Do not be afraid of light

[hasapoint]

They smelled the battlefield long before they saw it. The apprentices and little Sisters who hadn't been on this kind of excursion before covered their noses and exclaimed. Vena didn't. As the child of a camp follower she would know to expect this, but her tread slowed and she looked repeatedly at Sister Lashan, especially as the sound of incredible numbers of crows cawing grew louder.

"Nasty, isn't it? Decay is part of death which is part of life," Lashan said firmly, if not totally without sympathy. How young had she been, the last time she was upset by the aftermath of battle? "There's armies that immediately turn around and sort the living from the dying from the dead and take care of that then and there. Not here, they're leaving it for the locals to handle or not and we're local enough. If you fight, you may well fight for people who'll leave you if you fall and move on. Make sure you at least have friends who'll look for you." They pressed on with their wagon. The donkey put its ears back but did not balk.

It wasn't as bad as it would get over the next few days. The bodies - it was now academic who had belonged to which side of whichever meaningless conflict this was - were not much bloated and decayed yet. Flies were not yet overwhelming. Right now the field of bodies was mostly attended by carrion birds, and various other birds that were willing to take advantage of the bounty before them. Finches among them, tiny beaks dipped red. A few other people could be seen picking their way across what had been a perfectly useable pasture. They kept clear. Lashan tasked girls to keep watch for them anyway, pretended not to see the ones who were being sick, and oversaw as dead men were loaded onto the donkeycart. They'd take them away a distance, say the rites, strip them of useful things, get them buried, and come back.

She paused. Something... like a sound. Not a sound. Lashan was hearing something with her mind, closer than the pickers. A threat? She stood like a sentinel and paid attention.

Comments

[garmr]

He'd lost track of how long he'd been lying still. Had they won, or had they lost? It was difficult to tell. Always a single moving piece in the larger picture, once the boy enters the fray of battle, he falls back on that nascent urge to kill that had kept him alive so many times before.

Upon opening his eyes, the first thing that he registers is the circling of buzzards over a strangely beautiful sky. The creaking of the wagon's wheels comes next, accompanied by the sound of footsteps close enough to his body to make his limbs tense up like springs. If his side had lost, that means he was a prisoner for the taking. He tilts his head to look, but doesn't spot any soldiers he could recognize. Regardless of who they were, he had to get to his feet before he was found.

Stubborn as ever, his hand had remained wrapped tightly around the hilt of his sword. He was tired, and a radiating pain wracked his shoulder, but it wasnt enough to hinder him completely. Disturbing the birds around him, he starts to rise up, emerging from the carnage like a blood-soaked, reanimated corpse. An arrow had struck the gap between pauldron and breastplate near his left shoulder. In his right hand was the great sword that looked far too big for a boy his age.

[hasapoint]

The outrage of the birds, as much as the almost wordless mental pickup, lets Lashan turn - her bad knee twinging - in time to see a man in partial armor struggle up out of a pile, his teeth bared and startling against bloody skin. And oh yes, he's armed, with the kind of weapon she always classifies as a steelbride. It looks too large for him, but he doesn't move like he's unable to use it.

There are a few gasps and exclamations from the girls, but no screams. Long knives and short swords appear in the hands of several of them. Someone gets a spear off the cart. The rest fall back further, though a few bend bow staves, bracing them on the bloody ground, to string them, and one turns her back on this situation to watch for opportunists. No one in the Sisterhood leaves the woods around the compound without being trained to expect and answer trouble.

Lashan herself is half a head taller than the tallest of the lot and broader than the stockiest. She draws her longsword - a bigger, heavier weapon than the ones she makes today, a leftover from her life before the enclave that's better suited to her size - and allows herself to be the most immediate threat. By now she's no longer the fighter she was. She can pretend in an actual fight, for a short stretch at a time, and it will cost her later, but she's confident of being able to hold one man's full attention for long enough that the girls can get him.

If it comes to an actual fight. She's not... she's not the best at de-escalation, especially since Lashan has just run through the spell to reinforce her creaking body instead of actually saying anything.

[garmr]

The moment Guts stands to his feet, he regrets it. He finds his head swimming almost immediately, and the largest woman he'd ever seen stands preparing for a fight at the other end. Maybe he should have waited a little while longer before getting up to slink away. If he weren't battered from a day of skirting death, he'd feel more confident about his odds - he'd taken on bigger soldiers and scrounged out a win.

He winces beneath his helmet as the arrow shifts uncomfortably. Painful. The dizziness must be from the blood that had leaked out of the wound from the course of a few hours. Fate granted him a small favor of sinking the arrow into his left shoulder rather than right. At least his dominant hand could still grip his sword. He squares himself, putting the weapon between him and his opponent. No time to worry about that now.

Through the black and red specks of viscera, the blade showed signs of wear. The blows he would land would bludgeon as much as they would cut. The battle had been hard on the sword's edge as much as its wielder, though its worn condition may be hint enough that he was quite proficient at killing. There is a thought as he measures the longsword in his head - he's certain his own would close their distance in height, if it came to that.

"Bunch 'a vultures, huh?" he croaks out dryly,"You'll have to work to get me."

This one wouldn't go quietly, whether it be to death or capture.

[hasapoint]

"Who'd want you? I've enough mouths to feed," she replies without stopping to think. Man sounds younger than she'd have thought from the first sight of him. If the Sister Apothecary had been with the group, she could have been soothing and diplomatic and defused the situation. They've just got the old warrior turned magesmith, and even the more combat-ready girls are going to follow her lead. "I don't need trouble but I can bring it if you insist. Boy."

Lashan's not armored. Armor's a heavy wealth of metal she does not actually possess any longer, not that she's ever worn much plate. She is dressed for the task, in plain much-mended linen and some leather, clothing that can get filthy and smelly. Bloody mud already soils the hem of her divided skirt. This is not something that can protect her against a steelbride, and she knows the young man know that too. It more than makes up for their difference in reach. But he'll have to actually hit her for that to make a difference. She's tuned herself enough to pick up on some of his thoughts and the disorientation of blood loss, and she can be a mobility fighter for a minute or four if she must. She can tell he feels cornered.

On open ground she and the girls might have retreated but she's not confident enough of this stranger's mind and inclinations to be sure he wouldn't try for them. There's too many corpses underfoot to back away without creating a vulnerability, especially with the cart and donkey that they absolutely can't lose.

Time skip 2 infirmary

[garmr]

For the second time in so many days, Guts finds himself stirring from a deep, dark unconsciousness. The world slowly spins to a stop as his eyes flutter open. Where the hell was he?

He lies down flat on his back, listening to the rhythmic noises of looms and thread being strung together. Footsteps and female voices were just outside. The memories of the fight come back to him in dull waves. Wrestling with the old warrior woman, being poked and prodded at by a bunch of girls. Then everything went black. Had he lost to some old bag and her little parade of kids? There’s a sting to his pride at that.

He reaches up to touch the wound on his shoulder, but first finds his wrists bound together, and scowls. He’s still able to examine himself somewhat, at least.

His armor was gone. His shirt, too, to bandage up and have easy access to his wounds. Whatever treatment they’d done had dulled the pain from the agonizing ordeal it could have been. Even then, dull radiating aches and the sharp burn of the deepened stab wound still plagued him.

Despite his miserable condition, he manages to sit up. He didn’t look quite so menacing after being pried out of the steel plate and rinsed of the grime.

[hasapoint]

He's a little too tall for this bed. Not dramatically so, but his feet stick out over the edge. There is absolutely no extra space widthwise. Someone's laid a thin quilt over him. The infirmary smells of cheap soap and assorted herbs, with a little stink still associated with him. They hadn't scrubbed him down, just gotten the worst of the filth off.

There are a few hundred people living in this compound and the infirmary has several beds, but the others aren't occupied. There is a chubby middle-aged woman sitting at a workbench grinding something with a mortar and pestle. A huge red birthmark mottles one hand and arm.

"Oh. You're awake. I suppose you'll want something to eat?" she says, pausing with an anxiety line showing on her forehead. The Sister Apothecary has a quiet, placatory voice, though less so when she raises it; she clearly doesn't want to be alone with Guts when he's conscious. "Lashan, he's up! This was your idea!"

"I'm coming," Lashan yells back from just outside, a cane thumping with her heavy footsteps. Her joints and bones are still unhappy with her. "Twins' tits, can't a woman take a minute to piss?"

She has had the chance to bathe properly and change into fresh linens. Part of a huge chest tattoo shows thanks to the low neckline. The cut up her jaw has been stitched. These days she doesn't heal as well and it's going to scar, though since she'd had a Healing charm on hand so quickly it still will be fainter than the most dramatic of her facial scars. And it's placed such that she can frown without hurting, which is nice because that's exactly what she does as she comes in.

[garmr]

"Eat...?"

He is puzzled by the question. Not the typical one he gets after being taken prisoner. He can tell that the old lady was nervous, as if she were sitting next a leashed animal. What was she expecting him to do with his hands tied?

The infirmary isn't a pleasant place, but he seems acclimated enough not to balk at his own condition. Having spent most of his life wandering between wilderness and battle camps, he's met his fair share of surgeons and been patched up by them from time to time. The larger compound, however, was a curiosity. From what he could see from his bed, it was all women moving back and forth outside.

Weird. But not impossible, he guesses.

His demeanor changes when he hears Lashan's voice. As she enters the room, he stands up warily (managing mostly not to stumble on his bare feet). They had helped him, but he can't entirely trust that everyone's intentions are altruistic. All of this just felt off. How she went from fierce opponent to walking around with a cane is an utter mystery to him, for starters. She didn't look like any woman he'd seen before either, but he supposes that the typical mercenary camp isn't exactly overflowing with them.

"You gonna tell me why you didn't just kill me off?" he asks blithely. He's straight to the point, if nothing else.

[hasapoint]

"Broth is traditional but you seem like you could take porridge," the Sister Apothecary says. "Good for blood loss, porridge. Aren't you hungry? Boys are... always hungry?" She makes a little unhappy sound when he gets up, a kind of oh dear.

Lashan looks more her age than she had on the battlefield. There's the cane, but also her broad shoulders are more stooped, her back less straight. Her knuckles and healing nose are swollen. Her skin is brown and leathery enough that bruises aren't as clear as they might otherwise be but dark smudges still show. She surveys the boy, frowning.

"Horse kicked me in the head when I was seven and now it's soft," she says, reflexively evading the question, and then waves her free hand in an annoyed gesture. Lashan will absolutely not tell him she felt sorry for him and that makes it a lot harder to try to explain. "I wanted to know who was who in that battle and if Lord Heshain's people were on either side. Didn't see his flag or coat of arms anywhere but he's hid them before. And I don't like killing kids." She shakes her head. "I meant it when I said we weren't there for slaves. You can go when you've the strength to walk out. We've got your clothes cleaned and mended and your sword, though I have to say it's in poor condition."

[hasapoint]

Sister Lashan woke up dreadfully sore the next morning and is in no state to have a serious conversation yet. She's going to soak in the hottest tub for a while and stump around after to loosen up, she tells Vena. Go see if Guts has run off in the night and stay with him enough that people don't freak out.

Vena's pretty sure he hasn't run off but she doesn't know! She'd slipped away after Lashan checked in last night. She might trust Guts more than most of her Sisters but it's not 'fall asleep in the same room' trust.

It's still fairly early when she comes and bangs on the infirmary door. It's cool outside and the sun's not visible over the great pine forest yet, so the light has a pale, grayish cast. Of course, scattered roosters have started crowing and setting each other off. "Are you awake? Are you there? It's time for breakfast! I'm gonna come in."

[garmr]

The first few nights in a camp never come easy. Even with the sword, Guts would find himself staring up at the ceiling in the dark, changing positions, only properly settling down when he couldn't tell anyone else was awake. When the sounds outside had been reduced to crickets and owls, and he was fairly certain he wouldn't find the door slammed open while he was vulnerable, his eyelids finally start to feel heavy. His dreams, at least, had been mercifully quiet.

When Vena knocks on the door, his eyes flutter open. The night creatures have been replaced by roosters and the early-risen songbirds. He sits up in his bed, yawning and wiping the sleep from his eyes.

"I'm up."

His shoulder still ached. He looks down to see the linens with some stains of dried blood. From all the climbing he did the night before, he guesses. He should change the dressing before Lashan sees him and starts asking questions.

[hasapoint]

Vena comes right in. Yup. He's still here and still big. Lashan's clothes are like a sausage casing on him.

"Hi! Do you always sleep in? Master's taking a bath for her bones. You can't go talk to her now, she'll be snippy. If you wanna bath with no one around it should be later. Do you brush your hair? Is it too short? How do you cut it? Does that hurt?" She is of course extremely awake and completely willing to chatter. Vena's gone through the bathhouse herself and combed her damp hair out and got it braided, a bit unevenly, into one plait, and changed into a fresh tunic.

[garmr]

"If I'm on the road, I wake up whenever I want."

Independence was hard to beat, in his opinion. A bath would've been nice, though. One downside of traveling alone was that he could only really rinse close to a river or lake. Guts supposes he'll have to do it when all the women are done... doing whatever it is they get up to in there. He has no interest finding out.

Getting up off the bed as Vena chattered away, he approaches the Apothecary's work station and slips his left arm out of the shirt to expose the injured shoulder. He undresses his wound, revealing it was still an angry red, but no worse than the day before despite having bled into the linens some. He begins the process of cleaning up the area, unbothered by the grisly sight.

HORSE

[garmr]

A week passes with little incident, and the boy rebounds quickly as afforded by youth and diligent care. He never quite sensed the magic in the sword, though he recognized benefiting from the apothecary’s steady supply of good herbs and wrappings.

The ugly purple up his arm would fade to a discolored yellow, and the bleeding would cease from the spear wound as it closed up beneath the stitches. Little by little he would test his agility and his acumen with a sword, as if any lapse in skill might blunt his edge and be the end of him.

He resumed his usual exercises utilizing a wooden staff when lacking a blade, making obstacle courses of the trees and the training grounds. Most of his time was spent away from people, drenched in sweat from the summer heat. He was mostly undisturbed, until beckoned to do some village task or another.

This one seemed no different, at first.

‘Come on, try exercising something else for once.’

The Sister sounds bemused by his obsession with swinging a stick in perfect form. She was around his age, dark-eyed and with pinned-up auburn hair that caught a few stray strings of hay. Her elbows and hands were dirty from working outside. He follows her to the stables and the unusual task of the day.

‘Outside the gates?’ he asks, surprised.

‘It’s getting dark, and one of our hunters hasn’t returned yet.’

She strokes the nose of a mare, a mix of black and soft sandy brown, with a bright wildflower woven in near her ear.

‘This is Safflower, you’ll be riding with her today. You treat her right, you hear me?’ the Sister has a fierce look on her face, as if she’d exact bloody vengeance personally if he betrayed that promise.

‘…I will.’ is all he thinks to say.

He offers his hand to Safflower to give the horse his scent as the Sister prepares her tack. He is unfamiliar with the stout plains horses beyond having watched them in the compound, but figures he shouldn’t expect much compared to the warhorses he was used to.

Safflower buries her nose in his short hair, as if having found a delectable new grazing spot. He makes a noise of protest.

‘Hey…!’

‘Well!’ remarks the Sister with a laugh. ‘Guess you can’t be that bad, if she doesn’t mind you.’

She leads the horse with a gentle tug of the reigns, hesitant to hand them to him right away.

‘Let’s go. They’ll be waiting for you.’

[hasapoint]

Safflower is large for one of the compound's horses, but like all the others is stocky, big-headed, pretty confident and easygoing for a horse, and unshod. There is no sign that she's ever known the touch of the spur, but some marks show in her neck where blood has been drawn. Her tack is half familiar, the saddle lighter and less structured than a warhorse's, not something that would help keep him in place in a pitched battle. The stirrups are short, meant to keep legs well bent, all the better to cue the animal. The bridle does not have a bit - the reins pull on a noseband around the sensitive snout.

At the gates Lashan is waiting with her tacked-up gelding, a gray beast just a couple hands taller than Safflower. Thistle is decidedly past his prime but still several years out from being geriatric. It seems from the scars in his hide that he's both seen action in the past and received the care it took to let him recover from it.

Lashan, kitted out herself in quilting and leather, is fully in horse girl mode, standing close and stroking his neck while Thistle props his long chin on her shoulder in equine contentment. He pricks up his ears on their approach and whickers, and she turns her head to see.

"Forgot to ask how you are with a horse," she says in greeting, though she's caught images from Guts' mind of riding. She hasn't picked up on any of the sense of love for the animals that bear him which she thinks is right and proper, but Lashan's been in this barbaric set of countries for long enough that that doesn't bother her like it did when she came off the Plains. It would have if he beat them bloody or cut up their sides or rode them to collapse without desperate need.

[garmr]

“I can ride them.” He states this plainly.

Much like with people, he hadn’t been around any individual horse long enough to form deep attachment or love. The animals carried him into battle, but so did a breaching tower. Some were better than others. They were equal parts ally and enemy, creatures he had to cut down as much as he had to care for, and died as often as men did. He cared for them as he did for his armor, or for his sword - diligently, but with no particular affection.

The stout plains horses were different from the beasts on the battlefield, sporting hard wooden saddles and unruly if the rider’s hand was weak. Soldiers with money and status would don them in gleaming armor, appearing godlike and fearsome on the battlefield. A horse’s bite or kick could kill just as well as a sword, and they made the most of any animals with aggression in their blood.

Although he wasn’t wearing them, piled in his armor and equipment were a pair of spurs on leather straps, the silvery spiked wheels unremarkable to him but probably quite cruel-looking to an outsider.

He seems pensive as he notices the difference in the horse’s equipment, the lack of bit in particular, and looks back to Lashan.

“This a leisure ride we’re doing? It didn’t sound like it.”

If someone was lost in a forest full of bandits, he’s just going to assume the worst.

[hasapoint]

It's still raining the next day, the storm calming into a drenching downpour troubled by some steady gusts of wind. The world is gray, blurred, and very wet, with windchimes sounding odd notes. Most of the Sisters going out wear an eccentric collection of clothing to hopefully keep them from being drenched, mostly oilskin cloaks or fringed straw capes and a lot of big conical straw hats. Old ladies have emerged with younger Sisters holding makeshift umbrellas over them. The infirmary sees more use as the Sister Apothecary gets to a whole lot of brewing, some of it rather more unpleasant smelling than the red tea last night.

Once Guts finally wakes up she suggests, busy with patients, that since he can get by without her services he might be happier in a guest house, at least unless he plans to get injured a third time. Lashan is not in evidence, having woke before him and gone out already. She's left another loaner shirt, this one dyed dark enough to almost completely hide old bloodstains. Vena is also not present, although apparently she did sneak inside, half-drowned, at dawn, and was told not to wake him up.

A Sister doubtless asks Guts what he wants done with the bear paw, now stiff and starting to smell. The claws could be pierced and strung on a cord, the bones could be removed and cleaned, she gets really excited thinking about the skin being tanned and turned into a pouch! before checking herself. Without piercing the collection of claws can be handed over quickly. The rest is going to take quite a lot longer.

If Guts wants to find the old and young Sister, they're at the forge, which rings with heat and activity even in the rain. Regular hammer blows and the breath of the bellows sound, and women singing in deep, guttural voices.

[garmr]

Guts is slow to wake to the calming sound of rain, having plunged into an unusually deep sleep. He didn't wake up once, despite the rise in activity that would normally have him jolting to alertness. The pain didn't disturb him as he expected, which left nothing but the tiredness of a day's exertion. Peaceful, despite some of the revelations of the night prior.

He examines the bruising of his ribs, pressing lightly with his fingers to test how tender they were beneath the robe. The medicine and healing charm of the sword did its work, however, leaving him aching less than he might have originally. He attributes it mostly to the Apothecary's work, and is agreeable enough when she suggests for him to move his things to the guest house for the night. He thanks her, too, for the medicine, even if it tasted 'like someone bathed their feet in it, first' (to use the exact descriptor). He'd move the sword to the guest house later.

The bear paw is given rather freely to the questioning Sister, offering it to her to make whatever she pleased of it. He didn't consider himself a craftsman. He had no particular opinion on what to make of it and was hesitant to form attachments to objects, even keepsakes. They can sort out the rest once its made into something.

And from there he changes clothes (ignoring any wandering stares) borrows a cloak, and runs out in the rain to his first task. Running still aggravated his sides, he is quick to discover, but he makes it to the Forge merely wet and a little sore. He'd heard the singing of the women his first week there, wandering the compound, but never bothered to enter inside until now.

Surveying the hot interior of the forge, he looks for Lashan. He wanted to see how she was holding up. The space wasn't entirely unfamiliar - he'd visited enough blacksmiths to have swords made for him to get used to the fire and the noise of hammer strikes on metal. His eyes would pause at the anvils, occasionally, looking at the sparks, before he continued searching.

[hasapoint]

('Oh, you,' the Sister Apothecary would have said. 'Believe me they can taste far worse.')

The smithy doesn't have much to distinguish it from equivalents elsewhere. It's large, accommodating multiple workers. As this kind of place goes it's clean, if still sooty and smutched and smelling of fire, earth, the odd sweetness of heated metal, and sweating bodies. If anything sets this apart it's that some of the same religious symbols as out on the Temple can be seen all over, including a tiny altar to the Crafter-Twin. And that there are more lanterns containing oddly colored little flames. Perhaps it's just that the glass is tinted.

Two doughy women are using tongs to wrestle what can only be Guts' sword out from the forge itself. It's a lot larger and heavier than the short sword being worked more comfortably by another pair and they place it carefully before getting it clamped down. Currently the tip of the glowing metal is forked like a snake's tongue. Under rhythmic, constant hammer blows the two tips start to close into a familiar point.

Lashan is holding court, leaning on her cane as she supervises with a posture clearly suggesting that she wants to be hands on. She's the main person singing, though not the only one, some low and throaty Plainsfolk song that the hammer blows fall into. Vena is there too, near the bellows, working a heavy file over some scuffed and much smaller blades clamped in place. She sees Guts outside, brightens, and waves enthusiastically. Lashan sees this, glances his way, and nods, and Vena comes to the doorway.

She would've come to hug him, but plants her feet in time to not and sways in place. "Hi! Master will be a minute if you want to talk to her. You didn't get your head bashed in!"

[garmr]

Once the action had died down early on, it became surprisingly easy to fall into a routine in the compound. Guts eventually found himself in the guest hut to keep him separate (and he was fine with that - he preferred the solitude to the communal beds). His bruises would heal over first, and then the stab wound would fade into a dark line on his shoulder, nastier than the small star made by a deflected arrow or glancing cuts of a blade. The healing sword’s magic and the Apothecary’s medicine eased him along more quickly, leaving him free to help along in the forge or in other parts of the village.

But these things wouldn’t save him from aches of a more natural cause, and one night, he’d jolt up in the night with a pain so intense he almost wanted to scream. Cursing colorfully under his breath, Guts lights the small lantern next to his cot to see his shins still attached to his body. With the persistent and painful throbbing, however, he knew he wouldn’t be getting sleep anytime soon.

Picking up the lantern, he stumbles to his feet and makes his way outside. Maybe that old bag in the infirmary might have something to cool the pain. Looking up, he notes that the moon had thinned into a little slivered crescent again for the fourth or fifth time since he’d started keeping count. Many weeks had passed to the point where he’d started to lose count if he wasn’t thinking clearly.

“Lousy clothes…” he complains to himself, feeling the draft of cold where the hand-me-down’s shirt seam had torn at the shoulder. His shuffling walk to the infirmary is interrupted by spotting a few lingering embers, catching his attention. People were still out and about, but the fires tended to dwindle at this hour to note the sleep of all the bustling blacksmiths. Eager and curious to see the progress on his sword, he pokes his head inside.

“Hey, anyone in here?”

Slowly it’d been revived, from the beaten hunk of steel to the massive blade he had so much fondness for. He expects to see a long tang sticking out of a furnace somewhere, red-hot with heat.

[hasapoint]

"Hush! You'll wake her," Lashan says, and scowls at the querulous tone she hears in her voice. She has judged that the massive steelbride is done being reshaped and is scratching her way down the edges, sharpening them with a big file. This is itself not quiet. She has it pinned in place with vices and is working in sections, the sword being too large to rasp down its whole length without walking back and forth.

The shape is about what he'd expect from a sword with a bare tang, but in good light it doesn't quite look like new. Instead of a length of continuous metal there are transition points, too fine to be picked up by fingers, where fresh steel in similar colors was joined to the battered original. Lashan has also taken the opportunity to stamp her four-lettered maker's mark at the base of the blade. She didn't make the whole of it and hasn't bespelled it - she's been putting that power into her own work that will actually garnish the enclave's funds this whole time, after all - but a lot of time and effort has gone into this thing.

The 'her' she mentioned is curled up on a cloak under the shrine to the Crafter-twin. In preceding days Guts has seen Vena with Hesri and Aren, tracing out swirly symbols on bits of wood and trying to carve them out, which is apparently quite frustrating. Looks like she's been doing that, there are little wood shavings everywhere.

[garmr]

His faces pinches in rebellious teenage displeasure at being told what to do, but it softens up when he sees Vena curled up under the blanket.

He was too proud to whinge to Lashan about his legs hurting, no matter how uncomfortable the pain was, but his movements are a little more sluggish than usual as he enters. He can’t quite conceal it all - and he’d be asking her about medicine in a moment anyway.

The sword gets a look, of course, tracing the four letters with his eyes and wandering up the bevel of the blade-edge. If she wasn’t working on it, he’d want to run his fingers down the metal to feel the quality. It felt fitting, in a way, for his sword to eventually assume something of the collaged quality of his armor. Almost done.

It’d be almost time for him to leave.

Leaning against a thin wooden column to take some of the weight off his feet, he turns to Vena.

“What’s the kid doing here? Shouldn’t she be in bed already?”

He spots the piles of wooden shavings but can’t quite make out what they were for. Having them carelessly strewn around like that seemed like a good recipe for a fire.

SNEAKS

[garmr]

And so the day came and went where his sword was repaired and returned to him, and there was nothing left for Guts to do in the village but to depart. This realization left him quieter and a little more sullen once all his belongings were piled together in the guest hut. Preparations. It troubled him that he'd developed so much apprehension in such a short amount of time.

Can't have himself banking on false hopes, he reminds himself. This was not his home. He had simply been a guest to some overly generous hosts. And he was getting too used to the comforts of village life. In the month or so he'd been idling in the village, his greatsword had grown a little heavier. The edge was fine, the balance too - he was simply out of practice enough to notice his connection with the sword was off, even if he was leaving the village taller and better fed. This left him even more driven, perhaps fearful that he'd grow too soft if he didn't course-correct immediately.

And so, under a barely brightened sky, while the sun was hidden behind the horizon and the village still seemed asleep, he decided it was time to leave. He didn't want teary goodbyes. Didn't want to think too hard about Lashan, about the old warrior's gentle looks at him, or of Vena's disappointment. He never did get the knife of hers... But that was fine. He already had one, and the little girl could have her first one as a pleasant keepsake. The apothecary would probably breathe an enormous sigh of relief once she wakes up, he imagines.

His mostly solitary exit plans are interrupted, briefly, when he tries to get a small portion of food for the road. Apparently a handful of the girls woke up even earlier than this regularly, which shocked him, and it was certainly an embarassing moment to be caught at the kitchen like a rat using the cover of darkness. He couldn't leave a note, so he asks the two older girls to pass on his goodbyes for him after suffering a light teasing from them.

Easier than confronting his hosts any more, he finds wandering into the stables a simpler task - perhaps considering borrowing a horse - but in the end, simply giving Safflower one final scratch to the side of the neck before he goes. He doubts the animal will remember him if they cross paths again, but some part of him likes to imagine she will.

And from there, tracing the imprints of hooves in the mud towards the gate. The final steps into the forest beyond.

[hasapoint]

The other day ago, sensing that he'd soon be gone, the fighting girls had shoved a 'new' shirt at him, one they'd quilted together from his old one and various scraps and then put through a quick dye, making it roughly the same muddy color all over. "Wear this and stop busting the seams in the swordsmith's clothes," one said, and then they'd all hung around hoping he would take it off in front of them.

It's not, by most standards, a good shirt, tackled more out of general enthusiasm than prior experience. The sleeves are slightly different lengths, the hems are uneven, the fabric pieces it's made of vary wildly in weight and coarseness, and much of the stitching is clumsy. On the inside, about halfway down the back, there's a panel of fabric leftover from embroidery practice, still bearing shaky attempts at flowers. They'd used a smaller shirt as a pattern, scaling it up without measuring very precisely, and had erred large - too large, but Guts is a huge boy and it's not quite so baggy as they expected.

One of the kitchen girls, already wide awake and making preparations for breakfast had eventually taken pity on him and given him something portable. "Now go away and good luck. The pears are ripening and I don't want you eating all those, too!" Then she gave him a string bag of wrinkly dried peach rings that he had to keep away from Safflower, who was convinced he had brought her a treat.

Cows can be heard lowing expectantly as they wait to be milked. Guts is up before things get particularly busy, but a lot of farming happens here and farmers don't waste light, especially when the afternoon gets hot enough to impede working.

Galli's punishment for wandering has included taking some of the crap shifts at the watchtower, though things have gone quiet and there may once again be no watcher assigned overnight soon. She's slumped at her post, alternating which hand is a closed fist and which one's an open palm slapped against it in a dull way that suggests she's been doing it for a while. Near her little covered tower, the gate has a crossbar on the inside that's been lowered into place for the night, quiet or no quiet.

[garmr]

The less-than-ideal quality of the shirt didn't bother him much. Even if it were perfectly sewn, it'd get bloodied and sweat on and hidden under armor, for the most part. The gesture itself seemed to touch him, even if he didn't say anything past a quiet 'Thanks' in return that day.

His final walk through the village brought on a little ache in his chest, like he was losing something. Some frail root had grown here, even if it wasn't strong enough to make him stay. He liked this place, he concludes finally, as he made his way to the exit.

Guts spots Galli in the tower long before he reaches the gate. He considers what a heartfelt goodbye sounds like, but the words escape him. The wood speaks instead, creaking loudly and awkwardly as moves the crowbar just enough to crack the door open.

"Still stuck on watch duty?" he finally says.

[hasapoint]

PSL ART: All by Maggie Gaunt!