Private Tales You'll Find Them

[Hahnah]

Spoiler: From "The Only Answer"

Hahnah saw the raising of Nycto's hands. Heard what he was saying, but his words washed over her to little effect, much like the tide of the sea splashing around a firm rock. Her fright had not relinquished its grip. Nycto was human--he would be human--just beneath that mask, she knew it. He was a killer of elves, and he would kill her too because that was the command of the sin he held in his heart. To this narrative she clutched, whether or not it was true. The shock and immediacy of the moment had boiled away all but the deepest and most fundamental parts of her being.

Tera grabbed Hahnah's hand, and this was like a shattering of the ice that had kept her locked in place. She ran along with Tera. Not thinking. Just in the motion. She knew that Tera was a human, but Tera had not killed any elves that Hahnah had seen--an unspoken, instinctual decision had therefore been made.

They didn't get far.

Back on the down-sloping street that had brought Hahnah to Idreth's home, Tera went down. Kicked in the head. Hahnah's first thought was that it was the red-haired woman, the one who had spoken of the tomb of the Dying God. But this was wrong--it was not. In the blink of an eye that masked human--Nycto--had again appeared from the long shadows and he engaged the assassin.

Hahnah took a few steps backward, thoughts racing. She thought to perhaps defend the assassin, to help him kill Nycto, but she could not see if the assassin was an elf--likely, but she had not seen. But then that terrible fracturing, the split in her mind between what she believed and what she had witnessed. It stifled her from taking action.

She looked down to Tera. Said, "I am sorry. I am sorry." She knew not why she was apologizing. Yet the words came all the same.

Then Hahnah turned.

Ran up the street.

And only got two steps before a handbolt from one of the Fellowship's wrist-mounted crossbows streaked by her. She stopped. Gasped. She glanced around in the dark street at the enshadowed homes and buildings and could not see her assailant.

In a harried desperation that reached down to many levels, Hahnah spread her arms in a beseeching manner and called out, "I am not your enemy! I love all of Elvenkind! Elves are one of the good people of Arethil! They are good! You are g--!"

A handbolt slammed into Hahnah's chest, just beneath the bone of her sternum. The impact forced her to stagger backward, knocked the strength from her legs, and caused her to fall back. Down on her rear end, propped up weakly by her arms.

Hollow were her eyes, save for horror at what just happened.

The sounds of combat, dispersed and fading even as they were, behind Hahnah. Behind and distant. Like echoes of someone else's life playing out in the downward street leading to the Shallows of Alliria. And that is truly what it felt like to Hahnah, as if she now were a person separated from all that had happened behind her, near Idreth's home.

Back there was a person who knew simple truths of the world. That elves were of the good people of Arethil, and that Humankind carried the profanity of sin.

Back there was a person who harbored no doubt. A person who trusted fully in the beliefs she had come to hold.

Back there was a person who understood her purpose and knew it to be blessed by the God who watched over her. For in all that she did, if she felt it to be good, she knew it to be good. Her heart always blossomed when she did what was right and wilted when she stumbled into doing what was wrong. There was no moral compass more precise than this.

Yet...all of this was changing. Slowly, softly, and silently, despite the stalwart resistance. And the handbolt, the miniature crossbow bolt fired from one of the Fellowship's wrist-mounted crossbows, imbedded in her chest was but one harbinger of such change. Idreth, the simple act of speaking with him, all of the talks they had shared during her time in Alliria, had been another. Much of what he said...was becoming clarified.

Hahnah stumbled along. One hand clutching the handbolt stuck in her chest, just beneath the bone of her sternum, the other palming the facades of houses and buildings for support as she trekked by. There was no blood that stained her shirt, even though with a wound as grievous as that there should well have been.

Hahnah, with a quick, strained look back over her shoulder, checked to see if any of the elves of the Fellowship (or any of those who had also come to Idreth's home) were following. She did not see anyone with her haphazard glance. And she stumbled into the small space between two workshops, the alley darkened by the failure of the moonlight to peer down into its narrow confines.

Her back to a wall, Hahnah slid down to into a seat, legs splayed out. She breathed. Winced heavily. Looked down with dismay to the handbolt she clutched, the bolthead still buried in her body.

Kyla Scathach

 

[Kyla Scathach]

She had left the house shortly after retrieving the book.

Something had told her not to destroy it immediately. She wasn’t sure why but as her hand strayed to the fire to drop the book in..

Something had stopped her. Strange things were at work and Kyla didn’t like it one bit. She had tucked it away and was leaving down one of the back alleys between two shops. The moons light did little to pierce the dark veil and she found that out the hard way as she tripped over a person sat there.

“What the..” She cursed as she fell heavily pulling herself back up expecting to be met by some beggar cursing her. Instead her eyes cut through the gloom and foucused on the girl. That half elf from before. “You should have been long gone with that friend of yours.” Kyla said dryly picking her up by the arm not clutching the bolt and holding her aloft like she was some kind of toy.

“What stopped you?” She asked as her eyes fell on the bolt she was still clutching. “Oh..That would do it..” She adjusted how she was holding the girl instantly moving to cradle her in a sense. She was already covered in blood. What was a little more.

She held the girl protectively tight as she glanced about to see if the attacker was still out and about. When it seemed to grow more apparent they were not she carried the girl back to Irideths quickly. “Just keep breathing. Don’t die on me ok? I’ve seen enough death tonight.” She said entering the partly demolished home and laying her on his bed.

“This might hurt, but just hang in there alright?” She said gently. Her hand quickly snapping to the bolt and yanking it free. She found fast and abrupt was the best way to deal with pulling things out. Anticipating often made people’s muscles tense and made the bolt or arrow harder to pull free.

Tossing the bolt aside and pulling up her shirt she realized there was no blood. “Who are you.” She growled her hand flying to the girls throat. A vice like grip gave the impression she could squeeze much tighter if she didn’t like the answer. “What are you!” She said getting more angered. “Did my sister send you! Answer me!”

 

[Hahnah]

A thud, a jolt of her body, and someone tripping over her leg as an equally jarring jolt of alarm coursed through her. Alarm that was heightened to a frigidity that solidified her muscles in place as she was hauled up from the ground by her arm.

She saw who it was. The red-headed human woman. The elf killer.

Again she could not speak. Again she could not move, even if this time it was more on account of the shock of her wound and of being held tightly than by the sheer arresting horror of witnessing (elves...why elves?) kill Idreth. She knew immensely that she was still in danger, that the elves of the Fellowship were many, that the armored men called guards of Alliria were many, and most imminently that she was in the clutch of the woman who had crushed an elf to death with her hands and her arms alone.

Just keep breathing. Don't die on me ok? I've seen enough death tonight.

Humans were liars. It meant nothing to them to do so as they pleased and as it suited them. This one was lying--

(right?)

--no matter the content of her words. Yet, that uncertainty. Plaguing her ever since she had been bidden by the Dying God to walk among them, ever since her first steps in doing so.

Hahnah did not see from the outside that she had been brought back to Idreth's home, but she recognized the interior once inside--the damaged wall from which the red-headed woman had first appeared not inhibiting this.

This might hurt, but just hang in there alright?

Hahnah only realized what she was about to do when it too late to try and stop her, only a small utterance of "Wai--" escaping her mouth before the bolt was snapped and yanked free of her body. Hahnah winced heavily, teeth clenched and sucking in air, and she arched her back in an involuntary spasm. The bolthead, now removed, was the only thing which had blood upon it.

No blood around the wound when Kyla pulled up Hahnah's shirt to examine it. No blood...but small black fibers, like the searching antennae of probing insects, were poking forth from the hole left by the bolt. They moved of their accord, gliding languidly and writhing luridly, each seeking to thread through Hahnah's flesh and to slowly suture the wound shut. They were the fibers of what Hahnah called her Living Armor, the symbiotic entity which lived with her, once on the outside of her body and now within.

And the red-headed woman had seen them. And, as Hahnah feared, became hostile and aggressive as soon as she did.

A hand snapped to her neck. Choking. Loud questions. Demanding.

Hahnah reflexively brought her hands to Kyla's wrist but this was just that, mere reflex, and her strength paled in comparison to Kyla's own and would achieve nothing. But five Knives of Elemental Hatred formed in a halo around Hahnah's head and shoulders. Manifestations of flesh-consuming sorcery. The gift of magic from the Dying God, received long ago when she needed it most.

All five floating knives pointed at Kyla. Ready to launch.

"You are an elf killer," Hahnah said, her voice strained from Kyla's grip about her throat. Yet the words elf killer lacked the conviction she once would have had for them.

(because Hahnah was an elf killer too. the elf in the roadside tavern. what else could she have done...?)

She did not know who this woman was or who her sister was. She ignored it. Said, strained, "You are profane. And of profane things, I am the cleanser..."

Kyla Scathach

 

[Kyla Scathach]

“Ha!” Kyla laughed. She couldn’t help it. The knives were odd but did not scare her in the least. It was foolish but she simply assumed most things wouldn’t kill her.

A foolish habit she tried to fight most of the time. Taking every threat as if it could end her life, but in this moment she simply didn’t care. Too much was happening for her to be trouble by something as trivial as death. If it came from the little jack knife well...She could use the rest.

“Elf killer? Yes. That and about every other race. I don’t think I’ve killed one of those angel things people see about now and again, but yes. I am.” She said her hand still tight to the girls throat. She spoke again.

“Hahaha! oh great cleanser please don’t smite me with your magic! Ha!” She spat. “And while you try I’ll just pop your head off like a cork. We can see which of us survives what.” She leaned in close. “Is that what you would like?” She whispered. “So you can go be with your human hating comrades that just killed one of my old friend. Did he need to be cleansed the same?”

She was starting to shake with contained rage as the thought of his corpse face down in the muck he so despised. Tears began to run down her face.

Tears of anger and true sorrow. One fell from her face and dripped to fall on Hannah’s cheek. “Then come on. Take your shot and let’s get this over with.” She hissed.

 

[Hahnah]

Hahnah held her nerve as best she could. The red-headed woman did not show fear and that was abnormal. That lack of fear from her was inspiration of dread in Hahnah--a deep and primal response, one rightly so, for the absence of fear hinted at something unknown, dangerous.

A killer of many things, many people. It was what she would expect from a human.

The following sarcasm was lost on Hahnah, with her tendency to take speech literally, and there was only a brief and visible confusion as the red-headed woman's words did not match her tone. The woman leaned in close then.

Is that what you would like?

Hahnah would have answered, No, that is not what I would like, but the woman continued and in this continuation something strange. Something that she had said. Old friend. Surprise became Hahnah. She knew that Idreth had many friends, garnered from his good spirits and genial nature, but she had difficulty believing that this woman, a human, could be one. And yet she had seen elves murder him. Elves who were supposed to be good. She knew that Idreth had renounced his war, that many of the things he had once thought had changed--

(changed like a butterfly)

--and that he did not see Humankind as harborers of sin all. Idreth was a good person, and Hahnah respected him and cared for him, but she could not reckon him into her scope of her worldview. He was an anomaly. And with his death there were many things left unanswered, and many things that Hahnah did not understand.

The woman. The human. Began to weep.

Hahnah, still fighting for each breath through the strong grip of Kyla's hands about her throat, keenly aware of the imminent danger that she was in, did not launch her Knives into the woman's head. Not quite yet. She kept them ready, the image of that elf utterly broken by the sheer strength of the very hands clutching her now clear in her mind, but she took a risk.

Asked in her strained voice, "What do you mean by 'old friend?'"

Kyla Scathach

 

[Kyla Scathach]

Kyla’s grip loosened as it became apparent the knives would not launch. Though as they stayed out and ready so did her hand stay ready. She was no fool, but the question had caught her off guard.

“If you would really like to know put those knives away and I’ll let you go.” She said slowly beginning to pull away her hand. It was clear her sister had not sent this...Thing. It didn’t mean Kyla trusted it any more or less but it did mean there was a possibility for a peaceful end to this bloody night. She wiped her face. It really must have been more to bear than she realized. “I’m not sure if you knew Irideth well but if you wish I laid him to rest out behind the house away from the slurry.” She released her now regardless of if she had “sheathed” her daggers. A dismissal wave that almost seemed to say “Do as you wish.”

If the girl decided to go to her friends final place of rest Kyla would sigh. Casting her eyes about the room she would see a small tray. Three small cakes sat neatly. “For a friend tonight. Please don’t touch.” She decided that of that friend did come they wouldn’t want to eat these cakes anyway after seeing the bodies. She picked up the tray tossing the note aside to reveal another smaller note.

“Kyla your the only other person here. Do NOT TOUCH THEM. Back in the evening.” She snorted and tossed that one aside as well. Smug bastard.

She really should have listened to him sooner.

Kyla would take her time getting to the grave. Partly to give the girl time to be with him if she indeed was a friend, but another part of her didn’t want to look at it again. A grim reminder of her own life. The past always caught up with death bringers. Usually after they were fed and resting. Her own sister had waited in the shadows as she fought herself into and through every obstacle that faced her. And after the years had satisfied her stomach for blood.

Her sister had come back from the grave. Brynn...Why.. She would shove these thoughts aside as she would finally make the corner and saw the grave. If the girl was sat by the grave Kyla would sit next to her offering her the tray.


“Here..They were for a friend of his, but I think you might need them more.” She would say gently. “So I told you I would tell you more of my relationship with Irideth. But in return for that and these cakes you have to tell me the nature of your relationship as well.” She said pulling the tray slightly out of reach. “Deal?” She asked with a cocked eyebrow.

 

[Hahnah]

Cautious eyes tracking the slow retreat of the woman's hands from around her neck. Slowly Hahnah edged herself a small distance away on Idreth's bed, coming to sit up as well, her face wrinkling from a wince. Though she did not bleed externally, still some damage had been done within her body, and it would take time to recover.

The Knives yet floated in their halo, Hahnah keeping them ready even as the woman had backed off and spoke. She flicked her eyes toward the small back door which led to the Slush Alley, where Idreth--

(had been murdered)

--had been killed by the elves of the Fellowship. Back to the woman. Back to the door. Then Hahnah carefully stood up from the bed and moved in such a way that she did not turn her back to the woman, shuffling toward the door, and then departing through it.

She would have liked her question to be answered, but she was more eager to be out of the literal clutch of danger. Of death. Yet, in a way, by going out to see if the woman had spoken the truth about burying Idreth, that in itself would be an approximate answer. Elurdrith had taught her of the value of burying those that you love and those that you respect, to peacefully return them to the welcoming earth and to Arethil as a whole. She had done the same for him, for Kylindrielle, digging out their graves with her bare hands when they were slain.

It did not take long for Hahnah to find the plot of dirt, beyond the Slush Alley, beyond the corpses of the slain Fellowship elves therein and the absence of Idreth's own, where the earth was freshly disturbed. And once she saw it the Knives dissipated in a gentle puff of magic each, Hahnah willing them away. She sat down on her heels beside the grave. Sat with prim and perfect posture for a moment, and then leaned forward to touch the loose dirt.

Moments later, she saw in her periphery the woman approaching. Hahnah did not start and she did not fear and she did not summon her sorcery again. Her caution was reserved--present but restrained.

Hahnah glanced to the tray and the cake offered by the woman. Idreth's work, the last of its kind that would ever be. She lifted her hand from the dirt and sat back onto her heels in her statuesque way and silently nodded.

Deal?

"Yes, that is fair," Hahnah said, a quiet solemnity in her tone.

Kyla Scathach

 

[Kyla Scathach]

Kyla sighed. She didn’t even know how to handle her own feelings without being asked to handle another’s. She almost reached out to the girl but thought better of it turning her gesture into a scratch behind her head. “Irideth and I were two of a kind..He hated humans..and I hated everything.” Kyla’s fists clenched remembering those days..

“I had weapons. He had a war. Satisfied that we were indeed no longer human we struck a bargain. After so many years he gave up. I visited him then as a client. I wanted to ensure the fellowships business. He was little help in that regard. The fellowship didn’t take kindly to those that hung up the mantle. I hadn’t known it then but it made sense when he revealed it to me. I had gotten there late and he insisted I stay the night. We talked. He spoke of the happiness he gained from his new life of peace. I laughed then. Just an old elf that has lost the stomach..” Kyla chuckled.

“It’s funny now. I really got the raw end of the deal. Maybe if I had met him after he had stopped..Maybe I would have listened to him sooner..” She sighed seeming to realize she still had the cakes. “Oh..Sorry..” Kyla passed the tray to her carefully. “But one day..I found my own stomach for death and hatred beginning to fill..I visited him once more. A very different frame of mind possessing how I viewed what he said.” Kyla smiled patting the mound of dirt.

“He helped me figure things out..Helped me see the ways I could now use my time and money to give back.” She stared at the ground intently.

“Not very interesting..But I like to think we had a good connection..In lines of work like ours people like Irideth are the closest we get to friends. We try to treasure them..” Kyla finished. Staring up at the stars.

 

[Hahnah]

Strange, to hear the woman's tale in its totality. To imagine her and Idreth as friends. And to Hahnah such a thing seemed almost...sacrilegious. Something that was and yet should not have been. Something that went beyond the boundaries of what was sacred and what was profane, something that was not the sacred triumphing over the profane nor the profane corrupting the sacred, both natural happenings of joy and sorrow in the world and the inevitable result of conflict between the two. It suggested a tearing down of said boundaries, a bleeding of the sacred into the profane and vice versa. A mixing that was highly upsetting. Disquieting.

And yet Hahnah's path since her transformation had been nothing but that: disquieting. There was a bliss in the simplicity of her old way, of being the cleanser of profane things and nothing more. A wordless feeling that, despite everything, all was right with the world, for the very foundation upon which her understanding of it stood was left undisturbed to prop up all that she believed in. Humankind were the bearers of immeasurable cruelty, Elvenkind the bearers of boundless kindness. The sinful and the righteous. How it was, and deeper than that, how it should be.

But following the Dying God's new bidding, in walking among them...everything was being challenged. And she knew not the true purpose the Dying God meant for her in this.

Hahnah accepted the tray with the small cake once passed to her. Let it rest in her lap as she sat.

And when Kyla finished, after a brief moment passing, Hahnah began, "Alliria is a place that is very foreign to me. I came here with a friend, and because I needed to, but I am still..." Searching for the best word, one that summed up how she felt in both ways that mattered, "...uncomfortable in the city."

Eyes to the earthen grave. "Idreth simply noticed this as I was walking past his house. He called out to me. I answered, and we talked for many nights. We talked of war and what it does, what it means, for those who take part in it. We talked of the proper ways of being in the world. There were things that he said that I still do not understand and things that he said that I disagreed with, but we both wanted peace...and he found it."

She let out a quiet, nearly inaudible sigh. "He was a very wise elf, and I cared for him deeply."

Her eyes drifted to the tray with the small cake in her lap, and then back over to the woman beside her. The human. The bearer of immeasurable cruelty. And yet that is not what Idreth would have thought.

Again, a risk. "My name is Hahnah. What is yours?"

Kyla Scathach

 

[Kyla Scathach]

Kyla’s eyes widened in slight surprise. So this was the name in the book.. She hadn’t expected this..Kyla doubted she knew what this thing pretending to be a girl was..It wasn’t human by any stretch. Kyla was in no position to judge.

She was her no different from the girl before her in that respect. A killing machine pretending to be a normal woman. She had learned her peace over time gradually. It had not come to her naturally. And currently still alluded her. She had had it once. She could again.

Her thoughts moved back to her own girls. So many months alone..She ached to see them. Letters came occasionally, and a couple of old friends were visiting regularly and keeping an eye on things. She was grateful...

“I understand your feeling. Cities were once the same for me. Places of corruption and filth. I used to fit right in. Now I can barely stand the stench of the place.” She said with a sniff.

“I’m glad to hear he touched you as he did me. But..Do you know what this is? I found it in Irideths trunk. He wished for me to destroy it, but I think that was before he met you..Because..” Kyla pulled out the black book flipping to the page she had marked. Hannah’s name written hastily in red and underlined. “Your name is in here and awful lot.” She continued flipping through the pages.

It was.

One after another some with question marks. Some with exclamation points. All in red.

 

[Hahnah]

Places of corruption and filth. Yes, that was a good way to describe the settlements that Hahnah had been to, and Alliria most of all. Other towns and villages were rancid with Humankind, filled solely with them where Alliria had a more eclectic mixture, but Alliria's massive size dwarfed those other places. And there were still plenty of humans around to keep Hahnah on edge. She knew that she was spared immediate aggression and hostility by the lone quality of her new appearance. Had she her skin that was black as midnight, had she her eyes that simmered like the embers of a smoldering fire, had she her Living Armor living outside of her body rather than within now, then she would not even have been able to walk freely in these settlements.

Would this woman beside her have acted differently? If Hahnah looked the way she did when she had been born, and not as she was now in the wake of her transformation? Would she have, regardless of anything to do with Idreth shared between them?

She couldn't ruminate on the thought for long. The red-haired woman produced a book. Asked about it and opened it and showed her. Hahnah's brow furrowed, and she leaned over slightly and peered.

"Hahnah...Hahnah, Hahnah. Hahnah," she said, sounding out the letters of her name in order to read them. Such was new to her, reading--this gained only from Zael's knowledge of it after her transformation. It was better for her to hear the sound of the letters aloud, rather than to try and hear them in her mind.

Yet this was all very confusing. Hahnah did not know what to make of it, and stared in pure puzzlement at the pages as the woman flipped through them, seeing her name upon many of them, sometimes with symbols that she did not recognize around it.

"I...do not understand," Hahnah said, giving voice to her confusion. "You said that you found this in Idreth's trunk? Do you know if he wrote this himself? If that is so, then how could it be? I have only met him since I came to Alliria, and he did not mention this to...me."

Yet. What if he had been planning on doing so this very night, before the elves of the Fellowship killed him? Hahnah's head swooned with the possibility, and she blinked rapidly. Some pain from the closed wound in her chest brought on a small wince afterward, but this faded quickly.

Overcome with her curiosity of the strange book and the mystery behind it, the fact that Kyla was human slipped from Hahnah's mind. Apprehension and caution draining away to leave a certain neutrality.

Kyla Scathach

 

[Kyla Scathach]

“He wrote your name. I know his hand well. This is far too old to be his work. I’m sure he wouldnt have written it in...” She flipped the book back around and scrutinized the strange text...”What ever this is..”

Almost elvish.

But it wasn’t right..

Like some one took the fluidly, flowing elvish language and mangled it. “This isn’t any elfish my mother ever used..” She said in fluent elvish.

She blinked.

Elvish was stuck on her brain at the moment it seemed.

“Sorry.” She said returning the common and flipping the book back to face her. “But even if he didn’t write he..He could at least read it..” She mused.

 

[Hahnah]

Hahnah continued to gaze at the book with fascination as Kyla thumbed through it, flipped it around, opened it again. Her name, written in symbols that she had some fledgling knowledge of, she recognized. But everything else she did not. It was not Common, the written script which Zael had known and which by extension Hahnah was familiar with. So what was it? Hahnah starkly lacked the capacity to even see in the form of the symbols themselves a clue as to the language that they represented.

This isn't any elfish my mother ever used..

Oh. Was it then? Was this what written Elvish looked like? She had some thin memories of her caretakers trying to teach her how to read, but so long ago was it that she could not clearly recall if they had tried teaching her the Common script, the Elvish script, or both. Regardless, it would not have mattered--the knowledge had slipped consistently from her mind, discarded as if a silent watchman had decreed at every attempt that it was unnecessary, and this continued until her transformation in Strathford.

Then Hahnah's thoughts were interrupted. Suddenly. By a realization.

Hahnah looked back up to her. "You speak Elvish." Less a question, and more of a stated observation. Then she as well spoke briefly in Elvish, saying with a small hint of respect and admiration, "That is...I find that to be surprising."

Hahnah returned her attention to the book then. Thought for a moment. Deep in curiosity and consideration, the small cake in her lap, much like the fact of Kyla's being human, slipped from her mind and she forgot that it was even there.

Those old memories of Kylindrielle and Elurdrith. Each of them. Reading to her. Reading what she could not.

"If you cannot read it, and I cannot read it," Hahnah said at length, "maybe we can find someone who can read it for us."

It seemed right. Right to know this last little piece of Idreth, why he had this book and why Hahnah's name had been written within it. Perhaps, in the discovery, he would have some final wisdom to bestow.

Kyla Scathach

 

[Kyla Scathach]

“My birth mother was human.” Kyla admited with a pleased smirk. “But the mother I grew up with was elven. She taught me and my sisters. After learning Elvish most other languages are pretty easy.” She continued with a shrug. Something about this thing fascinated her. She knew it was not human by any stretch. She wouldn’t really even assume it’s gender at this point. Even if it looked like a young female half elf. She looked at her perfect ramrod posture with a curious slight tilt of her head. Hahnah spoke further and Kyla nodded. They were in agreement in a goal at least.

“I think our best bet would be deeper in the city. Maybe one of the old mages in one of the shops may know. I doubt it..” Kyla said with a shrug. “You..You can stay close to me if you wish to come. Unless you need rest or..More time with him. I forget my endurance is usually a bit more resilient than others..” She finished standing once more and offering the “girl.” A hand to help her up.

“And what about that wound..Do things like..Whatever you are..Are you hurt or will it sort itself. I’m no doctor but I can help ease some pain and keep it clean if I need to..” Kyla offered as well. She had noticed the wound had been causing her discomfort but there hadn’t been a chance to bring it up. Her name as well. Hahnah had given hers but Kyla had dodged the question on purpose at first.

Now she felt more comfortable, and yet such curious matters pressed at their minds she doubt hahnah cared she didn’t know her name. Just as long as she felt safe enough to be near and converse Kyla doubted her name mattered much.

Perhaps that was a blessing..

 

[Hahnah]

My birth mother was human. But the mother I grew up with was elven...

Hahnah listened with a piqued interest, and she did not know just how much she mirrored Kyla in this regard.

A human birth mother, yet cared for by an elven mother. It was a strange idea to her, foreign, but this strangeness crumbled away the more Hahnah thought of it. She had simply not encountered it before, as she had not encountered a half-elf like Zael until she had met him, spoken to him--and eventually through her Living Armor killed him. Hers had been a mostly sheltered life: locked in the Temple, and then kept in the seclusion of the rangers' lodge that was her caretakers' home, and then living a solitary existence out in the vast wilderness of Falwood for many years. The Dying God's bidding to go forth and to walk among them had presented Hahnah with a world whose scope was far larger than she could have ever imagined, from the very small to the very large, the totality of it all at times overwhelming. And this red-haired woman was yet another part in the great expanse of this continuing discovery.

Deeper in the city. Hahnah very slightly, delicately, balked at that. She had spent a fair number of days within the city's confines and still had yet to explore even half of it, the enormity of Alliria in comparison to all of the other towns and villages she had passed through weighing in on her.

The woman stood. Offered a hand, which Hahnah looked at for a fleeting moment. If she had not been a friend of Idreth's, if the elf she had killed had not been party to his very murder, if she was any other human...then Hahnah would have refused. But Hahnah had already taken some small risks tonight, some tentative steps into an unfamiliar wood. And it was not so far to take another one.

Hahnah held the plate with the cake with one hand, and she reached for Kyla's offer of help, clasping her hand, allowing herself the boost up to her feet. Her lip curled downward with endured pain, eyes squinting with the same.

Fittingly in the moment following, the woman mentioned Hahnah's wound, the source of her discomfort. A minor note of surprise as she glossed over Hahnah's otherness, her lack of humanity and her lack of elvendom not bothering the woman so much now--certainly not like the way it invited open hostility in many others. This somehow more surprising than the offer of help itself. A friend of Idreth's indeed.

Hahnah considered the most succinct way of wording her answer, of which details were unnecessary at this time and which could be left out. Then spoke. "I will not bleed from the wound," She tapped the area of the wound lightly with a single finger of her free hand, "but inside I am still hurt. Even though the arrow is gone I can feel the tearing and the damage that it has done within my chest." A little pause, and then she added somewhat awkwardly, aware of the obviousness and understatement of what she was about to say but saying it anyway, "It is not very pleasant."

Another little risk. Another step into that unfamiliar wood.

"If there is something that you could do, then I would be grateful."

Kyla Scathach

 

[Kyla Scathach]

The hand was accepted. Kyla had hoped she had earned at least that much trust from her new-found companion, but one never really knew what another would do until it was done.

Her question was answered, and the nature of her wound and pain voiced.

Kyla nodded.

Her eyes narrowing in thought. Then a strange occurrence. She asked for help. Accepting offered help was one thing..Asking for it? Very different.

“Well I’m not sure what I can do about something like that, but come inside and I will take a look at it.” She said in elvish. From the way the girl spoke it it seemed to be what she was most comfortable with. “We can speak in elvish if you find that easier.” She finished helping helping her up.

“What are you anyway. Like some kind of puppet?” She asked with a raised eyebrow. “You look like you were taught how to be human before something spat you in the middle of us.” She said with a slight chuckle. “You sit like a dutchess and talk like you ate a primer in grammar. Not normal for a jack knife in the ghetto.” She stopped for a moment.

“And then there’s those..Whatever you have squirming around in you..I’m just curious. Everyone has secrets. It just might help me fix you up.” She reasoned not wanting to strain her new found trust by being to prying and confrontational. She kept her questioning light, and accepting.

 

[Hahnah]

"I do like to speak in Elvish," Hahnah said, switching languages upon reaching her feet and her Fal'Addasian accent coming into full bloom from it. It was odd to be speaking to any human, friend of Idreth or not, in the tongue taught to her by Kylindrielle and Elurdrith. Yet strangeness and discovery had woven their ways into the tapestry of her life since her transformation.

What are you anyway.

This perhaps the strangest of all. The mere sight of her before her transformation had driven humans like the monster hunters who'd slain her caretakers--even elves that she had chanced across in the Falwood during the night--to outright hostility on so many occasions that it had become a generalized rule which she needed to navigate around. Yet this red-haired woman was not so disturbed. Was it because she was a killer of many things, that all in a way became equal to her? Hahnah could only guess.

She did not know what a puppet, a dutchess, or a ghetto were. Knives she knew but a "jack knife" as the woman had called her had to be different, special, in some way. And she had been taught the proper ways of being, how to be an elf, by her caretakers; any semblance of being human she had tried to learn and mimic on her own to better blend in after her transformation.

Kyla stopped on the way back to Idreth's house. Hahnah, still carrying the plate with the small cake, stopped as well. And she gave the only answer she had ever known to the question asked of her.

"I am a strange elf." The answer was likely as unfulfilling to the woman as it was to Hahnah. She could not have said why her flesh was once as dark as midnight and why her eyes once burned orange, why it was that she--seemingly alone--could feel the presence of the Dying God in her heart and why her Living Armor, a separate entity, lived in symbiosis with her and had in fact been born with her.

Though Kyla was a friend of Idreth's, and though she had shown no more aggression, still there was a little thrum of apprehension in Hahnah's chest for speaking of this aloud. And she did so with a mild caution.

Hahnah touched her shirt, where beneath lay the wound. "I call it my Armor. It lives within me, and it is spread almost throughout like a second set of veins and arteries. It protects me." She spared a moment to think. To consider. She did not have direct control over her Living Armor, nor could she speak to it or it to her. But it reacted to her thoughts and emotions to differentiate friend from foe, gained awareness of the world around through her senses--her eyes, her ears.

"I can...try to coax my Armor to unbind my wound, and to allow for you to do what you are able."

Kyla Scathach

 

[Kyla Scathach]

“Then speak it we shall.” Kyla said with a comforting grin. As the girl continued to speak Kyla made little in the form of response. Aside from raising her eyebrows at the idea of a second set of veins. It sounded more like some kind of parasite than armor. But some could argue her augmentations made her more a weapon or tool than a human so maybe she was judging too generally.

“I’ll see what I can do..If..Your..Um..Armor will allow me.” She finished. She was trying to be kind and comforting, but it was more slightly awkward than anything. Her girls were always running to Ferelith to cry or talk. They went to Kyla for advice and protection. “No offense mother. You just get odd. Like trying to butter a piece of bread with a broad sword.” Her eldest had once told her with a face so straight Kyla dared not doubt its blunt honesty.

“Here.” She would say offering a hand to help her into the house once more and up on to the bed.


“Ok so let’s take a look here. Let me know if..Something that shouldn’t be happening is happening..” She reached into the trunk once more producing a medical bag. Irideth had a lot of great supplies. Blood oak sap, fairy spring water, even swamp ether...

“This should be easy enough. Let me know when it’s coaxed..”

 

[Hahnah]

Hahnah with her free hand accepted the woman's offered hand once more, and it was easier to do so. She had already accepted it once, and the mere fact of their sharing words in Elvish helped more than Hahnah would have imagined. An anomaly, this woman, who did not fit neatly into the narrow confines of Hahnah's defined worldview. Yet neither did the elves of the Fellowship, and the other small and strange sights she had seen whilst walking among them.

Up into Idreth's house. Hahnah set the cake down on the endtable at the foot of the bed, and then upon the bed she lay down. A gnawing caution in the back of her mind, naturally, for being in so vulnerable a position with a human nearby, but, curiously, her concern regarding her Armor was more prominent.

Let me know if..Something that shouldn’t be happening is happening..

"I will."

Hahnah reached down and grabbed hold of the bottom of her shirt and slowly pulled it up to her sternum. The bloodless wound was revealed, the black strands of her Living Armor crisscrossed over it like entwined fingers, suturing it tightly shut. Almost but not entirely still, these strands. Occasionally a pulse, a throb, among individual fibers, not rhythmic like a heartbeat and in truth there was no discernible pattern at all to these tiny motions.

Hahnah concentrated. Tried as best she could to dispel those feelings of caution, of concern, and to replace them with those of calm. Tried as best she could invite warm thoughts into her mind, to imagine feeling better, relieved of pain and serene, with her Living Armor receded from her wound and with her wound healed in full. She pictured Kyla's face clearly in her mind's eye, associating this with the aforementioned relief and serenity. And Hahnah made solid eye contact with the woman for a good moment.

And then...the fibers of her Armor slowly began to move. To loosen, to slide away from one another, and to recede like a gathering of snakes slithering back into their myriad dens. The strands slid back inside Hahnah, and her wound was open, its torn muscles visible, blood and a sliver of a glimpse of an organ beneath--the path the bolthead had burrowed into her was clear.

Hahnah's eyes flicked down to her open wound, her lips pressing together and stretching thin with a suppressed pain. She looked back up to Kyla. "I have done it." She swallowed. Added, "I hope that this is indeed easy."

Kyla Scathach

 

[Kyla Scathach]

“If that’s muscle and a sliver of an organ then I’m thinking it won’t be for me. I doubt you’ll remember much of this.” Kyla said dryly.

“But it isn’t something I haven’t seen before. Here I’ll show you what I’ll use before we start. Just stay relaxed.” She said faltering under any real eye contact. Holding it a moment before her eyes darted to the task at hand.

Her gaze was..Different. It made Kyla uncomfortable. It held both such innocence, and yet such anger. It was not a human way to feel..People...Normal folk for the most part we’re not so torn. Giving themselves to one side or the other and reaping the consequences both good and ill. This girl seemed so at war with both...She blinked and turned her attention back to the medical bag.

“Ok so..This fairy spring water should cleanse the wound..This blood oak sap will fill and bind the wound before turning into your blood as it slowly lets the wound heal, and finally swamp ether.” She said pulling out each bottle in the order she spoke of them.

“That all sound ok to you?” Her elvish was flawless and never faltered. She noticed the heavy accent of her friend silently. Noting she undoubtedly came from that region. Possibly.

Her own would be tinged heavily with an accent very unique to her own people. Her mother had taught her in an accent of elvish that was really only ever heard in the spine and surrounding areas when elves spoke to each other. If all was well she would place some of the swamp ether in her hand. The blue powder seemed to float in and around her hand like a playful ghost was outlined in its hue. “Just take a deep breath and it will take effect. Not for long. Just long enough for me to work. You’ll wake up feeling better than you do now. You have my word.” Kyla said taking Hahnah’s hand in her own once more.

Placing it to her heart she took a deep breath. “Feel my heart beat and try to match it. I’m trying to numb your pain, not drug you. “ Kyla explained as she held the hand there allowing the girl to gauge it and try to match it before coming forward to hold a small amount of the ether under her nose.

 

[Hahnah]

Staying relaxed took the right effort. A narrowing of focus onto specific things--the fact that she was upon Idreth's bed and that was safe, the remedies that the red-haired woman was pulling out of her bag, the accent of the woman's elvish which Hahnah had not heard before and which was a source of curiosity. All of this to bury the apprehension of "not remembering much of this" and of being in the presence of a human while in the middle of a gargantuan city.

Hahnah recognized two of the three remedies that Kyla had produced. The fairy spring water and the blood oak sap both Kylindrielle and Elurdrith had shown to her before, had instructed her in their usefulness. Small ways of the ranger, taught to Hahnah by them.

So when asked if all of that sounded okay to her, Hahnah did nod her head with sincerity. "Yes, it does sound okay."

The swamp ether she did not recognize, but the knowledge of the previous two helped assuage the trepidation of the unknown for the third. And Kyla's instructions helped tremendously, engaging an aspect of Hahnah keenly interested in learning and allowing this to overcome the other, which was keenly interested in survival.

Feel my heart beat and try to match it.

Kyla's heart was beneath Hahnah's palm. The warmth against her hand, the rhythmic signature of life, beating, beating, and Hahnah's breathing changed in a subtle way as she felt it. Slower. Measured. Serene.

"You have a strong beating of the heart," she said. She barely even took notice of the ether under her nose, this now more of a simple fact of the world, like hearing the songs of birds in the morning. Her eyes closed briefly and then opened again.

A distant kind of musing. "I wonder...what is within...?"

And the ether took effect.

Kyla Scathach