Open Chronicles Dauða

[Skad]

Balgove Village Outskirts

"Help!"

Men fled, hurtling over root and stone through the dense outcrop of pines with panic laced through laboured breaths. Most did not hesitate to glance behind them although the odd man did, as though a demon itself was chasing them out of its den. They were not soldiers, not men and women trained to handle such affairs but mere woodcutters, who provided the timber that kept their village afloat. It was a simple life; idyllic in its own way.

"Demon!"

Until now.

Until the one-eyed demon had come hurtling through the trees with an axe, a knife and a penchant for death. The woman had screamed in an incomprehensible barbaric tongue, beheading one man with a vigour that could have only been described as zealous.

She stood there in vicious glory, the Nordwiir, Skad holding aloft the head of one woodcutter, a tribute to the Dark Gods that blessed her kind and her kind alone. Callous fingers tangled amongst" the hair of the dead, she thrust the decapitated head to the sky and declared tribute in a guttural tongue:

<"For Likami and the insatiable hunger!">

 

[Tatyana]

There was no comfort or illusion in innocence.

This much was known to Tatyana, at a younger age than most.​

Truly, it was far too early for most children to ever fathom; to even imagine beyond a world where all the indecency was justified through story tales told around a campfire for cheap scares rather than simple truths. All of those tales, all of those rationalizations fell short of the brutal reality that awaited those who grew into the world with this innocence--far too late to realize the trap that awaited the unwary.

She had remembered, and the taste of iron upon her tongue made her not want to forget, ever.

When the axe came soaring towards her - no priest or philosopher at the moment could deny the girl of that essential truth; there was no possibility for some thread of logic to be spun through a needle's gap; no conjuring of a preacher's words to soothe the worries of the ignorant. Not when death awaited judgement on all of those falsehoods. Not when death was only temporarily occupied by a woodcutter whose name would be forgotten faster than the blood that dried at the feet of this one-eyed demon.

Had she ever forgotten such a fact, after all death had reclaimed?

She had not, she would not if it wasn't already apparent to Skad in the way that the girl found her footing last, found the fisherman's blade that promised a continuation of this lease to life faster than some sand gone astray by a desperate attempt to find ground.

Some silly urchin child found the blade faster than they found their legs, so insignificant an event to a warrior beyond the question that they might ask themselves: for what use is standing defenselessly on your feet other than to bow and prostrate upon your knees again? To perish without some dying gasp of defiance accompanying you to eternity?

All rather dramatic of an outlook, but one which might still mean something to a warrior; whether or not that meaning boded well for the girl who permitted the prayers of some mad Nordwiir. As she prayed herself for an extension of this intangible lease, just for a moment longer.

No matter the language spoken, or the meaning divined, it was becoming apparent that she had no interest to die in the way of some giant woman decapitating her as she ran barefoot across the freshly dewed grass.

She made all the right moves and noises that could pass for bravery, really.

Tatyana even surprised herself by admitting, however unknowingly, that there was no other questions which mattered at that moment. Not why she was there to sell oysters and clams, not why Skad was there to sacrifice in the name of meaningless gods in an even more meaningless tongue to these fisherfolk.

Only that some hair-pulling was required in a thread promising partial (or full) comedy.

 

[Skad]

In the face of it all, there was one who stood firm; a woman, of course.

Skad proudly held aloft the head, her offering to the Dark God of Flesh in the face of her opposition and she felt true. Her heart beat for this reason alone, to serve those both above and below in sacred, visceral duty. She was made for this, ignited by the flames of blood and death.

"Men run but you stay?" the Nordwirr asked in broken trade tongue, amused by the steadfast nature of such an unassuming creature.

 

[Tatyana]

Had she expected a voice of reprieve, even in the end?
​

As the priests and mystics would declare after appropriate payment was made in soul or coin... that there was indeed some reason behind it all! They all promised that one will always find rationalization in the end - that they would find an explanation that justified all the horrors they suffered, all the explanations for why their cries were not heard under rising breast; under a whispering plea for mercy from the sins of an indecent world.

Why they went unanswered until the axe (or a substitution of) finally found flesh tendered by faith, decency, and a soul not molded to the struggles of the world. And why this was happening to them--to her, she could at least ask! She could at least beg! And yet she never expected her reprieve to be so plainly... answered.

"Men run but you stay?"

Tatyana was not a woman to believe in reprieve; even as her lips were cracked and parched with the instinctive cries of a mercy that she laughed at, in the cruelly logical way that all children think when they hear of those fairytales of vikings and raiders and those which were afraid of what crept in the dark.

She didn't believe in this apparent reprieve because this wasn't the first Nordwiir gone on a rampage for anyone permitted within a hundred meters of a tavern. Few children were exposed to yet another bloodthirsty raider gone soft in the head due to the drink, or due to an accidental drop in the shallows.

"Yes." Tatyana made the statement plainly enough; whether it was in shock, or it was in some silly denial of the reality that stood less than a fishing rod's length, it was said in a voice that sounded alien to even the woman that knew it all her life. "You gave me no choice but to stay."

Bloody fine last words for all those children playing theatre in the towns that actually had any interest at all in erecting stages for heroines like her. Not that she'd be written about beyond whatever demented crimson finger-painting Skald inevitably had in mind.

And even then, that moment of courage was enough for her to act - however hollow it might've been to a girl who barely finished the sentence without her voice cracking or without the doubts rising up her throat, even if her gullet was already filled with nothing but that blind, numbing fear that finally found its home in her stomach like any rising bile. As definitive a blow as any Nordwirr's axe.

She was going to die! An insanity clause if there ever was one!

... To explain why a woman a quarter of Skald's size though it wise to kick up a puddle of the blood that the norsewoman seemed to have been bathing in, so that the urchin could go on some mad offensive with a crude fillet knife like a frothing fisher's wife.

An embarrassing end to an embarrassingly short tale, but that's never obvious in the moment, is it?

 

[Theolonious Montbank]

The skies were a host of fluttering wings that departed from the scene of the demon's actions upon the simple people. Wings that beat in hurried retreat from the noise and violence, all, except one pair of wings that did glide and circle over the scene as the sound was heard. Snow white wings dipped into the winds so that precise vision could survey the scene. The eyes of the decapitated head met Montbank's own, one dead and lifeless, the other orange with fierce perception even at the dizzying heights that the flying knight did command from.

A hand went to the sword, but a thought emerged. To engage in a swoop would take too much time to descend, and a slashing strike was not what was required. Something more steadfast, Montbank thought. This would require the arts of the lore of the flame. To harness a distraction and to make the foe recoil, this would be best, Montbank thought with sudden decision.

He began to descend, not in a sharp dive, but after orientating himself to the right place, he allowed his dead weight to simply drop from the sky as he tucked his wings in. His wings could beat shortly before reaching the ground...this part was practised. It would allow the knight to harness his magic, his taloned claw hands and owl visage dropping into view at sudden speed. His superior hearing picked up on fragments of the conversation as he plummeted from the heights he had been flying at, until only fifty feet was between himself and the ground.

His hands arced with electrical energies, and Montbank pointed his palms at this demon would so threatened the innocent. Such was the advantage of his training with the Knights of Anathaeum, to command the sky and command the will of magic. This burst would strike wildly, but announce himself into the combat properly. A ground assault wouldn't do, this was a strike and present manoeuvrer, his wings broadly spanned to present as much as a visual target as possible as he now beat his wings to prevent himself from colliding with the earth.

There was no quip on Montbank's beak as he hovered beside Tatyana, his eyes upon the foe. The electricity had gathered and spat out sparks from his claws, and in a pulse of light, arced from his hands to fire wildly at Skad so it might blind and strike them. It might prove completely ineffectual, but it would present Montbank as a target to be reckoned with.

The surge of electricity crackled and shot from his palms for four short seconds, before the magic was spent. The plate armour gleamed in the arcane light for a moment, and then as the electricity was finished sending, a sword was quickly drawn as wings did beat to keep Montbank hovering in place.

Montbank said nothing. There were no words required for duty's sake. Just action and placement of violence.

 

[Skad]

How swiftly the usual descended into the unusual.

Skad was accustomed to yellow men who seldom thought for much other than their own backsides. Even back home her raiding parties would beat in a familiar rhythm like a comforting nursery rhyme. The weak would run and in turn, their crimson would fill Haraudur's endless cup.

Bold women were an anomaly, owl-men even more.

The one-eyed woman was ill-prepared for the arc of light that sprang forth from righteous talons. The electricity touched upon her axe and in sheer reaction, she tossed both the weapon and the decapitated head aside as if the creature had cursed them.

It did not matter. Skad raised her hands; beacons of religious scarification in the honour of the Dark Gods and faced down her steadfast foes in more broken trade tongue:

"You fight?"

 

[Konrad]

Konrad observed the entirety of the situation from the top of a tall pine. He had the luxury of perching himself up there earlier, but nothing could've prepared him for the utter clusterfuck unfurling under his very feet. He laughed silently at the absurdity of it. A knight decked out in full plate, a norsewoman clad in tattered skins and armed to the teeth, and to top it all off, a tiny, olive-skinned girl who couldn't have been a day older than twenty.

To think he would witness an occurrence so entertaining in the middle of bum-fuck-nowhere...

Utterly preposterous, but in a good way.

Konrad's inhuman eyes observed the motley crew, their scleras glittering with impish curiosity, reminiscent of a pair of finely polished gemstones. He brought a hand to his face and, with one claw-tipped finger, proceeded to pick his teeth, removing bits and pieces of dead meat sticking between his jagged incisors.

He stretched like a cat, his feet firmly planted on the trunk of a branch that must've been as thick as a man's torso. Konrad's armored soles made little noise against the frangible bark, and he was at such an elevation that the chances of detection were slim to none. And besides, the knight and the barbarian woman appeared too preoccupied with attempting to kill each other to notice him. As for the girl? She looked about as threatening as a field mouse.

Konrad hopped off, positioning himself on the next nearest branch. In doing so, he partially abandoned the shroud of darkness provided by the thick grove. His lead-tinted skin and white hair presented a stark contrast against the dark greens and browns of the forest, making him stick out like a sore thumb.

Konrad tilted his head, his long, flowing hair whipping around his head in wispy tendrils. The owl and the barbarian, he thought, would be unappetizing, their respective bloods either too gamey or outright sour, not at all pleasing to his palete. But the girl... the girl struck him as one positively delicious morsel, and he could already envision the cold kiss of his teeth upon her bare skin.

 

[Tatyana]

Why, why, why would you ask of her such a silly question?
​

It was the only thought in Tatyana's head that made sense to her panicking mind; really the only thought that breached through the instinctive flight of the whole flight or fight routine. She couldn't blame herself for embracing the descriptor of the hopefully very small, very hard to notice field mouse after the sudden and jarring shift in dynamic following Montbank's introduction.

Why would any sane person choose to fight against someone... so disturbingly effective at surprise decapitations?

As a matter of fact, Tatyana didn't think she could truly blame anyone for the choice she made; the decision to make herself small against the backdrop of this theatrical playing out before her like some abysmally twisted circus act. This was the kind of madness which she was not at all equipped to understand, even conceptually, beyond ways allowing her to very quietly extricate herself and to be permitted on her merry way.

Tatyana could feel herself unravelling.

How could you criticize someone for being at least a little concerned about the very real and very intimate fear of random beheading?

As she abruptly sidestepped (more of a scramble) to permit the heroic descent of Montbank, she made the most imperceptible of glances towards the owl-man - hiding the curiosity, the fear, the utter confusion behind an empty bravado of a twisted smile after she was finished processing that he was actually really here and was really next to the woman who initially gawked at him as if he was one of those circus acts.

Maybe her smile was intended to be seen as some demonstration of confidence, or a sardonic jab at how incredibly non-plussed she was in the face of something she couldn't even possibly begin to describe at this point. At least not in a way that was digestible to polite company.

Not to say it was much of an act, not one that'd fool anyone, anyways. Her face dropped before even completely turning away; something to be quickly replaced by a tight-lipped frown she found herself wearing much easier.

It was easy enough to blame the lackluster performance on very understandable performance anxiety.

There was none of that courage left in her from what felt like precious seconds ago, even if it may have been the kind of courage she had always heard in those songs she so often wanted to emulate. However quietly or hopelessly in those times she permitted childlessness to have a spin on the reins. Fat chance of that.

Her last pretense to bravery having been wiped off her face, the choice was made for her to take another reflexive and wholly biological step backwards. Even if it meant nearly tripping over the body of someone that she knew by name, and now knew by the blood soaked earth she embraced with splayed fingers to soften the subsequent fall.

Too much intimacy for her - it was decided.

Tatyana hadn't even recognized what she was doing until just now, but she did recognize what came after.

That shame of taking the fraud to heart - even if you knew that you'd regret every moment of it in the morning. All those pretenses evaporating as you awoke to a new dawn and remembered that it was all a crock.

You were never that person you pretended to be.

She had thought herself brave at the moment - she had believed it with all her heart. And yet it hadn't even taken a day to fully realize the lie - it hadn't even been a minute from then to now before that lie came crashing around her.

She didn't simply pray as Skad might have, but pleaded and prayed and pleaded again to soothe raw nerves.

As it wasn't said: how swiftly the unusual descended into the usual.

She would've vomited longer to expel that unwavering, unrelenting fear that rose up just like bile.

She wouldn't have cut her wails and moans short as she dribbled her weakness by the strings of whatever unmentionable fluids she threw up; those which hung from her mouth in the way of some sickly animal, its rapidly evaporating strings catching the reflection of an early morning's dew.

All of that said and done with a wounded, stuttered wail that she couldn't even begin to imagine summoning any other way from the deepest depths of emotion. Something she wouldn't have cut short before she was ever given an opportunity to grieve a near death experience and the definitive... death of a man who offered her a casual opportunity to learn the ways of a proper lobster harvest when their timber was no longer in such seasonal demand; when the days were longer than the work required of these simple people.

That's what would have been done, in the usual way. For people without the ample experience necessary to take a casual dip in the puddle of rapidly forming blood without so much as a flutter of the lashes.

As it was said: how swiftly the usual descended into the unusual.

Tatyana rubbed away at whatever weakness dripped from her lips with the back of her hand, having never once dropped that blade that separated her from the same end that she felt upon her skin.

There was something else, too. Some other rationale made in incomprehensible split-second logic.

It was definitely a choice made beyond the obvious interest in having the tools to guarantee survival. A lot less conscious of a choice, maybe, yet still a choice made with the same sudden, inexplicable certainty.

Tatyana knew it separated her from more than just death; she knew it separated her from disappearing into whatever grief one may have been very well entitled to in this delay, each moment of the ever creeping lull threatening the entirety of her terribly maintained composure.

It was an anchor of sorts, something she did understand.

"You fight?"

The delay lingered until Skad made another gesture that Tatyana only vaguely recognized in passing as a Certified People Watcher, but it was definitely not an act she would have associated with... whatever this was. Some manner of invocation? She didn't (for whatever reason) imagine it to be a gesture of sudden surrender.

How unfortunate.

That being said: it somehow seemed easier to respond to the shaky trade tongue of the viking and the flapping of the woman's hands rather than ask one of her own questions about the feathered man standing beside her.

"I don't want to fight." is what she settled on saying, at first. They were vapid, soothing words to hopefully be construed as an attempt at peace. Tatyana's face flickered with distaste for the words she hadn't even finished speaking, somehow finding her confidence again in Skad's poorly framed question of all things.

As well as with the presence of her convenient savior.

"Are you bloody dull? What made you think that; was it the flailing, or the falling? You make that mistake because I'm the only one who stood up to you out of all the bloody peasants you chopped up?

Bloody, bloody, bloody is right. Tatyana wanted to make a quip about mistaking the three words because of the first letter they shared. She thought better of the impulse. She wanted answers too.

Tatyana admittedly had more than a few for the latest guest; seemingly also out of some posh storybook!

Had they not come now, Tatyana would've enthusiastically hedged bets on the likelihood that the only way the residents of the sleepy village of Balgrove were likely to have seen of their likeness were in those same child's fables. That luck had run out.

To give credit where it was due, Montbank made for another very appreciated anchor. She would readily admit it - even if she couldn't summon the willpower to meet his gaze or his odd eyes a second time, not while she was still openly questioning her sanity.

She stepped a pace closer to him after the possibly ill-advised comments.

Tatyana knew there was only so much confidence to discover beneath the palm she had so neatly wrapped around the handle of the blade, so yes - he kept her standing on her own two feet no matter how brittle she might've felt. Even if she was an image more reminiscent of a gutter urchin, rather than a warrior out of the sagas like the two between her. But let's ignore that for now.

More than enough complications already without more performance anxiety.

"You definitely fight - why did you come here to do it?"

Tatyana finally looked to Montbank for an apparent confirmation of what they'd do next, even just a pithy insight to drive the narrative. She made a poor attempt of hiding her nerves by disregarding eye contact altogether this time around, her frame still facing the viking; only from the corner of her tawny-brown eyes did she look to him for acknowledgement.

 

[Theolonious Montbank]

Questions as to why the fight was presented to a foe who would continue to butcher without Montbank's intervention. Montbank rolled his shoulders and spanned his wings to present as much as a visual target as possible to the barbarian, a shock of white, a longsword presented with point forward. He snapped his beak in resolve and gave polite response, his tone awfully proper.

“Why, we of Anathaeum, knight sworn, are sworn to protect the people from those who can't help but be savage brutes. This senseless violence ends here. I fight,” Montbank said, stepping between the barbarian Skad and Tatyana, “Indeed I fight.”

Montbank knew he could not rely upon a shock of lightning any time immediate. This would be a fight of talon and steel, and Montbank fluttered in the air a few feet to offer intimidation.

“Away with you, or be struck down true,” Montbank said, digging his talons into the ground and hunching over, as if readying a sprint. He was about to surge towards in a surge of feathers and steel to slash at the foe and strike out with taloned claw. As he held poised, he surveyed the scene, his head rotating with eerie efficiency so he might see all.

Dash it all, more to contend with, Montbank thought.

He remained poised. He couldn't fight both this new comer and the barbarian at once.

Or could he?

He applied himself to the task.

Racing forward, he would attempt to assault Skad with lethal claw and punishing steel in a lightning strike worthy of the tiger, and swoop high after the attack as to survey the scene and intervene should the second potential opponent might introduce themselves. But it would require a hit and run strike, and Montbank was sure he was quick, yet perhaps not quick enough to not return unscathed.

He sprang forward and lashed out with claw, steel and beak, and would attempt to disengage to fly above Tantyana to dissuade the new comer from involving himself. The success would depend on Skad's reactions to such an overwhelming assault of weapons, natural and otherwise.

 

[Skad]

"Shame," came the detached reply from the raider, although ultimately it did not matter whether this woman wished to fight or not.

Although she did continue speaking.

Skad quietly appreciated her unfamiliarity with the common tongue of the mainland, as she was no doubt scolded by the so-called righteous. Although, the word 'savage' was becoming a mainstay in her conversations with the locals.

However, it was 'bloody' that caught the Nordwiir in her heart-of-hearts. The woodcutter's head might have been an offering for Likami, the God of Flesh but Skad's chosen patron had always been Haraudur. Dark God of Blood, of the bottomless cup. There was little else that made the one-eyed woman feel closer to Himnaríki than the shedding of crimson; it was her calling, both divine and true.

Bloodletter, throat-slitter, Kin-Slayer.

<"You shall ride to Heidur,"> she muttered to the winged-beast in her guttural native tongue, her vitae-spattered face offering a show of eager broken teeth, just as barbaric as the rest of her. He surged forth with a swiftness and grace and she welcomed him, spreading her arms out to the side as the knight attacked.

Skad grunted as she accepted his nimble onslaught. Claw gouging the flesh of her shoulder, steel slicing cleanly across her torso and beak piercing through meat of her cheek.

A divine warmth spread across her form, as her own blood began to flow freely as to consecrate these foreign lands anew. The sensation mingled with pain; yet another gift from the Dark Gods, a reminder that one was truly fucking alive! Skad hammered a fist upon her own chest with a heavy thud, sending spurts of her own blood outwards and grinned anew with red-stained teeth.

"AGAIN!"

 

[Konrad]

Konrad's keen eyes darted back and forth, capturing each minute detail as the barbarian woman and the avian knight tussled with one another in close quarter combat. The sight of bloodshed pleased him greatly. A jolt of pleasure shot down the length of Konrad's spine just as his forearms burst into gooseflesh. His nose twitched, drinking in the pungent, metallic aroma that threatened to overrule all logic and higher thinking. Compelled by the animalistic portion of his brain, Konrad's lips parted like fleshy curtains, revealing ivory-white teeth and receding, purple-red gums.

Konrad knew, or at least suspected, that the knight had taken notice of him and had tried to fly all the way up and... attack? That is what it looked like, but one could never be too sure. Regardless, Konrad had to act, had to deliver a preemptive strike against the possible foe, for he knew in his heart that the barbarian woman would soon expire, thus robbing him of the chance to kill two birds with one stone.

Knowing this, Konrad fucused the brunt of his attention on his forearms, willing the flesh to change and take on a new form. Suddenly, the skin began to bulge as the muscles and sinews underneath rippled with unnatural life. From them sprouted a pair of raptorial limbs, not unlike those one would expect to see on a preying mantis. Retracting, the gripping limbs rested firmly against Konrad's bare forearms. The sharpness of their edges, which could rip through steel and flesh alike, was highlighted by the manner in which the sun's rays winked off of their exoskeleton. The blades, fashioned from a material that was neither bone nor chitin but something else entirely, had a near-crystalline appearance to them.

Konrad steeled himself, crouching low and hopping from branch to branch with the swiftness of a deranged spider monkey. Unhindered by the weaponized protrusions, he scaled down the tree, digging his fingers deep into the wood, till he was a mere half-dozen meters off the ground. Then he let loose, allowing his large body to hurtle towards the ground.

 

[Tatyana]

Had she thought it would go differently if the viking woman actually spoke a lick of the common tongue between grunts or a few words associated with the ugly trade she plied? 'Fight' 'Blood'?

Yeah, okay, probably not. The logical side of her agreed with that diagnosis.

She also couldn't imagine this nagging voice of rationality thinking it was at all a good idea to have let Tatyana open her mouth in the first place - nor did she consider herself someone who showed symptoms of being actively suicidal, either.

Which happened to beg the question: then just who signed off on the tumble of words she assumed was wise to throw at Skad?

For even with the presence of her still very convenient savior, she knew it was a foolish thing to do.

And yet the very idea of admitting fault filled her with just as much revulsion as the blood she made a few useless attempts to clean off on her pair of belted trousers; leaving only a flurry of dark smears as reward for the effort. There was no absolution in flagellation. No opportunity to be found in admitting when one erred. She summed it up as a learning experience, for next time.

She took another, more steady pace away from the brawl. Then stopped again.

Tatyana had already taken a few cautious steps back in order avoid the occasional flailing limb or clanging steel, but something rooted her in place this time. She could go no further while she witnessed this exotic dance unfolding before her.

Some small amount of unacknowledged guilt? Some sour taste in her mouth at the thought of running from a fight?

Whatever small sliver of self-reflection she was about to achieve would only be cut short - for the next thing she knew was that her entire world was assailed with the sudden and utterly terrifying sense of vertigo; all other thought processes or revelations escaping her beyond some half-hearted attempts at trying to realign herself midair like some alley cat, entirely unable to resist the strength of the grip on her collar.

An experience that never became easier; the absolutely disorienting helplessness that she couldn't do a bloody thing about.

At least not until her nails actually found their random mark, and she was immediately rewarded with a hiss of pain as one of the attacker's hands retreated to the point of impact, the grip on her torn shirt loosening enough for her to twist free in order to roll unceremoniously away.

"You don't have to be so fucking wild all the time. I'm trying to help you."

Tatyana recognized the voice as well as its toneless inflections - and the person speaking it.

She rose to her feet for the fourth or fifth time today; her hands at her waist, her chin high. No less humbled by the lack of even the smallest victory.

"I had it handled if you couldn't tell, Namy. It's only her against the two of us. More than fair odds." She tried to match the casual acidity in the older girl's voice. Hoping it wasn't undersold by the fact that she was a panting mess.

Namy was almost her opposite in every regard. She was tall and lithe while Tatyana was... well, the opposite. Her leathered hands were more fit for the shaft of the axe she held than Tatyana's would ever be. She was definitely not afraid of a fight, especially with the rumors circulating of her having once actually killed a man. Allegedly.

Perhaps the only thing they shared was a taste in practical clothing. Namy's bronze face was peeking out from under a low-brimmed straw hat all the woodcutters seem to favor during the long working days. Not to mention the thick woolen overcoat she now wore to keep the encroaching chill away, just as drab and ratty as her belted tunic and trousers.

The older woman spoke: "Two of you, was it?"

Namy hadn't hesitated to give her a look of judge, jury and executioner. "As for your friend, does he know that the norsewoman looks like someone who probably swallows chicken bones whole?

"Yeah, well, I'm pretty bloody sure he's actually an owl," Tatyana blurted out the first thing to come to mind in response to the accusatory look, trying her best to ignore the jab implying she didn't carry her weight. They always said she had a problem with pride. "your point?"

"That we're leaving. We never stay for too long and we never get too comfortable for a reason."

"She killed Henyrk." Tatyana replied almost reflexively, while that frown returned to her face. She spoke her next words with a furrowed brow. "I liked him. He was... nice to us."

"They're always nice at first, aren't they?"

Namy's piercing gaze drew out an involuntary shudder from Tatyana as it seemingly wandered all the way from her head to her toes. She couldn't deny being a proper bitch most days, a horrid person, and yet the older girl still made it seem so effortless in comparison.

She turned her heel and started walking rather than continue that particular argument, only stopping long enough to grab the fillet knife left glittering in the churned grass. Her feet were possessed again by that madness - overconfidence.

"Tati. I solemnly swear that if I'm killed because of some some absurd revenge mission, I'll haunt you."

Tatyana heard footfall behind her, now. She snorted in derision of the oath. What's the worse that can happen?

"I'll actually be quite furious."

Before she could think to reply to the implicit threat of a wrathful ghost if they were to fail, a scream interrupted them. All she saw in the direction of the village was a cluster of souls braver than the rest, having returned to the edges of the field. Some of the villagers hefted axes, others wrung their hands uselessly; but they were all pointing at something.

'Seriously?' They were likely saying, even if she could only see their lips flapping at this distance. 'And a vampire too?'