CHAPTER 36

After the roar, Mara was on her feet in seconds, glaive at the ready and leveled in the direction it had come from.

That sound terrified Lanri. That beastkin, Thomas, had tried to warn them coming out here was too dangerous. But she and Mara hadn’t cared to heed his warnings. They’d been eager to set out, to be heroes, but they’d gotten distracted and loitered, and now they were fucked.

“I think we might have taken too long to catch our breath,” Mara whispered.

Lanri nodded and mumbled “uh-huh,” as she drew her wand just in time for another roar much like the first, but from farther away, and in a different direction to cut in. “Well, you’re a soldier. In your professional opinion, do we run from that?”

Mara gave her an uncertain look that bordered on pity, then pointed at Lanri’s prosthetic foot with her glaive. “Can you even run on that?”

“Probably,” Lanri said, without really knowing if that was even true. “Probably nowhere near as fast as you, though.”

“Then we don’t run,” Mara told her. To Lanri’s surprise, she actually took a step forward, putting herself between Lanri and the roars.

“What are you–”

“Pointy sticks in the front, ranged weapons behind. That’s really basic stuff, Lanri,” Mara said without looking back at her. Looking over her shoulder, Lanri could see something moving in the thick underbrush.

For an eternity she and Mara stayed quiet, each of them fixated on what lurked beyond. Flashes of color, the rustling of leaves, and the guttural, angrily growl of a hungry beast. It had a menacing, terrorizing air about it, like it was deliberately drawing this out, and trying to scare them for some reason.

Every time anything happened, Mara leveled her glaive at it; be it another growl, or the snapping of a twig. All of them drew her attention, all of them warranted a slight change in stance. She didn’t panic, though. She didn’t start frantically moving the weapon around, or wildly swinging at shadows, and Lanri tried to follow her example.

Another roar echoed across the hills, and it was much, much closer this time. “It’s waiting for its friends,” Lanri realized.

“Uh-huh,” mumbled Mara, without looking back at her. “Maybe we can scare it into attacking early, before the rest gets here.”

“Do you–” The rustling of leaves got louder for a moment, and Lanri chose to wait for it to settle rather than yell over it. “Do you have any ideas?”

Mara nodded and pointed at a spindly looking crabapple tree. It had vibrant pink blossoms covering its every branch, and a trunk no wider than Lanri’s neck. “Can your wand burn that down?”

“Just say when,” whispered Lanri as she aimed her wand at it.

Mara nodded again, and the pair and their quarrel once again lapsed into silence. Another branch snapped, and a few bushes close to the pink tree rustled and– “NOW!”

“Sith laom,” Lanri said, ordering her wand to spew forth a bit of the magic Seeker had imbued it with. A glob of slag – white hot but with an ever so faint peach-colored cast to it – shot forth faster than any mundane weapon could manage.

It hit the tree just where the trunk split into the principal boughs, and blasted them apart. Burning splinters shot out like shrapnel in all directions, and with a tired groan, most of the tree’s canopy toppled into the bushes as all of it caught fire.

An angry, pained roar rang out from the underbrush. As Mara had hoped, the beast lurched forth from it, goaded into attacking early. It was a bizarre creature. As much a reptile as it was a bird, it had vast wings and a tail covered in huge, colorful feathers, and a neck and belly that were smooth and dark scales. It caught itself with its wings, which probably spanned twenty feet, and rolled its beakless, angry-looking face at them as it roared again.

The feathers on its left wing and tail were singed and smoldering, and it flapped those wildly to douse the flames. Mara kept her glaive up, and at the ready, as if waiting for it to lurch forward so she could skewer it with the thin, faintly curved blade. Lanri did her best to keep Mara directly between herself and the not-quite bird, and kept her wand aimed squarely at its head.

When it inevitably attacked, mouth open so wide that thin skin had to stretch to keep its jaw connected to its cheeks, Mara slashed down along the length of its neck with her glaive. And a fraction of a second later, she used the shaft to push Lanri to the side, and out of the creature’s way.

It screamed and howled as it stumbled past. Blood gushed from the wound that, judging by the state of Mara’s glaive, must have cut deeply into its neck. It flapped its good wing frantically, and clawed at the ground with one of its massive four toed feet, as if readying to charge again.

Lanri did not care to evade another of its attacks. Its singed wing was down low, folded in just enough to block its other foot from her view, but she could guess where it was. She aimed her wand at where she thought its foot would be, and uttered the command words again.

Another glob of white hot slag flew out just as the bird started to lurch forward again. It punched straight through the feathers and muscle of the wing, and when it stumbled after two paces, Lanri knew she must have hit the foot as well.

Mara didn’t waste the opportunity, nor wait to see if it was out for the count. She ran forward, and adjusted her grip on her glaive. She raised it over and behind her head, then brought it down in a powerful chop. To Lanri’s horror, it didn’t even come close to cutting its head off at first. But as the beast started to struggle upright again, Mara pulled the blade down and towards her, slicing it the rest of the way through.

The beast went limp almost instantly, though the inertia of its last ditch effort to get up carried it forward long and far enough to knock Mara back. The warrior dropped her glaive as she fell to the mossy ground, then let out a pained grunt as the heavy beast landed on her foot. Lanri promptly ran to her side, asking “are you okay?” As she tried and failed to lift the corpse enough to free Mara’s foot.

“I’m fine,” said Mara through clenched teeth, as she pressed her glaive into Lanri’s hands. Lanri reluctantly accepted it, a little confused until Mara said “use it as a lever. Pry me loose.”

The guard really was smarter than Lanri had given her credit for. She stuffed her wand back into its holster, then stepped over Mara, dodging burning feathers as she did so. She jammed the back of the glaive under the bird as far as she could, and as close to Mara’s foot as possible. Mara leaned forward, and put one hand halfway along the shaft, while Lanri spread hers out farther back.

Wordlessly, they both pushed on the makeshift prybar, and the weapon’s shaft bent uncomfortably as the creature was lifted enough to let Mara pull her foot free.

“Are you hurt?" Asked Lanri as she helped Mara to her feet. Judging by the grimace on the blonde’s face, and the slight limp as she made her way to the boulder and leaned against it, Lanri was almost certain she was.

“Do me a favor?” Mara asked. Lanri nodded. Of course she would. “When we tell Ithella about this, let’s make it so this thing hurt me before it was dead.”

Lanri nodded again and pressed Mara’s glaive back into her hands. Much to her horror, she noticed the bottom quarter of the shaft had splintered and was bent, nearly completely broken off. “Fuck, I broke–”

Mara put a hand on Lanri’s shoulder, and shook her head. She held the glaive up, then pointed at a spot on the shaft where the metal reinforcements ended. “It’s not a big deal. The tang only comes to here, and that’s the important part. Ithella’s great with wood, too. She’ll hew a new shaft, and the first blacksmith we see will be able to put it on the blade for two silver Claws and an hour of their time.”

Lanri wasn’t quite sure what a tang even was, but Mara didn’t seem terribly bothered by the damage. She supposed she shouldn’t be, either. Not that she had time to be bothered. Before either of them could say anything else, not one, but two more of the beasts growled from beyond the burning bushes, reminding them that the one they’d killed had only been the first.

With a grunt, Mara pushed herself off from the rock, and whacked the back of her glaive against it. The shaft broke off completely, and she gave the weapon a few experimental swings and thrusts. She had to hold it differently from before, Lanri noticed. Her left hand had to be choked almost completely up to the blade now, tremendously reducing the weapon’s reach.

“Do pointy sticks still go in the front when they’re damaged and held by injured women?” Lanri asked, nervously. She wasn’t keen on letting Mara take the brunt of the next attack like this, especially not with at least two of the dread creatures lurking.

“That does change the equation, yeah,” Mara reluctantly conceded, as they moved to stand side by side in the face of danger. Again, they both scanned the treeline and underbrush, though now, with flames spreading through them and two foes instead of one, they had to split their attention. Lanri stood to Mara’s left, and so, she focused mostly on the one she could just barely see lurking in the shadows.

Without thinking about where exactly she should aim, she said “Sith laom” again, and a bolt of slag flew out. The beast howled in anger and pain, telling her she’d at least clipped it.

She didn’t have time to savor the victory, though, as the one on the right lurched out of the bushes, and charged at Mara. The blonde tried to time her strike to thrust her blade into the beast’s head or neck, but the reduced reach of her damaged glaive meant she came up short. She only managed a shallow cut as it passed her, and swung its vast tail around to hit Lanri.

The blow knocked the breath from her. She landed painfully on her tailbone just as the one she’d already clipped with her wand sprang from the bushes with one wing tucked back, and the other raised to make itself bigger and more threatening. Lanri scrambled back from it, and aimed her wand as she tried to force herself to catch a breath so she could let fly the next blast of magic.

Lanri could hear Mara grunting and struggling, but the big boulder eclipsed her view of the guard’s fight, and the imminent threat of the beast looming over her meant she just did not have the attention to spare. She kept trying to force air back into her lungs as the creature came closer and closer, growling and drooling. Its wide maw was awful, full of sharp teeth that curved inwards. When Lanri finally managed to take in a gasping breath, she smelled nothing but the rancid waft of spoiled flesh that emanated from within.

She triggered her wand again, and a bolt of slag hit the creature in its belly. It stopped and roared, a primal sound of anguish and hate which lasted long enough to let Lanri aim her wand at the creature’s head, and put an end to it with another blast of magic.

It dropped dead where it stood, and Lanri scrambled to her feet to get to Mara. When she rounded the boulder, she found the woman and beast locked in a struggle. Most of one of its wings had been severed and lay loose on the ground, and her glaive’s blade was buried to the shaft in its guts, but still it tried to scramble forward, and Mara was frantically trying to stab into its eye with the broken off piece of her glaive’s shaft.

“FUCKING KILL IT!” Mara desperately screamed, as Lanri started to frantically fire her wand at the creature. The first bolt of slag narrowly missed its spine, and the second seemed to only ruffle some feathers. The third hit dead on, but that didn’t seem to hurt it badly and quickly enough to stop it. She was deliberately not aiming at its head, worried that in the chaos and struggle she would take off one of Mara’s hands, or worse, but nothing else seemed to do the trick.

Mara finally managed to ram the splintered end of wood into the creature’s eye, and it staggered back, uselessly batting at it with its remaining wing as Mara pulled her glaive out, then stepped far enough back that Lanri could finish the creature. She practically screamed the spell, “SITH LAOM!” And the monster went limp as the glob of slag shot straight through its neck, and set the tree behind it ablaze.

Mara and Lanri were both left standing, deeply out of breath and terribly exhausted as the sounds of the fires around them became the only thing making noise other than them. They turned to each other, and Lanri visually checked Mara for injuries as she assumed her friend did the same for her.

“Are you hurt?” Lanri asked, just before Mara could do the same.

Mara shrugged. “Scrapes, bruises, twisted ankle. You?”

“Scrapes, bruises, missing ankle,” Lanri said, as she draped one of Mara’s arms over her shoulders, and helped her back to the boulder. They both leaned against it, and slid down to the moss with a series of pained grunts and moans.

Again, they sat there for several minutes, slowly recovering from the exertion. Their frantic breathing slowly calmed down, and they looked at the three slain monsters strewn about them. “Y’know what?” Mara asked after a while, breaking the silence.

“What?” Asked Lanri.

“I wish we’d brought some of that food. I could use a snack.”

________________

It felt like a long time had passed before there was even a hint of life in the forest outside of Mara and Lanri. At first it was an indistinct, faint sound, but it didn’t take long before it resolved into hushed whispers, and gentle footfalls.

Lanri nudged Mara, who had fallen asleep beside her after the adrenaline had worn off completely, and pointed towards the source of the noise. “Company,” she whispered.

“Éteindez,” someone intoned. It wasn’t Seeker, or Lanri would have felt the magic. But the voice was familiar, all the same, and set Lanri at ease. The spell radiated out from the unseen caster, extinguishing the brush fire Lanri had started in an instant.

Soon, people started to creep into the clearing. Scared townspeople holding rusty swords and sharpened sticks, all of them aiming them at one of the three monsters scattered about them. Cleared her throat and started to get to her feet, but recoiled as the nearest of the villagers aimed their makeshift weapons at her.

“Hey!” Yelled Lanri, indignantly, as she raised her hands and showed they were empty.

“Oi! Put the fucking spears down, assholes,” Mara growled as she slowly got to her feet, too. Much to Lanri’s displeasure, the groggy warrior seemed to make a point of keeping her gnarled glaive in hand as she did so.

“Y–you killed the Paravians!” One of the villagers said, with awe in her voice. “Thomas said you’d struck out, and wouldn’t heed his warnings. We thought you’d be dead.”

“Well, we’re not,” Lanri said as she looked around for who had cast the spell.

“You might wish you were, when Her Grace finds out what you got up to,” came the familiar voice again, as a few of the villagers stepped aside, and revealed a stocky, bovine beastkin with an amulet of Hayer around her neck.

“Mirabelle?!” Asked Lanri, as she lurched forward and wrapped her arms around the priestess in a hug.

“Gods, kid, you stink,” Mirabelle grumbled.

Lanri quickly broke the hug, and gave her a sheepish smile. “I… How did you–”

Mirabelle held up a hand to forestall Lanri’s questions. “Later. The first thing that happened once I rode into the village was that little innkeeper accosting me, begging me to save my colleague from a Frightwasp bite. He said you two came out here to find their nest. Did you?”

Lanri nodded, as behind her, Mara picked up the bottle of ichor from where she had dropped it. “We got as much of that gunk they poop out as we could.”

Mirabelle cocked her head at Mara, clearly noticing her limp. “It’s not poop per se, but… well done.” The bovine priestess took a moment to open the stopper, and sniff the contents. She grimaced, but shrugged. “This will do.”

________________

Back at the inn, Mirabelle was occupied with the innkeeper. “Where. Is . Your. Still?” She asked him, emphatically.

His ears were pressed flat to the side of his head, and his tail was practically sweeping the floor with how nervously he was flicking it back and forth. “I don’t have a still,” he quietly said. “Contract with the brewers at Eastfeld prohibits it.”

Mirabelle took a step forward, and rolled her big shoulders twice, as if loosening them up for something. Lanri would not want to be at the receiving end of that threat. “I don’t care about your contracts. I’m not a magistrate or errant knight.” She held up the bottle of wasp’s ichor. “I’m Mirabelle Rivas, Daughter of Plenty. I need it to heal the woman you begged me to heal less than an hour ago. Your breath stinks of hooch, and your menu doesn’t list anything stronger than beer. You obviously have a still.”

The young man looked to Lanri, as if expecting her to intervene. “I’m a disgruntled customer with a sick friend. Don’t look to me for help,” she said.

“Fine,” he hissed, as the fur on his tail stood on end, and he started to lead Mirabelle away. “But you’re cleaning it, afterwards.” He quickly took her to a narrow staircase that was so steep it bordered on being a ladder, and Lanri decided she shouldn’t risk navigating that.

She instead joined Mara in the only bedroom on the ground floor, where a few chairs had been set by the ailing priestess’ bed. The blonde warrior sat in one of them, nervously fidgeting with her hands as she watched the elf. Her armor had hastily been discarded, and laid in a pile on the floor.

“How’s your ankle?” Lanri asked as she took the seat next to Mara, and put a hand on her shoulder. She noticed the medallion Ithella usually wore underneath her robes had been pulled out, and one hand was loosely put on top of it.

“It’s fine,” mumbled Mara. “The priestess offered to fix it, but I told her it could wait until she helped Ithella so she could do it.” There was a pause, and Mara’s expression turned quizzical. “Is she from Cerene?”

Lanri nodded. “She was staying at the monastery while the roads were blocked, yes. Have you two not met?”

“I’ve seen her before, but we never spoke, no,” Mara said. “At the beginning of the blockade, she spent a fair bit of time in the fields around the city walls. But she stopped coming there, eventually. How did she wind up here?”

“I have no idea. I’m definitely going to ask her, though.” The last time Lanri had spoken to Mirabelle, she’d said she would be staying in Cerene until after the equinox celebration. That gave them a tremendous head start on her, even with the occasional day they spent not traveling, be it to celebrate her birthday, or to chase down wasp’s not-quite-poop and fight for their lives.

The pair lapsed into silence, as Lanri was starting to realize happened often, when it was just the two of them. Through a window, Lanri could see the villagers struggling as half of them worked to build a big fire or set up tables, and the other half were dragging the slain paravians up the hill with the help of Mirabelle’s horse. And below the floorboards, Mirabelle and Thomas could be heard fussing over each other and his illicit still.

“I’m sorry,” Mara quietly said after a while.

“You shouldn’t be, I–”

“No. You called me your friend a few times today, and what have I done to earn that? The way I talked to you the first time we met, the fact that it took me weeks to apologize for it, the fact that I laughed at you when you came stumbling out of the woods in a panic, what I tried to do today…” The young woman trailed off.

Lanri put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m not mad at you, Mara. For any of it. Are you my favorite person in the world? No. But I do like you, and I do consider you my friend. I’m glad you came with us on this trip. I have never thought you had any ill intent towards me, and I know from… a lot of experience that what happened in the clearing wasn’t your fault.”

“I still feel bad about it,” Mara whispered.

Lanri considered that for a moment, then shrugged. “Good. Feeling bad about bad things is normal. It’s how you know you’re not scum that was waiting for an excuse, but were just in a lot of trouble.”

Mara nodded, and rubbed her eyes, which were still red and blood-shot. “A lot of trouble,” she repeated, emphasizing the word.

“So much damn trouble,” agreed Lanri. “All three of us came within an inch of Tenebor calling our names today.”

“The worst part would have been the fact that we got killed by giant chickens,” Mara huffed. “Well, not quite chickens. Chockens.”

Lanri furrowed her brow at that. “Chockens?”

“When you hit the last one with your wand, it smelled like roasted chicken,” Mara began, then pointed over her shoulder with her thumb, at the villagers beyond the window. “I bet they’ll taste like chicken, too. But, as I said, they weren’t quite chickens. So, chockens.”

“But we know what they are. They’re called Paravians.”

Mara shifted her voice a little, to produce a terrible, huffy, Astorian elite accent. “Oh, do excuse me, Lady Professor Vattens. I’m afraid my rural upbringing and military service has instilled in me a profound case of bumpkin-itis. It shall be quite difficult to desist from referring to the venerable Paravian specimens as chockens, but I shall endeavor to accomplish this goal so as not to offend your noble sensibilities.”

Lanri stifled a laugh. “But that’s actually what they sound like, too! It’s like they make a point of sounding as incomprehensible as possible. My Faron had so little patience for that nonsense, it was incredible.”

“What do you mean?” Mara asked.

Lanri held up a finger to pause, then drew her wand, and held it up for Mara to look at. “What is this?” She simply asked.

“A fire wand?” Asked Mara, sounding like she thought it was a trick question.

“Ah, but you see, my Faron’s colleagues took one look at it, and said it was one of the finest pyromantic discharge foci they’d ever seen.’”

“Pyromantic discharge foci?!” Mara asked. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means it’s a fire wand,” Lanri said with a flat expression. She managed to hold it for all of three seconds before they both burst out laughing.

________________

The sun had already set by the time Mirabelle emerged from the inn’s basement, holding a small silvered glass, and a flask that was decidedly not Mara’s. The smell of cooked Paravian – which Lanri had begrudgingly conceded really did smell like chicken – hung thickly in the air.

She and Mara both expectantly looked at the priestess, and were relieved when she smiled rather than giving them a resigned expression. “A priest of Shala would have been a lot better at this than I am,” she started as she put the small glass down, and poured clear, odorless liquid into it that had the slightest yellow cast. “You have no idea how fortunate it is that frightwasps tend to build their hives near farms, or I never would have learned to make this.”

“What is it?” Lanri asked.

“It’s a potion, but I think you could say it’s technically brandy,” Mirabelle noted. “But for our purposes, it’s the wasp’s ichor you recovered, distilled so the stink of rot wouldn’t make her throw it back up.”

Mara picked up the glass, and gave it an experimental sniff. She skeptically eyed Mirabelle. “And this will help her?”

Mirabelle nodded, and made a sign as she said “Serment.” Like when she swore an oath before, a circle of faint runes appeared in the air before her. “I, Mirabelle Rivas, Daughter of Plenty, swear to my Lord Hayer that I’ve distilled this medicine to the best of my ability, and that it is safe for consumption by…” Mirabelle trailed off, and tilted her head to Ithella’s unconscious form.

“Ithella Val Gyr,” Lanri whispered.

The priestess gave her a grateful nod, then continued reciting her oath. “By the Daughter of War, Ithella Val Gyr.” The circle flashed, briefly illuminating the room in an orange-ish, bronze-colored light, before it faded away with a faint hum.

“Good enough for me,” mumbled Mara, as she moved to sit on the bed and slowly pulled Ithella closer to upright. Lanri wasn’t quite sure whether it would be appropriate for her to try to help, but Mirabelle seemed to have no such worries. She helped Mara prop Ithella up without a word, and soon they were both pouring the distilled liquid into the elven woman’s mouth.

“How long will it take?” Lanri asked.

Mirabelle’s eyes rolled up and to the left, and she mumbled a few words as she thought about it. “Elves metabolize… uhm… so… Say an hour? It might take until tomorrow for her to wake up on her own, but–” Mirabelle examined the elf for a moment, then showed the palm where the frightwasp had bitten. Angry black marks radiated out from the little wound, and extended up into her wrist’s veins. “I’ll be able to wake her up with a spell once this whole mess looks normal again.”

Lanri considered that. An hour was a long time to wait and see if a potion had taken. She leaned forward, and put a hand on Mara’s shoulder. “Let’s go have something to eat while we wait. You said you were hungry.”

Mara shook her head. “You go ahead. I’m staying here until it’s done.”

“Okay,” Lanri said, as she got to her feet, with Mirabelle joining her a moment later. “We’ll be back to check on her, soon.”

As soon as the pair closed the door to Ithella’s room behind them, Lanri let out a nervous groan, and ran her hands through her hair as much as the bun she wore it in allowed. She and Mirabelle quickly stepped outside into the hamlet’s square, which was illuminated by the massive fires cooking the Paravians.

The villagers were taking turns approaching the birds with plates and knives in hand, and simply cut off pieces of the birds as they cooked. Most of them were wearing some of the paravians’ colorful feathers, tucked behind ears or into the brims of hats, and all of them seemed jubilant. Lanri and Mirabelle gave each other an uncertain look for a moment, then shrugged before taking plates and knives from a table, and joining the queue.

“So…” Lanri began.

“You want to know what in the hells I’m doing here, don’t you?” Mirabelle asked.

“All the gods, yes,” Lanri said. “How did you even find us?!”

“I didn’t,” Mirabelle said. “Finding implies looking. I just happened upon you. I stayed in Cerene through the equinox, and set out due north like I’d been planning since the bandits showed up. I would have passed right on by this place if it hadn’t been for that boy, Thomas, flagging me down and begging me to heal a fellow priest.”

“It was just a fluke?”

Mirabelle considered that for a moment, then gave her a mysterious smile and said “I’d be a terrible priestess if I told you it was dumb luck, wouldn’t I?” Lanri wasn’t sure what she should say to that. “The truth is, I don’t know. It’s not Lord Hayer’s style to so blatantly lead his priests to where we’re needed, and I don’t know if any god led me here, let alone which one. But here I am, all the same.”

“Well, whoever is responsible, I’m grateful,” Lanri said as she and Mirabelle shuffled a little closer to one of the roasting Paravians, slicing off a cut of meat each. “It’s really nice to see you again.”

“You too, kid,” Mirabelle said, jovially. “You’re in far better shape than the last time I saw you. You couldn’t even walk on that thing without your crutches when you left Cerene, but now you’ve got a cane I’d call a fashion statement before an actual walking aid.”

Lanri looked down at the cane, which she supposed she did carry around like a sheathed sword more often than she really used it, these days. “A dryad gave it to me,” she quietly said. “For my birthday.”

She wasn’t quite sure why she’d told Mirabelle that, because her reaction was exactly what Lanri expected. “A dryad? On the equinox? That’s… suspect. Did it do anything uncalled for?”

Lanri shook her head. “I thought so at first, but…” She was cut off as a pair of arms wrapped around her from behind, and she nearly dropped her plate in a mix of surprise and panic.

“But I told her that was ridiculous, Mirabelle,” Seeker’s husky voice cut in. It snuffed out the spark of fear being grabbed from behind in an instant, and Lanri melted into the embrace on instinct as the arms started to caress her. “The dryad just played a prank on her, we’re sure. Though I must admit you were the last person I expected I’d see talking to my Dear Lanri.”

Mirabelle nodded at Seeker, respectfully. “As you say, Your Grace. And… I assure you, finding your consort today was as unexpected as it was pleasant.” Lanri couldn’t see Seeker’s face, but when Mirabelle added “I’ll check on Priestess Val Gyr, then,” and walked back towards the inn building, Lanri suspected it held an expression that betrayed a desire to be alone with her.

Lanri was about to spin around and show Seeker just how mutual that feeling was when one of those arms Seeker had wrapped around her gripped her tightly, and the other started to trace up her torso. The hand lingered on Lanri’s throat long enough to extract a shiver, then continued until two fingers were resting on her temple. “My Dear, you had best explain what trouble you got into today and why, and do it fast,” Seeker commanded with ice in her voice.

The fingers on her temple were ever so slightly cold, like when Seeker had taken memories from her in the past. “Are you–”

“No,” Seeker assured her with a whisper to her ear. “I’m just exhausted from a dreadful day. Touching you makes your thoughts easier to sense. Just tell me what happened.”

“Ithella got bitten by a frightwasp,” Lanri began. “She started frothing at the mouth, but Mara knew that could be treated with the essence from a hive. She was going to go alone despite the danger, and I couldn’t stop her, so I went with her.”

“You went with her?” Seeker asked, coolly.

Lanri nodded. “She would have done the same for me, if the roles were reversed. And I couldn’t help Ithella by staying put. So I went with Mara, so we could watch each other’s backs against these things.” Lanri gestured at the Paravians.

“You knowingly put yourself at risk? For Ithella and Mara’s benefit?”

“Uh-huh,” whispered Lanri. A sinking sense of dread formed in her stomach like a pit, and she could only imagine how angry Seeker might be. So when that firm grip on her slowly spun her around, and Seeker took her plate from her hands, she fully expected to be yelled at, or take a slap to the face.

“I wouldn’t have allowed you to risk your life for either of them if I’d been here, you understand? Your safety and happiness is more important to me than theirs by a wide margin,” Seeker said. Lanri nodded.

“I unders–” Seeker silenced her with a finger to her lips.

“I wouldn’t have allowed you to go with Mara, but I just can’t bring myself to be angry at you for doing so anyways,” Seeker said. “Because it’s exactly what I would have done if I’d been here, Dear.”

Lanri blinked at Seeker as she tried to make sense of what she was saying. Was she in trouble, or being praised? Or both? “I don’t understand.”

“You’re a stupid, reckless woman for going with Mara, Lanri. You should have stopped her, and waited for me to get back,” Seeker began, before pulling Lanri into a hug. “But you have no idea how proud I am that wanting to help others is what caused it.”

________________

Time passed quickly after that. An hour that felt like twenty minutes, Lanri spent most of it giving Seeker a detailed account of what she and Mara had gone through today. She told her Heartwarden about Mara giving her a new bandage, and her interest in Ishara’s church. She told her about the ichor, and Mara’s ability to stop herself when she needed to. She told her about the exhausting fight, and how close they had all come to disaster.

Lanri and Seeker were almost finished with their second servings of Paravian roast when Mirabelle appeared by their table, and quietly cleared her throat. “Your Grace, I believe Ithella is ready to be woken up.”

“But you didn’t?” Seeker asked as she wiped her mouth with a handkerchief.

“No, Your Grace. Once Mara heard you were back, she asked if you could do it.”

“I see,” said Seeker, uncertainly, as she and Lanri both rose from the table, and followed the bovine priestess back to Ithella’s room.

The priestess of Daray looked healthier, Lanri thought. Asleep, rather than comatose. The garish black marks on her veins were gone, as was the small wound on the palm of her hand.

“Why did you want me to wake her, Mara?” Seeker asked as she joined Mara on the spare seat by Ithella’s side, and Lanri and Mirabelle awkwardly waited in the small room’s corner.

“She admires you,” Mara quietly said. “I think she’ll feel safer waking up at the sight of you than that of a stranger.”

Seeker smiled, then took one of Mara’s hands and squeezed it. “That’s very thoughtful of you, ensuring your love wakes up to familiar faces. Ishara and Shala would approve.” Mara blushed, but did her best to cover it as Seeker intoned “reveillez.”

As the power tickled her spine, it occurred to Lanri she’d never seen this spell cast on someone else before, having only ever been at the receiving end of it. The priestess took a deep breath, and even under the many layers of robes she always wore, Lanri could see the muscles in her arms tense in anxiety as her eyes snapped open. The elf let out a series of panicked gasps and yelps at first, before she raised her hand to her face to examine it as she darted upright.

Mara was upon her in moments, wrapping her in a hug, and whispering “you’re okay, we found the hive. You’re safe.”

The priestess rubbed at the palm of her hand for a moment, as if the healing was only a veneer she could rub away to reveal a horrible truth just below. “I–” Ithella started, then swallowed. She looked around for a moment, taking stock of her surroundings and the people in them before she looked at Mara herself. “You found the wasp’s hive, Femme d’Arme?”

Mara nodded, but pointed at Lanri as she did so. “Lanri and I did it together. I wouldn’t have made it back alone.”

“I would have died,” Ithella whispered before she turned her gaze on Lanri, and seemed to make an effort to restore her stoic priestess persona. “It seems you’ve saved me twice now, Lady Vattens.”

Lanri shuffled on her feet, uncomfortably. Luckily Mara seemed to notice, and instead diverted Ithella’s attention to Mirabelle. “And this is Mirabelle. She’s the one who distilled the potion that saved you from the… wasp gunk we found.”

“Then I owe you my gratitude as well, Daughter of Plenty,” Ithella said after a brief glance at the priestess’ medallion.

Mirabelle gave Ithella casual nod, then mumbled “I’m going to get a smoke,” as she walked out of the crowded little room.

Ithella cocked her head at that. “Have I offended her?”

Lanri snickered. “Oh, no. I think that means she likes you, if anything.”

“I will have to take your word for it,” Ithella seemed to decide, as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. She took her medallion into her hand, and after a moment, looked at Seeker. “Your Grace, were you a part of what they did?”

Seeker smiled, but shook her head. “No. My Dear tells me just the two of them fought a substantial battle to secure the ichor. That smell is the villagers cooking the beasts they slew.”

Ithella’s stoic expression turned into a big, sincere smile. There was a giddy excitement about the thought of Mara slaying a beast, Lanri could tell. Though she didn’t know whether that was in general, or because she’d done it to save her. “You fought beasts? A battle? Both of you?”

Mara nodded, then reached under her chair, for her damaged glaive. “Wasn’t easy. But it was worth it.”

“Lord Daray loves few things more than a spear, broken upon the shield of an enemy. I’m inclined to say this qualifies, Femme d’Arme. I will carve you a new shaft, and it will be imbued with his every blessing, I assure you.”

Again, Mara blushed, though this time she made no effort to hide it.

“As for you, Lady Vattens,” Ithella said as she turned to Lanri. “You’ve already declined the trophy I have offered you as a gift. What can I offer you, to thank you and settle this debt I now owe you twice over?”

“You owe me nothing,” Lanri quickly but firmly said, before briefly glancing at Mara. “I helped my friends. If you insist on doing something, then I want you to keep traveling with us, until we reach Amourot.”

“For as long as you and Her Grace wish it, Lanri Vattens,” Ithella promised.