Private Tales Have you heard there's a rumour in Alliria?

[Althea]

The goblin crumpled to the ground in a quivering wreck. He'd dropped his blade, and so she reached to pick it up only to cry out as a searing pain burned through her thigh. Her head whipped around to see another goblin with his blade embedded in her leg and she growled as she slashed at the creature's face.

They each rushed at her, and for a while she fought furiously with both blades and kicked at whatever she could. She felt their blades slice into her, their serrated teeth sink into her flesh. The fight wasn't going in her favour. Four lay on the ground, two still, two squirming, but there had been at least three times that and the rest were still coming at her. Dark patches of blood bloomed on her clothes, and she tried to run only to be dragged to the ground and pinned there, the weapons each pried from her hands.

Suddenly the weight was lifted as the creatures scattered and Thea looked up, panting for breath, her eyes wide as she realised who it was. She didn't have time to feel anything other than relief aside the pain and fear, and the second she could move again she tried to stand only to stumble and crawl toward a tree. Her arms wrapped around rough bark and her knees curled into her chest as she tried to catch her breath, her eyes growing drowsy as they watched the General sweep through the little ambush.

 

[Gawyn]

Gawyn flowed like a dancer from one movement to the next.

There was no other way to describe it despite the bloody chaos he was causing with his blade. Each movement was smooth and done with a powerful grace that separated heads from bodies, or ripped creatures from crotch to throat. Avariels were not built to fight their wars on the ground but the seasoned General's last wars had been with dwarves. He had fought in swamps, in caverns and caves, and once out at sea against their mortal enemies. The centuries gone of hiding who and what he was had not diminished those skills despite his claim to have spent more time with a plough or needle than a sword.

The last goblin's head rolled off to the left as its body collapsed in a sagging heap of bones and already rotting flesh. The general stood for a moment, panting, his shirt an artists impression of blood on a white background. Other tissue was in the feather of his wings and on his boots but he barely seemed to pay them heed as he scanned the forest for any more before those angry, raging eyes landed on her.

"You ran away?!" The quick dance with the blade had done nothing to temper his rage and it turned on Thea now like an inferno. He stalked towards her with a half snarl. When he reached her he hurled her to her feet and shook her. "What were you thinking?!"

 

[Althea]

Blood spattered her from where she sat huddled by the tree, her body shaking with the adrenaline that coursed hard through her veins. Pain clouded her mind, and she was aware of the need to staunch the bleeding one or two of her wounds, but she was too terrified to move and small pools of blood slowly formed in the leaves and roots she sat amongst.

In the brief moment of silence that fell between the last goblin's head hitting the ground and Gawyn moving again, all she could hear were her pounding pulse and the laboured breaths that shuddered from her lips. Her eyes rose to look at him as he yelled at her and she flinched, trying to recoil as he stalked toward her and grabbed for her. Pain lanced through her as she was hauled to her feet with little effort and shook her, her legs supporting none of her weight.

She stared up at him fearfully, tears instantly spilling from her eyes, washing a pale trail through the spattered blood. "I.." It was the only word she managed to force from her lips for a moment as she curled in on herself, shaking in his grip. She was in pain, she was terrified, and once again in the harsh clutches of a man in a fit of rage.

"Let go of me!" she choked out, shoving at his chest before pounding with feeble fists. "Let go! Please.."

 

[Gawyn]

Gawyn stopped when she beat at his chest but he didn't let her go. Holding her at arms length his eyes raked down her in a furious sweep and what he saw seemed to only make his temper worse. Wounds she would never had gotten if he had protected her, if she hadn't of run from him. He had always had a fiery temper but this girl seemed to know how to press each and every trigger without so much as a thought. He took a slow, deep breath and then swept her into his arms instead of letting her go.

"Close your eyes, you don't get a choice about flying now," he bit off angrily, refusing to look down at her bruised face, and with one powerful beat of his twin sets of wings, shot them both into the sky. He would have walked the miles. He would have hid his wings and ignored the pain of doing so for her comfort if she had just stayed. Was he that much of a monster? Had he treated her so wrong already that the first chance she had to get away from him she had taken? It stung.

There was no gentle flight like the night before. Gawyn was like an arrow with a locked target. It had been many years that he had been this far from Orisa and he could only pray the cities and towns he had once known still existed in some capacity. The closest, by his reckoning, was Kerenthas.

Kerenthas was - or at least had been - a large elven city on the Eastern border of the Falwoods. In the past the Avariel had traded often with them and they in turn would trade their goods throughout the Falwoods. It had been a prosperous place and one of great beauty, but when Gawyn landed in what remained of the square he almost gave a cry at what he saw. Temples were being rebuilt and the great, towering spires that had collected sunlight had lost their warmth. They looked cold, hollow. The elves who bustled around seemed to be burdened under some unforeseen weight and lacked the laughter and cheer he had always associated with the place. He gave a soft curse under his breath before calling out.

"I need a healer! You, point me in the right direction," he nodded to a younger elf who had stopped to gawk at the Avariel.

 

[Althea]

She didn't get time to protest before her feet were off the ground, but she didn't close her eyes, she fought to keep them open as she continued to squirm and shove at him with little care of falling. "I am not your prisoner!" She was hysterical, choking on sobs and crying her heart out as she tired herself out by pummelling her fists into him, but it wasn't long before her arms and legs gave up and her body went limp in his arms.

There wasn't much to her and she'd lost a considerable amount of blood for someone so slight. Her eyes eventually closed and she drifted into unconscious oblivion.

 

[Gawyn]

The young elf quickly leaped into action as a crowd gathered, murmuring. News clearly hadn't reached this far that the Avariel had returned to the world. Ignoring the gawping folk who stopped to stare he strode down the street after the elf to the healer.

Gawyn thanked every Saint he knew when the infirmary came into view as he remembered it. Perhaps a little more worn but still a grand thing that had been able to care for hundreds of patients at a time. From his memory there had once been a school attached and the patients within were often used as a way to teach as they were healed. He glanced down to Thea in his arms. Tears still stained her cheeks and mingled with drying blood but she looked peaceful at least in sleep where pain could not touch her.

"Gods damned, I'm sorry Tobias," he muttered as the lad held the door open for him. A slim pretty nurse met him and guided him to one of the beds on the ward where he lay his charge down gently then stepped back to give the others room to work. He took up a chair nearby and awkwardly hung his wings over the back and watched.

 

[Althea]

The healers cut her out of her clothes, her body a canvas of scars, though the worst of them were the thick, mottled scores on her back where her wings had been. The sight caused a few harrowed glances between the elves and another few as they unravelled the ribbons that coiled around her arms from her wrists to her elbows and the deliberate scars that they'd been used to cover.

She didn't wake as they cleaned and sewed her wounds, one or two requiring some sort of spell to knit shut where others were stitched and bandaged. Claw and bite wounds were covered in a putrid ointment and wrapped up and she was dressed in fine, white linens and left to rest.

When she did finally open her eyes, she squinted in the light as she blinked up at the high arched ceilings. Everything hurt, which she realised with a grimace as she tried to move, but the pain didn't stop her from trying to roll from bed as panic swelled in her chest, thinking that she was back in Alliria.

 

[Gawyn]

"Easy Miss, your wounds are still trying to heal," the pretty nurse who had admitted her was there to gently press her back into the bed. She spoke the Common Tongue perfectly but there was an odd perfectness to it, as though she had not had cause to use it in quite some time and was remembering lessons from her childhood on the right way to speak, rather than the colloquial way to speak. She glanced over to where Gawyn was sat in the chair with his eyes shut, head tilted back in apparent sleep with his arms loosely folded over his chest.

"The general got you here just in time. Any later and I am not sure we would have been able to do anything for you," affectionately she patted Thea's hair and then helped her sit up amongst the many fluffed up pillows. Once she was sitting on her own the nurse passed her a cup with a straw. "You must just rest and let your body do the rest now, Miss."

 

[Althea]

The nurse had a calming way about her, the same sort of gift that Thea once possessed but had left long behind. There was little calm about her now, little care enough to look after people and too many wounds of her own. She frowned and let out a sharp bleat in pain as she lay back against the pillows, looking down at the clothes she was wearing and tugging the cuffs of her sleeves down into her palms.

She followed the woman's glance to where the General rested and her brow furrowed. She knew that she owed him her life twice over, but her stomach twisted as she stared at him anxiously for a moment. The healer's words dragged her attention back to the cup which she took, her hands still shaking slightly..

"Thank you.." she whispered, her voice raw and gritty. She sipped a small amount of the drink and handed it back to the woman who gave her a warm smile and turned to leave her to her rest.

 

[Gawyn]

The soft snick of the doors closing were what roused Gawyn from his light sleep. Blearily he blinked at the ceiling and let his eyes adjust before glancing across to the bed, expecting her to still be fast asleep. Seeing her sitting up however made him flinch. He seemed to recover quickly enough and stood in one smooth movement.

"How are you feeling?" he didn't approach her but stood awkwardly by his chair with his hands in front of him like a naughty child. The rage that had consumed him earlier had dissipated into worry when the healers had told him the real extent of her wounds and now it had time to solidify into guilt. She had been scared of him and he didn't intend to say anything or do anything more to upset her in her state.

 

[Althea]

She glanced at him for only a moment as he spoke, dark circles under her eyes and her skin a few shades too pale. Her gaze fell into her lap where she suddenly found her broken fingernails interesting and she shrugged slightly in response.

"Like I'll live.." she answered, her voice quiet and broken.. "Thank you." she added meekly, still too afraid to look at him.

"You didn't need to stay. I'll be safe here." she frowned gently.

 

[Gawyn]

Gawyn winced at her tone but didn't comment on it. Instead he nodded and gathered up the still bloodied sword that had laid against the wall.

"You are in Kerenthas. The elves here used to be traders so they are kind to strangers," he explained as he strapped the blade around his waist, pointedly not looking in her direction as he did. "You can find work you enjoy here, earn coin, make a life," his tone was rather gruff and it was definitely taking him longer than necessary to do up his belt.

Finally he stood up and met her eyes then gave a formal bow.

"As you no longer need, nor want me," the latter slipped out before he could stop it and his jaw clenched. "I wish you well, Thea," before he turned on his heel and made for the door.

 

[Althea]

Her throat hurt, and her eyes were filling with tears as he spoke. When she was leaving him it'd been frightening, but in some part of her mind she had justified her reasons and had made the decision that it was best for both of them. She didn't wish to be a burden, nor did she wish to be forced to open up about her past. He knew her brother, he was one of her kind, the kind she'd hated and avoided for so long for this very reason. She couldn't deal with the shame.

But now that he was leaving her?... She was used to being afraid, but she'd rather be afraid than alone, and within hours of being alone she'd proven just how vulnerable she was. She was grateful that he'd come for her. He hadn't had to..

She watched him as he bowed, the bridge of her nose creasing with a frown at its formality and the words that followed.

"Gawyn." she said as he turned away from her, but she couldn't think of how to ask him not to go when she'd been nothing but difficult. She swallowed the ache in her throat and cleared it.. "Will you visit?.." she asked, not bothering to wipe the tear on her face.

 

[Gawyn]

Gawyn had turned for the door as soon as he'd completed his bow; a perfect pivot on the heel of his boot. But he paused with his hand on the door when she called his name in that broken voice of hers. It tugged at something deep within and his fingers clenched tightly on the handle. He should be furious with her. He should never want to see her again. He'd done what he had said he would do in a roundabout way; she was somewhere safe where she could rebuild her life if she wanted to. He hadn't meant to deliver her via the hospital but...

He took a breath before glancing over his shoulder at her.

She looked so small and... vulnerable in that bed. Was she fucking crying? He swallowed a lump in his throat and then fully turned back to her, arms folded over his chest.

"I don't get much time off," his voice was gruffer than he had intended and he forced himself to make it smooth. "But.. I could stay a few more days before I go. If you wished."

 

[Althea]

Her brow furrowed and her gaze fell back to her hands, looking a little more than pathetic as it seemed that he'd made up his mind never to see her again. What had she expected?

But...

Her eyes lifted, and as the offer was made to stay a while she felt a tension ease. Perhaps she'd have a chance then to make things right. She let out a breath of a laugh in relief and quickly nodded her head in answer.

"I'm sorry." she added with a sigh after a moment. "I shouldn't have gone off on my own. It was stupid." she said and idly chewed on her lip, hoping that by voicing her responsibility he'd perhaps be a little less angry with her.

 

[Gawyn]

"It was," that razor edge anger just surfaced in his tone but his brief scowl smoothed into a wary smile and softened it somewhat. He hesitated and then made his way over to her bedside, taking up a chair by her left shoulder where the jug of water sat. He refilled her glass then perched awkwardly on the edge of his seat.

"I'm sorry I shouted at you... and shook you," he ran a hand through his hair and looked out the window. The sunlight was directly in his eyes when he did so but he could just make out the figures below milling about their day in their ruined square. Whilst she had slept he had found out that the elves here had been in a war for the last few centuries with the Dreadlords, a human race with mages apparently strong enough to match the elves. He had hardly believed it.

"The world is very different to the one I remember and I... forgot my manners when my temper gets the better of me. It's no excuse but, I am sorry."

 

[Althea]

Her glassy gaze studied each little idiosyncrasy, watching him battle with his anger and try to quell it. She was trying too.

Her cheeks warmed as he apologised to her, and she followed his gaze out of the window rather than look at him. It wasn't a memory she wanted to revisit, but in that moment all she'd seen in him was rage, she'd seen countless other men who'd gripped her and yelled at her that way and she couldn't help but be afraid.

She swallowed and gave a stiff shrug. "It's fine.. Happens." she sighed quietly.

"You seemed.. Irate, at the fire. I wasn't ready to talk about Tobi. I wasn't ready to tell you about Thyasari. I thought at least if I just, found some place on my own that I wouldn't need to talk about it, and you wouldn't be angry with me for not being able to.." she explained quietly.

 

[Gawyn]

"I wasn't irate," Gawyn sighed and ran a hand through his tussled brown hair. When he looked back at her his eyes had lost that fiery edge. Now he just looked weary and... sad. "I was grieving."

He didn't say anything else for a while and let his eyes drift back to the window where he watched two children begin a small game of ball beside the no longer running fountain. They kicked it to one another, shouting things he couldn't quite hear, but they seemed to be having a good time. His lips twitched faintly at a memory not quite dissimilar he had of his own childhood many centuries ago in the Sanctuary.

"I know your pain is still fresh but until then I had thought he was still alive... I had hoped..." he closed his eyes.

 

[Althea]

Thea stared at him, still studying as the ire gave way to something far more difficult to look at, and yet her gaze remained set on his face as he stared distantly out of the window. She knew that he was remembering, given the slight twitch of his lips, and so she remained quiet until he spoke again.

"I'm sorry.." she offered quietly. Her pain was only fresh because she'd buried it down and allowed it to fester by trying to ignore it, but it had been years ago, and she'd been selfish not to consider that to Gawyn, the pain was only a day old.

"He tried to stop a fight.. He wasn't even armed." she frowned and cleared her throat. Tears slipped slowly down her cheeks, though her brow furrowed as she forced herself to tell him what he had a right to know. "I'm not sure if it was an accident or not, but the male who shoved his blade through his ribs claimed that it was.. Kept fucking apologising, as though sorry would ever..." she laughed under her breath, a shuddered sound as she forced back a sob.

"Some others came for me.. So he wasn't in pain."

 

[Gawyn]

A selfish part of him didn't want to know. It was painful enough knowing that the man who had trained him and fought beside him was dead, another to know how. Yet he knew he wouldn't be able to let it go without knowing though, if that was what it meant to lessen Thea's pain, he could bare it. Gawyn looked up at her in surprise when she finally begun revealing the tale and listened with a morbid rapture. There was a faint smile when she mentioned he rushed to defend someone, a slight shake of the head when it was revealed he wasn't armed, and a frown at her arrival. If he knew his friend in any way, he would have hated his sister being pulled into the situation.

"I see..." he held her gaze and then looked back out the window. There was a tightness to his whole body as his mind reeled and attempted to process it. After a while he laughed and rubbed at his face. "It seems ridiculous something so mundane was his end when I've seen him stand alone against armies..." We all have a time, Gawyn. I just know mine isn't today.

Had he known? Was that what had given him such confidence?

 

[Althea]

Thea's lips twisted and she gave a slow nod.. "He was safer standing against armies.. He knew what he was up against and how to survive. He should've been safe in his own home, around his own men. He had no reason to think he'd have to have his guard up." her brow furrowed, and a muscle feathered in her jaw as her teeth clenched.

"He uhm.." she looked down, clearing her throat of the ache that threatened to crack her voice.. "He begged me to forgive him, the one who did it. I don't know his name. The others had arrested him, but he wouldn't stop crying and begging and apologising, saying he hadn't meant to do it and I just.. picked up the blade." she shuddered, her fists tightening on handfuls of her blankets.

 

[Gawyn]

Gawyn listened with a face as unreadable as polished stone. Thea's recounting was not colourful but he knew Tobias well enough that his mind automatically painted the scene for him in vivid detail. Even in his last few breaths he would have been more concerned for the innocent than himself. It had been what had made him such a good commander - the ability to show mercy - but as a person it had been his biggest weakness. He shut his eyes tightly as she finally revealed how it came to be she had lost her wings. If she hadn't... perhaps the justice she had faced would have been given to that man. Instead the wrong person had been left to languish outside Thyasari's halls.

Silently he stood and took the two paces his stride made it over to her bed and sat on the edge. With care and soft tenderness he places his rough calloused hands over hers.

"Forgiveness is a hard lesson for all soldiers to learn. One day the enemy who killed your friends, your brothers, could be the allies you're expected to fight alongside. What you did, Tobias has done. I've done. But once it's done there's... you can't get back the piece of you that dies when you take your first life."

 

[Althea]

Thea's bleary eyes shifted to the hands that settled over hers and her brow dipped in a soft frown because she hadn't expected comfort. Hesitantly, she lifted her gaze to his face as he spoke, the confusion she felt clearly written in her expression. Truthfully she'd expected him to judge her as the others had done, but he was trying to sympathise with her and he was right, a part of her had died that day. Her entire soul had shattered to pieces.

"It wasn't my justice to serve. It wasn't my right to do what I did. I just.." her head shook slowly and she ground her teeth in effort to stop herself from falling apart completely.

"He'd have been so ashamed of me."

 

[Gawyn]

"No, he wouldn't."

Gawyn was completely convinced of that. Tobias had been the man who had found him after his first battle, shaking and crying with blood still staining his blade. He hadn't been ashamed to find one of his men in such a state and as Gawyn had spent more time with him, with the army, he'd come to realise his friend and commander had expected it and watched for it. It was what had made him such a good leader, what had made people want to follow.

"He just... I can only imagine he didn't want you to ever have that feeling. When he spoke about you he was always so proud," he smiled faintly. It had been centuries ago and the exact words were not something he could recall with the chasm of time between him and that seemingly inconsequential moment, but the pride Tobias had had for his family had always stuck with Gawyn. "Killing someone, taking a life, isn't a burden I would ever want someone I love to go through either. It wrecked me for months after my first kill. I still think of his face sometimes when I go to sleep."

 

[Althea]

Her brow furrowed as she looked back at him, as though desperate for him to convince her otherwise, as though it had been something that'd been eating away at her for years like a parasite. It had, in a way. She'd never been able to shake the shame of what she'd done in her brother's name when he himself would have shown mercy. She'd been someone known for her gentle hands before that day, but since, all she'd ever been able to think of was the blood she had on them.

'When he spoke of you, he was always so proud..'

The tears fell thick and fast at the thought of her brother's pride in her, just as she'd been proud of him. She choked on a sob.

"I'm sorry.." she frowned and shook her head. Gawyn had killed countless where she'd killed one and she was pitying herself and she felt pathetic. He'd experienced guilt too. He'd experienced loss. She only wished the rest of her people had been as understanding as he was right now. Until now, she'd never spoken about it since the day she left Thyasari, and every day it'd festered away, mingled with the loss of her wings, her family and her home, and she'd given up on trying to live any sort of normal life. That Gawyn was still here at all had come as a shock to her, and that he was trying to comfort her was even more so.

"I just miss him." she croaked out, forcing a pained smile.