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

[hasapoint]

Lashan huffs in surprise at the power of his arm and keeps closing in anyway. She feels the intent of the headbutt coming and leans back as if they'd coordinated it, barely keeping her footing. It connects less solidly than he might have hoped - she gets the bright vision-obscuring burst of it but pain will come later, and this means she's in too close for his sword, too close for her to bring her own blade properly into play, not too close to change her grip and use the pommel like a hammer.

Ilse shouts something else and the little red-beaked finches swarm his helmet. One manages to cram itself into his visor, flapping frantically. Crows shriek into his ears, making it much harder to track things he can't see. A girl slams the butt of her spear into the unprotected back of his knee and jerks away. Nerine, not even five feet tall, darts in from behind and the black birds clear off for a moment as she flings a loop of rope over his head. She darts back and lets others haul on his throat as she readies more rope. Other girls stumble or slide on the bad footing and don't end up closing. They're all wary of his reach, how he could connect even if his blade is occupied.

[garmr]

He would have pushed the offensive against Lashan if he had the opportunity, but the mob behind him had peppered enough attacks to divide his attention. The next time he feels crows part, he sends a kick connecting with some part of a girl's body. His blows weren't yet strong enough to break much while lashing out blindly, but they hurt all the same.

The fight had quickly devolved from swordplay to wild animal thrashing between the lot of them. Still, he refused to stop fighting. It was scrape away on his own or die. Teeth grit, he feels the tug of the rope and draws his dagger from his belt. Unlike the sword, the steel was clean, slicing through with ease as he dashes low towards the womans' legs.

There was little thought to the maneuver beyond using whatever strength was left in him to throw them both bodily to the ground. The great sword is lost in the mud. His dagger might nick skin but was hardly coordinated enough to be targeted at an artery while they fell.

[hasapoint]

Lashan ignores the cut and drops her longsword and twists as she's borne down, trying not to get pinned, trying to get control of his knife hand. Her own teeth are bared now, her breath coming harsh and fast. She's not the best at grappling, but just now her grip is crushingly strong.

Marda gets off a slung stone fast and hard enough that it could have cracked skull. Instead it puts another dent in his helmet, over his temple, sending the finch blocking half his vision flying back out shrilling in alarm. Nerine waits for her moment and throws a loop of rope around his ankle. This time it just pulls off whatever he's found for a boot, but that leaves an unprotected foot that immediately becomes center of attention.

Behind Lashan, Vena finishes convincing magic what she wants it to do and points at the arrow sticking out of him, crow-nibbled and featherless now. It trembles in his flesh, rocking in the channel it made and letting blood run fast and freely out along its shaft.

[garmr]

The two of them struggle in the mud, the steel glinting in the light. He ignores the pain of his wrist, the slip of the arrow shaft from his shoulder. He looks at her with wild eyes. He would have used those teeth of his for more than grimacing if his helmet didn't get in the way.

He headbutts the old warrior again, this time square against her nose. Using the moment to reposition to her side, he makes the most of his smaller size to maneuver the blade at her neck. Reinforce with his free limb to get it closer to the soft flesh. Their bodies were so covered in dirt and entangled together it was difficult to see where one ended and the other began.

"Back off...!" he snarls fiercely at the other girls. Blood was flowing freely from his wound, dripping on his foe. He wouldn't last much longer.

[hasapoint]

He can't get as good a windup this time, but she can't pull back far enough, either. Cartilage crunches. Despite herself Lashan is stunned by it. Her expression, this whole time, has been intent, anger under a layer of focus; now it becomes dazed and her grip starts to slacken. Vena's shriek calls her back. Lashan gets hands like vices to the wrist of his knife hand and the forearm of his off hand. Slowly her enhanced strength wins out as his fades, forcing the knife between their heads, though the point of the blade opens a bright line from her neck up the side of her jaw before she gets it clear. She hooks a long leg around one of his to keep him from scrambling up.

The Sisters absolutely do not back off. The spear girl is out after being kicked but another girl takes up her weapon and jams it into the open arrow wound. There's someone trying to hamstring him, though he's struggling enough that she's just leaving a lot of shallow cuts as she tries not to get Lashan's feet. Ilse calls carrion-rats to swarm him and sink sharp teeth through muddy cloth wherever he's not armored. Some also bite Lashan, because carrion-rats don't really discriminate.

Then little Nerine's there again, this time staying close. She kneels on his back and flings an arm around his neck, elbow mirroring his jaw, clutching his helmet and head to herself, and strains to try and cut off his airway. "Just die already!" she says, and it's just how Nerine talks when shot full of adrenaline that it sounds like a plea.

[garmr]

He almost blacks out the moment the spear sinks into his open wound, letting out a short cry of pain. He was hopped up on adrenaline and stronger than he looked, but he wasn't invincible. Guts had lost too much blood, he was exhausted from a day or more of battle, and his limbs were wavering.

Faintly, he feels small arms grip around his throat, and he bucks his head on instinct, knocking off whatever wretched little creature had climbed on him this time. He gives one more kick at the knife biting his at his leg with his remaining boot. Then the world starts to swim, and his struggling weakens.

Eyes fluttering, he slackens his grip on Lashan, rapidly losing consciousness. He only manages a faint scowl at the woman before his vision goes black.

Well then. This was it. All the pain of living was finally coming to an end. And he couldn't even manage to take the old crone with him. Pathetic.

[hasapoint]

When Lashan is sure the danger has passed she allows herself to sag, allows some of her borrowed strength to ebb. Immediately, her body presents her with an impressive list of expenses for the past few minutes. Most pressingly, that knife cut down to the bone, and her nose is broken, but there's not a joint or muscle that's not complaining about something. Moving like she did in her youth is harder and harder these days.

It would be fantastic if she could pass out herself now. She cannot do that. The second-oldest Sister here is seventeen and while technically that counts as an adult, she's not up to taking charge of this whole thing. Lashan drags in a deep breath and pries her hands open. The girls help her disentangle from their opponent and get her on her feet, though she leans heavily on several for support. Vena among them reaches up to press a wadded cloth to the big cut up her neck and jaw and they both pretend that the girl isn't crying. A few others are teary too, comforted by other Sisters. No one seems to be too in shock, they've all seen violence before. The comedown from adrenaline just takes some people that way.

"Who's hurt?" she croaks, and gets an accounting of a handful of mostly bruises, minor lacerations, and some rat bites. As she'd hoped, Lashan had got the worst of it. She sits on the bed of the wagon with one of her swords laid across her lap. Marda re-aligns her heavy nose for her - she turns a scream into a low keening moan. The Healing charm she built into the sword burns out the chance of infection and slows the bleeding as flesh knits. "Ilse. The birds worked out all right, but no more rats."

Now there's the question of what to do with their attacker. He's still breathing with a regularity that suggests he's not about to stop. Some of the girls want to kill him right now and she's not really against the idea. But at this point he's at their mercy, and after all they are all part of a religious order that yearns for a world less cruel than the one around them. Lashan tells them, "At least get his helmet off first. See his face."

Once they do it's evident that he's terribly young. This doesn't strike the girls as strongly as it does her. She fought at that age, fifty or so years ago. Not alone, though. She'd been with her mother and brothers. Still, there's no shortage of hurting, angry young men out here and she has dispatched them before, when they see her Sisters as easy prey. This one didn't see them as prey, exactly, but he wasn't peaceable either. Lashan's not sure what makes her pause now. Only that she's learned to trust her instincts, and that they're usually excellent.

She gets her Sisters to bring him closer. They watch closely, ready to perform the last grace if he starts to rouse. Vena backs her up, having a trace of mind-gift herself. Lashan puts a cramping hand over his forehead, closes her eyes, and looks inside.

[garmr]

For a while, his mind is blank. Peaceful sleep isn't a thing he gets often, as he was prone to nightmares.

"You've practiced enough already. You have to start earning your keep around here," a roughened man looks down at him, uneven smile, broadsword rested against the ground. The image brings with it a whirlwind of emotion: admiration, trust, love, hate, betrayal, fear. It also brings a name - Gambino.

A vignette of another battle, several years younger than he was now. The boy was placed on the front lines among the hired swords of their company. The promise of three silver coins for charging on ahead was enough to spur them. Fortune favors the bold.

Only, of course, as soon as the first line runs into the field, Guts spots Gambino staying behind with the bulk of the company. It'd been a trick all along. The first few lines were a convenient distraction, and once the enemy lets loose its arrows, he is quickly surrounded by death. He remembers the sharp sting of an arrow lodging into a tiny shoulder, the pain mirroring the stab wound he received in the fight. He lies limply on the ground, wondering if this would be the end of him.

"Good job," Gambino smiles at him,"You made a great decoy."

The boy simply looks up from his miserable place in the dirt. He hurt inside and out.

"What's with the sullen face...? It was a good experience, wasn't it?"

Guts is lying on his side on the straw bedding of a cold cell, now a similar age as he was currently. The sting of old arrow wounds bite at his side and back. Different ones. He was remembering the lesson of that day. People do despicable things to survive. Trust no one. Depend on no one. The sting of betrayal burned fresh in him again, but he was more frustrated with himself for being foolish enough to get tricked in the first place.

After eating a mouse scurrying along the dungeon, he nestles into the straw as small comfort in the bitter cold. It didn't do much to help the fever making his head hurt.

I don't care when or where I drop dead. he muses to himself, wondering if this would finally be the end of him. Even if it was in this dreary place, maybe all the hurting would finally stop.

And yet, in that cold and dark cell, he spots a wildflower growing out of the cracks of the stone. Cellmates. And then, what must certainly be a hallucination peeks at him from behind the stalk and leaves. A tiny, sprite-like figure shyly watching him from a sunny spot on the ground.

[hasapoint]

Lashan feels the old angry despair bite into her belly and tries to hold it off. Yes, these things would have outraged the far-off nomadic horse-clan she was born into if it still existed. There's nothing here she hasn't found elsewhere, including in the Sisters of the enclave. The strong oppress the weak and betray the trust placed in them. It's not something uniquely done by men to women, even if that is an overwhelmingly common refrain. This is how the world is. All she can do is scrape a little patch of it clean.

Vena does not comment, having just a weary acknowledgement of what she sees with her Master's guidance. She expects adults to use children in a way that Lashan with her kinder upbringing can't. But Lashan can also sense how the girl has learned to feel safe at her side and in the company of Sisters. Vena hadn't tried to kill Lashan or her companions when caught, some years back. Isn't that a matter of her having been younger and steeped in her own powerlessness?

The problem with going into peoples' heads when you are yourself soft in the head, Lashan tells herself, is exactly this. She has this terrible idealism and care for people who've suffered, even violent idiots, that grows like weed seedlings in well-tended soil, no matter how long it's been since the mother plants were torn out.

Maybe it's a snatch of the seedling imagery that catches and brings forth the dream-memory of the wildflower in the cold cell. One shining spot. And... Rhetorically Lashan asks, :How does a boy like this end up seeing a flower spirit? They're such fragile things. They don't just show themselves to anyone. Well? Did you crush it?:

She pushes on the memory, telling herself that if he did she can divest herself of him. Close a couple of wounds and leave this boy to his life, not much the worse for wear. Vena gives her the mind-equivalent to a skeptical look. They both know the emotional associations around the flower spirit aren't right for that.

[garmr]

The memory is dreamlike with the disbelief of its owner.

It must be a hallucination. he muses as the flower spirit gets close. Thanks him for saving her from the rat that was going to eat her leaves. Alone and figuring he'll be dead soon enough, he decides indulging will be a good way to kill time.

"Nice to meet you, hallucination."

"Not hallucination. Chitch is Chitch." the spirit corrects him. Well, okay then.

She gives him a little water to drink, a bit of warmth from the sun. Small comforts. She climbs up on him, which makes Guts nervous, and he raises his voice to express his discomfort. The little flower sprite doesn't seem daunted as she brings over a leaf to close up one of the arrow wounds on his back. That seems to change his demeanor, uncertain of how to react to the unexpected kindness being offered to him. It can't be real. It can't be.

Chitch asks if he will leave once he feels better, looking forlornly at her only company. He sits up, catching her in hand, lightly squishing her face, testing if she were real. The sprite squeaks, but looks confused more than anything.

"On my way over here, I saw a hill where a bunch of your buddies were blooming. Once I can move again, I'll take you and your flower there."

A promise to a hallucination couldn't hurt.

"Really!?"

She certainly seems rather pleased about it, and perks up with immediate excitement.

[hasapoint]

:It's all very well to be sweet to something you don't think is real or can hurt you,: Lashan says acerbically, mostly to herself. She has absolutely no idea if flower spirits are as harmless as they seem; she can recognize them and knows they're delicate and shy, not much more. Her affinity isn't plants. :You're dangerous. How could I possibly trust you with my own life, let alone my Sisters?:

Vena, peering curiously at the memory of Chitch, says a wary :You wouldn't have to trust him much. There are spells... I don't really know them yet, but the Sister Wardlayers would. They say if you have a specific person's hair or blood it's easier to ward against them than to make the spiritwards and so on.: Lashan has magic, but there are a limited number of hours in the day and a limited number of years in a life. She's spent so much of both on fighting and smithcraft that her knowledge of magic is focused on a narrow range, though she's quite good in those areas. Vena, who's never seen the appeal of hitting people with sharp objects, has benefited from a broader area of study.

:Child, you're supposed to be talking me out of this,: Lashan grumbles. She hates that she's so tempted. There are sometimes non-women in the enclave but they're all either short term visitors who can be trusted, young children, or Siblings. At no point has she hauled in an aggressive teenaged boy as big as a man. :What would I do with him? How would I even convince anyone to put him up for a few days?:

Vena shrugs. :There's no drum to follow at home. He'll get bored and leave. Tell them that. Everyone listens to you.:

Out in the real world, despite her joints starting to swell Lashan shifts her thumb and under the mud finds the old scar across the bridge of his nose. It's in almost the same place as hers, though it's not as dramatic. Of course this child has old scars. She curses under her breath.