “And I… need to apologize for my behaviour. That day when I… awoke, how I lashed out at you…” Apologizing now, in hindsight, was fruitless, she realized. The damage had been done; she’d wanted Alster to see things her way, to move on, and… he had. But not in the way that she had imagined, or hoped…
She hadn’t realized he had come to tell her he accepted her new pledge until he produced a familiar weapon. A sword: her sword… one that had once connected the two of them, with Alster’s magic. Magic it had been stripped of, evidently. Now, it was merely an attractive hunk of steel. But he was right; she would need a weapon, and it had been quite some time that she’d held one, for a number of reasons. “Thank you,” she whispered, and after a brief hesitation, reached to take the hilt. To her great surprise and relief, she did not find it too heavy to lift; in fact, it was lighter than the blade with which she’d cut her hair. Maybe she could make something of herself, after all. “I made a terrible mistake. I was not thinking clearly… and I will not repeat it.” The former knight acknowledged, feeling the faint sting of his words. So he did know she had attempted to take her own life… no doubt, the shapeshifter had told him. “But… you may have to speak with the Dawn Guard. They’ve been ordered not to let me near a weapon. I am of sound mind, now, so those concerns are obsolete.”
But was she of sound mind? Yesterday, she might have been sure, but now… with that void, with a loss of something she hadn’t realized she would miss so much… This is what you wanted, a voice reminded her, nagging at the back of her mind. This is what is best for him. You must know that.
With her opposite hand, the one that was not clutching the sword, Elespeth wrapped her fingers around Alster’s steel digits, and tried not to shiver at how cold they felt. She was so used to his warmth… it was as though she were touching someone different, entirely. But this was who she had pledged to serve, regardless of how he changed, or what form he chose to take. She needed to follow through; for the sake of what was left of her, for the chance of standing with honour again, one day.
With his cold hand wrapped in her warm fingers, the former knight took to one knee and bowed her head. “I pledge myself to you, Alster Rigas. My life, my sword, and my loyalty. I will be your sword and your shield, from this day forth, or in whatever way you might need me. I will do honour onto the Rigas name and stand against anyone who threatens it, or you, or the D’Marians. I will not let you down… that is my promise to you.”
That was it: her pledge, her solution to the problems that had, up until now, had haunted only her. This was supposed to make things right. So… why did it not feel right?
She rose from her kneeling position, then, still tightly clasping her sword. Nothing had registered on the Rigas caster’s face; and she hadn’t expected any grandiose reaction of bliss or relief, yet somehow, it still unsettled her. This simple transaction was supposed to be easy, and painless, but somehow, it felt just the opposite. Like she had lost something, as opposed to gained. Without any further reason for Alster to stay, he left Elespeth and Chara to themselves, but the Atvanian warrior found herself stuck in the doorway for moments afterwards. “What…” She turned to look at Chara, who had awoken at some point during her brief interaction with Alster, perhaps the moment she had opened the door. “What have I done… to him?”
It was supposed to have made things easier, but the week that followed her pledge to Alster proved increasingly difficult for a number of reasons. Predominantly, the hollowness in her chest was difficult to ignore; strange, how a sense of nothingness could be more nagging than the presence of something unwanted, but it stood that while the former knight was making strides to atone for her terrible mistakes, now she was faced with trying to forgive herself for something else altogether: that being, forcing Alster’s hand to give precedence to the Serpent. He wasn’t the same, anymore. Not in the way he spoke or acted, those few times when she found herself in his company when she wasn’t training. Not in the way he suddenly could not seem to empathize with other people, having pushed all affect to the back of his mind. And it hurt to see him this way, because some time ago--a time that felt so far away, now--she had promised not to let him slip away. She had promised… oh, how she had let him down, in so many ways. Even in her desire to serve him, to be something useful for him, she had hurt him. You will hurt everyone you love because you continue to exist, that voice, one that had not left her alone, even in the absence of mirrors and other reflective surfaced.
And that guilt, knowing she had been the catalyst to elicit this change in him… it needed an outlet, had to go somewhere. Burning off energy by training, alone, wasn’t enough. At last, during those times when she had a moment to herself, neither in the presence of the Dawn Guard (who also kindly helped to facilitate her training) or Chara, she took the tip of her blade to secret places on her skin. Predominantly, the top of her thigh, a place at which no one would ever catch a glimpse. Never in excess, however, not to the point where it would cause her discomfort or pain while she was training, but enough to watch herself bleed. To focus on a manageable pain, for moments at a time, enough to drown out that voice, and the judgmental image of Elespeth Rigas that would not leave her alone in her mind’s eye. It always helped, by the reprieve was temporary, and as soon as the sting subsided, the weight of that emptiness would return. And she would feel lost all over again.
As if all of that was not enough, either, the remnants of her withdrawal symptoms were taking some time to subside; in particular, the erratic pace of her heart, sometimes too fast, sometimes too slow, and sometimes leaving her breathless for no obvious reason. In that week, her shaking had subsided, as had the headaches and nausea, but this symptom was worryingly stubborn. At last, she decided to seek the expertise of a healer, and when she explained to Chara where she was headed one afternoon, the Rigas woman did not ask questions; perhaps she was just glad to see that the Atvanian warrior was seeking help when she knew she needed it--even if it wasn’t the sort of help that Chara felt she needed.
She chose to seek out the same healer who had tended to her hand, the day she had attempted to take her life. It only made sense to return to the same woman, one in her late forties or early fifties, with a disarming and non-judgmental demeanor. She had earned Elespeth’s respect that very day, when she had healed her injured hand without berating her, or even asking how it had happened. She was someone the former knight felt comfortable confiding in--to a very limited extent, of course, but she could not see fit to seek anyone else’s help was not within her realm of comfort.
It had never occurred to her that what now ailed her might not be the result of withdrawal, anymore.
The kind-hearted healer, a woman by the name of Tomasin, spent the good part of an hour, taking into account the rhythm and flow of Elespeth’s pulse and energy, by both physical and magical means. But at the end of that hour, she had nothing to offer by the sad shake of her head. “Your heart’s condition… I am afraid that it is not withdrawal.” She sighed, placing her hand to Elespeth’s chest for the umpteenth time, as if this time around, it would give her a more positive prognosis. “The stimulant you were taking--I’ve heard of it, and its potencies. It has forced your heart to work so hard that I believe it has… changed it. Damaged it.”
“What does that mean? Can’t you fix it?” A crease developed between Elespeth’s brows. “You work in magic; with what you know, what you can do, it cannot be so beyond repair… I am a warrior. Or, I’m… trying to be, again.”
“I can do many things, but even magic cannot change the physicality of someone’s organs, I’m afraid.” Tomasin shook her head again, and tucked her greying hair behind her ears. “To be very honest, I am not convinced it is simply the stimulant that has caused your arrhythmia. Your aura… it is clouded and bruised. Something tells me that chest pains are not the only thing you are suffering.”
Elespeth pressed her lips together and buttoned up her tunic when the healer took her hand away, choosing not to tread that territory. “Am I to assume this isn’t temporary? I will have to find a way to live with this?”
“Unless you can consult with a Sybaian healer. My best guess is a stimulant has caused the crux of the damage, but something else, something… recent, is maintaining, and possibly worsening what has been done. Though even if you do manage to find one of the elusive Sybaians, they are only able to help to help as much as you are willing to come to terms with what is keeping you sick, or injured.”
“Well, my chances of coming across a Sybaian, here, are slim. And otherwise, I’m fine. I’m… getting better.” The former knight ran a hand through her hair. “But I need to fight. It is all I have ever been able to do… it’s the only way I can be useful. Make something of myself.”
Tomasin smiled sadly, and moved away from the bed where Elespeth sat, toward a desk that was cluttered with multiple vials. “Somehow, I don’t feel that is true. We are more than our professions, Elespeth. But if training again is what is helping you to recover from your… spell, then I would not be an adequate physician to ask you to stop doing it. However, it is within my responsibilites to caution you to take it in stride. And to take care of yourself.” Selecting a vial from a shelf, she turned back to the former knight and placed it in her palm. “Take a drop of this every night. It will lower your heart rate while you sleep; take the strain off of it. I would also advise you to take it when you feel it racing, though it will make you tired, so bear that in mind.”
“Thank you for your help. This will suffice.” Sighing, Elespeth stood and moved away from the bed, but paused before she left the room entirely. Hesitating a moment, she looked over her shoulder at the kindly healer. “I must ask… please do not mention this to anyone. I am just earning their trust, again… I do not want them to worry.”
“Confidentiality is of course part of my code.” Tomasin assured her, though seemed uneasy about it. “But, when you are ready, it would benefit you to let someone in the know… for your own safety.”
The Atvanian warrior said nothing to that advice, and promptly left, before the healer could so much as bid her good-day. Elespeth squinted against the bright sunlight, which was growing warmer with the steady progression of spring. Having spent a good deal of the afternoon indoors, she’d grown accustomed to the relative darkness, and of late, the bright daylight was almost overstimulating, to the point where at times she felt downright disoriented. It was enough to cause her to collide with another body, not fifty paces from the infirmary where she’d just left.
“My apologies,” she stammered, righting herself and taking a step back. “The sun was in my… Hadwin?”
The faoladh was not the person with which she had collided, but he was the one who’d caught her attention. He accompanied a woman with lithe limbs, and rich, wavy brown hair that fell just past her shoulders. “Not to worry, dear. No harm done,” Briery Frealy brushed off the accident with a smile, looking from Hadwin to Elespeth and back again. “The two of you know each other?”
Truthfully, Elespeth wasn’t sure how to answer that; the person she had once been had known (and loathed) the shapeshifter, but standing here now, as a new, lesser person like she was… she didn’t even have it in her to be angry. Not anymore; not even after she knew he’d gone and told Alster that she’d almost taken her life. So she left it up to Hadwin to fill in the blanks as he saw fit; whatever he said about her couldn’t possibly be worse than what she thought of herself.
“So you are Elespeth Rigas.” The lithe brunette raised her eyebrows and smiled. “It is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, miss Rigas. I’ve heard a good deal about you without ever having met you. My name is Briery Frealy.”
I’ll bet, the ex-knight sighed quietly, and shook her head. “You… can just call me Elespeth.” She amended, and cleared her throat. “Any idea as to why it’s so busy out here, today?” Now that her eyes had readjusted, the once warrior took note that the streets were more bustling than usual, and that there was a hint of… something, in the air. Maybe it was happiness.
“Ah, people are preparing themselves for tomorrow’s festivities. That’s why we’re here; my troupe and I are planning to perform, Hadwin was so kind as to help me gather some last minute supplies…” The ringleader trailed off upon realizing something. “Did… you not know this was taking place? It is an effort to boost hope and morale, before we start sending people toward Galeyn.”
Elespeth scratched the back of her neck, which still hadn’t grown used to the lack of hair that shielded it from the open air. “No. I haven’t really been in touch with what’s been happening… well, around, I suppose.”
“Then you most certainly seem as though you need a pick-me-up. You should come.” Briery’s smile was as inviting as sunshine. “Even if only for a little while; my troupe could use the moral support, since Hadwin will sadly not be present for our performance. Will you consider it, at least?”
“Of course.” Elespeth tried to smile; she wondered if it looked as wrong as it felt. “I’ll see how things pan out. But I won’t keep you from your errands.” Nodding respectfully, she took her leave, weaving through people left and right as she made for the Dawn Guard’s settlement. Briery’s eyes followed her the entire time, until she vanished in the crowd.
“It’s none of my business, but… I don’t like that. The way she presents herself.” Her sunshine smile had since faded, replaced with a knowing frown. “She doesn’t have the demeanor of someone who is on the road to recovery from attempted suicide; she’s in denial about the fact she isn’t getting better. Maybe you should put a bug in her ear, encourage her to come out, tomorrow. It’ll be a good distraction from whatever is… going on.” Whether she referred to Elespeth’s mind, or the condition of her relationship with Alster, remained unclear. “I’ll be honest, she doesn’t at all seem like the self-righteous hand of justice that your accounts made her out to be. You’re a pretty good judge of character, but,” a grin replaced the frown on her lips, and she playfully elbowed him in the ribs. “Even you can be wrong, at times.”
It was as Chara feared. Last night, following his explanation of the bond he aimed to blockade, she tried to dissuade Alster from making any hasty decisions, but she failed to sway his mind. Despite assurances of a “temporary” damming between himself and Elespeth, her frown had curdled, the face of a person who remained unconvinced.
“I know that look,” Alster sighed. “What am I doing wrong, Chara? Me and her...we feed into each other’s pain. As we are now, any interaction we share will render us near catatonic. She wants to serve under me, but proximity of any sort will agitate our hearts and hinder our ability to be productive...or well. Our empathetic connection is too strong to persist through this pain and agonizing heartache. It’s too much for her right now. Too much for her heart.” He rested a steel hand over his opposite wrist, his pulse racing so hard, he could even feel it vibrating against his metallic fingertips. “It’s too much for me, too. I have to lead, Chara. You put me in charge. But right now, I’m functioning because I’ve been pulling from an external resource. I have to rely on that resource, again, especially after I cut emotional ties with Elespeth. It’s an extreme measure, but,” he closed his eyes, “there isn’t anything else I can do for her that won’t hurt her, and I’m so sick of causing her pain. I’ll be there for her, but the circumstances will...differ. If it’s what she wants,” he turned from Chara and retreated into his room, “then I’ll be the lord to her vassal.”
Her last conversation with Alster replayed in her head as she watched this new Alster introduce himself to Elespeth in the exact manner he referenced last night. But to see it in action told a fuller and more disturbing story than her imaginings--because it was real. The shades of the man she observed over the past two weeks had grown large enough to eclipse the sun. Along with Elespeth, she mourned the warmth and light that Alster’s demeanor oft contributed to the people he’d touched. She frequently criticized him for his heart; too big, too foolhardy, too quick to bleed, too selfless and kind...too fragile for the world which yearned to crush it.
Alster Rigas had been crushed. Now, he was more metal than man. A machine of productivity, loyal and morally just, but devoid of his most beautiful trait: love. Because he was too afraid to love. Too afraid that it caused excruciating pain to the woman who comprised his existence. To save another, he compromised himself, but in so doing, he compromised the very person he wished to save.
When the man masquerading as Alster exited the room, more in a slither than a walk, Chara straightened from her bed to meet Elespeth’s inquiry head-on. While easy to cast blame, as she was wont to do in the past, the chain of events were too many to point one finger at. “I spoke with him last night. After you left.” Her hand raked through her hair, past the visible roots of blonde poking through, down towards the new nubbed tips of her scarred ears. “His hope was to spare you as much emotional anguish as possible...by temporarily sealing off the bond you two share, and becoming somebody who you cannot love. I told him he should discuss it with you before proceeding, but apparently, he did not listen.” Throwing aside her sheets, she planted her bare feet on the cool wood floor.
“He did what he thought would help you, but he is always and forever an idiot, so what he did is his fault, Elespeth. Well-intentioned or not, the blame still rests on his shoulders. He is so convinced he must choose the path of the greatest suffering and the greatest undoing that he conveniently ignores the consequences of his martyring actions.” She wandered to the wash basin. “You are no different; you, too, love to seek self-punishment--which is why the two of you are so compatible. But what neither of you seem to realize,” water splashed across her face, “is that you are horribly abusive to each other. His pain is your pain, and vice versa. There is no way of breaking from this cycle without breaking each other. You’ve become too dependent on the other for survival now; too intertwined to stand alone. “But,” she scrubbed off the residual water with a cloth, “now you must stand alone until you can figure out what in all of damn creation you want. Because while you take your time and wait to decide,” the fingers of her free hand dug against the wood grains of the basin table, “he’s...I fear he will slip away, Elespeth. And I need him to be alright.” She breathed an even stream, a desperate attempt to prevent a spiraling loss of composure. “I need my oldest friend to be alright. But I am not enough.” Stray strands of muddy brown hair fell into her eyes as she lowered her head to the table. “I was never enough. No one is...but you.”
Although Alster had invited Hadwin to reside in his premium space at the inn, their day to day interactions had grown awkward since the faoladh’s bad news reveal about Elespeth. Once polite greetings from the Rigas Head transitioned into brusque nods of acknowledgement--but Hadwin attributed the change in attitude to the worm that lived inside the man’s head. So he assumed, anyway; he seldom stayed long with Alster to pick at his mess of a brain. Spending so much as ten minutes in his company produced the kinds of headaches that crouched behind your eyes and pushed with every intention to pop them straight out of your sockets. No company was worth a headache so fierce; not that Alster--or anyone, really, excepting Briery or Teselin--provided exemplary company. They were all too damn bleak, and the constancy of soul-crushing depression and gloom drove him from the inn and back to the welcoming caravans on the hill. While he returned to Braighdath every so often to check on Teselin, the majority of his days consisted of Briery-related or Missing Links-related activities.
Like today.
Together with the ringleader, Hadwin explored the city of Braighdath, popping into supplies stores and aiding in the haggling process to acquire goods on the cheap. Not that pleading their case provided much difficulty; as the premiere entertainment for the following evening’s festivities, most shop owners were more than happy to hand over their wares for a discounted rate. As they exited the last store, the two of them carrying various odds and ends (fabrics, dyes, threads, silk, and whatever else four arms could juggle), Hadwin let out an exaggerated groan. “People in this town are too damn friendly. Here I was, wanting to show off my cutthroat haggling skills, and before I’m even ready to throw down, they’re practically handing us free shit and shoving us out the door. I mean, I’m not complaining,” he paused, gauging Briery’s skeptical expression. “...Okay, so I am complaining. At least our shopping day’s been cut down the middle, yeah?”
Before he could announce the speedy approach of a familiarly-scented individual, that individual went and turned the corner like a drunken ram on a crash-course with a tree, careening into Briery and tossing the parcels out of her hands. Crouching down to pluck up the fallen casualties, he kept one curious eye on the woman who was very much the talk of his entire circle of...well, ‘acquaintances’ was a strong word. As was “allies.” ...Colleagues?
“Hm...You’re in good form today, Elespeth Rigas.” Hopping to his feet with the retrieved packages balanced on his head (until Briery took them off), the faoladh’s one curious eye adjusted to two, as he observed the woman in full. “May I present,” he swept an exaggerated arm and deepened his voice to the dignified timbre of a herald introducing royalty, “...well,” he gave a confused shrug, shattering the act, “your guess is as good as mine at this point, right?”
When the recovering warrior took her leave, moving through the crowd like a wounded doe pretending otherwise, he could only nod to Briery’s first impression assessment. “Well, she can’t very well walk around like easy prey, either. You gotta hide the hurt from the world. She’s trying not to show hers...but she ain’t fooling anyone. It’s pretty telling, too.” He released a low whistle. “That woman hates my guts, but she didn’t so much as react to me, beyond the initial meet-and-crash. Considering the last fucking thing I said to her, right after I yanked the pointy thing from her throat...yeah, this is bad. Another bad sign--” he rubbed the soft edge of a parcel between his eyes, “--there is a whole forest of headaches in that quaking little acorn of hers. I’ll go in and take the plunge, Brie, talk to her or something...because her beau’s nigh unreachable right now, it’s fucking her up worse, and dammit if isn’t making me want to smack their heads together until they can’t even remember what in the hells they were crying about to begin with.”
True to his agreement with Briery, after he delivered the parcels to the caravans outside of town, Hadwin doubled back to the barracks where Elespeth and Chara shared a room and meandered down the hallway to their door--making sure he didn’t encounter a certain irate blonde Dawn warrior along the way. Not likely, he remedied. The alluring Kariji whore ensnared the brunt of her attention these days (and here, Sigrid harbored such little appreciation for his matchmaking...or life-saving!) To try his hand at decency, he raised the knuckles of his fist and knocked. The latch clicked, and Elespeth stood over the threshold...and did not immediately slam the door in disgust.
“Our chance encounter this morning got me thinking about you, so I figured I’d drop by,” he said, slapping a hand on her shoulder in greeting and passing into her room. Chara wasn’t present, the only sign of her residency an expertly made bed with the sheets folded down and measured with perfect symmetry. “Haven’t spoken in a while. Got some things to talk about, me and you.” He lounged on Chara’s bed, wrinkling up the pressed, immaculate-white linens and squeezing the fluffed pillows into misshapen lumps.
“So, everything’s gone to shit, hm?” he said, with a conversational lilt. “You don’t have to hide the truth from me, Rigas. As you’re already aware, I’ve got a penchant for knowing things people don’t want me to know. So it’s going to shit, and you’re falling apart. That you can’t hide from me, either. I smell blood, and it’s not from Chara, and it’s not gushing out of your cunt, either. You’re either taking practice strokes with your fancy sword, or you’re trimming off a little skin for the fun of it.” His smile broadened into a grin. “Got some new scars, I bet? I’d show you mine, but the thing about healing lightning quick and leaving nothing behind is that it makes me look so green, like I’ve never been in a fight, or never known pain a day in my life. I’ve been in so many scrapes and I’ve got nothing to show for it. Oh well.” He reclined on Chara’s bed and rested his arms behind his head. “Some scars run a little deeper. How’s your heart, by the way?” He trained his eyes to the ceiling, never once looking at Elespeth. “That’s rough luck. You know, your beau might be able to fix that. He did wonders for Briery--the woman I was with, before. Back in Eyraille, he rummaged through her uterus and smoothed it all out; no penetration or anything.” He snickered. “He woudn’t dare. That man’s as faithful as they come. But he shut you out, so,” he blew a noisy stream of air through his mouth, “chances are he doesn’t even know what’s going on with you, anymore.”
With a wide, loud yawn, he arched his back and stretched his arms and legs, satisfying cracks and pops traveling up and down his body. “Now that we’re on the same page, and there’s no secrets between us, I’ll get to my point, here. Contrary to what you think, I’m not here to rile you up today. Yeah, I said some things before, and yeah, I told Alster about what you tried to do, but the guy was standing in front of your door every day like the saddest puppy I’d ever seen. I had to tell him; the pressure was cooking him up inside.” He shifted to one side and propped himself up with his elbow.
“Thing is, you’re in a shitty situation. The both of you are. That’s not going to change overnight. But what you can change is your perspective. It doesn’t come easy, though. You have to do a crazy amount of pretending. Some might call it self-delusion. I just call it working with a bad hand. A whole deck of bad hands. Doesn’t mean you’ll always lose. It means you gotta get good at bluffing. So,” he scrambled to an upright position and locked eyes with her for the first time since his arrival, “bluff. Go out there and roll with whatever the fates have in store. Cheat your way to victory. They don’t play fair anyway, so why should you? It’s not about what we do or don’t deserve in this life; it’s about getting what you want before you die. Life’s not supposed to be an endless slog of misery after misery, anyway; otherwise, what’s the point?”
“What I’m saying is--go out and see Briery’s show, tomorrow. Bask in the festivities.” He leapt out of the bed with the boundless energy of a puppy at playtime. “The food, the lights, blissful, harmless distraction. And, sure, Alster will be there because he has to be there, and Haraldur will be there, and Sigrid--everyone’ll be there except for me because I might die or something. So I say,” he threw his hands in the air, “fuck that. I’m going. If you can’t think of another reason to go, you could always watch my back--make sure the Forbanne aren’t breathing down my neck or anything. Because you see,” he lowered his voice conspiratorially, as if sharing in a huge secret, “I’m not supposed to die yet.”
By the time Elespeth returned to the barracks, that afternoon, Chara appeared to have already left--which was just fine, by her, as she’d been hoping to find a moment alone. Part of her was inclined to blame it on the fact that she’d run into Hadwin, that the shapeshifter had triggered unease deep within her, but she was too aware of the truth--and that truth was that she was bothered. Not by the faoladh, or even the healer’s prognosis of her heart, but by yet another reminder of her own burden of guilt. Chara’s comment from the past week had stayed with her, clung like a shadow and darkened her vision every time she tried to see the light. While you take your time and wait and decide… he will slip away.
Alster wasn’t gone--not yet. He was inaccessible, the part of him that she knew and loved so well hidden away from the pain because he couldn’t bear it, and in the meantime, she was… what? Could she really say she was making strides? She trained with the Dawn Guard--which under alternate circumstances might have been nothing less of fulfillment of a lifelong wish--but her training sessions were always cut short by her lack of strength, or an irregular episode with her heart. She was eating, putting weight on, gradually gaining muscle, but was still nowhere near being the warrior she had once been. She was (relatively) attentive to her health, had even sought out a healer to address her heart; but even that issue could not be resolved, and at best, she could only manage the symptoms and not the cause.
So what was she doing? To what end was she even working, when she might never see the Alster Rigas she knew (and still loved) ever again? It was too much to bear, and the cognitive dissonance was suffocating her. She could not return to Alster the way she had been before; she was not the person anymore, but a mere husk of Elespeth Rigas, what remained after the stimulant had taken its toll. She could not in good faith claim to be that person anymore, and Alster deserved no less than that person. But what would all of her efforts matter, if the Alster Rigas she had always known was lost for good? It was precisely what she had feared, back in Stella D’Mare, and now… now, it was happening. And she was not in a position to rectify it.
Closing and locked the door to her shared room (in case Chara returned anytime soon), Elespeth tucked the vial of medicine into her tunic, and kicked off her boots and leggings. Taking her sword from its sheath, which she kept against the wall to the right of where she slept, the former knight rested it on her now bare thighs. Against pale skin criss-crossed with raised pink and red scars. The oldest ones, inflicted a week ago, had healed and grown raised and pink, still tender to the touch, while the newer ones remained angry and red, occasionally leaking plasma as a result of having cut a little too deep. It was wrong; every ounce of her being was aware that this was by no means a healthy coping mechanism, and that it only attested to what everyone else still thought: that the woman called Elespeth Rigas was not alright, not sound of mind, and not out of the woods. They were right, but what they didn’t know was that because of this, a mere sacrifice of skin here and there, she was able to put one foot in front of the other as a result. For a brief period of time, the sting of a newly inflicted superficial wound was enough to take her mind off of what really hurt, and at least offer her the appearance of a marginally functioning individual. Without it, without this outlet… she couldn’t even pretend. It wasn’t healthy; but it was necessary.
And it was necessary right now, given how aware she was of what she had done to her body by way of abusing the stimulant. Elespeth trusted that healer, knew that she wasn’t lying to her or overlooking a more positive prognosis. What she’d done had permanently damaged her body, maybe even to the point where she would never truly be able to call herself a warrior again. Not if she had to worry about fainting mid-battle. You did this to yourself. That voice at the back of her mind never let her forget it. You’ve no one to blame but yourself. Why not cut a little? You’re already broken beyond repair, beyond wanting. This won’t change a thing.
Drawing an uneven breath, she took the sharp edge of her blade to the exposed flesh of one thigh, and exhaled shakily on that familiar, sharp sting. It hurt; it always hurt, but it was a hurt she could tolerate, one that took her mind off of the hurt that felt unbearable. Blood beaded to the surface of that shallow slice, bright against her otherwise pale flesh. A reminder that she was still alive; struggling, but alive, because death was no way out. Not when she owed her life to the Rigases, to Alster, to everything he and they had done for her. She had to survive, to serve him… and she would. But she would survive on her own terms; even if it meant that one day, she ran out of space to leave scars.
Sometimes, during moments like this, she would lose time. Lose herself in the sweet pain, and time would pass beyond her awareness. She wasn’t quite sure, therefore, of how long she had sat, letting herself bleed, when there came a knock upon the door. Not one that she recognized; Chara didn’t much care to offer her privacy, and would come in unannounced, but the Dawn Guard would always rap lightly with their knuckles. This knock was… demanding, and left her dreading who it might be.
Hastily pressing a handkerchief to her torn skin, the former knight was quick to pull her trousers back into place and replace her sword in its hilt before she answered the door. And when she opened it, and felt her heart drop, she was not so sure it had anything to do with the condition of her battered organ.
Elespeth didn’t have words, when her slate green eyes fell upon the face of none other than the man she had run into earlier that morning. Colliding with Briery like she had, her ears still ringing with the healer’s sad prognosis of her heart, she hadn’t had time to let her mind register all of the hurt and anger that she felt toward the faoladh. But now, given the opportunity… she couldn’t seem to find those sentiments at all. Nothing, aside from the trepidation of recognizing that there was no way this ‘visit’ was going to end well. Hadwin did not waltz into anyone’s life (or room) like he did just now, unless it was with the intent to rip open wounds. And hers were barely held together with stitches…
“I… don’t have anything to talk about.” She ventured, but what was supposed to come across as final and unyielding only sounded afraid. Because she knew he could smell her lie, and her fear, and he was not about to let it go.
Exhaling a shaky breath, she closed the door again, when Hadwin decided to make himself comfortable on Chara’s perfectly made bed; the Rigas woman would not be happy to find wrinkles in the sheets upon her return, and was apt to blame the ex-knight for it, despite that she never went anywhere near “Chara’s half” of the room. “I’m working through it. Things are not ideal; but I’m managing… and just call me Elespeth.” But the trouble with beating around the bush was that it only made things worse; it made the faoladh cut right to the point, right to the thing that she didn’t want to discuss, and in this case, it was the painful secret beneath the fabric of her trousers.
If she wasn’t already pale, the Atvanian warrior grew even paler. No one was in the room, and no one appeared to be standing outside the door, but she lowered her voice all the same. Too ashamed to say it much above a whisper. “You can’t tell anyone.” It wasn’t a demand; her verdant eyes were bright and desperate. She was begging him. “Please… I know it isn’t right. I know this, but it keeps me grounded. It gives me something… else to focus on. I have no intention to try and take my life, again; I promise, I swear it, but this isn’t the same. Everyone has already lost all faith and trust in me; they can’t know this, or they’ll take my sword. And if I cannot bear arms, I… I won’t have a purpose. A use. It will only get worse for me…”
Back in Stella D’Mare, when she had still been the Elespeth Rigas worthy of the name, with long hair that defied battlefield etiquette and determination in her eyes, she never would’ve thought she’d see the day when she’d find herself all but on her knees before Hadwin Kavanagh… Begging him not to rub salt in already smarting wounds.
But he wasn’t here to judge her on her bad habits, it seemed. His attention to that detail was fleeting, and he soon moved on to yet another detail she had never mentioned (or even deigned to mention) to anyone. Unconsciously, her hand lifted to her chest, where her frightened heart prepared for fight or flight. And yet, all she could do was muster a state of ‘freeze’. “It isn’t bad luck. It’s a consequence of a bad decision.” She said simply. Nothing about her situation had to do with luck. You’ve no one to blame but yourself… “I’ve consulted with a healer… I have treatment for it. I won’t let it hold me back.”
Hadwin wasn’t about to stop there, though. He had to go so far as to mention the obvious: that Alster was likely the best candidate to treat her. Except, the Alster that she knew… he was unavailable. And the ‘new Alster’ had other priorities. It was not a favor she felt she had the right to ask of him, foolish and self-defeating as that might have been. “He… Alster and I aren’t…” Elespeth drew a breath and exhaled slowly. “I returned his ring. We’ve worked out… where we stand. But… wait. That woman… she is the one Alster helped in Eyraille?” Truthfully, she hadn’t taken much of an opportunity to get a good look at Briery when she’d met her, but she’d mentioned something along the lines of having heard of Alster Rigas’s once-fiancee. Funny, how small the world seemed, at times…
“...what is it your really want, Hadwin? Why are you here?” Elespeth’s shoulders dropped, and she spread her hands. “Whatever game you think we’re playing at… you’ve already won. You told Alster what I did; you hurt him, and in turn, me. Badly. You win, and I don’t know what more you want from me…”
The ex-knight furrowed her brows as the faoladh launched into an explanation for his unexpected company. It was safe to say that this was not what she’d been expecting. “Wait. So, you… came here to convince me to make merry, tomorrow? To take part in these impromptu festivities? But… why?” What do you care? Was the unspoken inquiry, and one not easily explained, Elespeth realized. She wondered if the woman named Briery had something to do with it; she’d seemed genuine in her invitation to watch her show, on the morrow. Had she reached out to her, because she thought her to still be the fiancee of the man who had quite literally changed her life?
“I… I really don’t know. It all sounds rather chaotic.” Elespeth blew air from between her lips. “I don’t know if I’m ready to be in a crowd. To be… seen. By anyone who might recognize me.” It was no mystery she she was specifically referring to everyone Hadwin had just mentioned. She had seen Sigrid on occasion, these past weeks, but was too ashamed to meet the Dawn warrior’s eyes. She didn’t know when or if she would ever be able to face Haraldur, again. And Alster… Since he had accepted her pledge, she had only seen the Rigas caster in passing. And when he happened to look her way, it was with no more interest than he might have had for any ordinary passerby or acquaintance. He’d done what he had done to spare her pain, when in truth, it only hurt more to see him as someone other than the man she knew.
However… she knew how Hadwin’s mind worked. She knew he had more leverage on her, and who was to say what he knew might just slip and find the wrong person’s ears, if she refused his request? Even Chara didn’t know about the condition of her heart. That was solely between her and the healer... “Somehow, I don’t feel as though anyone is stupid enough to take a swing at you around here,” she confessed, rather confused as to why the shapeshifter suddenly seemed concerned for his life. “You have Alster’s protection, don’t you? That’s practically sacrosanct. But…” Her eyes wandered over to the sword propped innocently against the wall. “You might be right. Even if it’s as idle as watching your back when you aren’t likely to be in danger, it will give my sword a purpose for a day.”
Before he left, she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, and a plea in her eyes. “Listen… I’ll do this--I’ll venture out tomorrow and pretend to be a fully functioning human, but you must promise me you won’t breathe a word of… this. Any of this. No one but the healer is even aware of the condition of my heart, and I need people to stop looking at me with caution and concern. Fake it; get good at bluffing, and cheat my way to victory. That’s what you said, wasn’t it?” She raised an eyebrow. “Well, then… help me cheat, a little. And we’ll see where it gets me.”
As it turned out, this was no small, impromptu day of festivities: the city and its visitors had gone all out. As if there truly were a reason for the extent of this degree of celebration, like a holiday, or a festival. After rising the next morning and going through some routine exercises to try and strengthen the muscles in her arms, her legs and her core, Elespeth left the vicinity of the barracks to find a that most of the city of Braighdath appeared relatively abandoned. After asking a passerby about the sudden lack of populace, she was pointed in the direction of the gates. Evidently, this celebration to boost morale and lift spirits was too big for the city itself, and had to take place outside, near the Forbanne and D’Marian encampments.
Well, it wasn’t difficult to see why. Hadwin hadn’t been exaggerating his prediction for the festivities; in fact, if anything, he might have underplayed it entirely. Any and all food vendors in the city had set up shop outside the gates to make themselves available to refugees; tents of all manner of color and shape had been erected, seemingly overnight (or not; it was her first glimpse of the gates, after all, so how long it had taken to arrange this was anyone’s guess). Almost as if on cue, as questions and amazement flooded Elespeth’s features, a familiar pair sidled up to her, arms once again full of last-minute supplies, that ranged anywhere from bright decorations to utilitarian tools. “Oh, good! Hadwin had said we’d see you here, today.” The woman from the other day--Briery, her name was--beamed delightedly at the former knight, who took in her unusual skintight, golden attire with mild surprise. “To be honest, I wasn’t sure we’d get all of this together in just a few days’ time, but you’ve gotta admit, we pulled it off, didn’t we?”
“You… organized all of this?” Elespeth’s jaw all but dropped, but Briery tilted her head back and laughed.
“Oh, you flatter me. I had a lot of help.” She playfully bumped Hadwin with her hip and flashed him a knowing smile. “Though you could say I’m rather in the business of throwing amazing parties, so to speak. Do say you’ll stay until the evening; that’s when my troupe and I will be performing. I promise you won’t be disappointed.”
Elespeth nodded, and tried to match the performer’s smile, but she didn’t have to see a mirror to know she failed miserably. “That’s my intention,” she told her, which was a close to a promise as she could make. Truth be told, she didn’t quite know how she would fare, today, among those making merry. “Hadwin seems to think someone might try to off him; I promised I’d watch his back.”
“Well, that sounds about right.” Briery didn’t even hint at being fazed or surprised, lifting her shoulders in a shrug. “That’s right--you are a warrior, aren’t you? Lucky for Hadwin to have someone else who can handle a sword be his personal body guard; I think he rather alienated that pretty Dawn warrior.”
With Briery walking a few paces ahead of them, Elespeth closed the distance between herself and the faoladh, hand on the hilt of her sword. “You realize that if your life really is in danger,” she sighed, “I don’t know how reliably I can protect you. I’m out of practice… to say the very least.”
“I wouldn’t dream of taking your sword away, Elespeth. Doesn’t benefit me in the least, for one.” Though his words slid lazily over his tongue, seemingly unaffected by the woman’s emphatic entreaty, Hadwin’s gold gaze held a meaning different than his glib responses and on-the-surface attitude. They drifted to where the mirror once stood, then to the closed curtains over the windows, tied shut to prevent even the tiniest sliver of light. “No,” he said, his voice oddly quiet and somber, “I don’t think you’ll try and off yourself again. Not if I have anything to do with it.” He brought his hands together and with a violent twist, snapped one of his wrists. It hung, loose and gnarled, from his arm, but he wasn’t fazed by the pain or his sudden, madness-induced performance of half-hearted proportions. “Yeah, I cheat--because it heals right-away. But this,” he nodded to the once dangling hand, now upright and flexed, good as new, “is my version of what you do. Pop some bones here and there, no big deal. I do it all the time when I shift. Hurts less when it’s for a purpose, like changing forms, though. So yeah, believe me; I got no qualms over what you do to your body. Your beau does it, too; those scars on his throat aren’t old, after all. The old him would understand.”
“Speaking of,” he wound his hand in small, massaging circles, “there’s something I recall you saying to me, back in Stella D’Mare, when we pretended to play nice with each other. You said that Alster once knew the ‘real’ Elespeth, one full of ideals and optimism, and you compared the old you to our favorite summoner--who, by the way, is currently struggling with said ideals and optimism. You said that Elespeth died when your brother died. Yet, you still found yourself worthy of Alster’s love, and he allegedly thought nothing of your change, and stayed by your side.” He threw his shoulders into a shrug. “I’m just guessing on that detail, of course. Anyway, you went and ‘died’ again. So what about this new round of death makes you more undeserving of his love, or more foreign to yourself and your buried ideals? If it’s about your dumb mistake, sure, that’s fair...but we all make stupid fucking mistakes. I stand by my assertion, though. What happened with your heart--it’s bad luck, and I’ll tell you why.” He pulled out his pipe from a pouch clipped to his belt and stuck it, unlit and without stuffing, into his mouth.
“I’m familiar with that stimulant. Seen people lose their minds to herbs of similar potency and effects. Hell, I’ve used stuff much worse, but again, I’m a cheater, so my strong healing ability purges it out of my system real quick.” Pulling the stem out of his mouth, he rubbed a thumb over the bowl’s dull varnish. “I’ve known long-time abusers, normal humans like you, who tried to kill themselves with their drug of choice, again and again, only to come back to themselves, abuse some more, crash, and then go completely cold--with no ill consequences. No heart problems, no anything problems. Some even went on to live productive lives. Productive insofar as living to the best of their shadiest selves, just so I’m clear that there wasn’t some righteous god out there, punishing them for all their accumulated misdeeds. So yeah, Elespeth.” A soft tutting sound smacked from his tongue. “You gambled and lost. A victim to the randomness of a dangerous game. Doesn’t mean you have to live with it, especially if it hampers your ability to be an arms bearer, your ‘one and only’ purpose in this world. We’ll just have to give your beau a good smack and bring him back to his normal self, so he can help you. Not like I haven’t hurt him plenty, already...by the simple act of telling him the truth.” He rolled his eyes at Elespeth’s hard stare of skepticism. “Nicely, I might add. I have it in me--sometimes. But above all, I’m an expert at hurting people, so you can hire me for the job. A snake discharmer, if you will. I owe it to him, anyway--and by extension, you. He did a solid for Briery--I won’t forget, so easily.”
As he returned the pipe to his pouch and made for the door, having nothing else to discuss with Elespeth once she agreed to attending the festival, he stopped mid-stride when she reached for his arm, her grip desperate and her voice, even more so. “Sure, I won’t breathe a word. But just so you know, one solid rule of bluffing, of improvisation and of cheating, is working with the aftermath if the truth ever comes out. If all your perfect bullshitting gets cracked open and revealed, you can’t let the defeat ruin you. You play it in your favor. Lose gracefully. Be who you want them to see, even if they know what you don’t want them to know. Anyway,” he closed his fingers over the latch of the door and winked, “I’ll see you for the big day, Elespeth. Don’t run or hide; I can track you down with ease. It’s even easier when you bleed.”
The long-awaited day of festivities hit the city of Braighdath like a storm of plenty: its winds manifest in the form of flapping banners, brilliantly hued, thunder rumbled in the jubilant fanfare of trumpets and drums, and rain collected in goblets overflowing with either heady wines or frothy ales. Though early on in the program of listed activities, crowds of people, refugee and Braigdathian alike, flooded the scene, ducking under narrow archways woven with floral decorations and shiny baubles, visiting food vendors that boasted spun sugared treats or savory pastries, or poking inside tents for some light entertainment before the big event of the evening. The Forbanne hadn’t yet begun to mingle with the gathering revel, to which Hadwin felt some degree of relief. Beyond any real fear for his life, his concern extended to Briery and her troupe. He just didn’t want to cause any problems for them--an oddly selfless act, on his part.
Elespeth proved simple to locate. He turned towards the raised portcullis of the West Gate and there she was, emerging from the city with that same wounded gait. ...She had a ways to go before looking like a well-adjusted person with her act together. “Oh--look what the sewers dredged up.” He made a show of scrunching up his nose and gagging. “Good morning, shit ball.” A wide, teasing grin accompanied his features. “Welcome to the herd. Now I’ve got faith this celebration will be the talk of the city for years to come--because I was involved with the planning.” He lifted his nose in the air with an exaggerated sense of hubris. “Though the real star of the show is this one right here.” A hip-bump answered Briery’s hip-bump. “Wouldn’t know anything about planning a party, but I know how to crash ‘em.”
As Briery and Elespeth discussed matters involving Hadwin’s threatened mortality, the faoladh nodded and shrugged. “Nothing new, of course. I’m an acquired taste. Siggy can’t handle me. I’m untamable. But some have tried, with marginal success.” He blew on the back of the ringleader’s neck, danced away before she could retaliate, and shared his loud snickers with Elespeth at the rear--even though he was the only one doing the snickering.
“Eh, don’t worry about it,” he answered with a grin. “We improvise, remember? I’m not without my tricks, either. In close-combat, I excel, and the only one with better reflexes around here is this circus freak leading the charge. I can still out-run her, though,” he said, with a sing-song voice, loud enough for Briery to hear. “Not like we’re out here alone, either. Hey, Alster!” He shouted, cutting through the white-noise of the crowd. “Get over here!”
Sure enough, the Rigas Head appeared from behind a tent and joined the trio on the bustling avenue. For the occasion, he wore a royal blue ankle-length long-coat with silver trim and an ornamental sword at his hip. The sun favored him that morning, highlighting the gold in his sandy hair and the blue of his oceanic eyes. His bearing was kingly, and downright mythological. Judging by appearances alone, no mortal had a lion’s chance of reaching him. Still, Hadwin wandered close, unruffled by the man’s shroud of inaccessibility.
“Is there anything you need?” Alster asked, polite but stilted. “Good morning, Briery,” he said, extending his politesse to the people in his acquired party. “I look forward to your performance, tonight. And...Elespeth.” For her alone, he smiled, but it was firm and practiced. A smile reserved for loyal subjects, but not equals. Or lovers. His eyes remained unaffected. “I did not expect to see you, today.”
“That’s a lie.” Hadwin snorted. “You’ve been tailing her since she left the city. You were prepared. Going invisible and standing by the gate like you were waiting for someone. Moment she shows up, you’re on the prowl. You might have a handle on your concealment charm, but you can’t mask your smell.”
A crinkle of amusement crossed over Alster’s impassive eyes, eyes that again struck the flint of alien curiosity. He carefully dissected the ‘creature’ before him. “Is there a reason you have called me here, Kavanagh? Or was it simply for you to infer my methods and motivations? Perhaps I wanted to escape detection from the crowd, a while.”
“Then you woudn’t’ve popped out of your disguise at my mere request. My company’s not worth a wink to you, protection or not.”
“I see we are getting nowhere with this petty argument, wolf.”
“Oh I beg to differ. We got somewhere, all right, snake.”
“With twisted logic, yes, you did.” With a magnanimous flair, he added, “I am glad I could provide you with a sliver of entertainment before tonight’s real festivities, then. If you will excuse me.” He bowed his retreat to the trio, but his attention lingered on Elespeth. “Continue to build up your strength, Elespeth, so you can serve at my side. You are making good progress, so far. Do not give up. And do take care.” By the swish of his coattails and the metallic clatter of his arm, he was gone, melded into the noise and pizazz of the festival. Hadwin, never missing a step, did not wait for any awkward moment to pass, before blathering his opinion of the encounter.
“That was a loaded conversation,” he said, and his smile reigned triumphant. “But what we learned from that little tete-a-tete is that he obviously still cares for you. He’s denying it, poorly, but yeah, he’s keeping an eye out from the shadows. And why in the hell would he compliment your progress and wish you well if he didn’t mean it on some level? Politeness, my foot.” He elbowed Elespeth playfully in the ribs. “He can wall himself away all he likes, but you’re like a magnet to him. And because you are...he’s definitely reachable. But that’s up to you and what you decide to do with this information. Nothing will come of it if you don’t pursue the matter. Enough about your dramatic as fuck relationship, though.” He exhaled an equally as dramatic sigh. “I think we can all agree that we need a little fun.” He bounded forward and leaned against the ringleader, shoulder to shoulder. “Set us up, oh party planner extraordinaire.”
While the gloomy she-warrior was another story, Hadwin did not succumb to her mood, and plowed forward for all the festival had to offer. Accompanied with Briery, who finished early with the last minute arrangements and was free until the evening, they dragged their charge to all the different food vendors, sampling sweat meats and sugared fruits and traditional Braighdathian and D’Marian cuisine. They listened in on musical performances, danced a few jigs (sans Elespeth, of course), purchased and wore garlands of wildflowers around their necks, and avoided any heavily trafficked areas where the Forbanne were said to lurk. Naturally, no tour of any festival was complete without visiting the barrel tower stocked high with wines and ales, a frequent stopover for Hadwin as he refilled goblet after goblet and drank...without ever really getting drunk.
When questioned about this strange phenomena of god-tier alcohol tolerance, Hadwin bellowed a laugh and shrugged. “The downsides of quick healing. Effects just don’t last. S’why free booze is such a blessing; because it costs me a pretty penny for only the gentlest kick of sweet relief!”
The day wore on in much the same capacity, with them running into no one recognizable save for their earlier encounter with Alster. Once the sun touched the western horizon, Briery, needing to prepare for the show, excused herself from their company and headed to the large stage set between the D’Marian and Forbanne encampments.
“C’mon,” he told Elespeth, tugging her by the arm. “We gotta get a good spot or we’ll be consigned to the back and won’t see a damn thing! Forbanne are tall and have big, fat heads.”
Briery gave Hadwin a playful (albeit meaningful) kick to the shin at his choice greeting for Elespeth Rigas as she emerged, looking about as lost in an open space as a person possibly could. “Hadwin. There is a time and place for that kind of ‘funny’; now is neither the time nor the place.” She lowered her voice a little, just enough for him to hear, but not nearly loud enough for Elespeth to pick up on. “And certainly not the person… cut her some slack: she came out, today. You can’t tell me that’s not the biggest step she’s taken since she arrived in this city, barely alive.”
Elespeth didn’t seem particularly fazed or offended by Hadwin’s choice words for her arrival, however. Briery figured she either anticipated it from the faoladh, or the shadow of this knight’s former self wasn’t of the state of mind to care. Instead, she lifted her shoulders in an almost imperceptible shrug. Briery noted that her sword was strapped to her back; quite the curious accessory for what was supposed to be a celebration. It made her wonder just what Elespeth was anticipating might happen, but the former knight’s explanation put it all in perspective. A small smile curled at the corners of the acrobat’s lips; so Hadwin must have spoken to her, the other day, and convinced her to show up. There might be hope for the bastard, after all.
“You were the one who invited me,” Elespeth reminded Hadwin, and arched an eyebrow. “If you didn’t want me stinking up your ‘herd’, then you shouldn’t have asked. Or insisted, was more like it.” It came as no surprise when he explained that he’d fallen out of favor with Sigrid, but to suggest that the blonde Dawn warrior was the reason he feared for his life was absurd. “And if you’re afraid of Sigrid, I highly doubt it is within her code of ethics to do you any harm. She upholds her honour.” Unlike me, the ex-knight thought dismally, and cast her verdant gaze to the ground. When she lifted it, again, it was to gaze upon Alster--who had seemingly materialized out of nothing and from nowhere. It wasn’t as though that was not within the realm of his capabilities, after all.
He looked… perfect, was the only word that the Atvanian warrior could think of to describe the Rigas head. Just like the leader that his people needed: regal, stalwart, and confident. Except, there was something missing in his eyes, something that she had not realized was there before until it was gone. His once beautiful, azure irises that rivaled the sky’s blue were… duller. Steely, though she hated to apply that word with regard to the man she loved… that she still loved.
“Ah, Alster. I wondered if you would make it to our show tonight.” Briery smiled in greeting. If she took note of the change in the man who had changed her life for the better such a short time ago, she did not let on. “Cwenha will be singing throughout the afternoon, you know. You mentioned how her song moved you so, the last time; I thought I’d mention it. She’d be happy to see you, again.”
At the smile Alster offered to her and her alone, Elespeth was at a loss as to how to react. She frozen, fight or flight pumping from her damaged heart, but her body failed to comply either way, so she froze, like prey caught in a hunter’s trap. “I… well, Briery informed me that this was taking place.” She hoped her voice didn’t sound as weak as it felt. Just in case, the former knight cleared her throat. “I thought I might see what was about. There is only so much I can accomplish, back at the barracks, and many of the Dawn warriors who have been kind enough to help me train appear to be present here, as well.”
Needless to say, it caught both Elespeth and Briery by surprise when Hadwin called the Rigas caster out on his own presence. That he had been keeping an eye out for her, waiting for her, the moment she left the city. Confusion tied knots in her stomach and throat. What purpose did he have to be trailing her? Because anyone with a head on their shoulders would be wondering what the hell a head-case like you is doing, trying to be part of civilized society, that dark voice art the back of her mind accused. Elespeth swallowed the lump in her throat. “Let him be, Hadwin. Who Alster chooses who or who not to reveal himself to is his own business.” If she could not stand up for the Rigas head with her sword, just yet, then she could at least use her words in its stead, for now.
“Come now, both of you.” Ever the mediator, Briery placed hand on each man’s shoulders respectively. “We’ve all been through some particularly trying times. Today is to celebrate the fact that we have all made it this far, and will continue to make it further, still. So eat, drink, and be merry, and for the love of all that is good--try to respect one another.” Flashing a smile at Alster, the ringleader let her hand fall away. “I hope to see you at our show, later. I promise you, this one I will be present for from start to finish. I’ve been making good use of the newfound health you’ve given me.”
Returning Alster’s polite nod, his kind albeit perhaps not entirely heartfelt words taking root in her gut, the Atvanian warrior mustered what she could of a smile before he took his leave. “I will. I’ll do whatever it takes to be worthy enough to serve you, Alster.” But instead of coming across with sharp and determined conviction, Elespeth’s voice was cushioned by a softness that she’d only ever reserved for him.”
Hadwin’s assessment of Alster’s behaviour after the Rigas caster departed did nothing to lift the former knight’s mood, however. Elespeth exhaled, long and slow, and closed her eyes. “He cares insofar as he wants to make sure I remain intact. To serve and protect him, once I am strong enough… you don’t understand, Hadwin. We cannot… return to what we were. Or to what we had. Even if I can redeem myself enough to be a soldier and stand for him and the Rigases as a unit, I will never be the person that deserves to be loved by him. Please, Hadwin, just…” She turned to him, looking about as sad and wounded as one might anticipate for someone in her situation. “Let it go. Let me pick up the pieces of myself and put together some semblance of a person, again. It’s as much as I can hope for.”
“Now, enough of this, you two. Today is a celebration.” Briery shook her head, and splayed her hands, as if in an attempt to banish the sadness and tension that had gathered in the air with Alster’s arrival. “And, Elespeth, by choosing to be here, today, you have agreed to be part of this celebration. Come and eat and take in the sights. I won’t take no for an answer.”
Fake it. That had been Hadwin’s advice to her, and it was about all Elespeth could do to move through the crowds without dragging her feet. Briery and Hadwin took her to some of the best vendors, D’Marian and Braighdathian alike, selling anything from delicately sugared fruit dishes with origins in Stella D’Mare, to spiced and cured meats so tender they practically melted on her tongue. All of it was delicious, perhaps some of the best she’d ever tasted, with so much love and effort put into perfecting these recipes so that all might enjoy them… and yet, she could hardly enjoy them. All slid down her throat like a lump, just another piece of sustenance for a body that desperately needed to fill out its hollow spaces. It was all the same with the music; a harmonious amalgamation of familiar music from Stella D’Mare, and new melodies she had never heard, before, characteristic of Braighdath. All beautiful, not a single sour note drifting into the night, and yet it all fell upon her deaf ears, processed with no more finesse than white noise. Her mind was not present, and her heart… it was not in it.
But she pretended. She ate good food, listened to lovely music, and followed both Hadwin and Briery wherever they chose to take her--and then, when Briery insisted it was time to take her leave, she Elespeth was surprised to find that Hadwin hadn’t told her he tired of her lackluster company. He didn’t ask her to leave; didn’t make an exit, himself, or try to sneak away. She wondered if it had something to do with the copious amounts of alcohol he chose to down, once the ringleader had left. Not that she could blame him; if she were any ordinary human being, she’d likely need to be plastered, drunk, as well, just to be around her. Despite their history, she had to give the faoladh credit… Evidently, she hadn’t given him enough credit in the past.
“Are you in love with her?” She asked, after Hadwin finished a rather long winded explanation as to greedy indulgence of anything alcoholic. It was the first thing she had said for quite some time, breaking the silence of her own voice. “The acrobat. You’re different, around her… like you’re trying to be a better version of yourself. I’ll bet she was the reason you asked me to come out, today, too.” He didn’t need words to confirm that she was right. A knowing smile, if you could call it that, curled the corner of her mouth. She looked down into her own stein of untouched ale; even when mentally sound, she was never very ‘good’ at drinking.
“I thought about what you said--what you asked me, yesterday. About how I told you I thought the old Elespeth died when… when my brother died.” Elespeth swirled the golden liquid around in her stein. It had probably gone flat long ago, and she had no intention of really touching it now, but it felt odd to sit without a drink in front of her. “I still feel that that stands. I was different when I first met Alster; I was hopeful. What he got after my brother died was merely a far less hopeful version of myself. But that person… she was still honourable, Hadwin. She wouldn’t shirk the help of her friends or her lover because her pride insisted that she could take care of herself. But look at what I have done to him… Look at how I have made him agonize. First by pushing him away, and then my attempted suicide… so he shut himself off. His heart is behind a shield, now, and… not even I can reach it. I did this to him--me, this new, shadow version of who was once an honourable person. I don’t know that I will ever be honourable again.But…”
The former knight looked up from her stein and straightened her shoulders. “That doesn’t mean that I cannot be someone, again. Alster needs someone to be his sword, and shield. So I… I will be just that. His sword and shield. Perhaps not someone with worth, but someone worthy, nonetheless. I can be that person, and I am going to be.”
It was not ideal, but it was perhaps the most optimistic point of view that Elespeth had toyed with since she’d regained consciousness. A step in the right direction, at the very least. “Well, let’s go see your acrobat friend’s show. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a performance involving more than one person.” The former knight let herself be hauled away from her untouched grog, and toward a particularly high tent erected closer to the city’s northernmost gate. People had already begun to line up in hopes of finding seats to view the spectacle, and to her surprise, Hadwin had been right about a handful of Forbanne attending. Of course, she was well out of the loop as to how Haraldur was faring with regard to rehabilitating the Forbanne soldiers… and she was not about to approach him to ask. It was not her place, and she did not yet have the courage to face him. She did not know when or if she would, again…
Hadwin pulled her through the crowd until they were met with a wall of people, and no real room to press on further. At the very least, they had a relatively good view of the Missing Links’ stage, and a full view of the lovely Briery Frealy as she emerged to introduce herself and her hard-working troupe. WIth any luck… it would be worth their while to stand in watch, sandwiched as they were between bodies to such an extent that Elespeth almost found it difficult to breath.
Or to move, for that matter. She only raised her arm to brush a rogue, chin-length hair from her eyes, and ended up elbowing someone behind her purely by accident. “My apologies,” she mumbled, only half-glancing over her shoulder to address her elbow’s unwitting victim. “I didn’t mean… Alster?”
Just what were the odds? The Atvanian warrior turned to face the Rigas head, completely oblivious as to whether or not he’d been there before she and Hadwin muscled their way into this space. “I’m so sorry… I had no idea…” Elespeth dropped her arm and seemed to shrink a little; something that she never would have done in Alster’s presence, were she still the person worthy of his love. Now, she was beneath him, by so many levels it was a wonder he looked her in the eye at all.
“Are you able to see from your vantage point? I can move; it was Hadwin’s idea to come here to watch the show…” But Alster assured her that he could see just fine, and like that, she had no reason to leave. “The shapeshifter mentioned that Briery is the woman you helped, in Eyraille. You changed her life; she can continue to perform, now, uninhibited by her illness. And because of that, she and her troupe can bring joy to their audiences… it’s amazing, the way affecting one person’s life can ripple outward to touch others.” Her voice grew quiet, then, as she turned to take in Briery and her troupe’s resplendent glitz. A man dressed in green had taken the stage, and by sleight of hand, was making objects disappear into thin air, and reappear again. “It’s only fitting that you lead the Rigases in Chara’s place… you are exactly the person your people need.”
Elespeth wasn’t the only one reluctant to make contact with Haraldur, that evening. It had been some time since Sigrid had last spoken with her cousin; not since she’d given him the resonance stone and insisted he talk to Vega, afraid that if he did not, he would begin to slip away from himself. It was already enough to deal with a heavily dissociated Elespeth, who allegedly couldn’t even face herself in a mirror; the last thing the Dawn warrior wanted was to have to hear the new of Vega’s children being born in the absence of their father some months down the road, because he lost himself, again. He had said he swore to return to his family, but… what were promises worth when there was no one to hold you to them?
At the very least, he had reluctantly allowed the Forbanne the space and freedom to take part in the day’s festivities. She had just seen a few of them head over to watch the circus performers, in fact, which was no small feat for men and women who had been programmed as nothing but war machines. Yet, she had not seen Haraldur out and about, making the best of this time to be merry and celebrate that they had made it to Braighdath, at all. She’d kept her distance, afraid of crowding or pressuring him, but tonight… she had to make sure he was alright.
Sure enough, the Eyraillian prince was still lingering in the Forbanne encampment, before the warmth of a bonfire. She offered a smile which hopefully matched that warmth. “If you’re chilly, it’s easier to warm up in a crowd. Not alone.” She took a seat across from him, resting her arms on her knees. “We haven’t spoken in some time. I wanted to know how you are faring; and how you are perceiving this… well, these festivities. Some of your Forbanne look as though they are really enjoying themselves… in any number of ways.”
Naimah hadn’t been wrong about the intrigue that the whores offered; a raw and visceral and pleasurable experience that was far removed from the pain they’d suffered to become what they were. And many had jumped on the opportunity, but some, still, remained within the confines of the encampment, unsure what to make of this celebration of happiness and success. Haraldur was among them, and seemingly, harboured those same sentiments.
“You shouldn’t be here alone, Haraldur. Come and set an example for the soldiers under your command.” Sigrid gently encouraged him, knowing better than to push too hard. But he needed to hear this from someone; and she couldn’t well leave him to sit alone this evening. “Hell, I think I even saw Elespeth among the crowds, today, and she’s hardly left the barracks or training grounds for weeks. Tonight isn’t just for the Forbanne. We’ve all had an arduous journey, and we’ve all survived. And we will continue to survive, for all our various and sundry reasons. So…” Rising from where she was seated, she offered him a hand up. “Will you come with me? Just come and taste some of the food, drink some ale, or take a look at those performers. I never really got a good view of their show in Eyraille; I was a little too preoccupied with showing you up on the dance floor.” A familiar, teasing grin stretched her lips. “You’re allowed to have fun. And, I’ll be honest--I think you need it.”
Undeterred by Briery’s chastising, Hadwin continued serving Elespeth his own version of a good time, which happened to include good-natured ribbing and harmless nicknames. At one point, the she-warrior developed a rodent-shaped stain on her tunic, and so he called her Rat Skin, as benignly as possible knowing Briery kept a hawk-like watch on their interactions (and really, she didn’t need to police any minuscule sign of conflict or argument! How was Elespeth going to develop a straight spine if she couldn’t roll with the lightest of his punches? Sometimes the ringleader mothered--and smothered--a little too much, but he wasn’t going to point that out to her. Not today, anyway; the Missing Links show had to go without a hitch!)
With Briery gone, leaving the two unlikely companions to fend for themselves until the show’s premiere, Hadwin almost laughed out the draught of ale he just swished into his mouth, in reaction to Elespeth’s out of the blue question. How long was she standing back, observing his interactions with the gold-clad acrobat?
“In love? That’s a sweet thought, Rat Skin. No, I’m not in love with her. Would that I could, but nah. That’s not me.” Grabbing two more ales for the journey, he reluctantly moved away from the swill-refilling station and onward, to a quieter corner of the festival, behind an unoccupied tent. “Romantic love’s not in my cards. Familial love, sure, that’s instinctual. Anything beyond…” he gazed into a stein of golden-hued ale, a shade that complemented the yellow of his drunk-hungry eyes. “Can’t believe I’m telling you this, of all people, but sure, let’s confide in each other and all that rot.” Bending his head back, he took a long swig of his drink.
“In his early days, before I or any of my siblings were born, my da was a love-stunted fool. Hopeful, idealistic--in love with the world. It helped that he could see love in others. Not fear, like me, but his eyes pinpointed all forms.” He counted them on his hand. “Agape, eros, philia, storge... Through the eyes of a dreamer, too much love’s dangerous. I assume he was a little like your Alster, except far worse. He felt too deeply, took every rejection personally. A right mess, if you will. Especially when he fell for my mam. And he fell hard. It was a sickness that overtook him, right down to his bones. The strength of his one-sided romance scared her silly, because she couldn’t return his affections with that level of intensity. He wouldn’t give up--couldn’t give up. So she told him if he could love her without his Sight, if he found a way to eliminate it, then she’d be with him.”
He clanked his fist against the base of his now empty stein, shaking his head and grinning from the lunacy of his tale.“The crazy bastard did it. Went on some year long quest, defied the impossible, and returned, cured of what faoladh of generations past had tried, without a pissing’s dram of luck, to eliminate for themselves. Awed by his grit and tenacity, my clan elated him to position of Chief, and my mam, as promised, wed him. But he was a changed man. Unreachable. All love...had been drained from him, like some kind of sieve. Worst part was, she realized, too late, that she loved who my da once was, the love-fool...and spent the rest of her life desperately chasing a shadow who would never love her, because he lost the capacity to love.” So she went for me, instead, he thought, ignoring the blight on his periphery; the shadow with the glass-cut teeth who chased him relentlessly, out of death and into life. Years of chasing. Years of whispers imploring him to release his hold on the world. “So yeah, love ruined my family. I lived through the aftermath, was raised in the aftermath, and I’ve got no appeal for the ‘eros’ kind of love. It’s messy as shit, and no one comes out of the battle a winner. No doubt I care about the ringleader, and I can’t help lusting after her, but,” he shrugged, “that’s it.” He discarded his empty stein on the grass and worked on the second. After concluding his twisted family history to a woman he did not fancy, the ale appeared infinitely more appealing in his hands; like ambrosia, a veritable nectar of the gods.
“This story has a parallel, I’d say--between the current state of your relationship with a certain unattainable man.Men like my da of the old days, like your beau of last week...they’ll always hurt. Emotions have ‘em by the balls. That’s who they are. Could say it’s their essential way of being. They lose that essence and they lose themselves. For my da, it was too late. For Alster--he’s in transition. Here’s my question to you, then.” He took a sip, deciding to nurse the drink instead of inhale it as usual. “Are you prepared to live the rest of your life chasing the shadow of a man you can’t have? To love and pine for someone who won’t have you back? You’ll do this because you’re too so preoccupied with what you did wrong that you’ll let more wrong befall you and others because it’s the ‘right thing?’” He snorted a laugh. “What a crock of shit, Elespeth. This is why I hate self-righteous do-gooders. Too far up their justice loving asses to see the point.” He leaned forward, hovering dangerously into her personal bubble.
“It’s only the right thing to you. No one else benefits. If you truly want to live by my teachings, you need to seize what you want. Whether you think you deserve it or not.” He cocked his head at Elespeth and smiled knowingly. But in that knowingness was a sliver of deeper understanding. “I get it. You got a destructive voice in your head, too. A voice that you fear, because you fear she’s right. Don’t let her win--because she sure as shit won’t play fair, and she’ll ride you for everything you’re worth. If you value yourself at all, hell, if you value Serpent Chum out there, you,” his eyes narrowed into sharp, sun-glinting spear-tips, “do. Not. Let. Her. Win. Got it?”
With the precious swill cradled in his hands, he stretched into an easy, loose stance and plastered on a toothy grin--as if they weren’t just discussing a heavy subject. “Now,” he said, his voice light and cheerful, “let’s go get a spot, before I have to go out there and clock someone on the head for the honor of standing with a view.”
They secured a halfway decent spot, though it was smack in the middle of the crowd. No easy way out, or in; unfortunate for those prone to swooning from heat or proximity. For Elespeth, barely integrating into society after over a month of isolation--it must have been hell to withstand.
On top of their close-quarters, which threatened to buckle into the space of someone else’s close quarters, Hadwin failed to mention that Alster Rigas was in the general vicinity--and by vicinity, he meant behind them. But Elespeth discovered that little detail on her own, when she elbowed him, and thus, had no choice but to deal with his company.
“Alster Rigas! I had no idea you were there. Not like you’ve been stalking us all day!” Hadwin said, devil-may-care smirk stretched across his thinning lips. Alster sighed, extended him a good evening, and sidled away from the faoladh, somehow securing a position to Elespeth’s direct left.
“As Rigas Head, it’s not required of me to stand in the audience like--as Chara would say--a filthy commoner, but,” he smiled, and it was a curious one, helped along by the Serpent presence in his eyes, “there is nothing more immersive than standing in midst of humanity like this. Close your eyes, and you can imagine the world. Every soul. Every heartbeat. It is the most vulnerable, yet comprehensive experience any mortal could ask for. Gods look at their creations from above, but to mingle, here, and masquerade as one…” he nodded his own approval, “a good decision, to be here.”
He seemed to ignore, or at least not appreciate, Elespeth’s statement on the ringleader of the show, her healed organs, or the fact that he facilitated the healing process. He didn’t appear to be watching the show at all, but rather, audience reactions to the show. The spectacle up on stage was cheap, wholly unimpressive. Body contortion meant little to the unhindered flexibility of a limbless creature, heedless of the form in which it took. No. He. I am male, It thought. And I am Alster Rigas.
We are Alster Rigas.
“Whose life do you aim to touch, Elespeth?” He stared outward, watching the collective laughter, gasps, and applause heave from the undulating bodies and their grotesque, flapping forms. They did not try to emulate a standard of beauty, like Briery Frealy on the stage. They existed as ugliness incarnate, but they embodied so natural a state, one could name it beauty, and it wouldn’t be wrong. “Humanity, humankind...they want a name for themselves. To reach others, to touch lives--and aim for the stars above. I have already done it all. By your admission, I have touched lives. I am the leader of my people, slayer of wrongs, a healer...is there anything left for me on this material plane, except observe and merely be of use to whosoever is in need of my abilities?”
He did not wait for her to answer, or attempt to answer. “It is you, Elespeth. I am here because you have something of mine, and I cannot go far without it. Without you. Keep it safe--and keep to your promise.” His eyes flicked to her, an emotionless read, as before, but the words seemed genuine. Like an attempt at Alster Rigas, his truest self, reaching out to her. “Not your promise of service, no. I can obtain such promises from any run of the mill soldier. Your promise--” he closed his eyes, as if reacting to...something. “do not give up on me.”
As intended, Haraldur jumpstarted festivities for the Forbanne a week in advance--festivities insofar as offering small feasts by the campfire, accompanied with ales, wines, and a little light entertainment.
The whores had been making their rounds all week, first as conversationalists, to gauge the malleability or firmness of a Forbanne prospect on a continuum of possibility, then as...something more. The week-long experimentation was a mixed success. A few soldiers accepted the company of a whore (or two), took to the feast of richly-prepared food, and drank their fill of ale. But for Haraldur, it was difficult to note if the Forbanne acted of their own free will, or if they engaged because their commander willed it.
Never did he order them to partake in the celebration. He prepared the food, invited the whores, and announced the Forbanne could either participate, or decline, but he also wondered if the more loyal of his soldiers, the ones most connected to him through the mind-link, sensed that he wanted them to celebrate and did so out of obligation.
At this rate, it was impossible to determine his victories or losses, and the thought, coupled with his week-long effort to play merry, burned him out until he too felt like a husk of a man. A hopeless Forbanne, compelled to follow the orders of his superior--and nothing more.
When Sigrid reconnected with him that evening, he slid aside on his makeshift log bench by the fire, leaving room for her to sit, if she desired. Otherwise he made no other move to react--either to words or her attempts to invite him outside the encampment.
“For all the preparations I’ve made for this night, and for all the other nights before this one, I’m exhausted,” he admitted, kicking a small dirt clod into the fire. “Don’t think I’d be great company at a festival that’s been the bane of my existence ever since its long-dreamed of conception. But it’s good to hear...that they’re taking to the company...and to whatever else has grabbed their attention.”
The Dawn warrior did not budge from her spot, even as he sat in silence for a few long minutes and in no way indicated that he wanted to attend. But, as she gently reminded him, duty called. Set an example...even if they can tell I’m faking it…
“You won’t leave unless I go, will you?” With the huff of a sigh, he hauled himself to his feet, looping his discarded sword through his belt where it rested at its rightful place against his hip. “I can’t do this without a drink. Or several. That’s where we’re heading, first. If there’s enough in me,” he ran a finger over the pommel of his sword, “if…” He trailed off, and shook his head. Elespeth would despise your company, a harsh voice berated him. No way she’d want to see you again.
Clearing his throat, he nodded at Sigrid to lead the way, his face a practiced slate of Forbanne-grace impermanence. “Let’s go. I should make my rounds--keep an eye on them, anyway.”
Blessedly, she took him straight to the wine and ale station, where he collected himself with a few quick swigs of whatever drink he could grab, unaware of the taste or quality of the swill, only that he needed to imbibe. At some point during his drinking session, the Missing Links show had reached its finale and a mob of people were filing back into the D’Marian encampment. In the shuffle, he lost sight and track of Sigrid, and he wasn’t about to risk pushing through a mad stream just to locate his guide--though she was his main reason for his attendance, at all.
About to use the opportunity to file back to the Forbanne encampment, Haraldur took a few steps in its direction, when a sight froze him on the spot. In the crowd, he saw Elespeth, and beside her--Hadwin.
“If you see that mongrel,” Captain Solveig’s growl of a voice spoke louder and more urgently than the memory he was pulling from, “kill him.”
Kill him.
Kill him.
Kill him.
His hand twitched. His killing hand. A throwing dagger found purchase within his palm. Against sense, against reason, he was stalking through the crowd, determining trajectory, angle, distance, rate of detection, risk of collateral damage…
Kill him! The order insisted. It rang, branding his mind with the consequences, should he fail. Sharp, agonizing pain bloomed from his skull. Obey, obey, obey. Obey or die.
He was nearing them. They did not notice. Not yet. Now. Attack...now.
He threw the blade.
And charged in after his target, sword drawn.
