Private Tales We Were Made Out of Lightning

[Syele Wilhart]

Erich Calvart had brown eyes.

They betrayed every part of his face, making him seem innocent and boyish no matter how hard the rest of his features tried. His prodigious nose, so proud and angular. A prominent brow, almost primitive in its position. The thick, dark beard that covered his jaw like rugged foliage was reminiscent of a grizzled stonemason. He should have been the very definition of what a strapping, valiant man looked like were it not for those eyes. Wide and curious, like a child on the cusp of yet another question. They made him seem unsure and, at times, even nervous, framed by lush eyelashes that always conjured the image of a friendly yet skittish cow.

Sergeant Syele Wilhart had been staring into those eyes for two days now.

Frozen in his final moments, those boyish eyes had witnessed the spike of a war hammer bearing down upon his helmet at the crest of the ladder. His stare spoke of surprise but remained absent of any pain. He was dead before he even fell—a small mercy.

~

A decoy siege offensive.

When Archon Isbrand’s orders reached them, there had been disgruntling murmurings. Nobody under the rank of Lieutenant looked favourably at the guaranteed loss of life that this strategy preached. He wanted the fastest resolution to the rebellion and knew nothing of compromise. While effective, a blockade would have taken months and wasted supplies and time. No, he wanted to send a message- that revolution would receive a swift and uncompromising reply.

It was suicide.

The men and women of the Anirian Guard, one of the finest military forces in all the realms, were seen as nothing more than pieces on a map to be used and discarded.

Syele had objected on behalf of her squad and herself; they were more than just spare bodies to be used on a Dreadlord’s whim. They were the backbone of Vel Anir, an institution as old as the city itself and a point of pride built upon a foundation of service and citizenship. More than that, they were people.

However, their grievances had been anticipated, and when Wilhart aired them, she was met with the immediate rebuttal of insubordination. Commander Einhard’s words seemed rehearsed, barked from practised lips that didn’t twitch when the accusations of disobedience and defiance marched forth. They expected resistance in the face of their orders for self-slaughter and were primed to make an example of the first voices to pipe up.

They could follow their orders or face the traitor’s bolt.

For good measure, a flogging followed, and Syele and her unit each received thirty lashes. It was a spectacle that extinguished the fires of any objections and a stark reminder of who was in charge. She could recall how her jaw was set in grim defiance under the embrace of the cat o’ nine tail and the sensation of the trickle of blood down her back.

In the aftermath, the Sergeant was informed that they would be at the front of the offensive, responsible for a siege ladder at the keep's wall.

~

Erich Calvart had brown eyes.

When he fell from the ladder, he did not hit the ground, littered with the bodies of those who fell before. The full force of his dead weight landed atop his Sergeant, whose prone body broke his fall. In turn, he had broken her sternum and cheekbone. A few more inches and his pierced helm would have cracked against her brow and granted a merciful end. Instead, he pinned her, heavy enough that she couldn’t move him but not so heavy that she would suffocate.

It didn’t feel like that; the impact had pushed the air from her lungs, leaving Wilhart gasping for every burning breath.

Through the chaos and pain, it was impossible to find focus, the background din of clattering metal, barked orders and wretched screams muffled as if in another world behind a closed door. All Syele could grasp was the pain; the left side of her face was radiating white hot, where the boiling tar had clung to flesh and rapidly cooled, drawing most of the attention away from her other injuries.

In contrast, her limbs felt heavy and numb, a peculiar tingling sensation consuming the flesh. When she attempted to kick out, a feeble gesture followed that caused a sharp spasm in the base of her spine. Syele could not see the shinbone jutting out from the flesh of her right leg. Nor could she see the smouldering lump of solidified tar that had engulfed and melted her left leather gauntlet, merging it with her flesh.

What she saw was lifeless eyes staring back at her.

~

“I’m going to get a dog.”

It was a statement that broke the silence of their march, absurd in content and timing. It wasn’t enough to halt them, but it was enough to break the tension in the air.

“What the fuck do you mean?” Simon Thorel replied incredulously, readjusting his grip on one of the siege ladder’s rungs.

“When this is over. I’m finishing my time,” Erich clarified in all seriousness, glancing back over his shoulder at the baffled soldier behind him, “and I’m getting a dog.”

“When this is ov-”

“What kind of dog?” Nathalie Vastel interjected, cutting off a maudlin reply they knew was coming.

“An Anirian mastiff!”

“Huh,” Nathalie remarked, her position several bodies behind the pair as they grew closer to the crest of the hill. Soon, they would see the great walls of the city, flanked by the low-hanging late afternoon sun. “I can see that for you, you know?”

“Yeah, lazy drooling fuckers, just like you, Calvart.”

“What would you call him?”

“Roo.”

There was a snort from near the back of the line, the unmistakable signal of disbelief from Galter Verley, “What kind of name is Roo?”

“I just like it,” Erich said with a shrug that awkwardly lifted the ladder and caused the entire line to jostle as they adjusted to the sudden change. A chorus of grumbles followed.

“You fucking bellend.”

“Okay,” Nathalie interjected before they devolved into a barrage of name-calling, “If you could be a dog, what kind of dog would you be?”

The light-hearted hypothetical was at odds with their situation, their march into certain death now punctuated by such absurdities. At the front of the line, Sergeant Wilhart grimaced but ultimately decided to leave them to their harmless conversation, a preferable backdrop to the shuffle of chainmail that would have happened otherwise. Behind her, Yann Botrel leaned forward and murmured into her ear to avoid interrupting the distraction of canine personality quizzes.

“It’s not your fault, Sergeant.”

A soft hum left the back of Syele’s throat, caught somewhere between acknowledgement and doubt. She knew, on the whole, that it wasn’t their fault that they would likely perish in the next hour, but in the same breath, they might have been assigned a more favourable position were it not for her vocal objection. They also wouldn’t have carried siege equipment with bandaged welts and cuts across their backs, either.

“You spoke up for us. That means something.”

“But what did it change?”

Silence took the reigns between the two, allowing the discussion of dogs to fill the air instead. Galter was receiving some less-than-kind comparisons, much to the amusement of the others. The pause stretched further; it seemed Yann could not answer her question.

“You have shields!” Syele suddenly barked, changing tact as the walls appeared, “I want to see you using them!”

~

Erich Calvart had brown eyes.

As the hours passed, they began to change. At first, there was a peculiar discolouration of the sclera, a brown strip emerging on either side of the iris. Their part in the battle had long since ended by that point, and only the dead and dying remained. Wilhart could still hear the occasional groan slithering out from the bodies around her. There was a macabre companionship in knowing that she was not alone in a prolonged death, and it was enough to distract her from the suffering temporarily.

Syele wondered if any of them were from her unit and, as she wheezed alongside the sparse choir of death, tried to recall who she had seen perish.

Vastel had been one of the first to fall, her shield discipline slack as they set the ladder. A crossbow bolt had found purchase in her neck. Arend Held was one of the boiling tar’s first victims, he had shielded his body but the metal of his helmet had become superheated and cooked his head. It had become chaotic after that. Galter had been before her on the ladder and had been pushed; perhaps he still lived now, what she wouldn’t have given to have heard his trademark snort right then.

She continued to rattle through the names of her squad, writing mental obituaries for each one as time passed.

Eventually, there was nothing left but the sound of her laboured breathing.

The perceived lack of life from the keep likely signalled that Archon Isbrand had been successful in ending the rebellion. There was little wonder; he was a Dreadlord of phenomenal power and a callous disposition, which made their sacrifice all the more pointless but expected. How many had died before them on a whim? How many would follow?

A few more efforts were made to shift Calvart’s body from off of her, but useless limbs thwarted every attempt and only proved to waste waning energy. The only sustained movement that Wilhart could make was of her right hand, which, while still numb, could be curled into a fist and unfurled in a lethargic fashion. However, the rest of that arm was still looped through the enarmes of her wooden round shield and, therefore, trapped.

That strange strip across Erich’s eyes had turned black when dawn arrived.

~

It had been fortunate that the men atop the walls of the castle keep had been armed with crossbows, meaning that they did not have to contend with a hail of arrows from afar. Perhaps the only good fortune they were afforded.

This changed once they were within fifty feet of the wall.

They had chosen light armour over heavy plate, their role as the first wave meant that speed was valued over protection. Chainmail and leather, while still cumbersome, were absolutely preferable. When the bolts began to rain down, they held their shields aloft and continued their advance, with Wilhart dictating a swift pace. The occasional thunk or ricochet of a blocked bolt joined the jostle of the mail.

“Ladder!”

When positioned at the base of the wall, Vastel and Godfrey Latton began to set up the ladder, and the rest formed a formation to protect them. With the distance closed, the bolts were joined by rocks, which clattered off their shields and reverberated through their arms.

The first casualty came then, as Vastel lost form in an effort to plant the support legs of the ladder swiftly. There was little time to think as a single bolt felled her.

“Hewes! Ladder!” Wilhart ordered as she repositioned herself to cover where Nathalie had fallen; at the same time, Basilia Hewes took up her position to ensure the ladder’s stability. “Use those damn shields!”

Once it was planted, they could attempt to scale and get up on the walls—or at least they could, in theory. The real risk lay here, as they were most vulnerable while attempting to climb.

“Up!”

Held went first, his shield held aloft with one arm and the other guiding him up the ladder. Latton and Hewes remained at either side for extra support. All they could do here was climb and hope. Botrel and Thorel provided covering fire with their own crossbows, hoping to keep the defenders at bay and protect Held in his ascension.

“Tar! Tar! Held!”

The boiling black liquid was dumped upon them in a devastating retaliation, and before Arend was even a quarter of the way up, the tar had hit his shield before sliding onto his helmet. He screamed, and the sudden shock caused the man to let go while his helmet seared the flesh of his head, and he fell to the ground. Various shouts erupted around them from those caught by the splashback, and the opening had allowed crossbows to cut through slackened defences.

Galter took the initiative and went for the ladder, Syele following straight after. The man was swift in his climb and, within seconds, was already halfway up. His hands were on the edge of the wall in moments, but before he could pull himself over, he was met by a well-timed shove that sent him on a forty-foot drop.

She was the next to ascend, but before reaching the top, there was another cry.

“Tar!”

Wilhart tore off her helm and wrapped her free arm around the ladder. Her shield held aloft as well as it could while her glove attempted to cover her head. The wood soaked protected her from most of the boiling liquid, but not all. She could feel the heat upon her hand and wrist through her leather gauntlet before the left side of her face erupted into blistering pain. Syele clung to the wood, screaming, her hand beginning to burn alongside her face. She could smell the tar intermingled with leather and flesh. A heavy thunk battered her shield as a large rock collided with the cracking wood. No longer could she hold on, and in that moment, she fell, too.

When she hit the ground, there was a thick snap, not noticed by the sudden sharp pain in the small part of her back. The Sergeant's ears rang, dazed by the fall but not dead. Pins and needles began to shoot down her arms and legs. Before she could gather her senses, the woman looked up, only to see a body hurtling down towards her.

~

Erich Calvart had brown eyes.

On the dawn of the second day, they had begun to lose their shape, loosening and sagging. They were a victim of gravity as much as the rest of him was. The stagnant blood had pooled accordingly, darkening the flesh of his face that began to shine with the oncoming bloat. His lips had begun to draw back, shrivelling the withering to reveal the teeth still caught in mid-gasp.

When nobody came on the first day, panic wrapped its fingers around Syele’s heart. Were they in such a rush that they would not bother to come for the bodies? She shouted for help, the exertion of yelling a marathon for her broken form. Thirst had rendered her voice hoarse, and with every concurrent shout, the woman felt a little more breathless.

The cruellest death would come in being forgotten and allowed to slowly succumb to starvation and dehydration, completely immobilised except for her fist, which continued to clench and unclench as if it could keep her sane.

She longed to close her eyes, to stop staring into the face of a dead man, but feared that she would succumb too if fatigue took her. Sleep called, growing ever more tempting as the hours passed, promising a kinder death than the one destined. There were moments where Wilhart blinked for lingering moments, perhaps even minutes, if only to escape Erich’s final moment of living.

Eventually, she could see him through closed eyes.

Began to smell the decay of flesh around her.

On that second day, scavengers came in the form of carrion crows, who began to enjoy the feast around them.

Why was nobody coming? Were their lives of such little importance that it wasn’t even worth returning to relieve them of their weapons and armour for the next batch of disposable bodies? Syele whimpered, not sure if it was the thought of being abandoned to die like this had created that sound or if it was from the pain. Breathing was harder now, and her muscles had begun to cramp in protest of internal drought.

She started to plead, no longer sure if she was speaking aloud or inside of her head, rasping at Erich’s corpse as if it might have compelled him to move. His liquifying eyes could only stare back, denied of his rest despite his last breath. Her fingers, gradually turning blue, still twitched and curled, the only thing keeping the crows away from her flesh.

“...Erich… please... I… can’t… breathe… can’t… move… please… stop… stop… looking… at… me… sorry… I… am… sorry… stop… can’t…”

Erich Calvart had brown eyes, and his Sergeant couldn’t close them.

 

[Ranna Anakanos]

There was so little time in a normal day for idle contemplation, it was why Ayl-Maltene Ranna Anakanos often prayed.​

To light the incense set before her three-sided triptych so that when she finally knelt and bowed her head to pray, and reflect, she may have been eased by its aromatic fragrance. An ancient trinity of actions that even the non-pious oft found themselves drawn towards, with all of its comforting rituals and traditions. She could not blame them, no matter their denomination, for there was no small degree of comfort to be found within the familiar routines she had found herself repeating every morning, afternoon and evening.

She needn't think too hard, but merely permit instinct to guide her steps like a master conductor did a symphony.

From the lighting of the incense, to the laying of her prayer mat, to finding a comfortable position to kneel before the relief she had set out in a fashion that would not be too intolerable on her knees once they had left the smooth, uncomfortable flagstone beneath her form - bent in supplication. As for the last part, she could well admit that she'd been getting along in years. Not so long ago, she may have been able to spend countless hours in such a repose, without strain.

Now it was not to be, though she did not allow herself the indignity of thinking it as a cruel thing, not when there was no shame in aging. Most especially not when she was only thirty-two years old, far too young to be thinking herself as decrepit.

To be fair to the woman's body, those were a hard thirty-two years, filled with all manner of toils and tribulations. That she wouldn't deny. And therefore she relented a little, in her own fashion, by tucking away a thin cushion as well so that she need not kneel on a mat alone. It was a small luxury, but one she valued all the same.

What never changed was the way she still found equilibrium in this act; in the little rituals.

A great amount of time passed from then to now, spent in the thrall of introspection.

When her eyelids again parted from one another so that she could look upon the relief and its carved imagery, she noted as well how the wick had already burned away to little more than a smoldering stub of its former self. With that discovery she decided finally to stand, wincing slightly at the telltale complaints of a body too long spent in inertia. She looked then to the figures depicted upon the screen, old familiar friends and martyrs all, and wondered - in idle contemplation - what they would have thought of all this?

Then she took those same thoughts in hand and discarded them like they were naught but a stray leaf in the breeze. To imagine what the dead and the holy would think of these things was an exercise in pointlessness, but if she had to guess; they would not have been surprised by the smoldering church she had turned her back against. This kind of tragedy was uniquely human, in every way. For only humans could destroy with as much passion as they could create.

Ayl-Maltene Ranna Anakanos had long since hardened her heart to the fact, and sought solace only in prayer.

***​

The smoldering church with its thick tongues of smoke that trailed slowly, lazily heavenward was her landmark. Ranna could find few others in this ruined land she had come to, and any signs of life or habitation that may had in turn given her direction were few and far in-between. What had taken its place was wreckage, and ruin; poor companions for a country so beautiful.

She had remembered it, the way it was.

As young as she may have been at the time, she was still a warrior, and recollected a great many details in exacting precision. Where she now smelled the far-away miasma of a battlefield, there was once only a sea of fragrances amidst golden grasses to greet the senses, of ripe fields and clean wind, with herbs that swelled from the earth in order to be plucked during a warm summer.

She remembered that too.

The Aberresai Savannah was famous for its natural abundance in herbs, after all. Even in a land so closely bordered with Vel Anir. For her to list all the ones she'd known would have taken a great deal of time, and there were more still that never would have a name or discernible use aside from whatever secret purpose mother nature had intended for them. Those she did know had a dizzying array of purposes; some medicinal in nature, such as for the treatment of open wounds, stomach ailments or fever. Others that might be boiled in a pot or steeped into a tea for cleansing of one's heavy soul.

And how they could bloom! No more than in the summer months when ready for harvest, enough to make her disciplined nature heady with the scent of it. As intoxicating as any wine that ever passed her lips - yet now those same lips were condemned to a faint moue of distaste when those distant memories were replaced by the rot of bodies left to the wayside.

Would their bodies help give blossom to beautiful flowers?

As bleak as the thought was, it was also a comforting one to her. For all the unnatural things in the world that man might do, eventually they would all return to the world, and even those most forgotten by the ravages of time and war might in return be provided a memoriam of their own, however small and precious. So it would be, with her as well.

All things healed, even the great patchwork of desolation that stretched far beyond the horizon itself.

Once a sight to give comfort, rich in fields and farms and vast grasslands untouched by human intent, so it would be again. All the same, her eyes were helplessly ensnared by what she saw - by the endless tapestry of burnt lands. But as deeply disturbed as she was by the despoiling of it, she also would not turn away; it was upon that ruined canvas that Ranna saw a castle's silhouette rise against the afternoon sun. Her new landmark in this strange land.

It hadn't been difficult to get there after having seen it, for there was nobody on the road to halt her progress. Her steed was sure-footed and knew how to follow the trail of broken cobblestones and felled trees without too much complaint as well. That was good, this one had been a more recent addition and Ranna knew little of its temperament or prior training before she had accepted it as a mount. Although she didn't have any cause to doubt her gift, given in good faith by the House she'd served for the past several years. They wouldn't betray her trust so casually.

For the most part the animal was docile, calm, despite it being a courser. She'd known many with a temperament wholly unlike her present mount. That was good too, as those were both traits that she also endeavored to embody. Ranna certainly wouldn't be at all thrilled with the prospect of having to tame an unruly creature into some degree of obedience.

Thus, they were a happy pair, with neither party finding complaint in the other.

***​

When the two finally arrived at their next landmark, it was clear to Ranna that whatever fight there might have been was already long over. Like every other place she'd seen so far, so too did this castle bear the scars of war's folly; the walls were partially razed, and behind the tall ramparts she had seen the same black plumes of smoke as she had from the chapel, though it was far more recent of a scene. She could still feel the heat, hear the crackling of the flames as they licked at buildings unseen by her still.

So too did she see the bodies, strewn about the base of the walls like broken dolls with preciously bright eyes; their flesh already long into decomposition and rigor mortis, with a dozen different hands peeking out from odd and unnatural angles, blackened by soot or darkened by sickly blues and purpling bruises. Many of them seemed to have died where they fell, and were the luckier for it, for others still bore the hallmarks of a struggle to survive the wounds they had received in this forlorn place.

Yet the gates remained closed, and nobody moved to claim the bodies as their own, seemingly fated to be forsaken. They were to be left there until something else had reclaimed them; the earth, the weather, the creatures. Time itself. Perhaps that was not the intention of their comrades; she could occasionally see a glimpse of them atop those walls, but they made no attempts to dissuade her from this impression.

She at first tried for entry, content enough to leave it at that.

Only for all her attempts at gaining the attention of the soldiers upon the walls failed. They said nothing, did nothing. Their only contribution was to occasionally pop their heads out with faces made emotionless by distance and those wide, shaded kettle helmets they wore before once again disappearing behind the ramparts. They did not respond to her hails, nor did the gates budge. She knew then that there would be no hope for entry, nor relief for these people, and so discovered a new purpose here.

So it was, with a sigh, that she dismounted and waded forth into a different kind of battlefield. For what it was worth, her steed didn't complain at this change of course either, only passively followed the lead of its bridle until she could bring it no further for fear of trampling the swollen corpses underneath. There weren't only soldiers present, but villagers too, all of them with varying purposes. Some were intent on looting the small trinkets and baubles left behind, occasionally they would find a good piece of undented armour not yet reclaimed by another looter and leave all the happier for it.

Ranna was thankful to find that they were a minority, at least in the light of day. More still were there for humanitarian purposes, even if all they could have done by that point was to ferry the bodies upon the carts they had brought so that they might be properly buried or cremated. The dead certainly could say nothing in reproach to this plan.

For what it was worth, they endeavored, and she respected their efforts.

Eventually she had found a kindly enough family from a nearby village with a cart of their own, two sons and a daughter in tow. They were pious - that much was clear. Ranna watched as the father went from both the living and the dead to conduct funeral rites with a quiet, concise voice. After a short conversation was had, she made the decision to leave her horse in their safekeeping for the time being.

They had asked if she was a knight, and she said she was.

Then they asked if she was here to help, and she said she would.

Ranna would find no way into the small town by the looks of it. So her line of inquiry ended here, at least for the moment. She could ask the villagers her own share of inquiries, that was true, but for now she decided instead to render what little assistance she could rather than pragmatically stomp around asking questions that might be construed as tactless, given the scene all around them.

For even if she hadn't intended to diverge course - there was no way she could now look away from the face of the cruelty she'd seen.

And so she assisted her new surrogate family with an intense purpose, retrieving one body after another with their helping hands. They had valued her support, for she was nearly as strong as the father of the household and his sons were yet too young to match him in this. All the same, it was a heavy and ugly business of hauling slack limbs once vibrant and so full of life.

It helped her see the damage in its full horror, at least. Sometimes one might forget what that entailed and so lose a great deal of perspective. Did the generals who ordered this see in their mind's eye what would happen when they gave their commands? How the arrows would pierce soft flesh, how the tar might melt clothes and skin together as if they were naught more than mannequins, with eyes as if one had cruelly decided to inset glittering gems upon lifeless, wax statues? Even if the generals had been warriors themselves once, did they truly remember what this senseless loss of life meant, what it looked like?

A strange part of her hoped not, for the alternative was so utterly shameful.

When she discovered the first survivor beneath a tangle of limbs, gaze as glossy as the dead, she could not believe at first that he truly was alive. For a passing moment she entertained the notion that her eyes simply saw what they wanted to see, or that she was perhaps driven mad by the vision of so much death, yet, astonishingly, he made another small movement that removed all prior doubt from her mind.

She did what she could, and she knew in her heart that even a trained surgeon could do no more for the boy, save to keep him comfortable. As she worked on him, Ranna had thought that she must have been an odd sight for the Anirian, who upon seeing her might've assumed that she was one of their own, bedecked in platemail as she was. That they had returned for him rather than the possibility of a hopelessly astray knight crossing his path. Sadly, it was not to be.

The soldier asked several questions while she tried to carefully scrape away and clean his injuries the best she could. There were only a few she could answer with any honesty, and had told him as much. After she had said that, he thought instead of something else to ask, though he had a little trouble phrasing it through lips turned white and chapped.

“My lady, could you possibly help, please? With my mail?”

An easy enough request once she discerned its meaning. He was pitifully polite about it as well, making it sound for all the word as if he had asked an unreasonable thing of her. She didn't hesitate to reassure him.

"Oh, dear sweet boy, of course."

She called him a boy because that's what he was, she doubted if he was even a day over eighteen. Too young to be crying out while she painstakingly tried to slip him out of the metal shirt he'd already half-abandoned before she arrived, coiled and bunched past his midriff as it had been.

She listened after, stroking the hair clinging wetly to his scalp. Gently, ever so gently, since he cried out in such pain whenever even a single strand brushed against his purpled skin. He had fine, beautiful hair before, she could tell that much. Even when it was slick with as much blood as it was from his own perspiration. When he was finally comfortable enough beneath her tattered old riding cloak, he continued to speak. That was when she learned the extent of this shameful event, and despaired on his behalf for the injustice done.

He spoke of other things, too. Not all of it coherent, but enough for her to understand that he was speaking of home and events long since passed. Dogs never to be. Most of all he had just wanted to talk, it didn't matter to whom. Two days he remained where he fell, with no one else for company beyond his slain friends and so he had a great deal on his mind.

But eventually he could speak no more, when minutes had worn near an hour.

And when the boy was deep enough in his delirium, she proceeded to perform the sacrosanct act of exsanguination upon his wrists. So that his next slumber remained unmolested by the specters of a cruel reality. She knew that soldiers and surgeons alike preferred the much simpler method of putting a dagger through their ribs, but she had cringed at inflicting such overt violence upon the child; decided instead upon the method of the Martyr Susele, and thankfully no complaint was murmured by the Proud Soldier of Anirian Guard.

After this, did it truly come as any surprise that upon finding the next one, she wanted nothing more than to cry out: ‘God, please do not look to me! I do not have the strength, nor the heart for this!’

Less surprising still to anyone that had known Ranna was how, afterward, she merely gave a proverbial shrug of her shoulders, admonished herself for the selfish moment of prayer, and then went again to work upon the corpse of Syele Wilhart. An easy thing to call her a living woman, but a different matter altogether to point out what distinguished her from the dead.

When Ranna had first found the woman, she briefly wondered if it would've been a far more merciful tale to have ended the girl's life then and there, yet ultimately decided against it. One often wonders about the choices they didn't make, especially when time and regret found cause to bring up old decisions like they were old wounds.

Would Syele always find a reason to thank Ranna for making the choice she had, even after the passage of so many merciless years?

At the time the thought hadn't crossed her mind. Indeed, it was only through blind luck that she found the woman alive at all. As the only marker that suggested anything yet lived within that heap of tangled corpses was the subtle, nearly indiscernible twitches of a hand that somehow won its way free of the melee below, far too easy to miss. She could've attributed seeing it to a hundred different things. Destiny, fate, her training, a writer's plot convenience, but it mattered little. Nor did it make the following task any less daunting.

Erich may have continued to protect his sergeant, even in death, though it came with a cost of its own.

What Ranna found was a broken mess of bodies; a man made heavy by debris and his own armor that trapped the woman beneath, and it had spared her from not only the arrows, but the tar and the bodies as well, all of what came after her initial fall. To extricate Syele from the protective blanket of her own men took more time than the other woman had hoped, and labored as carefully as she could, by herself, up until the farmer she had met earlier had arrived to lend his own strength to the matter.

"Might you assist me, Father?

"I will try, child."

Funny how the roles changed like that. Through age and mutual respect for the years lived, they had comfortably settled into names that needed no formal introduction. To a young man she was considered a lady, but to a farmer with hands calloused by decades of hard work she was again to be a child. That suited her perfectly fine, it wasn't as if she minded the harmless fiction one bit.

Especially not when he had eased the burden of removing the bodies, one by one, until they could finally roll Erich over to his side - as kind as they could, given the circumstances. But just before they did, the farmer had asked her: "Are you certain of it? I see nothing that gives me hope."

Ranna remembered the slow, clumsy movements of the woman's fingers as she finally crouched down to gently ease away the layers of grime and hair so she could inspect the woman's eyes for herself. To confirm as much for herself as for the farmer that this strong, damaged young woman still had breath in her body after all. She couldn't blame the man next to her for not immediately noticing those lively green eyes; the filth and grime the Anirian now wore like another skin was distraction enough, not to mention how Syele's newly burnt flesh nearly made her countenance unrecognizable.

She could still see it, beneath the veil.

"I am certain of it. She still lives, even now.

He had believed it then, too.

 

[Syele Wilhart]

Time was no longer measured by the length of thoughts and the filtering rays of light that crept in through the gaps between bodies. It was found in rot, evident in shrinking, discoloured flesh that birthed putrid blisters set to burst. His decay was her hourglass, the sands of which flooded her being to mark her end. Reduced to nothing more than ticking hands of death.

He had been a man.

Not two days ago, Erich Calvart had been a man, a soldier, and a person. Wilhart recalled scolding him for his flippant nature, often turning to humour when the situation didn't call for it. In the aftermath of their flogging, he had joked with the others that Commander Einhard's whiphand couldn't count, noting the four strikes the man had gone over thirty. Even still, he had his quiet, thoughtful moments too, his pulse one with the squad morale and more than one earnest heart-to-heart having soothed minds and souls.

He had a sweetheart back in Vel Anir who longed to disappear into the middle of nowhere with him to a quiet cottage surrounded by an impractical number of domesticated animals, the first of which would likely have been an Anirian mastiff called Roo.

That was gone.

One Dreadlord had decided that his time was worth more than the weight of their lives, and it was all gone.

When Erich's body did not respond to her wheezing, pleading rasps, the Sergeant felt his stare become accusatory. Archon Isbrand had been responsible for them all, but was she not responsible for those under her? Yann was wrong; it didn't mean something to speak up. It meant nothing.

"...what... could... I... do...? I... couldn't... I... I... couldn't..."

They could have deserted, fled at night, and, in effect, equipped nooses around their necks, waiting to tighten the moment any of them got caught. Isbrand would have seen to it that their deaths would have been prolonged, a world of agonising fates at his fingertips with powers that no mortal should have ever held.

But there was an if.

If they got caught.

That single if might have been the difference between a cottage and a corpse. Was the weight of those two letters upon her shoulders? It was hard to think, harder still as he stared. Kept staring. Wouldn't stop staring.

"...please... stop... Erich... please..."

His stare was worse than the pain that still radiated from the woman's face, raw, blistering flesh concealed by long-cooled tar, or the stab that came with every single half-breath that whistled out from splitting parched lips. The pain was tangible, and as Wilhart's thoughts turned to blame, it felt like penance.

Sleep's call eventually beckoned, an outstretched hand offering relief from the horrors around her. With luck, Syele Wilhart would fade quietly into oblivion, but there was no luck to be found on the killing fields with Erich's death mask branded on the back of her eyelids. Even still, they grew heavier. It was time, they called, time to let go and join your squad.

The thoughts were like voices spoken aloud, muffled through the haze of dying delirium, and the world seemed to move, offering a sense of lightness not felt since Erich had fallen. Was this death?

No.

Syele's eyes opened, and she was still greeted by that same face, now illuminated in greater detail. There was light, more light than before. The soft grunts of exertion were not a phantom of her own making but that of people moving bodies. They had come back; they had come back for them.

When Erich was finally moved, the ability to take a deeper breath was dizzying, if not wince-inducing, from the sharp stab in the Sergeant's chest that had become familiar over the passing days.

A figure in plate mail loomed above her, crouched in the appraisal of a broken soldier, but when Syele looked for a face, she could only see Erich's decay sown upon it. Manic fear gripped the disfigurement of her flesh, and widened eyes fled from the spectre to seek the skies instead. Her mouth moved to make a request, not one built upon a foundation of a sound mind but one of tormented instinct.

"...close... his... eyes... help... pleaseclose... his... eyes..."

 

[Ranna Anakanos]

The dying oft held the strangest requests, though Ayl-Maltene could not begrudge them their madness. This was the last act they might ask of the living, and what right had she to deny them such a thing? She had a difficult time understanding at first what the woman had wanted, as the words that spilled out were reduced to little more than a breathy plea; fractured words made incoherent by delusional rambling, jumbled by panic and grief.

Ranna patiently allowed the words to come without speaking herself, too busy slowly piecing together what the nature of the request even was. Until finally it made sense, and so she acquiesced to Syele's frantic babbling with a small nod of confirmation, to signal that she did in fact recognize what was being asked of the woman in platemail.

"I will do what you ask of me, so please, be at peace."

Once again it was a simple enough thing to do, easier than what the boy had wished of her.

And so she returned to the body of Erich, finally drawing those eyes shut with her own leatherclad thumb so that he might be left to rest peacefully, gaze averted from all the death around him. Not that it would have made a difference to anyone but his Sergeant; yet that was reason enough for Ranna to perform the act. No matter how the softness of death and disintegration made the task an uncomfortable one.

Then once it was done, her attention returned to the young and scarred face of the woman she meant to save, if she could, and drew solace from the fact that there was little blood of the girl's own to be found. Syele's wounds were grievous, yet not enough to perish from, despite Ranna noticing how her face was naught but a mosaic of melted run; the black tar that still covered some of it had long cooled to the touch. Her lips were tinged a bluish hue, and every breath emitted by the woman came with a sickly, reedy sound.

These wounds weren't enough to die from, yet. But eventually the infection or the dehydration would overwhelm Syele's fragile constitution, and then she would be dead. With that grim thought in the back of Ranna's mind, the knight kneeling over the pitiful scene assessed what injuries she could, though the act by itself was pointless, as she was no great healer. Her skills throughout the entirety of those thirty-two years were honed for the infliction of violence, not mercy.

But she was not alone in this endeavor, and looked first to the father before speaking to Syele.

"Tell me how you are feeling, if you can, and I will do all that is in my power to see you through this trial." Ranna lowered herself further to the ground so that she could again catch the other woman's gaze, her own eyes softening in understanding; it was a difficult thing to ask of a victim, she knew that. More intent on clinging to what life they had left rather than trying to find the wherewithal to speak and think with clarity. "I know it may be difficult to find the words, and I know that you are in pain, but could you try to do this thing for me?"

Syele Wilhart most certainly tried her best, as ambiguous as the injuries were even to her. That it was hard to breathe was an obvious answer, but as to why, it became less clear. To hope it was solely from all the long hours spent underneath the crush of bodies was a little too optimistic, and the far more likely reason was due to something like internal trauma, or broken ribs. Syele spoke further of how her arms and legs felt heavy, how her back hurt, and how moving at all was an exertion.

To answer at all was no doubt a trial in itself.

This time Ranna's attention was directed towards the father and owner of the cart she'd left her horse tethered to, and who had since introduced himself by the name Bernhard Stettenbaker; the father of a prosperous enough farmstead nearly half a day's walk from here. All of this and more she had come to learn during the hours they had toiled away together - she and her surrogate family.

For she was more than a little curious as to why a humble farming family would so readily volunteer for the arduous task of burying the dead, unasked at that. And so took the opportunity throughout the day to speak to each and every one of the family, offering encouragement and coming to know them a little bit better. They seemed to be good people and Ranna couldn't help but to like them, and trust them, even though they were in truth perfect strangers.

As did the family come to know and respect the strange, foreign knight that offered her assistance.

"The girl must be moved from this place, or she will die. I cannot treat her here without risking infection."

The once-stranger by the name of Bernhard did not hesitate to offer a practical solution. "Our farmstead is not too far away, and we can move swiftly on my cart, child. That is all I can offer. You will find no help within the walls, and neither will she. We have already tried, not once or twice before, but many times, and never once received an answer to our pleas." He paused then, furrowing his brow as he added something else. "I feel that... whatever it is they do inside, they mean to do so behind closed gates. I have even watched as they turned away natural-born citizens, displaced by the war."

"By what right do they decide who might enter - are your people not Anirian? Is this not their home?"

"They are, and it is, though they are treated as traitors first and citizens of the state last, if at all."

"Very well, then. Help me find a way to move her, but gently!

Not that she was able to help terribly much from where she sat next to Syele, finding it best if the girl was not left alone in her exhausted and vulnerable state. Still, she did what she could by providing a summary of what was needed to create a makeshift stretcher and had asked the farmer standing above her - that great mustache of his wriggling in contemplation - if he could find what was necessary.

Not surprisingly, he consented with little more than a firm shake of his head as he went about completing what was asked of him.

All that was left to do now was to occupy the woman flitting in and out of consciousness at her side. Which, admittedly, was an easy enough thing to do; all that was necessary was to remain a comforting, active presence for as long as was needed. To speak to the girl in a quiet voice as she walked the two of them through what she was doing while cleaning as best she could of what remained of the tar with a pat of a dry handkerchief. Honestly to little effect, yet there was nothing more she might do save scrape away whatever muck was still irritating Syele's eyes.

The stench of death was all around the two, and there was little to be done about that; though she did clear a small pocket around them of any remaining bodies, Erich included, so that at the very least the poor child didn't have to look upon those who were once friends, and comrades. It wasn't a lot, but hopefully it was enough. Elsewise, Ranna did what she could to distract the woman while they waited, parting her lips upon seeing the faintest hint of lucidity again glimmering behind Syele's gaze.

Her hand reached out to touch an unburnt arm, more to gain the woman's attention than to make any meaningful contact. Her fingertips doing little more than brushing against any fabric she found beneath leather gloves, the result being a quiet clash of noise between the two opposing fabrics.

"Would you care to tell me your name? I would very much like to learn it, and it will do you well, I think, to keep your mind occupied while we wait.

She had offered water to drink then, though she wisely chose against shifting the woman to any meaningful degree.

Not entirely certain of the extent of Syele's injuries, she decided that it was not worth risking making any worse by moving her more than what was absolutely required. Meaning that it was unlikely to be an easy experience, or a fun one, drinking the carefully trickling stream of clear liquid from the knight's waterskin. But at least it was drinkable, probably a small blessing to anyone that had already gone two days without anything passing their lips.

 

[Syele Wilhart]

With her request granted, Erich Calvart was at last gifted eternal peace. No longer would the eyes of his soul stare forever out upon the place of his senseless death, but instead would find the comforting embrace of darkness in the end.

Perhaps selfishly, she had hoped that his rest would dispel the spectre that lurked in her vision, but upon trying to look at the woman providing softly spoken mercy, she could still see him in her eyes. Not fading through strained blinks or struggling squints, it once more forced Syele to look away.

The woman, whose face she could not grace the courtesy of her eyes, asked questions. It was more than evident now that she was here to help, although it was upon Wilhart to provide the answers.

Gathering enough wherewithal to answer was the challenge, a mind torn between this world and the next, struggling to fathom what was felt now in the present and what was a mere phantom of the future. There was little clarity between reality and delirium. If only this woman had come on the first day when her senses were still intact, Wilhart might have been prompt and to the point.

Instead, what wheezed out was pure instinct.

"...hard to... breathe... burning..."

Easier now with the weight of Erich off her chest, but still sharp with every half-breath stoking internal flames.

"...arms... legs... heavy..."

Her remaining good hand, still trying to curl and unfurl, held more sensation than before, prior numbness plagued by an excited tingle. In hindsight, a promising sign that she would not be resigned to the life of a cripple were she to survive at all.

"...my back... back hurts..."

It didn't indicate anything beyond base feeling as the Sergeant winced through her words. The effort to claw back each moment of cognisance was monumental.

In the aftermath of gathering thoughts, the need for rest became greater until it loomed large overhead, casting a great blanket of shadow over her. Or perhaps it was the woman by her side, the lack of lucidity muddying the waters of reality. Was a conversation happening around her or Wilhart's fragmented thoughts? Was there movement or just shadows on the edge of her vision?

When a hand touched her arm, stirring the buzz of blood in the limb, it brought Syele closer to the surface. Once more, she was aware that she was being spoken to and, more importantly, of the offered water.

There was no dignified way to drink while lying prone, but it was still far more dignified than dying. The relief was indescribable, soothing the woman's parched throat in careful trickles that couldn't help but dribble down her chin when the need to breathe called.

"...Sergeant... Syele Wilhart... ma'am," the Anirian finally replied, hard-drilled formality still clinging to her words. Was it possible she had mistaken this woman for one of their own?

"Is there... anybody else...?" Wilhart asked, her lips driven by a duty of care instead of logic. A hopeful question. A deluded question. In the moment, she managed to vanquish the fear of seeing Erich's face and looked at the other woman, features twitching from the effort. "...tell me... who has... survived..."

 

[Ranna Anakanos]

The naked agony of the answer must've been evident in Ranna's eyes; in the way her gaze canted to the side as though she was searching for a reply amongst the mountain of the dead that she couldn't already see. To have arrived by Syele's side meant that she had already walked through the field of desolation, had discovered for herself how few yet lived and so could only lament the answer she might've given had she the words to speak it.

She was not cruel enough to lie outright to the girl, knowing that it was only a false hope that would shatter into a million little pieces at the briefest hint of the truth around them. When the reality of the situation inevitably became clear to the delirious woman, the wound of her squad's passing would only hurt all the more when the desperate belief was once again yanked away.

Ranna decided then to settle on a path of neutrality, thinking it the kindest thing she could do at the moment; the option to deflect the topic was not something she was fond of doing, but she was afraid. Afraid that whatever fight this brave woman had left would be extinguished were she not careful with how she phrased her next words.

Before she said anything however, the weight of the situation finally fell upon the knight's broad shoulders like an anvil. Her eyes dropped to the muddy ground beneath the two of them, her head bowed for a moment longer in contemplation before lifting that reassuring face to face Syele's in full. Her warm amber eyes were still clouded with that same indecisiveness, though now that she'd decided upon a course of action those clouds were quickly lifting.

"I do not know who has survived, Sergeant Syele Wilhart. I can only tell you that you're one the few still left in this wasteland, all who yet live are within the walls." Again her hand lifted to Syele's arm; to her wrist this time so that she might silence any further words that the woman might have spilt out. As sympathetic as she was, Ranna did not think herself capable of listening to any more of her pleas. Not right now. "With any luck, and with rest, you will be able to discover for yourself who remains. I will help you, so long as you hold on."

She searched Syele's eyes after the words were spoken, to make certain that the other woman understood. The hand she kept over Syele's wrist lingered where she'd left it, not moving until she received some kind of reply that she was both heard, and that in turn Syele would comply with what was asked of her.

Even if whether she lived or died wasn't entirely in her hands to decide.

"But before then you must heal, if we are to find out."

Ranna's stomach twisted from the weight of the stare she'd no doubt find in those eyes, as she knew her words to be hollow and doubted that whatever response she might receive would be one of happiness. Of hope for a future where she'd be reunited with a squad that, more than likely, remained where they fell in the siege, never to rise again.

Yet she did not take her hand away, nor did she lower her eyes a second time; for all the cowardice in her answer it was still a true one, and so didn't feel too ashamed by clinging onto the distant belief - and permitting Syele to do the same. It would take a great deal of time to identify all the bodies and to cross off names on their census, and could at least prolong the excruciating truth until after the Sergeant of her fallen squad was strong enough to stand on her own two legs.

To find out for herself how Vel Anir's betrayal led to the massacre of those who stood with her.

Even unto death they stood with her, their bodies remaining at their Sergeant's side.

Her hands moved up and away from Syele's prone body, resting upon a weathered forehead - wiping away at the moisture with the backside of her leather gloves, uncertain of how much of it was her own perspiration and how much of it was the blood of those once considered friends and comrades of the pitiful form beneath her. She didn't want to dwell on it. And so she didn't.

"Tell me of who you are searching for, and perhaps I could ask when I am able?"

It didn't matter that the question was a ridiculous one, at least not right now. So long as it kept Syele talking without thinking. Too much time left alone with her thoughts would not bode well, Ranna knew that much. She knew how people had a habit to let their mind wander to things best left unthought; the kind of things that she knew too well than to permit the woman laying there, battered and broken, to dwell upon. All those little regrets she might be feeling.

There would be time enough for that, later.

The clatter of a multitude of feet reverberated in the distance, she could hear it easily enough in the silent, miasmic afternoon air. Occasionally Ranna would break eye contact to follow the procession of the father and his two sons, returning after having finally achieved what was asked of them.

When they finally arrived, there would be no more room for talking. No more idle conversation.

How they meant to carry Syele would be a trial in itself. She found herself praying the Sergeant might withstand it.

 

[Syele Wilhart]

Whether or not it was a small mercy that Syele could not decipher the meaning of the other woman's face was left up to the fates.

She had only asked out of Sergeant's instinct, her duty of care towards those men and women littering the field around them overtaking the ragged remnants of coherent thoughts that remained. Her responsibility, while not stretching out to face the brunt of the blame for the entire massacre, still thrummed with the struggling rhythm of her heart.

Was it not her responsibility to hope for them?

Or was it her burden to die with them?

The voice roused her once more, the pained grimace evidence enough that focusing upon the armoured woman's words was a struggle beyond compare. And what were those words worth? Did the grant comfort? Did they give hope? The longer she looked at the woman, the more she saw death, as the knight's flesh seemed to discolour and warp before her. Shrinking, blistering and oozing anew.

It caused her response to be found in a whimper punctuated on either side by a whistling wheeze and eyes to be once more forced shut, a painful act in its own right as burnt flesh strained beneath the layer of cooled tar.

From the desperate clawing of cognisance, she had gathered nothing. Perhaps some still lived, no doubt dealing with the consequences of rebellions within the fortified city. However, Wilhart doubted that any of her squad would have been content to carry on without a search for survivors amongst their unit, not after being flogged together or sharing plans for the future with the certainty that this catastrophe was the last straw.

Then why did she ask?

Was she rendered a helpless child, asking when her beloved pet dog would return home after last seeing them enter the woods with father and his axe in tow? Could she no longer comprehend the simple fact of death? Would she choose to deny it and believe that there was cause for hope?

Erich Calvart would call his dog Roo.

"...I am... tired," Syele wheezed in a delayed response to the woman, unsure if any sound had escaped her throat or if she had just mouthed the words. With her tattered lucidity fading, she found it a greater comfort to keep her eyes shut, even if, in the black of her eyelids, she saw death staring back.

Yet she tried her best to comply with the request, more for the sake of those men and women than for her own.

"...Natalie... Vestel..."

Dead.

"Arend... Arend Held..."

Dead.

The names were leaving split lips at a deteriorating rate, stumbling out over shuddered exhales that grew ever laboured. Through the waiting, the pain, and the horrors, Wilhart had barely registered her fatigue. No longer crushed under the weight of a man with wide eyes and bovine lashes, it was free to creep in.

"...G-galter... Verley..."

Maybe.

"...Erich... Cal... Cal..."

At last, exhaustion took her, not to death, where fate's hungering maw would have been sated, but to sleep, where she would not have to recite the names of the dead on the wastes where they fell.

 

[Ranna Anakanos]

Ranna did what little she could to keep the other woman awake, urging her on to lucidity through soft, encouraging questions whenever the conversation happened to lull. At first it was the verbalization of her injuries, then with the formality of exchanging names, and then finally the hope of seeing her comrades again; their names drunkenly repeated back to the kneeling knight with ever lessening conviction, before eventually trailing into an exhausted and deathly still silence.

At least there was life in her yet, Ranna noted with some relief after discovering the steady thrum of Syele's pulse beneath her fingertips. But she could no longer rouse the crippled, tired woman to any meaningful degree of consciousness. Even she knew that they were fighting a losing battle against the injuries inflicted, and so wasn't terribly surprised when exhaustion finally overwhelmed what little fight was left in the Sergeant; her final flame flickering out as loudly as any death rattle, upon recalling Erich's name.

Did Syele have any hope for them herself, or was it out of habit for her to answer authority?

The amber-eyed knight wished she knew the answer of it, instead she tore that gaze away to Bernhard.

His arrival was timely enough, but her ears were keen enough to know that he decided not to intrude upon the scene until after she'd addressed him with those wary eyes of hers, beckoning him forth with little more than a tilt of that braided head. Whatever thoughts passed through her mind was Ranna's alone, and the farmer made the decision not to ask about what he saw during that short, unguarded glance in his direction.

Not when there was work to be done, and there was quite a bit of work to be done. Bernhard Stettenbaker was not an unintelligent man, but he was a simple man. He even made a passable attempt at learning his words in a more feisty, carefree youth where the world was something to be explored from beyond the cramped confines of his village and its traditions. Not that he ever went farther than beyond the neighboring villages, mind you.

For he was a Kurwiqe and was therefore molded too deeply and at too young of an age by his people's traditions to wander further afield.

He did not know war, nor he did not understand conflict in the context of winning earthly territory through the flame and the sword. His lot was to take pride in a day's long work, to celebrate in that stubborn Kurwiqe way when his hands were too sore from the plow to curl around the rim of his mug at the end of his labor, then to look forward to the coming morning so that he might have the honour of going through these routines all over again.

As his father had, as did his father's father before him, and so on since his people's rakes were first taken to the soft and fertile earth of the bordering Aberresai plains that stretched out in every direction one would look, like rising dough. As far as his eyes or feet would ever take him, that much was certain. Therefore he knew little of worldly matters like sieges, or of the vices inherent in every domain that constantly found any and every reason to expand their borders.

To be locked eternal in a struggle over this parcel of land or that parcel of land, to forever spill the precious lifeblood of the youth on the ground and churn fields into mud when there was work to be done, seeds to be planted; and ultimately for what? To repeat the process until the end of days, it seemed.

If the short history of the Kurwiqe caught between so much war was any indication.

Why would he take part in such a material lifestyle, when his people, both before and after would always remain where they had. To be the stewards of their small plots of land and insulated from the casual cruelty of an outside existence that would only ever be concerned with the concept of a bigger picture; this was something he would reject again and again, a thousand times over! But he would be where god's hand directed him, to tend to the sick and the needy, to bandage the wounded in both body and spirit.

And so, even when this simple man would never understand the why of it, he did all that he could to ease the trials of this strange knight and her... questionable attempts to preserve the life of this Anirian sergeant. As did his sons, for they were raised under the same traditions as he'd been - goodness and decency came naturally to them, so they didn't complain overly much with what came next.

As for what that was? I don't know anymore, I haven't been certified for years. But it'd a lot of work.

The notion for a primitive back brace was Ranna's idea, who hadn't taken any chances when it came to transferring the wounded woman to their straight-backed stretcher of thickly corded fabric between the dismantled buggy shaft of their wagon. The knight was surprisingly pleased by their ingenuity, even when she still tested for herself whether it would hold the weight of the woman without too much deformation, obviously worried about worsening any injuries concealed beneath Syele's skin.

However closely she looked, it seemed like a fine design. Bernhard seemed equally as proud, making the claim that he'd treated his share of wounds throughout the years, but those were for animals. Nor did she think his claim of never yet losing a foal from a healthy mare to be terribly relevant, though she decided not to bother correcting the beaming, steadfast farmer.

Even after it was all said and done, the task of loading Syele onto the stretcher and the return to their cart was a demanding one.

Ranna wasn't certain that she could do it alone, and it pained her still whenever she caught a glimpse of the Anirian's tortured expression - despite being blissfully unaware more oft than not - and wished there was a more gentle way of going about the matter. She felt the sweat clinging to her brow and could do nothing to dispel it lest she drop her precious cargo.

When she finally left the field that day, it was not on horseback but instead saddled alongside the father of the Stettenbaker household on the front bench of the wagon. Her horse trailing along by a lead with nary of complaint. The roads were little more than well-worn tracks, yet they were maintained well over the years. Thanks to the constant thoroughfare to and from the now burning city. And so neither she nor her horse had any complaint.

As to what Syele might've felt at every jarring bump in the road? She couldn't help but fuss over.

Not that she could do anything, not really. Her suffering was not in Ranna's hands to prevent.

***

When Syele next awoke, it would have been to a completely different scene.

Gone would be the miasma of the battlefield, whispering to her in secretive tones what had happened to the people she once considered comrades.

Gone would be the wall that loomed ever so oppressively, waiting to claim one final victim.
​

From the faint snatches of lucidity that Syele could've grasped throughout their solemn funeral procession of a living woman, she'd discover herself transported to what very well might be a different world entirely. What replaced all the sights and sounds and smells of the charnel house she somehow lived through was of a place that was peaceful, quiet and serene. Perhaps even to a woman who'd lost so much over a handful of bloody days.

It may have been easy to forget it ever happened, or at least to pretend, for a little while.

Like snapshots of a picture book, each page telling a story even when the scenery no longer changed with so much jarring suddenness. Now she was in a home with four plastered walls and fine oaken baseboards that offered a stark contrast to the whitewashed walls; now she was laying upon a low bed cushioned by a... comfortable enough mattress that separated her back from the evenly divided sections of straw, pillows that were surprisingly less lumpy. Probably an expensive cost to the household, possibly spirited away from wherever Bernhard and his wife rested their heads.

No doubt that it was a little disorientating, but rarely was there anything that might've disrupted Syele's thoughts on how she felt about it. At least not for long. Most of the time it would be the women of the household coming in and out of the room to check on her, perhaps to provide an uneaten meal, or to change the bandages that practically mummified the poor woman; each and every time they'd stay for little more than a few brief moments before hurrying away once again.

To leave Syele with her thoughts.

When she next awoke, and when she stirred from wherever she went between those fleeting moments of awareness, she'd find Ranna again at her side with a girl of about sixteen or seventeen, doing something that might seem silly to a woman so long at war. Or maybe to anyone with eyes to see, really. The painful attempts at teaching the giant of a knight how to weave wild grasses and the stalks of flowers were an interesting sight, for she tried in earnest to replicate what the girl was doing to varying efficacy; her calloused hands working the tender and fragile materials with a questionable grace.

But she did work with a practiced, dexterous craftsmanship. She just wasn't used to flowers.

They spoke from time to time, with the girl telling one story and the woman telling another. The sweet, musky smells of the grasses filled the four small walls of the room, carried in part by the faint breeze of an open window. A simple enough way to tell that it was morning, for the warmth and light of the sun filtered in as easily as the wind that would tease or tousle the youngest girl's hair from time to time; worn long and unbraided. Rather more different of a feeling than the clammy, wet chill of the battlefield.

Likely smelled a bit better, as well.

 

[Syele Wilhart]

It was not a restful sleep.

Instead, it hovered on the precipice of reality and agony, the awareness of movement and pain pulling Syele back every time she dared to slip beneath the surface. Yet she could not register the world around her, a thick haze obscuring faces and voices, rendering them nothing more than spectres that plagued pitiful scraps of consciousness.

Every time the woman faded a little further into oblivion, Erich's necrotic gaze stared back in silent judgment, asking questions of his Sergeant that could not possibly be argued.

Perhaps every jolt that stirred her was a relief, not shown upon her disfigured countenance that twisted with the sudden shock of pain every single time. Was it better to suffer the penance of flesh? To be caught in the wretched reality of the living, where broken bones and burnt flesh sang the reminders of survival?

Or did she long for the abyss?

The silent space of nothing, where only watching eyes could sit and stare. They asked what remained of their future hopes of secluded cottages and great lazy slobbering dogs. Was the peace of death the same as the peace of the future? It was cold here. No warmth, no peace, no love to be found. Only a great chasm punched through the top of a skull, sending whistling winds with a torrent of questions.

Wilhart murmured back, unintelligible sounds echoing in the real world and the depths as if she had forgotten what it was to have a tongue.

What could she say?

That she was sorry? That she wished that she had died with them? There was a deep guilt in those rotten eyes, asking why she didn't ask for her throat to be slit there and then. It was better to die with them, no, not just better; it was right, destined, and ordered.

They were the bodies at the wall.

In time, the sudden spasms of broken bone lessened, and she found soft, stable ground to seek rest without comfort. In sleep, the interrogation continued, demanding to know why she, out of all, deserved to live. Syele Wilhart was no more worthy or special than any of the men and women who stood beside her. Would she carry their dreams amongst the honour of the living? Or would she forget and condemn all of them to silent obscurity like countless others sent to die for stone and timber?

After listlessly flitting through barely recognised moments of consciousness, where indistinct figures fussed over broken flesh, the woman finally found a footing back upon the plane of reality.

She was no longer at the wall, bloodshot eyes rolling lazily around to witness a snapshot of humble bliss far removed from the line of death and duty. It seemed like a stolen dream, a cosy delusion that did not belong to her. Syele might have thought it to be the afterlife were it not for the pain, an immediate grimace the result of her instinct to try and move.

The only relief came in the form of sensation, in fingers and toes that could flex and bend, not consigning her to the fate of a crippled veteran, just as easily discarded as the dead.

At her side was the woman from the killing fields, exchanging idle conversation with a girl who might have been the same age as her brother. She hadn't registered their hands, weaving the innocence of nature, too preoccupied with attempting to salvage her bearings.

When Wilhart attempted to sit up, her body protested, the base of her spine and ribs protesting with sharpened stabs to dissuade the Anirian Guard from any such movement. A pained whine escaped her with a wheeze, and her good right hand instinctively reached to touch her bandaged torso, fingertips barely grazing tender flesh. So much of her form whined that it was easier to pinpoint where she wasn't injured.

"...where," Syele began, her voice dry and cracked from disuse and dehydration but more rational than before as she looked to the pair, "...where am I?"

 

[Ranna Anakanos]

Ranna could not help but smile as her loosely-weaved garland of herbs was plucked away from her clumsy hands by the girl she now knew to be Ida, deferring to a child's wisdom in these things in which she had no context for. She could wield a blade or tie a rowboat off a dock with any number of complicated knots, but the subtleties of crafting flowery necklaces and charms with dried herbs and blooms was... an area where she held a distinct lack of an education.

Not that the girl minded one bit, for whenever the knight had faltered she had been all too willing to intervene and offer instruction. Happy for once that she was able to teach and not just to learn, especially when it came to this strange woman from a faraway place that she wouldn't have been able to point out on a map, even if they had one. She couldn't even spell Ranna's strange, distinctly un-Kurwiqe name in the same strange script that had been shown to the girl before, try as she might to emulate it.

"Would you tell me how this works, again? I admit, I am curious," asked Ranna in conversational tones, thankful that they shared a similar language rather than one of the half-dozen steppe tongues that she had next to no understanding of, with her grasp on Kurwiqe being rudimentary at best. More like Anirian, she had thought to herself. But it was a far cry from a pure-blooded accent to her ears, long since transformed to accommodate the local peoples and their niche translations for words that would otherwise have been lost.

"Oh, please, must I?" Ida had asked in turn, her deft fingers picking at the loose ring of herbs and wildflowers as she looked up to Ranna's uncompromising curiosity. "I'm not sure if it means anything, but it's nice to do for a person."

"They work as charms, do they not? I remember your sister telling me so, at least."

"Yes, yes, that's what they say. They also say that each and every grass known to our village has a name and a purpose, however unassuming, and that by binding them together can we... um, hmmm! I don't know, but weaving them together means different things depending on what you imbue the... charm with. A little bit of healing, a little bit of luck, things we all seem to need these days."

"That is not so strange," was all the girl got from Ranna for a brief moment, a smile forming upon her lips as Ida tried to force the rest of what the knight meant to say with a mischievous twinkle of those brown eyes of hers. And? "I am aware that the city of Saknne has similar practices, with their own festivals and secret meanings behind every strand of grass, berry or branch. For example, whenever a new member of their parliament wishes to speak, they have this rather silly thing where that man or woman is permitted to carry a bundle of birch rods so as to let all the others know that they have the floor to speak."

"You're having a laugh, aren't you?" The younger had asked, clearly curious to see the truth of it as she studied the knight's features with narrowed eyes, searching for any sign of teasing. Ranna might've laughed were the child not so deathly serious, turning her head aside to stare out the window until the obscure interrogation was over with. To help hide her smile when the girl had clucked in disappointment - realizing that she hadn't been joking.

"That's hardly the same, it's no wonder you can't weave, then."

"Perhaps not, but I'm not the woman to ask these things. My dearest friend Samirya knows more than I do, so maybe I shall ask her. Then I could tell you all that I've learned, when next we meet again"

Another glance from Ida was given from beneath brown fringes, offering a puckish expression as if to show what she had thought of that. Clearly the people of Saknne could hardly do justice to the art that she only just recently started defending, rather than demeaning. She was nearly finished with the bracelet of dried herbs; the source of the sweet musk that had, as it happened, soothed the heart to inhale. So perhaps there was some logic in this concept, however steeped in folklore it might've been.

"Would you like to know how we celebrate-"

How one might celebrate resurrection, possibly. For at that moment did they hear Syele's stirring, finally lifting herself from whatever pit of half-formed consciousness she'd fallen so deep into; her attempts to even sit up were met with a sharp, hushing admonishment from Ranna as she stood from her chair to cut the wounded woman off from making any further movement.

Not knowing what to do, Ida now wore a faint blush of embarrassment for not noticing sooner, for she was meant to be one of the woman's caretakers and so could only awkwardly watch while Ranna took her place at the bedside of the Sergeant. The flush upon her tanned skin hardly all that evident as she instinctively looked to the larger of the three woman in the room.

"Kindly inform your mother, Ida."

Ranna took the matter in stride, ordering the faltering girl with a tone of natural authority; she had spoken and thus expected it to be carried out, helping erase any doubt from the girl in what she was meant to do. As for Syele? She would find herself promptly tucked back into bed with a firm hand that had clasped down on her unwounded shoulder. Not hard, mind you, but with enough presence to make it clear that defiance would not be possible.

At least not in her state.

Finally, the answer on Syele's mind was answered. "Please do not move more than necessary. You are safe, Syele Wilhart. You are in the village of Mottgrenkte a half-day's walk from where we found you. So please, be at peace."

The smile of resignation she had discovered upon her lips after she had looked into the panicked, animalistic eyes of the other woman must have been somewhat reassuring in a place otherwise so utterly foreign save for the knight at her side. A place with clean blankets and a comfortable bed, along with a quaint little window that permitted the light of an early dawn to drift lazily into the room, giving presence to countless little dust motes hidden until then. Ranna withdrew her hand, after a moment.

As for any questions of Syele's present state - from her bedraggled and bandaged appearance, wearing a stranger's knickers and a frumpy linen sleeping gown, and with most of her upper body tightly immobilized by tautly wrung linen for a compress. All that, in addition to the still raw injuries of her burnt face and hands.

It would be no surprise if she had a great many questions, but the asking would be Syele's to do.

"I am Ranna Anakanos, Sergeant Wilhart. You remember me, I hope?"

As she spoke, the hand she had left free until now went to relegate the long braid sat over her shoulder to somewhere behind her back instead. Where it was originally, before she had disturbed it in a rush to prevent Syele from injuring herself any further. Clearly they were in a safe place if the older knight was so willing to let her hair down, so to speak. Making for a distinctly different portrait from the one on the battlefield they had initially met upon.

Her amber eyes flicked to the woman's own, looking for a sign.

Of recognition, of brain injury, of any number of things.

 

[Syele Wilhart]

The initial panic birthed from the sudden movement of one of the figures at her side couldn't be smothered by the idyllic backdrop and the firm hand that restrained her could only be met by impotent resistance that swiftly petered out when it was clear that she would not be moving anywhere.

When the monolith at her side answered her instinctive question there was some fleeting glimpse of assurance. Wilhart's eyes darted around the room finding truth in the cosy atmosphere that seemed so far removed from the field corpses that had failed to consume her entirely. It did not soothe the soldier completely but was enough to calm widened eyes that slowed in their quest to seek some small scrap of sense in their surroundings.

Syele might have hoped, for one desperate illogical moment, that this place was the afterlife. She held no firm belief in any faith, but the allure of a peaceful lie was more than tempting than any wretched truth.

Her response was little more than grimace, the very act of which twisting and bursting the blistered flesh of her face, which would soon soil the bandages that covered the woman's fresh disfigurement. How fragile it was, to not even be capable of moving one's face without the stinging heat of pain.

Looking to the Knight, who now introduced herself, Syele brought her eyes to settle on the face of Ranna Anakanos. She sought recognition, attempting the piece together the fragments of horrors from the slaughter.

She remembered.

She remembered too much.

Every sound echoing, clattered helms and tortured moans until there was nought but carrion cries.

The smell of decay that might as well stained her soul in its wretched potency.

Seared into sight was Erich Calvart, and even now, looking into the face of the woman who had saved her, she could see him staring back.

"Please," she whimpered with a frightened wince to the dead man before turning her head away to face the wall, the very act of doing so a monumental struggle that only served to make Wilhart feel pathetic, like a child plagued by a singular nightmare.

Eventually, she had found the will to answer properly. Manners had fallen by the wayside, pushed out by the disorientating aftermath of trauma that scattered thoughts and made the green of her eyes avoidant.

"I... remember," she spoke, perhaps wishing that she had not. Wilhart's memories began to splinter from the moment Erich's body had been moved, but she recalled fragmented snippets of her saviour.

If her delirious inquiry at the wall hadn't cemented the Sergeant's most pressing concerns, then her next question did.

"Are there others?" Wilhart rasped, her gaze unfocused and staring blankly at the wall opposite Ranna, "Please. Tell me who has survived."

It was a cruel question, and one that Syele already knew the answer to in the depths of exhausted logic. The naivety of hope begged for the truth to be different, that at least one of those men and women would be able to return home to their loved ones and their dreams. Her heart could not carry the weight of surviving this alone. Just one. Please. Just one life.

 

[Ranna Anakanos]

Ranna recognized the look in Syele's eyes, that muted tone the woman spoke in when asking who was left.

She could empathize with what was going through the Sergeant's mind at that moment, she could understand all too well. The burden of leadership was always a steep one for those who cared for those under their command, and it was not a kind thing to imagine failing them - much less to live through the deaths of those who you were meant to lead to victory. To have given into despair and loss would have been an easy thing to do.

For anyone carrying the kind of burden that Syele Wilhart had upon her shoulders at that very moment.

Well, at least the woman was speaking, Ranna had mused. That she had the strength and the willingness to do so was a good sign. Ranna watched as those maimed features of the Sergeant underwent a transformation; a shudder of revulsion, of an agony that made the muscles in their jaw flex from beneath the thick layer of linen acting as a shroud, and could not help but to sympathize for the pain she had no means of helping them through.

And then she could distinguish what was rippling over her countenance no longer, for the woman had turned her face away and thus made her expression an unreadable and distant one. Now, only Syele's vague profile was visible to the kneeling knight while she spoke next of remembering, failing in doing exactly that as she asked an approximation of the same question she had on the battlefield.

Was there anyone left? Every time it was asked, the answering was harder than the last.

"I wish that I could tell you, dear girl. I wish I had an answer that may soothe the pain that you feel, but I do not."

Ranna had no choice but to answer honestly, and much like the first time it was a reply that did little to dull the bite of reality. And she had to ask herself then: what good was her pity or her sympathy when all it amounted to was little more than worthless, wasted breath? All it served to do was fill the silence with unhelpful facts rather than words of consolation or reassurance. She was never one for bedside manners, that much was obvious.

All she had was the truth, and despaired of the fact; she would have nothing more to tell Syele than that, but felt it necessary that it was the truth that next spilled from her lips. As childlike as the Sergeant's actions were in attempting to dismiss the world by looking sullenly to the wall, no child was she, but instead a proud soldier of Vel Anir and a leader in every way. Even when she had nobody left to lead.

"There was nobody else alive on that field except for you, Sergeant Wilhart. I could find no other signs, save for a boy who did not live long enough for us to do anything more for," as she recollected that earlier scene, she could not help but to look again to the window as if trying as Syele did to banish the phantoms of a memory best left forgotten. When next she turned back to lay eyes upon the other side of the other woman's head, the tone in her voice was apologetic, almost pained. "I wish that I had asked his name before he passed, but I did not. He was the only other one." Ranna clarified, bringing a hand to rub at her jaw in contemplation. Of what?

"I am sorry, child. I'm so, so sorry,"

Her eyes rose from the mattress to which she was providing her answer, as if for all the world she was giving humility before the gods. To whom was she sorry? The words she spoke could have been for anyone; for Syele, or for the boy, or for a hundred other souls that she consigned to rest upon that field the day they had met. What would she have given to change such an outcome, for all of them.

If only so that she did not have to bear the burden of walking in the footsteps of so many ruined lives. What a selfish thought. But that was Ranna, willing to take on the responsibility of an aftermath of something she had nothing to do with. Of caring for this woman with who she had no kinship with, nor even a love for her country, or her cause.

"I'm sorry that I cannot offer you what you desperately seek. All I have is my honesty, and I would have you take offense to that rather than me giving you false hopes or closure."

Ranna could hear the brush of feet upon the threshold of the door behind her, either too curious or too modest to barge through while the muffled voice on the other end still spoke of Syele's fate, as well as that of her squad's. What the knight could tell by ear was one thing, but by her nose she could tell that the other woman's food had arrived. She could smell the stew and the freshly baked loaves of bread; every day an additional serving was made in the hope of it being eaten. Perhaps today would be different?

"But you are here, now. And you must rest and eat, rather than dwell upon what you cannot change. For me, please?"

 

[Syele Wilhart]

Sergeant Wilhart had not been oblivious to death.

The Northern Army was not a station for the faint of heart; its duties involved far more conflict than those of its peers. It was the shield against northern raiders, trained to withstand the sudden barrage of skirmishes and to reply in brutal kind. Even in her fledgling years, she had been witness to death—of Vel Anir's enemies, of her peers, and of those under her.

But never like this.

As the Knight at last offered an answer, that deluded notion of any hope began to fray like an old rope pulled taut by the weight of the bodies it held. That same weight pulled at the flesh of her face drawing pained lines that further ruptured weeping scalded flesh and invited sharp inhales. The pain was unrelenting, every small movement a monument to her injuries but still paled in comparison to the truth of not one living body outside those walls.

A truth papered over by vague possibilities, that what was known was only on one side. Perhaps not all were accounted for. Perhaps there were some who made it atop the keep.

Perhaps...

The very thought stung her heart, foolishly digging for a droplet of hope in a desert of death. Nobody had made it over the wall because they weren't meant to.

"I should be with them," Wilhart muttered in response to both Ranna and herself, as on the back of reality crept the cold hand of guilt. It sought blame in the aftermath, and retribution in kind. If she hadn't objected then perhaps they wouldn't have been the first in, or would have been ordered to assault a less fortified section of the walled city. At the very least they might have been sent to their deaths without deep ribbons cut into their backs. By virtue of being alive, she had failed them.

"Would you," she began to ask in almost a whisper, managing to turn her head slowly to look towards the Knight, or at least to the left of the other woman's head, seemingly unable to make eye contact.

"Would..."

Syele's gaze flitted downwards towards the woman's waist, searching for sight of a scabbard or sheath that might have held a blade in which to put things right.

The woman couldn't finish the question, nevermind think to respond to the request that she try to rest and eat, instead physically recoiling at the words that had almost slipped out of cracked lips. Even the slightest movement of flinching sent sharp stabs of pain through her core as if Wilhart's own body was admonishing her for being a wretched coward.

"Damn it!" Syele gasped in reaction to everything all at once, the torment of grief overwhelming all sense and decorum she might have possessed otherwise.

"I cannot do this!"

For what other reason was there for the Sergeant's sudden, albeit feeble attempt to roll off the side of the bed opposite Ranna and onto the floor?

 

[Ranna Anakanos]

The possibility of Syele escaping from the confines of her bed and the heavy woolen blankets that weighed down upon her weakened form was a scenario that Ranna had already considered, and so didn't hesitate at all in stopping the wounded woman from doing herself a great deal of unnecessary harm.

Ranna did try her best to be gentle in doing so, reaching out with firm and steady hands to prevent any intention of tumbling ungracefully upon the cleanly swept clay floor that paved the ground; mindful of the raw burns that still scarred Syele, she had tried to be careful as to where she placed too much pressure with her hands. At first it was to simply hold Syele fast from turning onto her side, and then as if doing so unconsciously, she re-adjusted the top duvet with her calloused, rough fingers so that it again draped across the blankets without a wrinkle.

As if she was tucking a child into bed, but what difference did that make?

"And who said that you must? Your heavy heart?"

The knight admonished Syele. Not with any particular sense of anger, but with an absentminded sort of concern; the words were spoken as she continued to adjust the woman's sheets in an idle, placating pattern that seemed to follow no rhyme or reason beyond giving her hands something to do. Her eyes something to follow that was not the ruin of the Sergeant's face, even if they did occasionally flicker between the two from time to time to make certain that no other foolishness was being attempted.

"By whose order would it be otherwise? You think your men would bid you give your life in some pointless penance? That they would not be rightfully outraged to learn that you squandered the exact thing you mourn them losing? Whatever debt you think you owe Syele Wilhart, you do not owe it to the dead."

Ranna had continued her mindless ministration of a blanket that had already seemed to be well and smoothed over, stopping for a point so that she could rise from hurting knees and instead deposit herself carefully atop the edge of the bed. With all the pretense of caring for the blankets of their hosts over with, her attention once again returned to the young woman as she leaned back in a display that spoke of a casual, rather careless ease.

The tension in her shoulders told another tale, of worry and concern.

For a woman as broad of shoulders and mindless of words as Ranna ofttimes was, her voice was surprisingly gentle then, speaking as if the answer was such a trivial truth to be seen by both of them. That the most obvious and cliché answer was nonetheless the right one, despite knowing that it meant so very little to those who had to live with the guilt. And the remorse.

"I cannot do what you want to ask of me either, child," was what she decided upon saying after a long moment, a rueful smile forming on her face after so easily guessing the unspoken desire of the woman; the flitting of their eyes. That hungry look was only too apparent to someone who understood all too well the depths of desperation that it sprung from. "You can have your bitterness and anger, Syele Wilhart. You can hate what happened and wish that things had gone differently, but you cannot undo what has happened by flagellating yourself. You owe it to the dead not to." She had added, after a moment. "You owe it to the living, as well. I do not have the heart to see more tragedy added to this world, not when it can be prevented."

Nor could she condone the recklessness of a woman who'd already fought so hard to survive, against all odds, and who continued to fight even in an attempt to end her own life. That the knight was able to prevent the woman from rolling out of bed was unsurprising due to their diminished strength, but given Syele's condition it was rather remarkable she'd gotten that far in the first place.

And as if coaxing a wild, unpredictable animal, the larger of the two women reached out a tentative hand to close over the wrist of the Sergeant from her perch upon the bed. The other had come to lay flat against the sheets of the bed, and appeared to flex its fingers against the soft material found underneath as if it was utterly uncertain of what it was meant to do at the moment.

Ranna was hardly any better, for she was never one for bedside manners. But she tried.

"Please, would you like to share a meal with me?"

That Syele had initially spurned the offer with her silence did not prevent Ranna from asking again, speaking with a quiet and gentle authority as she continued to play the role of the nursemaid. Had the woman outside the door been listening in on their exchange, maybe they might've assumed that she had some experience with the line of work; her tone was pleasant, but commanding. While her face was traced with faint lines of amusement while they discussed this... rather morbid topic, eyes colored with sympathy.

For better or worse, there was nothing to be done or to be changed. They had to all find ways to move past it, every day.

 

[Syele Wilhart]

Even without the knight's intervention, Syele's attempt to roll over was already foiled by her weakened form, the movement sluggish and met by the swift reminder of her injuries. It was a pain that screamed from every inch, from bandages pressing into tender, burnt flesh to broken bones that stabbed in wicked protest. It caused the woman to cry out as she was guided back into place by Ranna's careful hands.

The anguish did not shift from features half-obscured by bandages, torment lingering still in the sergeant's flesh and mind with no intention of releasing her.

Once more confined to the apparent prison of a comfortable bed, she was met with wisdom that, at the moment, was wasted. The knight's words were not untrue, her questions seeking sense in Wilhart's visceral reaction to the ruins of her duty. Perhaps, upon reflection, she might have looked back upon those words and found an inch of comfort or reason to survive and move forward, but it was not there and then, where thoughts were just as raw as flesh.

In place of sense, the claws of guilt dug deeper.

What would they think to see her now, so swift to crumble in the aftermath and seek to join them in a pointless end? Craven. Weak. Not fit to lead nor serve the people of Vel Anir. An imposter who had marched them to their graves in place of a better sergeant who would have done more to save them.

"Please, forgive me," Syele pleaded with a pained breath. Her eyes closed under the weight of shame, and the strain pulled heavily on her clenching jaw.

She might have wept were it not for the lingering drought that still afflicted her.

When Ranna Anakanos's hand touched her wrist, the Anirian opened her eyes and acknowledged the woman now sitting on the edge of her bed—this woman, this stranger who had pulled her from the field in place of those she served. The spectre of death still lingered upon the knight's face, rendering the guard incapable of offering anything more than wincing glances.

Syele did not wish to share that meal, partly because she still longed for oblivion to smother her suffering, but guilt and obligation to the knight won out over petulant misery.

"I will eat with you," she eventually replied with sullen and resigned tones, unsure why Ranna would even wish to spend any prolonged period of time in the company of a distressed invalid. To ensure that she did not attempt to harm herself? "But you should not... you do not need to stay with me. I will not be good company, ser."

She had only just acknowledged the knight properly and was already attempting to push her away. Ungrateful coward.

Beneath the backdrop of physical pain and cannibalising thoughts of grief lurked hunger. How long had it been since the proverbial last supper? Two days by her recollection, but likely much longer as she flitted in and out of consciousness. Despite that, it was difficult to think of eating; her appetite was extinguished by self-condemnation, the thought of carrying on still too great to bear.

Her face suddenly scrunched, causing a sharp inhale at the ripple of protest the movement created across her burns as she realised she could not eat while lying down. Her recommendation that Ranna leave began to feel foolish, and Syele's wish to be alone seemed dashed by her broken body.

"...would you help me sit up?" Wilhart asked, a great shame held in avoidant eyes.

 

[Ranna Anakanos]

"There is nothing to forgive."

Ranna had spoken then with such clarity that it would've been difficult for even the gods to budge her from her obstinate refusal to condemn the woman who so desperately wished for nothing more. And if Syele had desired to play the role of a sullen child, then she would only redouble her efforts of acting the part of a nursemaid; the fact that she wasn't very good at it was hardly important, so long as it was enough. At least for now.

All the rest of Syele's bedridden penitence hardly provoked any reaction from the older knight, who had never considered herself to be the best of company and so didn't really mind maintaining her presence beside the other woman - even if it meant eating in silence and sharing the solitude with someone she suspected neither wanted nor appreciated her presence.

Or the obscene lengths she went through for no other reason than her own ideal of duty. Or the pointless and clumsy words she spoke, all while knowing how little they could soothe a heart's ache. What she did do well, Syele would soon discover, was to simply be there. Neither demanding, nor seeking acknowledgement beyond when she was spoken to; her attentiveness always a present thing, but not to the point of smothering the poor girl.

That was, unless Syele attempted another panicked retreat from her bed.

And even if it meant enduring the brunt of the Sergeant's melancholy, she was content enough to do just that. Her only reply to the request for privacy was a shake of her head, permitting the unrestrained braid at the knight's back to sway idly from one shoulder to another. Whether that forceful refusal was from fear of self-harm, or simply because she was rather persistent when she wanted to be was anyone's guess.

With an answer to that question found moments after, despite it being only by coincidence.

Ranna's eyes flickered with a quiet sympathy while she watched Syele's attempts to lift their broken body into a sitting position; she had to restrain herself from doing as she promised herself not to do, and so permitted the woman a measure of her own autonomy. Her own sense of pride in making the attempt. It was important that she at least try, Ranna would not have denied her that much.

She had long since stood from the bed so that she'd provide no obstacle to the endeavor, no matter how likely it was meant to end in failure. Watching as Syele's eyes transformed from an expression of pain to one of dismay, her gaze avoidant as she asked the inevitable question: Would you help me sit up? Ranna had pretended not to notice the shame in the other woman's tone, understanding at once what it took to ask that.

That moment of vulnerability, and the appearance of weakness, was never a welcomed feeling.

Not only in warriors, for she knew the lowliest of beggars had their own pride.

"Yes, of course."

A prompt reply to Syele's plea that held nothing more or less than that same clarity as before, as if it was the most sensible and pragmatic path that could have been chosen. That's because it was. But it mattered that Syele understood that as well as she did, so she took great pains to treat it as nothing more than a task to be accomplished. She was good at that much, at least.

And like any doctor acting with clinical efficiency, utterly unperturbed by the lingering specters of vulnerability and weakness in the other woman's mind, Ranna had helped her sit up in bed somewhat.

To say that it was an easy task to accomplish would've been a lie, but she didn't have a single good reason to acknowledge it as she supported Syele's neck and shoulders, helping the woman into a half-sitting position of her own volition. There was more than one set of pillows, so it was a simple enough task of redecorating a little to make things a bit more tolerable; that was a task Ranna took to with the careful eye of someone who took care with those small details.

"I will bring your dinner and stay with you, if that's quite alright. This is the sole place of solitude in a household of... a great many children." Ranna had smiled at the admission, and made no attempts to hide it. The only reason that they were held at bay from invading Syele's sanctuary was because they were raised well enough. The social faux pas of interrupting a gravely injured woman's convalescence was something unthinkable to them, and even the youngest children had blanched at the notion.

On the other hand, Ida was quiet enough to be the exception, and Ranna could not deny that she enjoyed the girl's enthusiastic presence in a room carrying so much quiet solemnity, as if she were waiting vigil upon a corpse.

Even while this one still breathed.

And for days she had sat where Syele had first noticed the knight, holding her vigil.

Not that she was always there, she wasn't that dedicated. But it was often enough that a child's endless curiosity was left satisfied. And in return Ida would bring flowers into the room from time to time, fresh flowers and fresh herbs gathered from the plains around the village. Most of them wilted away in a handful of days, while others lived a little longer. Yet she would always return with fresh cuttings; the dead offerings upon the windowsill swept aside and replaced with lively surrogates. And with such speed that Ranna could've probably blinked and missed it.

Here was another girl with an attention to details.

Ranna had looked to that same window as she crossed the room, her voice carrying clearly. "And if my presence is no longer desired then you need only tell me. Though I would prefer to stay a little while, to make certain that you are able to eat without my assistance." She had reached the door at that point, turning around so that their eyes could meet. There was a softness in her gaze that carried no small hint of vague amusement. "But I also understand the need for privacy, child. You won't offend me by wanting that."

 

[Syele Wilhart]

As if there wasn't enough suffering, she would also have to experience the indignity of weakness alongside the pain of loss and the protest of wounded flesh. It only amplified that same shame that admonished the woman for her failings as a sergeant, branding her thoughts with vindictive words of self-loathing.

Useless. Pathetic.

The outcry of broken bones and blistered flesh as Ranna helped move her crippled body was almost a welcome reprieve in comparison. Gritted teeth attempted to smother any trace of an outcry, leaving behind only pained breaths and strangled groans. It was no great comfort that sitting up was now an awkward dance that rendered Syele no more capable than a bedridden ancient. What if it was to be the rest of her life?

It was a thought that only spread a sense of panic, to be a capable member of the Anirian Guard one day and then little more than an infirm carcass the next.

The notion almost caused her to miss the knight's words, who spoke of a house filled with children, hardly a thrilling prospect. She couldn't imagine the household's owners were particularly delighted to be hosting a disfigured wretch, either. Her only response was to grimace, creasing bandages that would soon be yellowed by the onslaught of pus from blistered flesh. Manners dictated that she should have been thankful, but circumstance could only breed misery.

Perhaps Ranna's company might have offered a precious scrap of a distraction, preventing Syele from further retreating into a shell where there was nothing else to focus on but suffering.

Or perhaps not, as the knight's admittance to wishing to ensure she could eat without help only deepened that pained expression. Weak. The thought of being unable to feed herself brought that panic back to the fore, and the sergeant felt it in shallow breaths that escaped her, staring back at the woman with an expression that grew increasingly vacant as Syele seemed to become a passenger in her own body.

"I... understand," she finally mumbled, wrenching back some semblance of control from the void. The parts of her face not covered by bandages somewhat softened into a more muted state of despair, resigned to existing rather than horrified by it.

"Where exactly..." Wilhart began to add before words changed mid-sentence, her bleary gaze turning downcast before rising once more in downtrodden curiosity, "...this is a family's home?"

She could feel that shame cresting again, the idea of imposing herself upon some humble family with too many children hardly appealing to her sensibilities.

"I cannot continue to steal a bed from them..."

 

[Ranna Anakanos]

There were no perfect words in times of grief, nothing to be said that could fill the absence of what was lost.

Ranna could offer platitudes, yes. Those hollow, empty phrases that were meant as consolation for those who had suffered in some way; those who had lost or damaged a piece of themselves beyond any credible way of replacing what was no longer there.

But how could platitudes - mere words - be any substitution for life? For the pain of living as a stranger in a broken body, or as a prisoner of a mind stricken with grief? To say: I'm sorry. You cannot undo what has happened by suffering the way you do. You owe it to this person or that person, or even to yourself, to find a way to move on from those things. To heal what could not be healed, only scarred over.

Those were the kind of self-assured, practical phrases that she had in abundance - sensible to a rational mind.

Yet she was quickly discovering how meaningless a tool words were against the irrational and broken. Her words most of all. But truly, was it any surprise? Ranna confronted trauma in much the same way she confronted everything else in the world; by observing and reacting accordingly to an immediate problem, always looking for an obvious fix, always happier to resolve things through willpower alone.

She was no surgeon to diagnose, but a butcher. With all of a butcher's reckless shortcomings.

But that was something she had always known about herself, and had come to terms with it.

She was perceptive enough to realize she had somehow said the wrong thing, but did she know how to react in the moment? No. Not in the way the other woman needed. She was certainly not so blind as to ignore the way Syele's eyes had withdrawn and had despaired about that as well; watching as the Sergeant's gaze turned away from the world of the living and to some place she could not reach.

When Syele had finally opened her mouth to ask a question that Ranna could actually answer was, in truth, a small blessing. She had been going over all that she had said in the hopes of discovering where the source of the offense came from so that she find some way to fix what was said, and had come up with nothing. The fact that some things simply couldn't be mended so easily was not an appealing reality to confront. Not to someone like her.

"This is a family's home, yes." Ranna had promptly confirmed, deciding for the moment to ignore any claim of theft while she took a step away from the door - and towards the bed-ridden woman - so that they could speak without raising their voices across the room. Her eyes met with Syele's, returning the curiosity with a measure of her own. "They call themselves the Stettenbakers, and you steal nothing from them. Not their bed, not their meals, not even their time. They give these things to you because they are kind, and because their god says it is right."

An obligation to help all who are in need, no matter who they might be.

That was what they were taught, and that was what they wanted to do; it was true that she had her own reservations about the matter as well, and did not want to impose two more bodies in a household with so many already, but could hardly afford to turn down their charity. Nor their insistences that she do anything but. Not when this Syele Wilhart needed somewhere to recover, in both body and mind.

There would be no argument, so said Ranna's eyes. Her amber gaze held Syele's own with an intensity that probably would've pinned anyone to the spot, should the other woman have been so inclined to escaping the confines of her sickbed for the second time.

Not that she held the contest of wills for too terribly long, it was only until she'd finished speaking her mind. And after that, she released Syele from it. No more frightful and meaningful stares - only a look of sympathetic understanding.

"They are more than happy to host us until the time you are recovered, Syele Wilhart. They consider it the duty of all faithful Kurwiqe to provide care for those who need it, for that is their custom, and it is a good one."

It was a good custom, and they were a decent, sensible people who considered hospitality one of the foundations of polite civilization. She had even said approximately the same thing as Syele had at one point, and had in turn asked for alternatives that would not impose so heavily upon the family's generosity. Not that it did a thing.

They had made up their minds and that was final; there would be no arguing with a people that were shocked by the mere idea of anything less than complete open-handedness with strangers.

Ranna had since then reached the side of the bed, laying a series of fingers upon the low wooden footboard. "Please, do not worry. There is more than enough space for everyone in this farmstead, and they offer nothing to you that they cannot already spare."

 

[Syele Wilhart]

In truth, did it matter what the Stettenbakers wanted? Was their kindness relevant? The moral guidance of their god a weight to tip the scales of Syele's guilt? No, their willing customs were irrelevant and did little to ease the uncomfortable fact that her broken body had become the burden of others, others that it was her duty to protect.

Yet, in that same thought, she felt the sting of her ingratitude. What kind of wretch would sit here and spit in the face of such a selfless act of hospitality, even if it was stated in the broken sanctuary of her mind?

The thoughts played out in silence across her face, the flesh not hidden, tensing and creasing in painful motions that hid nothing from prying eyes. It was unrelenting, like a broken bone not seen by the eye, her thoughts the brutish hands that placed pressure upon it. Were they even her hands? So vindictive and unrelenting, one after the other. One moment a cripple. The next a burden. The next an ingrate.

"...okay."

It was a mumble without eye contact; the avoidance of her gaze settled on the hands of the knight whose valiant attempt to provide comfort was lost.

Syele would continue to worry, that much was evident, but even the Sergeant could hear the lack of conviction in the single syllable that had struggled out of her mouth. She was unsure if she could cope with Ranna Anakanos' redoubling her efforts to try and soothe her soul.

"It is okay," Wilhart attempted again with the lie, no more convincing with her lack of eye contact but more insistent that she did not want to hear about how she was not a useless, broken burden swallowing the time and space that might have been better spent serving others.

"Will you... please thank them? For me?" she asked, looking up enough so that her eyes settled on the centre of Ranna's face, still avoiding where Erich lurked. "If there is any worth left in me then I will... I will find a way to pay them back. I must."

 

[Ranna Anakanos]

Ranna had recognized that look, and had watched as Syele had drawn upon what little willpower she had left so that she could put the weight and burden that she was carrying out of mind, if only for a little while. All so that she wouldn't seem to appear too weak; too ungrateful to a woman who was admittedly nothing more than a stranger who intervened on her behalf, for better or for worse.

Because Ranna's sense of duty demanded it of her, and she could not turn away from it.

Not even necessarily out of kindness, despite feeling herself to be a kind person.

But she was not very experienced in playing the role of caretaker, or in comforting those who'd been wounded by grief in the ways that damaged one's soul just as much as any battle wound. She herself was a stranger to that particular brand of kindness from others, and so the words she should've spoken would always be lost on her. Always some ephemeral concept she would never quite grasp.

However, it was a good thing that she could at least nod and put on an agreeable face, without saying anything more.

Not that it hadn't crossed her mind, and it almost appeared as if she was in fact going to break her silence - or looked as if she wanted to - after so clearly seeing through Syele's noncommittal agreement. But instead of any rebuke or desperate attempt to satisfy the other woman's guilt, she chose to give a knowing, if somewhat rueful smile. The corner of her lips barely curling, before nodding for a final time at the latest request.

"I shall tell them, of course."

That was her concise answer to a very complicated question; she would pass along the thanks, and even the promise of repayment, although she doubted somewhat that it would serve to soothe the woman's soul without action. Yes, that was something Ranna could commiserate with, and knew that such a debt one felt would not be sated by idle words, nor simple appreciation for a family's willingness to give what they could spare without the expectation of being owed anything.

The promise of repaying the kindness of strangers was certainly understandable, and Ranna had could appreciate that much without feeling the need to nag the poor woman any further. Not to mention the opportunity to restore a sense of dignity and agency; a way to demonstrate that she was no burden, and who wouldn't want such a thing? So yes, this was a goal that Ayl-Maltene Ranna Anakanos could very much agree with.

And she could not hold it against Syele for wanting that, no matter how many assurances she tried to provide the young woman that she free to be selfish, to not worry. That she was indeed no burden at all. Truly though, would Ranna have been any different?

Likely not, she had mused.

She had left the room then, having said all she could. But she wouldn't lie, it was a bittersweet end to her futile, frustrating attempts at saying the right things, and the failure wasn't an experience that she enjoyed in the slightest.

But there was obviously a lesson to be learned, however clumsy the learning of it had been, and an important one she would keep in mind. To use at the right moment. To listen, rather than to speak.

Eventually the knight returned to the room with its four white-washed walls and its single window, decorated with paltry little gifts of flowers and overlooking the distant golden expanse of the plains, with only the hazy silhouettes of mountains an untold distance away to break up the monotony of so much swaying grassland.

There were also two plain, unadorned clay bowls with deep rims in each of her hands; the scent of it was as savory as it was hearty, and no doubt even a bandaged nose could pick up on the aroma of a well prepared stew. Both bowls were brimming with diced potatoes that had worked as a starch as it had cooked, adding a little texture, as well as a vague mélange of vegetables; carrots, onions, leeks, parsley root. Not to mention thin strips of some kind of beef, enough to add to the meal's taste without overwhelming.

Ranna had not seen fit to fill Syele's bowl with an entire helping, but rather a more moderate portion, wondering how much of the heavier stew would agree with the woman in her condition.

After one final trip, with which she managed to return with a pair of earthenware cups that thankfully only seemed to contain water, she sat back upon her perch at the edge of the bed while adjusting the small, squat bedside table so that it could better serve as... well, a table. When she was satisfied with the arrangement, she maneuvered herself so as to permit Syele some much appreciated room. And to find a comfortable enough position from where she could eat and talk at the same time.

Whether they would do a great deal of talking, however? That was up to debate.

At least the stew smelled good enough to persuade even the most revolting of stomachs; the Kurwiqe were by no means a conservative people when it came to the herbs that grew in so much abundance in this place. It was certainly obvious now by the aroma that had no trouble with filling the room with the scent of paprika and other warm spices.

"If you insist upon repaying our hosts, then you must eat, first." Ranna finally spoke after what seemed like an eternity of silence had passed. For a bandaged woman who had been badgered from the moment she'd first stirred awake in order to escape feverish dreams? She would not be blamed for enjoying it. Nor did Ranna seem so intent on disturbing the peace, this time around.

However, she did make a necessary disclaimer: "Tell me if you need help, and I will help. Okay?"

Even as the choice was given to Syele, it was clear that Ranna would help a little - making quiet adjustments when necessary.

 

[Syele Wilhart]

The silence in the knight's absence was a welcome reprieve.

Even if it did little to lessen the feeling of being a thankless burden, it still allowed a slice of solitude where she could breathe away from the noble intentions of Ranna Anakanos, who seemed to have assigned herself the responsibility of boosting her morale with all the intensity of a death-sworn oath.

Ingrate. Should have been glad there was anybody. Could have been left there to rot. Would have been better.

Syele interrupted spiralling thoughts by focusing on the present, her stare finding purchase in the flowers in the window and tracing over the vibrant array of petals. The woman couldn't name them, even if she tried, never having been one of those girls who found themselves enamoured by pretty, delicate things. She was practical; a tanner's daughter expected to carry on the trade before the call of steel and duty found her heart.

She'd never thought about flowers.

An attempt was made to gingerly shift within the confines of the bed, the merciless tightness of the sheets having been loosened somewhat by Ranna's assistance helping her sit up. Every movement was a trial, a testament to the broken state of her body: a twinge, a pang, an ache. The flesh beneath her bandages seared still, even now, long after the damage had been done, and every time the Sergeant winced or sucked in air between her teeth, she was reminded.

Her right hand, unscathed in the aftermath, curled and unfurled into a feeble fist as if boasting its mobility to the rest of her limbs, which did not cooperate with the same degree of competency. Her left was a bandaged mass that made her fearful to see the scalded flesh beneath, swollen and blistered. Wilhart's legs seemed more cooperative at first, with an immediate sense of relief forming that she could feel them, even if the right felt heavier and ached with a low rumble. However, when the woman flexed her feet, she was met with a sharp reflexive spasm from her back, forcing her entire form to jerk in a gasping flinch that again set every nerve alight.

The brief and painful appraisal had taken long enough for her caretaker to return with their meal. The hearty aroma wafting forth from the bowl finally reminded Syele of her hunger, and she could not deny that it smelled far more appealing than any practical ration consumed on the road. Even still, she waited for Ranna's return with the water before making an attempt to eat.

"I will."

It was no dignified affair but one met by the determination to be capable of such a simple task.

Wilhart's right arm was stalwart, the only functioning part of a shattered machine that had to make every movement. It was humbling to have to put so much effort into eating the bowl of stew, now balanced on her lap with a fearful caution about staining the sheets. Where a neck might have bowed a head to meet the spoon, her lagging hand had to compensate, and even that held lethargic tremours from disuse over the past days spent in the barest traces of consciousness.

Even chewing required concentration, as Syele mulled over each mouthful with the least amount of movement possible. Every twinge was met by an attempt to suppress the pained reaction lest the knight offered to spoonfeed her, a thought her mangled psyche could not even begin to bear.

"It is very good," she had eventually commented in muted tones, her promise of being poor company an honest one.

In truth, it was good, but the woman had been so focused on eating and not spilling a drop that taste became secondary and, therefore, wasted upon her.

Ranna might have been able to finish three bowls in the time it took her to finish her small portion. In truth, her hunger had been sated after a scant few mouthfuls, but she hadn't the heart to send back anything other than an empty bowl, and the effort to do so had been monumental.

The only minor consolation from the endeavour was that Syele's focus was entirely spent on eating, leaving little room for the cannibalising thoughts forced to bide their time for a fresh chance to strike.

She only opted for the water once her meal was done, preferring not to risk the battle of a balancing act between the bowl and the cup. The woman was reticent to even drink, despite her thirst, for reasons too grim to even dwell on but knew full well that she would have a knight politely insisting upon it were she to refuse.

"I am... quite tired," Syele admitted in a low mumble after having finished her water, her gaze still avoidant, ashamed that such a simple task had been so exhausting. "Would you help me lay down again, Ser? And... please thank the Stettenbakers again; it was delicious."

For a moment, she managed to look up, seeking nervous eye contact out of a mark of obligation more than a want to do so.

"And thank you. I..." Whatever words were to follow were lost as Wilhart grimaced and reiterated her gratitude instead, "Thank you."

 

[Ranna Anakanos]

There would be no denying that Ranna was equally poor company when they'd finally went about eating the meal that the Stettenbakers had prepared for them. Her flood of words from earlier had only been borne out of desperation to make a dent in the seemingly impenetrable wall of sullenness that Syele had built up and shut herself away behind.

Which, of course, only had the opposite effect.

It was a strange feeling; the memories of another equally sullen young woman coming to the forefront of her mind as they quietly ate together, and Ranna couldn't help but compare the admittedly few similarities the two shared, as well as the many contrasts.

How old was Sitra, now? About ten years of age since she'd last seen the girl? Yet she had already constructed a similar wall around her, with the same efficiency as an adult ravaged by war's trauma.

Of course she said none of this, merely nodding in agreement when the taste was brought up.

"I think so as well. It's good that they did not ask me to cook." Ranna made a face of wry amusement as she was presented with that hypothetical prospect. The vast majority of her life had been spent outside the bounds of civilization; in the vastness of untamed deserts and overgrown forests, in the most remote of places that few souls dared to tread.

She had never been a good cook, for she had no discernible reason to be. Other than to feed her own undemanding belly the paltry fare of whatever she had hunted or collected for herself - and herself alone. "I suspect it would not have been nearly as palatable had they let me anywhere near the kitchen."

And then she lapsed into a agreeable silence once more, sitting with her back facing the room's singular window while she ate her portion of the meal with the same briskness that was characteristic of all the things she did out of necessity.

For her there was no point drawing out the mundane with unnecessary relishing or pauses, signifying her as a dinner quest who'd probably have very few complaints about what was being offered, or how it was being offered, for that matter.

So they ate and the rest of the time was passed in relative peace and quiet, only occasionally disturbed by the faint scrapes of utensils against the clay sides of their bowls, or the clinking of ceramic cups upon the nightstand, for Ranna did not hesitate as Syele had in spurning the drink that was provided.

The day had been hot, and the water was still as cool as when it was drawn from the well.

When Syele had finished her meal and had asked to convey her appreciation for the meal, Ranna had nodded once again and said that she would. And when the soldier had then asked for her help in returning to a more comfortable spot in her bed in order to rest, Ranna had acknowledged that she would do that as well, as dutifully as before.

Her actions were as efficient as they were methodical; she was cautious not to aggravate one of the many wounds that had yet to properly mend, or to disturb any of the bandages or damp herbal plasters meant to alleviate inflammation and prevent infection. There was also an unspoken apology drawn into the tight lines of her face after she was done, knowing that there would undoubtedly be pain no matter how gentle she was.

The fact that Syele had been able to sit up and eat was a miracle in of itself, and Klara - the constantly watchful, overbearing matriarch of the household - had made it a point to comment that it was unlikely the injured woman possessed the strength yet to accomplish that exact feat in the first place. It was only meant as a kindly offer that was to be levied either way, for that was simply how the Kurwiqe treated their guests.

Syele had surprised her, and the Kaliti woman could not dismiss the private smile she'd found forming on her lips. Perhaps that also had to do with being thanked? Ranna had not expected the earnest expression of gratitude, nor had understood why she was being thanked beyond that it was the expected thing to do. What exactly did Syele have to thank her for, besides saving her life?

The list seemed rather short, in all honesty. She could have done more.

But she couldn't say that she wasn't touched.

"You are welcome," Ranna answered quietly, the smile that was still on her face flickering between self-consciousness, understanding and vague embarrassment as she leaned over the bed, ensuring the woolen blankets were pulled comfortably over the bedridden woman without unduly irritating any of Syele's injuries.

I'm sorry that I can only do so little.

"Try to get some rest if you can, Syele Wilhart. I will give you your privacy."

***​

That was one of the better days, where Syele's recuperation seemed to take a more positive turn.

If only things had stayed that way, rather than succumbing to a spiral of uncertainty; the days where improvement was less evident, or where the wounded woman was so feverish that they feared she die in the night were far more common than the ones where Syele appeared healthy and coherent enough to carry out a conversation, or even sit up.

The matriarch of this household had been partially right in her assessment, after all.

Ranna sat by the soldier's bedside when she seemed on the precipice of life and death, maintaining that same vigil in the case that the worst came to pass and it was necessary to conduct hasty deathbed rites in the dead of night. It would not have done for a soul so restless as Syele's to be left too long in the limbo that came between death and the afterlife. So the other woman made certain that she would not be alone for too long.

She had taken up shifts during that time with the other women of the household, whom she found to be easy enough to get along with and nothing but pleasant. Women such as Klara, Ida, Danya. All three of them were more than happy taking up the task with a quilt or other idle household chore in hand whenever she felt the need to stretch her legs and breathe the fresh air of the steppe.

But as the days had turned to weeks and the fever had mostly broken, Ranna was out for longer periods of time - disappearing from the homestead for days rather than hours. There was no other choice. She had another duty to attend to in addition to the proud soldier in her swaddle of bandages and haunted dreams, and could not ignore one in favor of the other.

Obviously there were questions. Bernhard made it a point to ask, but he'd also helped however he could.

That was also the way of the Kurwiqe; they were a very curious people. They would ask, and Ranna would reply whenever the answer was something she was comfortable divulging. Thankfully they never pressed too harshly and respected her secrecy more often than not, and in return the entirety of the village was more than happy to share what they knew.

Of the disappearances. Of the rumours. Of the chaos and banditry that now loomed over the broken land since civil war had ravaged all sense of peace and normality from its soil. It was no longer a world where they felt comfortable leaving their doors unlocked at night, fearing little and less from their neighbors - friends and family all.

Now they sat at the edges of their fields so that they could deter looters and the endless flood of desolate, desperate people that churned the main thoroughfares into a river of wagons and shoes with peeling soles in an attempt to escape from the war at their backs. Even the city was no longer safe, and whole families had left it in favour of the uncertainty of the road before them, looking neither left nor right in their escape.

And so stood the farmers and their children, their gaze straying away from their unharvested fields and instead to the distance, eyes watching for what lurked past the reach of their humble village and their easy, uncomplicated lives. The wind blowing from the north no longer carried the familiar scents of grassland and steppe herbs, but instead the suffocating hint of smoke.

That was the horizon that Ranna rode into, passing by an ocean of desperation from atop her horse.

Vel Anir spoke of how the war was over, but nobody seriously believed it to be true. Beyond the fields it had crouched, lingering like some unseen thing. Everyone waited for it to pounce upon their village, next.

So perhaps it was a kindness that Syele had slept through all the anxiety; all the unknowing? Ida and Danya spoke little of it whenever it was their turn to look after the soldier, instead preferring idle conversation and gossip to pass the time in good spirits. Klara for her part spoke little, if at all. She was as content as Syele was in the silence that was only occasionally broken up by the rattling of her knitting needles.

Bernhard still tended to his fields, and his sons still helped him when they weren't on other chores. Life was mostly normal. The village of Mottgrenkte stayed quiet, each one of them thanking God for preserving their peace from the darkness that threatened and snarled from beyond the sanctity of their borders.

But Ranna nonetheless saw the worry in their placid faces, and knew that their worries were not unwarranted. And yet what was she to do, as one person?

The next time Ranna left the village, she made the decision to make a detour to the Anirian garrison.

Not only for Mottgrenkte's sake, but also for the sake of Syele Wilhart.

 

[Syele Wilhart]

She couldn't bring herself even to try and return the smile, not only because of the pain that would have graced her bandaged face but because the thought of doing so felt impossible.

Sergeant Wilhart understood the need for gratitude in terms beyond simple good manners. After all, how many bodies were picked from the killing fields by the helping hands of strangers? It was no ordinary occurrence; the wounded masses were more likely to be finished off by the sweeping blade of an enemy if they were unlucky or tended to by a butcher masquerading as a field surgeon if they were lucky.

And surely a knight of any order had better things to do than tend to sullen cripples.

Perhaps with time, she might have made it up to Ranna Anakanos and the Stettenbakers with more than half-croaked words of thanks and an aura of abject misery. A promise was made, and she did not need another ounce of guilt to weigh down the scales further. The Anirian Guard existed to protect the people, not steal their beds, eat their food and take them from their labour. And that intention to repay them was the only reason she could find not to give up.

Provided she survived another night.

Those hostile, intrusive thoughts desired that she did not, but the notion was kept far away from her lips lest the bastion by her side sprung into a new speech in hopes that it might have roused her. Instead, she sought rest as instructed, which was the only thing the woman could do of her own volition.

And even then...

In sleep, Syele found nought but wretched memory.

She was at the wall as events that had played out in reality warped beyond all sense. Those hectic minutes of barked orders on the assault stretched into impossible hours, the chaos never lessening despite warped time. The sergeant knew what grim fate was soon to greet them all but found herself in a body only capable of going forward in oblivion's determined recreation.

They all fell once more.

One by one.

Out of the corner of her mind's eye, Wilhart could feel a stare upon her, that silent judgment of decaying eyes on the peripheral of her vision as crossbow bolts rained down alongside rocks and boiling pitch. It remained as Held and Galter fell again and lurked still on her doomed ascent up the ladder, watching silently as the tar clung to her screaming visage.

Finally, Erich's death mask found its resting place atop her once more.

She could feel everything.

The heat of wicked burns, the numbing chill of those long nights. There was even pain she had not felt in the origin: numb, heavy limbs replaced by ones that ached and seared.

When Syele screamed, it felt real in her throat, just as the pallid sweats and burning flesh did.

It was so hard to breathe.

A vague recollection told her that she had screamed herself awake, only to find concerned faces looming overhead, equipped with cooling wash clothes and fragrant herbs to slip between gnashing teeth. Delirium lied and promised her that it was all part of the nightmare where she was confined to that sodden bed for all eternity—useless, ugly, screeching flesh.

It was not a one-time occurrence.

In the succession of nightmares, sometimes Wilhart traced her steps to the wall exactly as it had happened, and in others, she found herself pinned beneath Erich as if he lived behind her eyelids.

Eventually, Syele began to recognise those visions for what they were. While the woman still woke screaming at times, she could claw back at the scraps of reality and realise that she was safe, constantly under watch by either Ranna or one of the household's women. She might have appreciated their vigilance if she had been more cognizant.

They had called it a fever, stemming from an infection in her broken leg. The sergeant had rasped more sullen gratitude at the fact that they had managed to clean and save the limb but had not found the will to tell them that the nightmares continued. Wilhart doubted she needed to; split-seconds of mournful glances were telling enough. It wasn't a topic anybody needed to broach, so they did not.

Instead, at the better end of those hellish weeks, Syele sought distraction in her promise to repay their charity. Her mobility was still limited, but she could sit up unassisted, albeit carefully and use her arms with only moderate pain from the burns.

She had asked for small chores, things she could do while sitting to keep herself occupied lest she dwelled on the dead in miserable stasis. They were happy to oblige, although careful to ensure the wounded woman did not push herself in challenging endeavours like folding laundry. It was laughable that a child's chore was now the height of her abilities and a miracle that the thought did not make her weep.

Having soon graduated from laundry duty (or, as she suspected, having folded everything possible at least thrice), Wilhart had been entrusted with a paring knife and a bowl to whittle away at fruits and vegetables gradually so she could at least contribute to the food she had been eating. It still stung, the burns on her arm beneath bandages that now remained dry protesting at the movement, but it was tolerable at least.

It was Klara's day to watch over her.

Of all the Stettenbakers, Wilhart found her company the most palatable, as her silence was the most comfortable. Not that she loathed the others; Ida and Danya were certainly distracting, while Ranna, who was increasingly absent, was very much the crusader of good morale, but she almost enjoyed the peace of Klara's presence.

No need for any words to be said, just industrious hands that kept idle thoughts at bay.

 

[Ranna Anakanos]

There was a sort of compassion to be found in silence.

Not that Klara had ever been a very talkative woman, in all honesty.

Even in her youth, the reserved matriarch was ever the dutiful, responsible child of the family; the penchant for meaningless conversation and empty pleasantries were qualities that never quite suited her, and had never come to her naturally.

But did she ever begrudge the fact? No, of course not. Nor did she need to. The Kurwiqe were a sensible people - more interested in the value of hard work than in the wagging of one's tongue, and her husband was no different.

For in his youth, Bernhard Stettenbaker was known as a quiet and introspective man.

That was not to say he was a man who held no thoughts or opinions of his own, only that it was in his nature to choose his words carefully, and with deliberate thought. It was one of the traits she admired the most in her husband, even as children. Her quiet disposition matched his own, and there was a sense of stability discovered in the mutual understanding. Something that neither of them ever needed to put into words, luckily enough.

Their marriage was thus a practical one, borne from that mutual understanding.

That they also loved one another was merely a happy coincidence.

So she understood the need for silence, and understood the compassion to be found in a person's company. To sit together with nothing more than the presence of the other, without the overbearing need to fill the quiet hours of the day when there was work to be done and satisfaction to be found in simple companionship.

The matriarch of the Stettenbakers was hesitant at first about allowing their guest to assist in the household chores, but even she could admit that Syele's injuries no longer threatened her life in quite the same way as before. The fever had finally broken, and the nights where the former soldier thrashed about in the throes some delirious nightmare became fewer and farther in-between.

At least now they were manageable, and thank god for that; it was an encouraging development when they no longer needed to hold the poor woman down to keep her from accidentally hurting herself, or to prevent her from reopening old wounds. Of course, the path towards recovery was still going to be a slow and tedious one, but it seemed like it would proceed without further complications.

Or Klara had hoped. Reality was not always so kind.

But it seemed like Syele was able to move from her bed with enough help, and was willing to find any way to repay the family for their generosity. What was there for Klara to do in the face of such insistence beyond relenting, and allowing the wounded woman find some measure of peace in doing what she could, instead of endlessly fretting about being a burden upon her hosts?

From then on, the routine was an easy and comfortable one. And Klara - ever the diligent housewife - could find no complaints about Syele's experience with mundane chores. Perhaps on occasion she would wipe her calloused hands on an apron so that she might stride over to inspect the soldier's work, and maybe reach over in order to refold an article of laundry to meet her exacting standards, but those instances were surprisingly infrequent.

And in time she no longer watched with such careful eyes, having been pleasantly surprised by Syele's attention to detail. It was not something she ever expected in a soldier, and the doughty matron could only nod in her rare displays of approval before tucking a string of greying hair beneath her kerchief and going back to whatever task she had abandoned so that she might supervise their guest's work.

Meanwhile, Klara's two daughters were never far away, and were much less reserved about expressing their approval - cheerfully complimenting Syele's work as well as her progress whenever they could.

And for very different reasons, as Syele might've soon guessed. Danya was the eldest, and so took on the role of the eldest daughter; reliable and conscientious in all the ways her mother was. Ida, on the other hand, was thrilled to share the burden of their errands with someone else.

The youngest child was not necessarily disdainful of hard work, but she did not find the same joy in accomplishing them as her mother or sister did. She had other interests beyond folding linen and washing dishes she much preferred to indulge. Such as her curiosity.

As to what she was curious about? Everything and anything, as it happened.

There was hardly a limit to the younger girl's interests, and their unexpected guest was an irresistible novelty, as well as a temptation that she could hardly ignore. And without Ranna to act as a cushion between Syele and Ida, the soldier could only hope to find solace from the prying questions when in Klara's steadfast company.

Thankfully, Ida was never too intrusive with her questioning and Klara was always prompt in interceding when it became excessive, or when she noticed Syele's evident discomfort.

Honestly, the matron of the family was used to Ida's proclivities by this point, even if she hadn't the faintest clue where her youngest child inherited such an insatiable desire to learn, considering how neither she nor Bernhard ever possessed an inquisitive streak. Both of them were content in the simplicity of a life that had always provided for their physical and spiritual needs.

But it was clear to the mother how Ida hungered for something beyond their simple village, with its promise of a comfortable, unremarkable future; beyond the fields and the livestock and the same endless procession of chores. A life where everything could be bought and paid for with hard labour and faith, and where reputation mattered more than material wealth.

It was the path that Klara had chosen, as had her mother before her. Would it have been so terrible to have expected Ida to choose the same? She knew her daughter did not hold the same aspirations, but still quietly held out hope that it was nothing more than the restlessness of youth.

It was even something she had initially wanted to temper, like she had with her other children. Or at least until Bernhard convinced her not to stifle the opportunity for their youngest child to find her place in the world.

Ida would be their last, and the father found himself far more open-minded of their youngest's desire to learn more of the world beyond the village of Mottgrenkte. It was not a thing they ever accommodated for the other children.

But despite Klara's unease at the prospect of the unknown, and despite her fears that the unknown had a way of swallowing up wayward children, she had eventually agreed to Bernhard's request. She relented as much as her own morals allowed, and did her best not to chastise Ida as the brown-haired child once again turned to pester Syele, sewing needle in hand.

"May I ask where you mean to go, when you are better?"

The clicking of Ida's needle stilled for a moment as she readjusted the shirt in her lap, a frown flitting across the girl's face as she inspected her work with a critical eye. The darning of garments was not something she particularly enjoyed, or held any actual talent in, but it was an excuse to enjoy the company of the injured woman.

At least for a little while.

The children were rarely allowed to linger long with their newest guest before their mother shooed them away on the pretense of another chore that needed to be done. Klara was no fool; she understood that Syele wanted some measure of privacy, and would only permit her children to keep them company so long as they were being useful.

Therefore, Ida had taken up sewing.

"I assume once the campaign is over, you'll be returning home?" There was a thoughtful pause as the girl's expressive gaze lifted from her lap, and she tried her best to look Syele in the eyes.

Ida's features were almost too composed as she stared at the ruins of the sergeant's face, trying her best not to avert her stare. "I mean... I assume you come from Vel Anir, since you're in the guard? If you don't mind me asking."

The fact that the region was already within the borders of Vel Anir did not register to the girl.

Nor was it likely to register to anyone living in Mottgrenkte, for that matter.