Completed Namesake

[Hahnah]

"I will...bring you...to a safe...place..." Hahnah said, panting, her words timed with each tug of Griffyn back across the street, each inch gained from the site of the battle. She needed him. For many a reason, she needed him.

And then she saw a man rise from the dead. Off slightly to her left and several paces removed. Bloodied, but very much alive. He wore no armband. But he had in his hand a dagger and the eyes above his mask were on her and Griffyn.

He charged. Hopping over the strewn corpses from both sides of the battle.

Hahnah did not hesitate. Her Knives manifested again, the sorcerous weapons arranged in that familiar halo and their points aimed at the assassin.

She launched them. Missed. Missed again, narrowly. The assassin ducked under the next. He shielded himself with his metal gauntlet and the metal of it harmlessly dispersed one. The last Knife scraped his exposed shoulder, the edge of the magical weapon biting a trench into his flesh as it passed.

He was close enough to lunge.

Hahnah let go of Griffyn and jumped in front of him. She caught the assassin's thrusting arm by the wrist and forearm and the point of his dagger threatened her sternum and the assassin's momentum carried him forward and into her and the two of them fell back and down and indeed both collapsed onto Griffyn.

A struggle. They rolled off of Griffyn, legs flailing, boots and Hahnah's bare feet smacking into the stone of the street, breaths rapid and fierce. And the grappling struggle between Hahnah and the assassin continued.

Griffyn

 

[Griffyn]

Griffyn spluttered as the cat's giant paw slammed down on his stomach. The air in his lungs was expelled out into the air and he rolled, clutching his middle tightly, to one side. His forearm pressed against the paving and under his weight, compounding the throb of bruising with the tingle of his drained blood. He groaned mightily, unconsciousness now beyond him.

He opened his eyes dimly. The great cat was gone, but there was Hahnah, locked in some sort of contest with a man in leather armour. Griffyn pushed against the ground in an attempt to force himself upwards. He narrowed his eyes against the blur. The man was larger, of course, but Hahnah had a lithe coordination that gave her an edge. Still, it was ultimately an even contest.

He shook his head, dispelling some of the disorientation, and gritted his teeth. He could just about make out Hahnah's expression, the sweat on her brow and what looked like blood on her clothes. The urgency of the scene was suddenly strikingly apparent.

"Hahnah!"

Forcing himself up further, Griffyn stretched out his arm and clutched at the booted foot of the soldier assaulting her. He gripped as hard as he could and pulled, but all this earned him was a savage kick to the face. He tumbled back to the ground, but maintained his grip. The blood on his nose case a devilish cast over him.

"Get... off!!"

Hahnah

 

[Hahnah]

The point of the dagger was in her chest, pierced through her tunic and her flesh and caught on her breastbone. Her teeth were gritted, one hand fighting for control of the dagger and the other gripping the assassin's masked chin, fighting to try to get him to look into her eyes. He'd slap her hand away and they would roll about and her hand would find its way back but still she could not force him to make eye contact. Provoke would do nothing with no other potential targets, her manifestations of Elemental Hatred from her palms or around her shoulders would all be dispelled instantly by contact with inorganic material from their thrashing about, so that left Cascade. If she could just get him to look at her.

Griffyn called her name. And he grabbed hold of the assassin's foot and yanked backward. It wasn't much, but it was just enough for the assassin's hold on the dagger to become awkward and for Hahnah to wrest control of it. Not her Cascade, but the weapon could kill him all the same.

She wrenched the blade out of her chest and slashed it at the assassin. His face whipped to one side, and there was a splatter of blood on the cobbles of the street. The assassin fell from her onto his stomach and Griffyn held him and Hahnah scooted out and then she climbed atop the assassin's back. With both hands on the dagger she raised the dagger high and then plunged it down hard into the back of the assassin's neck before he could move away. His body spasmed sharply, went rigid for a moment, there were copious sounds of gurgling, and then came a weak leaking gasp and his body went limp.

Hahnah let her head tilt back. Skyward. Breathed in heaping gulps with eyes half-closed. In small whispers to herself she said, "Have I done well?" And again, "Have I done well?"

Then she slid off of the body of the assassin and sat up and turned about slowly to face Griffyn.

She noticed too late that she had a clear, visible wound showing. The assassin's dagger, when Griffyn pulled him back, had been dragged down the length of her sternum, slicing open a tear in her tunic and likewise in her chest. Small and straight, the wound, terminating near perfectly at the bottom end of her breastbone. And there was no blood. Those myriad tiny black strands of her Living Armor, like the searching antennae of a host of insects, peeked out from the wound and undulated as they set about their purpose. They kept her blood inside her body and had begun suturing shut the wound.

Alarm, pure and bright, alighted in Hahnah's eyes. Surely Griffyn had seen it. And now he would know. Know that she was not precisely as she appeared to be. And with that could come fear, suspicion, hostility. None of which she could afford. For her sake, for the sake of the elves perhaps held captive in the city.

Hahnah clutched at her tunic and held it tight to hide the wound beneath, and she said quickly, "There is something I have not told you." And she fell upon her old explanation, the only one she had ever had to express--however vague and ultimately inaccurate--what she was. "I-I am a strange elf."

She glanced around, as if there may have been others who could have seen. But, so far as she could tell, there were none. "Will you keep this a secret?"

Something. Something that might help convince him.

"I promise I will answer all that you wish to know later."

Griffyn

 

[Griffyn]

The man was dead. He had died slowly, breathing groggy and heavy. He had been dressed as an ally, but had been an enemy. So little had distanced Griffyn from the man who had sought to kill him. And yet...

Hahnah was changing. Above her fallen adversary, her body reknit itself with black, oily lines of fibre. Her skin twisted silently back into the mere semblance of a young elf. She looked down at him with those big, dark eyes. So unknowable. And yet...

"I..." he began, but something caught in his mouth and he was forced to clear his throat. He spat out the blood from his nose that had pooled between his lips.

"I always knew you were strange..." he told her hoarsely, still prostrate on the paving. "I thought that was because... because I had never met someone like you before. Because I've met so few people in my life, really... I thought..."

Another splutter, and he shook his head, sweat and watery blood falling to the ground in heavy droplets.

"Nevermind. I can't think right now."

Limbs aching, Griffyn forced himself slowly up and onto his feet. He peered around at the simmering chaos of the battle as he swayed.

"There's nothing more we can do. Let's go home."

He reached out a hand to help her up. He hoped she was as light as she looked, as he had little strength yet. Still, it seemed like the right thing to do.

Hahnah

 

[Hahnah]

A moment of terror, and the thought of the very real possibility that she might have to kill Griffyn and go into meager hiding, when he spoke and managed a single word before pausing to spit blood. And she would have to, should he react to fear or hostility. If he lived and spread the truth of her being among the others of Menura, then it would be as it was before her transformation. They would all see her as a monster. They would come for her. And she could not kill them all.

But he did not react that way. For reasons to which she could scarcely even begin to guess at, he did not. And that was good.

He always knew that she was strange. It was true. She knew it to be so. She called herself an elf for a lack of anything more correct, wished as well that she was one...but she ultimately was not, even if she had been taken in and raised by two of them. And so from her own words, her own self-identifier, that left "strange" in stark relief.

Never met someone like her before. She could say the same thing about him. Met so few people in his life. Again, she could say the same thing about herself. In these two ways they were like the matching wings of a butterfly.

More blood spat out. And here Hahnah experienced a sort of whiplash, going so quickly from her recent consideration of potentially having to kill Griffyn to being worried about his well-being, even going so far as to halfway reach out a hand toward him. But the whiplash settled. She didn't have to kill him, and she still needed him for that familiar host of reasons--some conflicting, some in harmony.

He stood. Somehow. Through the fatigue of magic use and the debilitation brought by injury, he stood. And he held out a hand. She looked at it with a small sort of wonder. Encapsulated within that offered hand seemed to be the sum of all the surprises of this day of days. She looked for a moment longer and then up and she took his hand and accepted his help up to her feet as well.

"Thank you," she said. "I will keep my promise when you are ready."

She'd offer in turn any help that Griffyn might need and be willing to take in order to walk. He had suffered greatly at the hands of the enemy in the skirmish and from his own heavy use of magic in the battle. She spared no thought of her own wounds, internal or external.

In agreeance, she repeated his words, "Let's go home."

They would very well need the rest and recovery. The lives of perhaps many elves stood in the balance.

Griffyn

 

[Griffyn]

The walk back felt like an age. Griffyn walked slowly, legs stiff as wood and spine like a steel bolt. His breathing felt ragged and rough, owing to his beaten nose, and the shallow incline back up to the servant's abode they had been granted might as well have been the side of a mountain. They passed by teams of soldiers as they walked the streets in the dwindling nighttime shadows, some carrying planks and boards for the speedy repairs needed to reseal the walls. Though most rushed to their duties without seeing the pair of wounded combatants at all, the last group, a squad of little more than youths in slapshod armour, came to a halt and saluted, eyes wide as they took in the blue armbands and ragged countenances of the Commanders. Griffyn weakly returned the gesture, but he and Hahnah couldn't stop.

At the house, it took two attempts to push the wooden door open. The room inside was dark. His eyes were heavy-laden, and all he wished for was sleep. He said as much to Hahnah.

"I need to lie down for a few hours," he said, leaning heavily against the table. "We shall talk in the morning. To each other, and to the authorities. I promise."

He turned painfully to look at her. Despite all their endeavours, and despite the mess he must look to her, Hahnah didn't seem all the worse for wear. Her clothes were torn, her hair astray. Had she lost her shoes in the fighting? In fact, had she been wearing shoes at all? Still, her ability to bounce back from physical harm was nothing short of remarkable. Whatever she was.

"Will you be alright?" he asked as he made for the bedroom on the right. "Do you need anything?"

He hoped not. Already the promise to overturn the possible corruption of the city was weighing heavily upon him. But it was the right thing to do. Sometimes, there was no need for anything more complex than that.

Hahnah

 

[Hahnah]

Back in the servant's quarters, darkened by night with only the sole light of the still burning candle from Hahnah's room leaking out through the ajar door, she assessed her own wounds at Griffyn's prompting. Bruises on her hand, some blood from her nose, discomfort simmering in her stomach from some internal bleeding--the price of her sorcery. Scrapes from her fight with the assassin. Then she lightly touched her neck, the gash there left by the grazing arrow; blood dotted her fingertips, and indeed it was a curtain down from the base of her ear to the stained top of her cloak and tunic. Then, of course, the spear wound on her side and the dagger wound in her chest, both she could do nothing about save conceal--it would be a matter of days before her Living Armor receded back into her body, its work done. She would need a new tunic, or to patch this one, for it was too dangerous to hope for the grace of Griffyn from other humans.

What she could do now was tend to her neck.

Will you be alright?

"Yes. I have not been injured as severely as you have been," she said. And she glanced about and in the dark spotted some of the spare bedsheets in the main room that she could tear and use. Bandages--as well as a great many other things--she had become more accustomed to in recent times. Echoes, in a way, coming back from her caretakers attempting to teach her of those selfsame things, the knowledge and adeptness keeping this time instead of slipping away.

Hahnah grabbed one of the spare sheets from the shelf and went to the table upon which Griffyn was leaning. She sat down. Bit into the fabric and then tore it with a wrench of her head and a jerk of her hands. And she started to wipe the fresh blood from her neck and with it the sheet was turning a dulled red.

"I do not know if anyone has told you this..." The words she spoke seemed to be born of their own accord, to have a life of their own.

She took the long strip that she had torn and started to wrap it around her neck. Not too tightly. This, while she struggled between saying what was felt by one half of her heart and what was felt by the other.

After a moment she finished, saying what could satisfy both warring halves, "...but I am glad to have met you."

Griffyn

 

[Griffyn]

He halted at the door to the bed chamber, resting an aching arm on the wall. He looked down to the polished wood of the floor. Torn. He longed for the embrace of sleep. His body demanded rest to regenerate. But Hahnah clearly needed to process her thoughts, and it would be cruel of him to deny her that.

And besides, what she had just told him was truly touching. After the city of Dornoch, where his presence had seemed only to cause pain to others, it was strangely surreal to come here to a city that needed him for who he was. And though Hahnah was clearly capable of taking care of herself, she chose to stay with him. He only wished it hadn't taken bloodshed and violence for him to mean something.

He turned around slowly and leaned back against the wall.

"You know that this isn't my home," he told her, folding his arms. "I'm almost as much a stranger here as you are. And I came here because I wanted to see the world for what it is, not just what I can read about in books. I've only really just begun. on that front"

He looked up, meeting Hahnah's eyes.

"It would surprise me if I ever met anyone quite like you again. You've shown me a side of the world I didn't know existed, even though it feels like I barely know you at all. So... thank you, is what I'm trying to say. I'm very glad to have met you, too."

He sighed. His words felt insufficient, a pale imitation of his feelings. Shaking his head, he pushed himself off the wall with his shoulders.

"We'll talk more in the morning. The late morning," he added with a weak smirk. He stepped to the side and entered the bed chamber, pulling the door slowly closed.

"Good night, Hannah," he said.

He was asleep before he hit the covers.

Hahnah

 

[Hahnah]

Strangers alike in Menura, both with homes far from here. Seeing the world for what it was. Hahnah was doing something similar, whether it was the main purpose or merely incidental in her bidding to walk among them. But it seemed so far that every new answer she happened upon was frightening, each adding another unique crack in the glass globe wherein the world she once knew thoroughly resided. A simpler world, and one that she clung to and perhaps dangled from, if not now with two firm hands then with two tenacious fingers.

Good night, Hannah.

She smiled. The revelation about the elves notwithstanding--however it would turn out--she did like it when he spoke her true name. Even if she herself was reserving adopting it until a better time had come.

"I wish you a good night, Griffyn."

* * * * *​

She did sleep, somehow, despite the weight of the previous day bearing down on her mind and her heart in countless ways.

Hahnah was in her room when the meager light of the sun, not yet even crested over the horizon, spilled thinly through the windows. The candle had gone out. Her door was slightly ajar--doors that were completely shut made her silently uncomfortable, and she avoided it whenever she could.

She sat cross-legged on her bed with her bare back (straight, oddly perfect posture, as was her nature) to the door. Her cloak and her tunic she had taken off, the former neatly folded beside her and the latter in her lap. She had in her hand a sewing kit, procured from an early morning appraisal of the quarters looking for such. She looked at the kit's components, straining to remember. Kylindrielle and Elurdrith were both very good at sewing, and while she remembered the joy of watching and remembered how they looked on those particular days and even what they had all eaten--

(as a family)

--for breakfast that very morning of the specific memory she held now in her mind, she could not remember the mechanics of the sewing themselves. It was akin to trying to reading back before her transformation. The knowledge would stay for a short time, then bleed away, her mind rejecting it. There were things at which she was very good and things at which she struggled severely. She could see clearly Kylindrielle's smile, her blonde hair, tightly drawn back into a bun with exactly three strands loose at the back, the precise size and shape of the cut in her glove that she was mending. She remembered Elurdrith, what he was saying word for word about the cut and the rabid Falwood Strider that had caused it. But the act of sewing itself, the skill, she could not.

She looked at the thread. Looked at the needle. Looked at the patches and rolls of different colored cloth. She touched one of the needles.

"Ah!" Quiet, breathy, her reflexive wince. A pinprick of blood, a tiny dot, formed on the tip of her forefinger.

And she looked at it. For the first time in a long time looked at it. The blood. Her blood.

Saw it, with some silent distress, for the color that it truly was.

Red. The same red that humans and elves alike bled, the same as they who sinned and they who were good and they who were perhaps both.

Griffyn

 

[Griffyn]

Griffyn was getting dressed. There was a small mirror in the room he had been given, and with it he inspected his beaten body. Until yesterday, his only scars had been tiny things earned through childhood games, plus one from an errant sword swing during a misguided brawl. But now his arms and back were a mess of scrawled red lines. Two particularly vicious ones cut deep into his side. He looked like a grisly map.

Sighing, he checked the wardrobe. The white shirts he found inside were a touch small, and would require him to roll up his sleeves at the very least. But as he did so his political mind kicked in and he realised that this was better. He should show off his injuries. For every townsman made uncomfortable by his markings, a soldier would know that he had suffered. And in the game that he and Hahnah were going to have to play today, that would mean progress towards their goal. The Lady of Menura would know that the two of them had paid a price for their freedom. Griffyn's father had taught his son exactly how to push the worth of a resource like that.

The shirt was tight, open at his chest, and the sleeves were taut against his upper arms. He would be cold, but his wounds stood out. He smirked as he realised he was placing the same care in his attention to clothing today as he had done at the last Summer Ball back in Alliria. Indeed, the same game had been played that night - the posing, the posturing, the choice of words behind which he had hidden covert messages. The masks he had worn. What was this body of his if not a ghastly mask?

Griffyn spent some time pushing his hair into some form of order. He would need to get it cut before long. There had been too much to do, and his coin pouch had been a desolate sight since Dornoch. No doubt one of the soldiers here in the city could do it, but Griffyn didn't much want the absurdly short cut of the military man. It wasn't who he was. Perhaps his own hair, inching towards being 'foppish' as he continued to neglect it, would present its own potent message to Lady Sunderland: I wasn't supposed to be here.

He shrugged at his reflection. This would have to do. He could spend all day attempting to refine his new first impression without actually getting any impression-ing done. Brushing off his breeches and pulling on his boots, he stepped out of the chamber and into the middle room with its long table. He immediately noticed that Hahnah's door was open. Perhaps she had gone out.

The bowl of fruit in the centre of the table was looking a touch sparse. He took a sad-looking apple and left the other one for Hahnah, alongside a few errant grapes that had fallen to the bottom. Then he walked to the window and peered out at the morning sunshine. Despite everything, it was looking to be a pleasant day.

Hahnah

 

[Hahnah]

Hahnah came out of her room.

There had been a similar wardrobe in her room, and she wore now a simple beige shirt, loosely laced up at the top, to replace her battered tunic. She had as well donned her green cloak again, despite the bloodstain atop it on her left shoulder. The makeshift bandage about her neck--only lightly stained with blood now, she having changed it--was something like a collar, yet hardly some form of fashion statement.

The wounds, the stitch-like strands of the Living Armor holding them closed and sealing them shut, were concealed, and she was as cleaned up as she could be. The soles of her feet were still dirty from having walked around barefoot for most of yesterday, but she could wash them. Even when she was in the wild, with her former appearance when she abhorred wearing clothes and absolutely would not wear shoes, she still took every opportunity to clean herself. She may have lived among animals and monsters alike, but she was not precisely as they were just as she was not precisely as elves (and humans) were.

Hahnah stopped for a moment when she turned toward the main room and the table and there had seen Griffyn as he was walking to the window. Saw as well his own lingering injuries, some on his forearms, some elsewhere. Caused by humans and one caused by an elf. Yet if she did not already know which was which she would have been at a loss to guess. Harm, cruelty, caused by humans or caused by elves or caused by any other looked indistinguishable in the end. The suffering was the same. And this thought was intensely difficult for her to grasp, despite the fact of her having it.

"Are you feeling better now?" she asked. Yet that strangeness. Why should she care if he was? He was human. His suffering was the suffering of a sinner, the appropriate retribution. But she had witnessed no sin from Griffyn. And she did care if he was feeling better.

Yet still they had the matter of the captive elves, the truth of it, ahead of them. And the answer could change everything.

She went to the bowl of fruit on the table and took out the remaining apple and bit into it. She was ferociously hungry now, the small helpings she had yesterday reinvigorating her lost appetite.

Griffyn

 

[Griffyn]

He didn't look up, but smiled at the sound of Hahnah's approach. Her clothes rustled and her steps were graceful and sure - it was clear the effects of their battle had diminished. He himself no doubt was walking like a man with two spears down his trousers.

"Well enough," he answered, "for a bit of intrigue. I hope."

His next question was interrupted, however, by a tentative tap at the door. Somehow their guest had slipped past Griffyn's attention as he stood at the window. Frowning, he walked to the entrance, glancing at Hahnah as he took the handle in hand and pulled.

The boy Liam, still only four feet tall and face pale with evident nerves, greeted him with a hesitant bow. Hesitant because held awkwardly in his arms was a steel longsword, and atop it a thick shaft of wood the length of Griffyn's forearm. Eyes wide, Griffyn took the item in hand, savouring the grain of the ironwood.

"My wand!" he exclaimed. "You found it!"

Liam blushed, nodding severely. "A weapon such as that," he intoned, "deserves to be with its master. O-Or so I thought."

"Thank you, Liam. And my sword?"

In truth, Griffyn wasn't sure what either the blade he had brought with him to Menura, or the replacement given to him by a surly soldier, looked like. This one was about the right length, he guessed. He took the weapon and propped it up inside the door.

"Sorry I don't have anything to tip you with..."

The boy faltered, clearly not certain how to respond. After a moment's intense thought, he decided to ignore it.

"Your presence... presences are requested by the Lady of the City," he announced, "on a matter concerning the continued defense of... of the city. The Lady also asked me to inform you that she intends to reward you for your dedication in last night's r-raid."

"Oh, well. In that case, we'll be along shortly." Griffyn continued hurriedly as Liam opened his mouth to speak, "In a little while. Once the Commander and I are ready. Her Ladyship will wait patiently, I am sure."

He smiled cheerily, and Liam, torn for a moment between loyalties, nodded. "Y-Yes, sir. Of course. In a little while."

"You go tell her, with my thanks for her being so patient."

"Yes, right away."

Griffyn watched the lad depart up the path towards the street in a little jog before closing the door. He turned to Hahnah.

"That was right, I hope?" he asked, face falling into a serious frown. "We should talk. I think there's a few matters we ought to get out in the open before today begins in earnest."

He returned to the table and leaned against it, placing the wand beside the empty fruit bowl, and watched Hahnah carefully.

Hahnah

 

[Hahnah]

Hahnah went still when the knock at the door came. Frozen like a sculpture with her mouth open and prepared to take another bite of the nearly-finished apple in her hand. Her eyes slid over toward the door. The fingers of her free hand, her right and the very same that held those bruises from overcasting beneath her glove, flexed. She met Griffyn's eyes when he met hers, then looked again to the door.

But it was only a child on the other side. No humans called Reds. No humans of Menura who maybe had seen her wounded chest last night and knew too much. No elves even, as remote a possibility as that was.

Hahnah finished the rest of the fruit in the bowl--a small handful of grapes, leaving her not as satisfied as she would have liked--as Griffyn and the boy conversed. The human master, Eloise, wanted to see them. To reward them. Such fit into Hahnah's conception of human society and its fostering of cruelty. Yet it was her and Griffyn who were to be rewarded. This...grated against said conception in a certain undeniable way that she could not yet discern clearly. Maybe she would have an answer soon, an answer to make clear all of the foggy things which evaded her understanding.

Maybe she had been wrong to doubt the quiet guidance of the Dying God. To question Him. He loved her, she knew it to be so within her heart. It was only that walking among them was as difficult as it was necessary. And she should soon find out for what.

We should talk.

She sat down slowly. Glanced briefly at the finger that she had pricked with the needle on accident and thought to ask a question of her own first and then decided against it. A promise given was a promise kept, and Hahnah would hold herself to it. No matter what. As she had with Reginald, even after she had been betrayed.

Looking up at Griffyn, she began with, "Most people, humans and elves alike, do not react well when they...know." She touched her chest. Ran her fingers down the length of the wound beneath her shirt. "There was a time not long ago when they did not react well at the mere sight of me. They would call me a word that holds great meaning to them."

A word which, to Hahnah, did not carry the same malevolent weight as did to they who uttered it.

"They would call me a monster."

She did not look away in shame, for she had none. What shame was there in the attempts by the profane to disparage her? There were only feelings of dismay when elves would call her that, for in the word was entwined a sentiment of disgust and aversion, but it was not shame or guilt or regret or any such emotion.

And Griffyn was among the few who had not called her so.

"Anything that you would ask of me, I will answer."

It was true, that she held in reserve a tinge of worry about betrayal. That, armed with this knowledge, Griffyn could turn on her at the worst possible moment, whether it was a hidden intention all along or one that had formed when he saw her wound and knew.

But a promise given. A promise kept. No matter what.

Griffyn

 

[Griffyn]

He nodded, folding his arms and looking down at his feet.

"Thank you," he said. "This is important, I think, in case it comes up today. It will be good to get our stories straight.

"But I... I feel the need to say that nothing you say now will change the fact that I trust you, and that I am committed to working alongside you. I hope you understand that."

He nodded again, clearly tense. Having said all that... 'monster'? He had heard whispered stories of monsters in the quiet corners of the city. The word was most often attached just to people, people who had through their actions dropped below the required qualifiers society attached to sapience. Murderers, thieves, butchers...

But what Hahnah meant by the word, it was clear from their set of her expression, was something else. Removed from good and evil, an entity alien and unknowable. And Griffyn had sensed some of this himself in his interactions with the girl. Her words now confirmed what he had slowly come to realise since first meeting her, that there were depths below her skin that defied his understanding. Where to start with something like that?

"Uh, so..." he continued, hesitant. "This means you aren't an elf? Your..." He struggled to think of a word to describe her adoptive caregivers in the right sense and failed. "Your parents were elves, but you are... something else. What... What exactly are you?"

He hated the way his question sounded, so accusatory and childish. Still, with nothing to work with, what choice did he have?

Hahnah

 

[Hahnah]

He trusted her. Said it outright. And nothing would tarnish it.

Hahnah looked down slightly at this. If Griffyn had a window into her mind and knew her thoughts, the many that she had concerning him as well as Humankind, these recent enough to be only hours removed from the present moment, would he still say such a thing? Her trust of him was imperfect. Unlike the trust she had given to her caretakers, to Alden, to Pretty Boy, before he had tried to kill her. This, because he was human, and because another man named Griffin and the hunters with him had come into her peaceful world and shattered it and exposed the evil in the hearts of all Humankind to her.

But where was Griffyn von Spurling of Alliria's evil? Where was it? The belief she held and the good she felt for her deeds in her heart had been at terrible war with her observed reality, and it was nothing short of maddening.

"I understand." She did not. Not completely. But she said as much anyway.

She looked back up. Saw the tension in his arms, his face, his eyes. The stumbling start. These the faint first caresses of fear, things she had seen before and things to which she had--unfortunately--grown accustomed. Neither did the tone of his question, what exactly are you, disturb her.

"I do not know precisely. I am not truly an elf, but I had nothing else to call myself, and so I emulated my caretakers. I wanted..." The side of her mouth pulled long for a curt second. "I wanted to be like them."

She held out her arm and laid it on the table. Rolled up her sleeve. And with her other hand she brushed the fair, exposed skin. Concerns of danger, of revealing too much, she gave no regard to, leaving these behind her in the tomb of yesterday.

"I did not always look like this. My skin was the sacred Black, and so was my hair. The skin of my face was not--it was a different color." She paused for a moment, then added in the manner of side commentary, "I still had freckles." She continued after the aside, "My eyes were orange, and they shone faintly."

"And..." Hahnah struggled for a few seconds, searching for a way to describe what was forthcoming, "And upon most of my body was something you might think of as fur. But it was not fur. I call it my Armor. It is alive, and it protects me."

Sometimes.

Her eyes wandered a bit, and she spoke aloud the realization that had caused this wandering. "I am not sure how I came to be."

Griffyn

 

[Griffyn]

He frowned as Hahnah laid out her life for him. Not an elf, certainly not a human... an 'other'. Not even really the girl he saw before him, as it sounded as though she had changed forms over her lifetime. He wasn't sure what to make of her tale, but the worried cast across her face told him that it concerned her enough for him, as audience, to take seriously.

"Your elven caretakers were good to you, so you aspired to be more like them," he surmised, looking down. "And I can only assume that the humans in your life were bad to you. And that's why you... That's why you hate us."

He scratched his chin, having nothing better to do with his hands and feeling awkward just having them folded in front of him. Knowing what he knew now about Hahnah, her distance from the men and women of the city, it was starting to sound hopelessly foolish to allow her back into the presence of a ruling member of the government. The human government. Who truly knew what she would think to do, and whether anyone would be able to stop her from shedding blood if she willed it? She herself, certainly, seemed as uncertain as any.

But she had held herself back when they had met the Lady of Menura before, and continually refused to strike out against supposed allies within the city. And she had yet to harm him, also. He voiced his question.

"So, why have you come here?" he asked. "Being around humans is clearly a challenge, and this is a city full of us. But I am human, and you seem to be tolerating me well enough."

A remembered embrace, shared trust... Could she hide resentment and hatred behind such perceived kindness? There was much that was not apparent behind the physicality of Hahnah. And even if she knew, would she tell him?

Hahnah

 

[Hahnah]

Her perplexion and its associated amazement had abated, but not ceased. The sight of her Living Armor, the knowledge of her otherness, and now her description of her old form, none of it had upset him to the point of hostility. His counterpart Griffin, him and the hunters that she and her caretakers had encountered on that terrible day, had seen her and this mere sight had provoked them into violence.

And so it was truth put to words: yes, the humans that Hahnah had come across were all bad to her. Cruel. And this was so because of what they were. Profane. She had seen it on that terrible day and she saw again and again without exception.

Only.

There was an exception, wasn't there? Griffyn. There were many more exceptions in recent times to her long-held beliefs. Elves who had sinned, humans who were not explicitly and immediately hostile and dripping with sin. How could that be? She felt with such strength of surety in her heart that her beliefs were true. She knew them to be true--she had seen it with her own eyes. The first humans she had ever seen, killing the elves whom she only ever loved. They carried in their hearts the sin common to all Humankind. They did. They did. It was an immutable truth.

And yet Griffyn was before her. Muting that very truth.

So, why have you come here?

He was right. It was a challenge. One unlike she had ever experienced before. And as to why? This could perhaps be the most dangerous ground of all. But.

A promise given. A promise kept.

Hahnah glanced downward, and with a slight air of reverence, she said, "Do you believe...in Gods?" A small moment, filled with the low sounds from the morning outside the quarters. She looked back up to him. And touched her chest. "I have felt a presence for a long time, and He is faint and quiet. But He is there. I pray to Him, and I have done so for nearly all my life."

She smiled warmly. A deeply satisfied and serene picture. "Months ago, in a small town named Strathford, He finally answered. He spoke in a language that I could not understand so much as feel. I will tell you what He said."

AS YOU ARE, had been His first words. This was in response or agreeance, she thought, with something that Zael had said to her or that she had said to Zael. It was difficult to remember--the staggering immensity of having a God speak directly her caused some intoxicating and awestricken disclarity--and those words would not make sense without knowing the proper context. His next two words were the important matter, regardless.

"'Among Them,'" she quoted. A subdued edge of excitement had come into her voice, despite the naked fact of her telling this to a human. "Griffyn, I think He wants me to learn something that I did not know before. I think that is the purpose. There is something--"

She stopped, realizing in mid-sentence that she had very likely said quite a lot that was, much like those first three words spoken by the Dying God, without context. She had at least the presence of mind and scraped together enough social know-how to recognize that while all of this she knew intimately and was very familiar with, to Griffyn it might well seem...dense. Like a heavy stone. Difficult to grasp, the stone and her answer alike.

"I am sorry. Is this...too much?"

Griffyn

 

[Griffyn]

Griffyn was suddenly aware that Hahnah had asked him a question. He blew air through his lips when the words for his response did not immediately come to him, and shook his head.

"It's not easy to grasp, certainly," he answered. "You'll have to forgive me if I don't entirely understand."

After all, there was obviously a lot to Hahnah's journey that he had not been present for. Moreover, her own mind was filled with reflections of the events of her past, not to mention the echoes of some distant, mysterious deity, that formed part of the puzzle that had led her to Menura. Still, he made the effort to understand.

"I do believe in the Gods," he added after a moment's pause. "My family was brought up Celestial, as I think many are in the city, and we go to the temple every year. Altyr had his Naming not all that long ago. But..."

His fond smile faded. "But I've never heard the voice of a God before. I can't imagine what that's like. Still, I guess this makes you a pilgrim of sorts, right? I can respect that. Though it would have been preferable to be sent somewhere a little less chaotic, I'm sure."

He chuckled. The mysterious ways of the Gods were far beyond him. He wondered which God it was that Hahnah was hearing, but feared his own suspicions. One thing at a time.

"Do you think the reason your God brought you here has something to do with imprisoned elves? Do you think rescuing them has something to do with your own... your own origin?"

Hahnah

 

[Hahnah]

Celestialism. Of these gods, Hahnah had encountered some of their believers after and even before her transformation. At one time she thought these gods, led by one called Astra, were exclusively gods of Humankind. But it was not so, and she in her ventures into settlements like Alliria had seen this proven.

Her eyes brightened when Griffyn asked his speculative questions. A touch of excitement, less a roaring fire and more the quiet burn of a candle, came into her tone, and yes, as swept up as she was in the moment she had forgotten that she was talking with a human about so delicate a matter. Briefly, he was no longer Griffyn the human. Just Griffyn. Pure and simple.

She balled her fists atop her knees with an outgoing and bristling energy and said, "Yes, that may well be so! I do not know for certain, but I hope that is why my path has led here. I have only ever wanted to do good in the world, and He may be helping me with that. It is a good thing to save elves."

Zael. The elven liar in the roadside tavern. The elves who killed Idreth. The elven bowman slain by Griffyn. Her expression faltered slightly as these disturbing occurrences came to her, but she recovered quickly.

"And it would be good if rescuing them allowed me to learn. All I know of my origin is being locked in the Temple when I was small. I do not truly know--"

She stopped. Blinked. Eyes going out of focus as she slowly lifted a hand to touch her chin in a worried manner.

The human bodies.

Her voice. Far away and hollow with a festering realization. "--...if I was placed there..."

The human bodies.

"...or if I was born there."

The human bodies, and none else throughout the Temple. And what that meant if this latter possibility was the truth.

The hand that touched her chin drifted up to hide her mouth.

Griffyn

 

[Griffyn]

He looked up as the atmosphere changed suddenly.

"Hannah?"

Griffyn crouched down next to her, watching her expression carefully. She was clearly in the thrall of a realisation. Tension gripped her features and her eyes were wide and fearful. He reached out tentatively and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Listen, we're on it," he said, misunderstanding. "I'm sorry it's taken so long to make progress on finding these prisoners. But if they're here, we'll get them out. I swear it."

He squeezed her shoulder lightly. He knew a little of how it felt to be powerless to protect someone. He vividly recalled a wooden room, the scent of blood, a friend... And Hahnah, he had realised, was a crusader. She couldn't rest while injustice was taking place against her charge, in this case the elves of the city. He felt a wave of affection for her wash over him.

He stood. "Maybe we should get going," he said. "We've kept them waiting long enough, and we have a lot to accomplish as soon as we can."

In truth, he felt the need to make Lady Sunderland wait a little longer. They would be walking into a negotiation, and an impatient opponent would pay a higher price. But on the other hand, the longer they waited the more likely someone would get hurt, if their suspicions were proven correct. There were too many factors at play, but chief among them, in Griffyn's eyes, was Hahnah's wellbeing.

Hahnah

 

[Hahnah]

Hannah?

The sound of her name, her true name, brought her back. Her hand drifted back down to her lap and she looked to Griffyn as he crouched down and in truth she welcomed the derailment of her disturbing thoughts. A muted mixture of wonder and appreciation as she regarded him, leaking out in her expression and in her gaze. She allowed for the touching of her shoulder, and still she marveled at how she had come to this point, where it seemed two truths were fighting for victory in her heart and over her world: what she had always known, and what she was discovering now.

Hahnah nodded. Slowly at first, then with more energy towards the end. We'll get them out. His apparent dedication to seeing the elves freed--or at least helping to discover that there were in fact no elves--was as admirable as it was perplexing. And much rested on the resolution of this. Lives, and more.

The intense worry concerning the Temple and her origin behind her, and with the encouraging prospect of perhaps doing a great good for Elvenkind ahead of her, she stood as well. Feeling giddy. Feeling anxious.

We've kept them waiting long enough, and we have a lot to accomplish as soon as we can.

"You are right," she said in agreeance.

And then she reached up. Slow and delicate, this motion of her arms, to show a lack of malice or hostility. She reached with her hands and touched Griffyn's ears, rubbing the tips of them with her thumbs.

"Your commitment to this is something that I have not seen...from a human." She did not speak as Hahnah the human slayer. Just Hahnah. Honesty without reservation and sentiments as she felt them. "If I could, I would bless you with elven ears."

She pulled her hands away and back down to her sides. Ready to go.

Griffyn

 

[Griffyn]

Griffyn's eyes widened, flushing slightly at the sudden intimacy of Hahnah's touch. For a moment, his words caught on his tongue. Then, he smiled.

"That would be something," he said, "though I wouldn't want to change who I am."

Then he shrugged, chuckling. "We should go."

The daylight beckoned them.

---

It was late morning, and the city of Menura arose tentatively, hesitantly, from slumber. The townsfolk huddled behind the curtains of their homes, peeking out as the pair walked past towards the main street. Last night had affected their courage significantly, it seemed. But at the centre of the city, the road was filled. Soldiers stood tall in the sunlight, patchwork armour and rusted weapons glinting weakly but defiantly. Some hoisted spears and materials for the defense of the city, others engaged in drills with shouts of exertion. There was a pervading brightness to the scene that Griffyn noticed differed quite dramatically from the night before. New faces, fresh smiles, powerful postures... This was a people who, for the first time, believed they would come through this fight alive. And they reveled in it.

Griffyn didn't recognise the applause for what it was until he and Hahnah were almost at the command centre on the main stretch of street. But he felt the attention of the men leap to them, heard the clatter of weapons as they were dropped carelessly to the floor. And the cheers that quietly but swiftly grew in noise around them contained his name.

"Commander Griffyn!!" the soldiers shouted, content to express themselves with just his name. "Commander!!"

Many, he noticed, were also looking at Hahnah. Though it was clear the garrisoned soldiers of Menura did not know what to make of their arcane commander's companion, it was clear she was taken as part of the package. And though they did not cheer her name, certainly did not even know it, she was there in the praise with him.

He smiled magnanimously as they passed between the rows of soldiers, lifting a hand in a shallow and casual wave. He recognised a few faces as they passed: Anirian Rych, arms high above his head; Jon and Kyle, inseparable as brothers... Even sour Amon put his hands together with grudging respect. No sign of Keates, though. Griffyn had never had a chance to find him for a game of cards in the end.

The crowd parted to allow passage to the doors of the building. The shady interior was visible, as Liam, relief evident on his features, stood ready to greet them. As they reached the command building, the Lady Eloise Sunderland joined the youth at the entrance, eyes bright in the sunshine. She gave the pair a low nod, almost a bow, and gestured for them to enter. Griffyn bowed back as he entered. And the doors were closed behind them.

Inside, with the cheers muted to near silence, the atmosphere changed. Lady Sunderland stood at the map table, her nameless scribe by her side, and faced them. Her expression was cool, collected, braced for an impact. She knew there would be words shared today, somehow, that would test them. And she was ready.

"Commander von Spurling," she greeted, "and... Hahnah, was it? You do not know how glad I am to see you both safe and well after last night's assault. We have much to discuss this morning."

She made a subtle gesture with her hand, and a moment later Liam appeared by Hahnah's side with a tray in his hands. Upon it stood a tall jug of water and a number of metalwork cups. He lifted the drinks to her, not meeting her gaze.

Hahnah

 

[Hahnah]

Hahnah hardly knew what to make of it, the cheers from the soldiers as she and Griffyn walked through the street.

She was defensive, and undoubtedly looked it. A tenseness about her shoulders and her eyes darting around in an alert fashion, as if any of the human soldiers could at any moment set upon both her and Griffyn alike. She did not wave, not even to mimic Griffyn. She drew closer to him, the only beacon of some kind of familiarity in this tide of the unknown and unprecedented.

Through the celebratory cheering and applause and clattering of weapons from the soldiers, Hahnah saw through the window of a home a child. A human girl. Palms and nose plastered to the glass, a big and wondrous grin on her face. She had black hair and freckles and in the girl's eyes Hahnah saw in that fleeting moment a look that she was wholly unfamiliar with--the manner of awed reverence one might express when seeing a hero. And she knew even less what to make of that.

Into the command center--the large building, with its multitude of corners and corridors and narrowness abounding. Though, should the decision be forced upon her, she likely would have went with the unpleasantness of the building's confines than to be outside in the mass of unknown humans.

Hahnah gave only a slight nod in confirmation of her name when the human master, Eloise, spoke it. Ferociously thirsty (not to mention hungry), Hahnah needed but a second to glance at the offered water in cups and to then take one and drink it down.

All for better. Just the idea that there might be captive elves in this very building, or somewhere close by, made her anxious to act. To ask directly, and then resort to perhaps reckless force to pry an answer from the human master. Drinking the water gave her, for some brief seconds, something else to do.

And she stayed quiet. For now. Griffyn--who was more adept--could and should speak first.

Griffyn

 

[Griffyn]

Griffyn took a drink of water to soothe his throat, suddenly dry, before responding.

"Yes, my Lady. I believe a debrief of last night is in order."

Sunderland nodded. "Indeed. Why don't you begin by filling us in on the events that took place within the city walls? I understand we almost lost you both."

"I was set upon by a group of men in nondescript armour," he began. "This was on the main stretch of the noble quarter - I'm afraid I don't know the street's name."

"Parlance Avenue," chipped in the clerk without looking up from his writing.

Griffyn nodded, "They engaged me as a group and I was forced to defend myself. I would have certainly been eliminated had it not been for Hannah's fortuitous arrival. She saved my life."

He smiled at his companion, punctuating the statement with the weight of his emotion, before continuing.

"Unfortunately, a sixth soldier was waiting in reserve. I was badly injured, but was barely able to defeat the newcomer. One of the soldiers fled the field, the others are all dead."

"Does this mean that we have a spy uncounted for in our ranks?" Sunderland asked.

He shook his head. "We ran into him towards the end of the battle. Again, he would have killed us both if not for Hannah's quick thinking."

The Lady of the city nodded her head solemnly. "Then it seems we have much to thank young... Hannah for." She stumbled slightly over the change in name, but true to her role recovered swiftly. She turned to face Hahnah fully. "You lady, is there anything you wish for in way of recompense for your service? I shall see it granted if it is within my ability."

Hahnah

 

[Hahnah]

A recounting of what had happened. Hahnah listened to it, and in her mind replayed with a clarity approaching perfect the sights and sounds and smells of each event. With it came the mixed thoughts and emotions again: the act of defending a human and being concerned for his wellness, what the elf had done and what he had said, putting herself between the assassin and Griffyn later on in the battle proper. There were reasons for all of these that she could draw upon that emphasized her long-held worldview, just as there were reasons she could draw upon that emphasized the strange and perturbing new discoveries of having walked among them.

But there was a way to end the war within. And it was here.

...is there anything you wish for in way of recompense for your service?

Hahnah's eyes met and locked on to Eloise's own. "The sixth soldier of whom Griffyn spoke was not human. He was an elf. He said something to me in Elvish that I found to be--" The right word. What was the right word to handle this? To appear appropriately detached, so as not to arouse suspicion? She thought of one, "--interesting. He implied that there were captives in Menura who are also elves before Griffyn killed him."

Her head canted downward. Just slightly, just so--she couldn't help it. She regarded Eloise with a gaze that was only just lurking under her brow.

"I would like to see them."

She was not concerned with possibilities, with maybes, with asking whether or not there even were such captives. She spoke as if there were. Because if there were, then she would be forceful in her demand to see them.

First with words, as now. Then with stronger, more threatening words.

Then with sorcery.

Even if this last resort was incredibly dangerous for both her and Griffyn.

Griffyn