Private Tales Scorched Earth

[Fife]

It was reassuring he thought she was a little older. Feeling like an adult was a very shaky premise to try judging maturity on. Her circumstances, like thise of most kids living in streets, necessitated maturity at a much younger age. It wasn't like she could ask anyone from her past what year they had picked her up.

Fife gave a nod and her thoughts had begun to turn toward something other than what she might have considered family. She looked up at him at the offered hug, then looked at his arms like they could have been potential traps. It was such a forward offer.

Yes, she very much wanted one. She knew she would feel comforted in his embrace. But also no, because she was so used to coping with things independently, used to keeping her distance. Losing people was a very old, very familiar pain -- one of the very first lessons she'd ever learned.

Yes, but... Here? She gave a pointed sweep to the camp before lifting her eyes to his. Fife, more than Raigryn, made an effort to keep her scandalous behavior to a minimum, accustomed to blending in to avoid drawing attention to herself.

// Raigryn Vayd //​

 

[Raigryn Vayd]

He hadn't thought of that angle. He didn't want that contact to end up associated with her worrying about idemni eyes. Raigryn knew that it was his rather privileged life that had shaped his attitudes on the world. Even now, having hidden his powers from most of the world there was an arrogance about him. At least he saw it now.

"Only if you want to," he said, in consideration. "Some of them might think worse of us for it. Many would just expect the behaviour of outsiders," he said in reflection.

He wouldn't press the matter. She knew part of his desires that he had tried to bury. It would be easy to think it was an offer for his own needs and not hers.

"And you can pick whatever day you want to track. Any day to just celebrate another hear and to keep track."

 

[Fife]

She nodded that she would think about a day, but remained still. Fife realized after a moment of silence that she was grasping at excuses, still looking for reasons to keep herself away from the small yearning that quietly begged for the contact. If she couldn't trust him, was there any hope of ever being normal? Was she always doomed to be standing aside?

Setting a great many conflicting feelings aside, she gave in to that soft voice. It became clear just how far she stood from him by habit only when she closed that distance. Her heart was clamoring against the cage of her chest as she looped her arms wound him and turned her head to rest her cheek on his chest. Or, rather, his ribs. Oh well. She drew a deep breath and sighed, letting go of a sorrow she had grown weary of a long time ago.

// Raigryn Vayd //​

 

[Raigryn Vayd]

She was pressed close to his chest, enough to hear his heart, to feel the life force of another person flowing. Perhaps a sliver of desire came through but it was the other emotions that ran strong.

Raigryn breathed out a soft sigh and tentatively wrapped an arm around her. He didn't squeeze tight; he didn't want to make her feel trapped. One arm easily crossed her torso across her shoulder blades. He felt such a myriad of colours. It would come across as sorrowful shades of Misery, and particularly deep, base Joys and Charity. His emotions, the beating of his heart and his warmth. It was all hers.

Everything had been taken from her and she had survived. But she had him now. He wasn't letting go. Raigryn leaned down and kissed the top of her head.

 

[Fife]

The weight of his arm settled over her shoulders, heavy but not in a way that burdened her, and firm but not so tight that she felt confined. She could hear the deep thrum of his heart, could feel it against her cheek. He smelled like salt and dust and the earthy scents of his soap.

And the colors. She knew him too well to think it was a slip of the leash. But he deliberately showed her the cards in his hands, even at the cost of showing that one had the potential to frighten her. It was trust. It was the same faith and confidence she was trying to give back. Whether or not he held her partly for his own needs didn't matter.

Easing open the edges of her mind just enough to return the gentle feeling, she let her own come through. Fife was not, however, as skilled as him nor her grasp of her mind as deft. Still, she let him see what no other could. A steady flow of Misery: both the cord that tied all of the others together and the noose that could just as easily strangled them. A healthy dose of Tranquility blanketing the surface of everything and a flash of Joy, rebellious against the calm and the leash of her fears.

But she had seen his cards and now showed hers in return. Pushing aside the others was the satisfaction of a want fulfilled and the desire for more. Desire. It wasn't rich, dark velvet, but it was warm as liquor in her stomach. Fife became far too aware of her hands and chest and opened her eyes. When had she closed them?

She felt him shift and thought he might have been ready to let her go. She began to shift back, arms untangling from him, but instead he planted a chaste kiss on top of her head. It sent a renewed thrill of surprise fluttering theough her, a patter like the first heavy drops of a summer rain. Her hands gathered loosely in his clothes and she tightened her hold on him for a moment before she stepped back, her mind closing to a note of Joy.

He didn't hold her there, but she didn't stray as far as she normally would as she withdrew. Fife stood nearby, face warm but heart settled, and looked up at him with a soft smile and eyes that didn't hesitate to find his.

Come on. Let's eat and spare these people. That, more than the closeness, made her blush as she glanced around and schooled her expression before taking the lead ahead of him. But not without one last backward glance and the last traces of her smile.

// Raigryn Vayd //​

 

[Raigryn Vayd]

It was a bridge that they had crossed. Two sides of a raging torrent and they walked it carefully to meet in the middle. They could each see the other side, but could not stand there, not yet.

He hoped that she would come to know a different side of the world, and he hoped that he would never experience what she had been through. He had walked away from his prestige with a set of skills that could make him enough money to survive and a network of old friends in interesting places.

They went for several days without discussing his feelings in any great depth. That Fife felt she could get away with the odd joke or five in that time suggested she was coming to terms with it in her own way.

With each night came less deliberate space between them on the cushions for reading. Raigryn was lazing back on them, with Fife propped up against his shoulder. From here he could easily see any words she would struggle with. Chapter three, as the elven princess finally found the Golden Glade, contained plenty of words Fife understood. Just not in the order she might have read them before. The language shifted as she spied the Great stag across the water from her, the chase followed as she tried to hunt it down. Yet when she found her quarry and the god revealed his true form the story took a very sudden turn.

 

[Fife]

As with all things that encouraged her to grow, it was hard until it wasn't. She had been taken from her crowded pot and planted in the soil, but learning how to spread her roots outside of their tight ball was frightening in many ways. She did her best, wanting to conquer these old nightmares. Fife wanted to know that there was still hope for her -- that she hadn't been broken too much by her past that she would never be normal.

And it did get easier. Bit by bit, the tension bled out from between them. The book had helped, immensely. It gave her a reason to sit close to him, to turn and point out words she needed help with.

In general, Fife understood what she was reading after a few attempts at more difficult words. She also had relatively few issues understanding what was happening. If she was lost, and repeating a line or phrase didn't do the trick, Raigryn had an endless supply of language that she did understand. In most parts, every word that came after the other was a surprise, an unexpected progression toward the vague description Raigryn had provided.

She was engrossed in parts she didn't need help with, and the allure of reading sucked her in entirely. When he interrupted her for dinner and bedtime, she never heard what he said until she looked up from the book. Occassionally, she would have an outward response and turn to him for discussion. He never told her what she wanted to know, and she hoped that sitting on the mystery was making hin uncomfortable in her ire.

It had been several days now, and she was finally to a hunt scene. Fife was liking it a lot. Whoever his friend was, he had chosen his suggestion well. She was leaned back against his shoulder, but her mind was elsewhere. Fife had seen small, crude productions occasionally done in some square or plaza in Elbion, but this was so much more.

Elris pursued the stag and Fife couldn't read the words fast enough, unconsciously moving the book closer as the tension of the hunt mounted until at last she had bested him. Except --

Fife gasped. It wasn't a stag at all, but Herios! For once, however, she didn't turn to frantically sign at him, but forged ahead. She didn't have time for him to tease her about it, she wanted to know! The tension in her body was borne of the story, not fear.

But it took a very sudden and abrupt turn. Fife's expression slowly shifted from absorbed awe to slight confusion to brows rising. Herios had revealed himself and suddenly Fife was reading a much different kind of pursuit. But she didn't stop. Quite the contrary. As she kept reading an alarming shift in narrative, she was almost... curious?

It wasn't, however, as she expected it to be. Fife's experience was negative, sure. But she hadn't expected it to be... what? Tender? Captivating? She felt a little silly as she kept reading, not really sure how to process the warmth and intimacy and heat, but knowing it was making her feel something besides confusion. Her heart was certainly racing, but there was a warm flutter in her stomach. She wasn't fully aware that her breathing had shifted or that there was a slight flush to her cheeks as a very innocent story took a very mature turn.

// Raigryn Vayd //​

 

[Raigryn Vayd]

Raigryn was quite absorbed in his own book. The conscious part of his mind was busy picture the ancient, lost city of Herrovern. Grand structures built in the flats south east of alliria. It had been built on a network of man-made canals. The water had been quick to reclaim it.

It left him open to some of the dangers of growing close to another empath. Whilst it was burning through an aspect that truly pulled someone towards an emotion, he was soaking up the new flare of emotions radiating off of Fife. The slight hitch of her breath and warmth of her skin drew something from him.

Raigryn tunrned a page. His free hand was wrapped around Fife and he placed his hand across her waist. Even as they had become more comfortable around one another, this was still a particularly intimate gesture.

The true poetry of the scene in her book couldn't match the original elvish. However the monks had seen capturing that - and not censoring - as their duties. The copy Raigryn had seen had been quite different.

 

[Fife]

Written on the page, it was certainly more compelling than any ideas she had formed about it by her own conclusions. Was this what it was like for everyone else? A question she was not asking. She assumed it was, since love and passion were such compelling forces in the world. Without any experience on the matter, this was her first, very sudden, exposure to it.

The unexpected weight of his hand sent a shiver through her and her breath hitched, a sharp exhale that might have made an sound with a working voice. Fife was yanked out of the story at a paramount moment and was suddenly all too aware of his hand and her shortness of breath. She could feel every inch of his body where it touched hers, his breath so close to her shoulder. His hand might as well have been a pan of coals across her middle, spreading outward in conquest. There wasn't a trace of fear in her only--

The book in her hands snapped shut in time with her mind. Clutching it to her chest, she stood very suddenly. Her head spun as she put her book in its wrapping, thinking that might help her steady herself. It did not.

Fife turned to Raigryn looking very flustered and flashed a nervous smile. Catching her breath, she brushed her stray hairs back from her face with one hand and propped the other on her hip. It took a conscious effort not to heave for breath in front of him. Knowing he would have caught it made this worse. She had expected romance but not that. Or for his touch to feel like that. Or to have such a response to either of those things.

I think I need to go for a walk, she told him. It is a bit too warm today.

A lie and they both knew it, but she said it anyway. She hadn't run away from him when he had a flash of this very feeling, but Fife was far more afraid of her reciprocation of it.

// Raigryn Vayd //​

 

[Raigryn Vayd]

"Or you could stay," he pleaded. The book was closed in his lap, he had sat upright. The cause remained a mystery, but his conscious mind had caught up with what had happened.

Like a raw nerve he sat before her. His mind was open, but no empathy was required to appreciate the maelstrom inside. It all played out on his face. The deep swell of longing had crept up on him, but now it was overwhelming.

The scales tipped towards guilt and he looked back down at his hands. This was a shock to him, but it was entirely new to her. Unfamiliar and linked to the darkest moments of a life lived in the shadows.

"I'll, erm, I'll be here. Of course." He nodded without looking back up.

 

[Fife]

Or you could stay. No. No, she most certainly could not. She was perceptive and had learned to watch his every cue like an unspoken language being built between them. He said things by the angle of his posture, the curve of his mouth, the placement of his hands. Now she knew what that fixed look was, the slight flush to his face.

In her mind, it was all too easy to answer that plea. It would not be hard to go back to the pile of cushions and lie down beside him. But a stubborn part of her told her she wasn't ready -- that this was still foolish, wishful thinking. She was flustered because of her book; this wasn't the same as what he was feeling and it would be cruel to lead him on. She was just reflecting too much of what she had encouraged him to be honest about while he worked through it. Or figured it out. Or waited for her to meet one of the many unmarked milestones that told her she could do this.

Still, it took a lot of effort to remain standing apart from him.

When he looked down, quiet and guilty, she could have kicked herself. Her guts twisted and now she was flustered, bothered, and guilty. She was not handling this well. At all. Her scrambled brain grasped at how to repair this, to explain against the embarrassment coloring her scarlet from hairline to neckline.

Raigryn. She whistled his name softly to get him to at least look at her hands. His name was birdsong that was more calm and even than she had given herself enough credit to expect.You are fine. I... The book is... I just want a short walk. I will come back.

What she wanted to do was spend an hour sparring with one of her peers until she was exhausted and then sink to the bottom of the lake. Fife wanted to run until her legs and lungs collapsed. Anything to chase away how her whole body ached for the touch of those damn hands.

Fife turned tail and pulled on her boots, completely forgetting sword and knife in her haste for fresh air and space and mental clarity.

// Raigryn Vayd //​

 

[Raigryn Vayd]

He smiled softly up at her from the cushions. Now he looked embarrassed with himself. There were many reasons why mixing teacher and suitor was a bad idea. Letting his own feelings get in the way of what was clearly a difficult moment was standing front and centre among them.

It had been such a simple request. On the surface, it had been a simple request. He wasn't oblivious to everything that had gone with it. He was putting undue pressure on Fife when she really did need time to work through to many big questions. She was discovering who she was.

He drew himself up from the cushions smoothly, drawing a little on his aspects. He scooped up his sword as he went, calling to her as she ducked her head to leave the tent.

"Don't leave this," he said, howling it out, the scabbard still wrapped in its straps. "I trust you Fife, take as long as you need."

He didn't quite understand how the last few moments fit together in sequence. He also didn't quote understand why she was gesticulating about the book. What did strike him to the core was how much he enjoyed hearing the sing-song whistle that he heard more than his actual name now.

 

[Fife]

He called for her not to forget something and Fife came to a halt, hands flying to her chest to feel that it was unadorned. She had forgotten her sword. Knowing full well ahead couldn't walk around without it she turned back. While her legs might have been short, she was naturally quick and was already a fair clip away.

She met him halfway. It was the first time she had ever forgotten it. This had not been one of her best moments in general. Taking the sword in its scabbard, she placed her hands close to his -- an excuse for her fingers to brush his in a gesture that wasn't language but said plenty.

Fife put on her sword and gave him a sheepish smile. A short walk. I will return soon. We can talk then. She didn't offer to explain, but she would need to do something other than read in the cushion pile when she got back.

She began to turn to leave, then hesitated. As if hovering between two ideas in her mind, her hand began to move toward his but came up short. No. Not when she was already feeling this unsteady. Her hands balled at her hips and she smiled to him, nodded, and scampered off, collected as she could be as she blatantly ran away to address her feelings.

Dusty and Socks were happy to see her. They always were. Fife apologized that she hadn't brought them any bread, but they must have forgotten their disappointments quickly, happy enough with a very brief brushing. She did not spend long there, intending to keep her word for a short walk.

// Raigryn Vayd //​

 

[Raigryn Vayd]

Raigryn sat down at the table heavily. He let his head fall to the table and then placed both hands over it. His hair was a nice curtain to shield him from the world.

"Idiot," he muttered to himself. If Fife was long then the sun would be too low to let them read in the tent.

He had come to mind being off-kilter less over the last few days. Fife had been handling it far better than he would have expected. He didn't want what they already had broken. Raigryn wasn't even sure why his hand had ended up on her waist.

The offending book went ignored. Eventually he stood up, walked around the table and then sat back down. Raigryn didn't want to go out for a different walk and avoid her coming back. He didn't know what to do with himself at all.

 

[Fife]

She gave both horse and pony the same simple, vigorous brushing down. It did not take long and was enough to settle her rattled nerves. It was a good moment for thinking, of reassessing what she knew and how she felt. There had been a lot of that this week -- both a good and bad thing. But it meant that she made up her mind much easier now.

The walk back seemed like crossing the world, but all too soon their tent came into view. She slowed down until she stopped, hands so tight around the belt across her chest that her knuckles were a ghastly pale. With one last steadying breath, Fife went back in.

Offering him an affectionate grin, she took off her boots and sword. Hello, Raigryn, she whistled quietly. The two words flowed together quite well, making a very pretty song.

Fife came in, but didn't take her place opposite of him at the table. Her pulse was as loud as waves crashing against cliffs as she came to stand beside him instead.

I'm not good at understanding my feelings. I don't know their names or how to describe them to you. They confuse me very easily, she explained. I don't trust myself like I trust you. I don't know what I'm doing. I make mistakes.

She didn't wait for him to answer before she stepped behind him to move to his other side. This time when she reached for him, she followed through. Turning her hand, the back of her fingers brushed down the last of his forearm before she slipped her hand beneath his. Lifting his hand away from the table, Fife took a step back toward the cushions.

Can I please try again? I know what I want now. I'm listening. I'm not afraid.

Her signing was confident but she looked up only at the end. She had eased her mind's barriers open once more as her hand tightened around his. There was only a thin veil of nerves, but the rest... Fife owed him the same emotional honesty he so willingly gave her to feel comfortable now. It was high time she did the same.

He would feel trust, Tranquility. It was deep and resounding, confident in him where it wasn't as confident in her. This was what she wanted and she trusted him to be patient and to respect when she had reached for limitations. Over it was a creeping curiosity, a strange blend of Joy and Desire that rolled together like fog.

// Raigryn Vayd //​

 

[Raigryn Vayd]

Raigryn was slowly picking up the pieces of his shattered expectations. He had felt pride for how confidently she returned, but had still expected her to calm head for her sectioned off part of the tent.

Coming to his feet, he let her lead him towards the back of their tent. For just a moment her open and clear wave of emotions was met by a flurry of confused feelings from Raigryn.

She didn't understand, but she trusted him. Whether a small amount or a great deal, Raigryn was taking advantage of that trust. What other options did he have? He asked himself. He could now retreat, tell her he had made too many mistakes himself and leave her alone and confused.

After everything she had been through, some tender affection from someone who cared about her a great deal would be a shining beacon that could chase some of the shadows back to the cracks in her soul.

Raigryn took the last few steps towards the cushions with a newfound emotional clarity. Those feelings took more distinct shapes. They stopped their dancing and formed an abstract snapshot of colour. It was a picture that only she could see. Fife had a hand in its creation. Both artist and viewer.

He settled down on the cushions and pulled her after him. They were not far from where they had been before, but this time he maneuvered Fife to face him. His voice was curious in its absence. His expression said enough.

Slowly, tentatively, he brought up a hand on the verge of quivering and cupped her cheek. He threaded his fingers through her hair and rolled his thumb around the shell of her ear. In silence he watched, feeling what she felt, looking for confirmation.

 

[Fife]

He said nothing at all, but the ability that they shared meant that there wasn't a need for him to. She still heard him. She saw his silent confusion and felt the responding burst of emotions. But what had taken her half an hour only took him three steps. The swirl of raw colors shifted, separating into distinct Aspects, a painting that couldn't be seen but she no less saw in her mind. It was a feat she marveled at, a testament to his much greater self-awareness. Fife didn't fully understand what the finished product meant, but it was beautiful, reassuring.

And he took the lead, as she had hoped he would -- as she so desperately needed him to. Following him down onto the cushions, she let him guide her to lie against his side. She was already working hard to keep her breathing even, already so much closer to him than she had been before. Lying her head against his shoulder and resting her hand on his chest, she turned her face against him.

Fire burned in her cheeks but also in her stomach. It danced along her nerves as though she had swallowed the sun and it was going to consume her from the inside out. She would have thought his hand would feel cool against her flushed skin, but it was still impossibly hot. Every touch was clear and distinct: the comb of each finger through her hair, the rough heat of his palm, the brush of his thumb around the shell of her ear.

It made her shiver. It made the hand on his chest twitch against the urge to curl and made her lungs fill slowly, sending fire to the ends of the branches in chest. She turned her face out toward the touch, less afraid of being seen but her eyes still closed to concentrate first on the feeling.

Lifting her hand from his chest, she laid it over the back his. The gesture was familiar now, but given a whole new context. Fife held his hand steady as she slowly turned her face into it. His hands were calloused and yet much softer than she might have imagined. Guiding it down to her cheek, she was content to hold it there forever -- to revel in the delight of the feeling of warmth that fluttered in her stomach before it crept down her hips. It had a name, and she knew it. But for a few moments she let it settle and become familiar.

And when the indigo haze in her mind became a blanket, soft and warm like rabbit fur, she withdrew her hand. It returned to its previous place on his chest and she opened her eyes, pupils wide enough in the dim light to make the dark gray almost black as she finally looked up at him.

// Raigryn Vayd //​

 

[Raigryn Vayd]

Breath sawed in and out of his lungs. His movements were tentative, careful. A nervous flutter spread from his belly each time their hands met. She deserved caution, deserved every opportunity to decide when she wanted to stop. It was an awakening for her and it would have been all too easy to let his feelings carry him further than she wanted to go.

"Fife," he sighed. His hand rested upon her cheek where she had left it. They watched one another, perhaps both less certain of themselves than they had been for a long time. He had felt her letting that wealth of new feelings setting before she looked up at him.

His thumb slowly stroked back and forth across her cheekbone. Her appearance had slowly shifted since she had stated eating properly. She would never cut a feminine figure, but she wasn't stretched as thin across her frame as she had been.

"I'm going to kiss you," he warned softly, almost an observer to his own chest rising and falling suddenly. Raigryn lifted his head from the cushion, tilting towards her. There was still a gap between them. Fife would have to consciously decide to meet him in the middle. He thought that was best.

 

[Fife]

Her name sounded different when he said it like that. She had never thought much about how he had said it. There were still moments when she felt the same giddy excitement of hearing it as that first time he had successfully guessed it. She had been an adult before ever hearing her on the lips of another. Since, she'd heard it spoken in sadness and excitement, fear and question.

But now also as a sigh, in a way that made her tremble -- t bh ough not in fear. Fife wet her lips, but a whistle just didn't feel the same. There was a small flicker of emotions at the edge of her mind: the frustration and grief that she would never say his name back and the sting of wanting what she would never have. They were fleeting, however, mere thoughts that passed quickly from her mind. She didn't want to sour the moment lingering on things she couldn't change.

She didn't whistle back, silent in her observation. Her eyes met his before tracing the lines of his familiar features, still somehow new and unexplored.

He warned her of his intent before acting, whether that was a good or a bad thing. She thought that was good, yet as he leaned forward, her whole body rang like temple bells on the first day of the new year. If he was listening (and she had no doubt he was), he would hear the small gasp before she held her breath.

She let him turn her face upward, but she squeezed her eyes shut, not sure what to expect from it. As with many things, she was finding, the press of his lips to hers elicited a flight of warmth. The anxious knot of her brow softened and angled upward, and she loosed her sigh through her nose. His whiskers tickled her face, at odds with the gentle warmth of the kiss.

Fife mirrored his movements, as inexperienced as one could possibly be but suddenly very eager to learn. The shock of everything she was feeling only made it harder to catch her breath. She was lightheaded from the dizzying ache that was building.

She shifted, reaching up to lay her trembling hand on his cheek. It swept a path from his cheekbone to his jaw, curious and chaste in its exploration. Less chaste was how her slight frame arched in his arms. Each point of contact as her chest met his was like sparks on kindling. It was forward, far more bold that she truly felt.

She felt like wax that had been dropped into a melting spoon over a flame. This was changing something -- irreversibly. Fife knew that, somewhere in her jumbled mind, but wasn't in the current position to think too much on the matter.

// Raigryn Vayd //​

 

[Raigryn Vayd]

Eventually her drifting mind and warm weight slowly shifting to her light breathing drew him into sleep too. They might have some unresolved disagreements, but he felt more comfortable with the place they found themselves in than he had been for a long time. For an empath, going for so long without feeling true affection was walking a dessert.

Raigryn awoke with a start. At first he thought he must have been woken by the unfamiliarity of having Fife with him. She was tucked more loosely against his side. At some point he had thrown a sheet over them. He took a breath, watched the faintest outline he could trace in the darkness of her silhouette and settled back down.

"Raigryn Vayd! We need your help!" came a shout from outside the tent, jarring his mine. Then came worse. A distant but clear blood curdling scream. "Raigryn Vayd!"

Fife

 

[Fife]

She slept about as well as she could sleep. As she had warned him, she did a lot of wiggling in her sleep, jerking and kicking occasionally, but she didn't wake. Even when Raigryn started awake, she was asleep soundly against his side.

The shout and scream, however, yanked her up from her dreams. Gasping, she jerked and sat up, startled and wide-eyed. Fife didn't wait for him to get up first. She slipped out of his arm and was on her feet in an instant, no magic needed to be quick about it.

Patting around in the dark, Fife's hand fell in his clothes first. She whistled his name sharply and tossed them to him, hopefully getting him to that call for aid quicker. Enough of her things were strewn about that she found two articles of clothing without much difficulty.

// Raigryn Vayd //​

 

[Raigryn Vayd]

"I'm coming!" he shouted, dressing in everything but his undergarments given how they had been used. He would have to fight with a bit of a chill.

Raigryn stepped through into the main chamber and picked up his sword. Times like these he sometimes thought it would have been advantageous to command some of the more destructive college magics.

He never thought that for long. They all looked down on empathy for stealing feelings and private things from people, yet they introduced chaos and destruction into the world. Empathy was a light touch a subtle magic and a broad tool box. What could concern an entire village of Idemni and a battlemage?

"The spy…they turned…it's a werewolf!" came the cry from outside the tent.

"Fife, go and load your crossbow."

 

[Fife]

Yanking on her clothing, she wasn't far behind him. Goosebumps were running along the edges of her frame, yanked from sleep by fright, but her hands were still steady as she put on her boots and her sword.

But she heard the call just as plainly as he did, and looked up in the darkness to look at him, even though he couldn't see her. She nodded, given a task that she knew and knew well. Though, she was regretting not having practiced for a while. Hopefully arming her with it was only a precaution

Fife came back from her part of the tent with her crossbow, hurrying outside to use the moonlight to load. She was ignoring the sounds, focusing on the job she was given to keep calm. It was strange, that in relative chaos she might remain balanced (though afraid), but when someone spoke to her about her feelings she balked so hard she was useless for days.

Regardless of not having done this for a minute, she loaded her bow unerringly and with the same haste she had practiced in Belgrath. Fife was nothing if not a diligent student.

// Raigryn Vayd //​

 

[Raigryn Vayd]

"The moon came up and the spy snapped free of his shackles!" explained the Idemni warrior. Raigryn didn't recognise him.

A howl rang out across the entire camp. Fires had been lit and Raigryn could see shadows flitting past them.

"We've contained it in the caves for now."

"You can come with me or stay here," Raigryn said to Fife sharply. He drew his sword now. "Your decision."

Two days ago he would have made the decision without a thought. He would have told Fife in no uncertain terms that she was to stay here.

 

[Fife]

She listened to the account as she loaded her bow, but looked across the camp when she heard the howl. It sent a thrill of fear through her, and her knuckles were white on the stock and grip. Fife didn't want anything to do with a werewolf -- or any kind of monster for that matter.

But Raigryn drew his sword and she looked up at him, face stoic in the dim light, and she knew no power in the heavens or on earth could have made her stay. He had left her once before and she hadn't even known how close she had come to losing him until he came back, mauled and ragged. Fife wasn't going to let him out of her sight near trouble again.

Knowing a bad decision when she made it, Fife nodded and looked toward the caves. She would follow him anywhere. One werewolf couldn't have been any worse than the other things they had encountered. Right?

// Raigryn Vayd //​