lukeoutbelow | Do not be afraid of light

Do not be afraid of light

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.

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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.

"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.

"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."

He's quiet as she explains, surveying Lashan carefully. He may seem the brute, but he picks up on a poor excuse when he sees it. He hates the thought of being pitied, and he hates being thought of as a kid like the rest of the girls, but it was too late to reject their help now. He looks away, recalling more details of the battle.

"That name was thrown around, though they were bein' sneaky about it. Whispers. The recuitment barker that hired us didn't say much about it. Conversation tended to stop at the details of our contract and when we'd get paid."

He shrugs. All the noblemen around were the same to him. Whichever ones were good employers, he fought for. It was simple as that. He hardly held much loyalty to them. Now with that out of the way, he glances back at the Apothecary.

"I wanna clean all this crap off me before I eat anything," he says, sticking out the binds on his wrists,"Are you gonna cut this off or what?"

"Mmm. They might've called him 'the wizard'," she says reluctantly. "You'd know if you saw him himself because he affects a costume that'd make a cat laugh, but he doesn't show himself." Heshain's not the worst employer when it comes to fighting men. Terribly paranoid about who's on his estate though, the enclave hasn't had an eye in on that since their washerwoman contact disappeared a year ago. Lashan vaguely wonders if the boy could be an in to gather more information. Does not seem promising.

The Sister Apothecary would prefer not to be part of this conversation. She hasn't resumed grinding herbs, instead worrying the painted wooden beads she wears around her neck like she can't tolerate having still hands.

"What, you're not gonna snap them to show off your freakish strength?" Lashan asks, though she's pretty sure that right now he can't. He's not mended yet and that's an awkward angle. She exhales, which the younger woman takes as a signal to focus on a larger bead made from blue glass. The tiny air spirit they'd contracted with drifts from out of nowhere in particular to hang out behind his head.

It pulls a face for the Sister Apothecary, who's watching it and more crucially as someone involved in the contract is permitted to see it. Lashan can too, but she doesn't take her eyes off Guts. "Are you going to kill me unprovoked? Just now it's not even a matter of 'try'."

That's a stupid question. he thinks. If he'd wanted to kill her, why would he tell her up front? Anyway, he doesn't see a reason fight to now that he was fairly sure he wasnt being hauled off to prison. He tilts his head incredulously.

"You set your pack of girls on me and I gave you that scar on your face," he points at the line of stitches up Lashan's jaw,"Seems pretty even now, I'd say."

That's not exactly how it went. But he's not really one to hold a grudge. He doesn't mind sticking around and playing nice for a little while, at least until he felt well enough to depart.

Lashan doesn't like to be too in other peoples' heads all the time. It's hard to split her attention and both do that and walk around talking and doing things normally. It is possible for a good liar to fool her when she's just got an ear in, while the air spirits are infallible as far as she can tell. But, also, she can pick up on things like mindset herself instead of hoping that vrondi oblige and use illuminating body language and expressions. Sometimes the job bores them or they've got unrelated opinions to express. Summoning this one is more for the others' sake, so they don't just have to take Lashan's word. Respected member of the community or not, bringing him in after an introduction that inauspicious is a big ask.

She snorts and then grimaces, holding her free hand over her tender nose. Right, don't do that for a while. "Good enough. C'mere and hold out your hands." She will actually undo a knot so she can reclaim the whole length of tanned leather. If he'd known about it - it's not on the thumb side - and had enough time, Guts might have been able to get it with his teeth.

All the while, the Sister Apothecary watches the space behind his head and Lashan makes measuring eye contact. Some of her facial scars were left by blades. A parallel set across her cheek, one of them creasing her lower right eyelid, was not. The only recent one is what he gave her, which is still livid.

"You've time for a bath if you're quick about it. Staff practice will be over in less than an hour and I don't want you in the bathhouse with the girls." Half the ones who don't hate him will be fascinated by him, and plenty of the ones who hate him too. It's already an issue with an enclave that has no adult or half-adult males in it, and this boy... Lashan can distantly acknowledge that she probably would have been attracted to him as a teenager, brooding aspect and all.

"Works for me."

Bathing alone is massively preferable to any company, regardless of gender. Guts holds out his wrists to her without protest, waiting patiently as she undoes the knot. Gnawing it off would absolutely have been an option, had he been left to his own devices.

"You said you had my clothes?" he asks, massaging his wrists once the leather straps had been removed.

His boots he misses the most, walking around barefoot as he was. Now that he was relatively distanced from the heightened threats of a battle, he didn't need to come to violence so readily. Away from mortal danger, his motives are relatively straightforward. The air spirit will have nothing much of interest to gleam, beyond his very earnest desire to be cleaned of dry mud and grime.

"They're in progress. We can't let you go out in just bandages and trousers. I'll lend you a shirt and tunic," she says, resigned. "Your footwear's in better shape, thank the Twins. Look there."

She indicates a cubby with her cane. He's too big for the shoes or sandals of anyone here, her included. Childrens' hands and feet tend to grow in and leave their limbs to catch up - if this boy can survive and get enough to eat, he's going to be a monster one day.

The clothing is a little long in the sleeve and hem, just as the trousers are, but big enough around. It's all well-mended and soft from extensive use. There are places, especially at those hems, with tiny holes and little long threads where stretches of embroidered cloth had been sewed on, rather like the geometric patterns at the hems of what Lashan's wearing. Very little embroidery remains, just a square knot design at the lowest point of the plunging neckline.

"I'm the Sister Swordsmith. Or Lashan. This's a heathen cult from the Plains that your midland religion doesn't like, by the way." The apothecary has excused herself for the moment, having been satisfied that the boy is not going to turn around and raise hell this very instant.

The more they talked, the easier it was to believe that this old lady wanted to look after him. His instincts left him cagey, but Lashan is offering to feed and clothe him, when she had every reason to finish him off. He could accept that, for now. As long as her promise to let him leave was true.

"...Thanks," he adds sheepishly, not entirely devoid of gratitude. Being earnest came less naturally than a defensive, thorny retort.

He finds a dizziness hit him as he bends over to get the offered clothing, moving a lot more slowly than when he was trying to plunge a sword in her. He really was in a miserable condition, despite the haughty attitude he gave them. Moving his left arm too much agitated the pain of his shoulder quite a bit, so he relied mostly on his right.

A thumb runs over the cloth, lingering on its softness a little longer than one might expect. Small comforts were a rare thing, and the gesture seems to melt away the ice in his expression. He avoids looking at Lashan in the eyes directly, instead craning his neck over to glimpse at the exit.

"That the bath house?"

If there was any signage in the compound, he couldn't read it. He was following whatever stretch of village looked the most like it fit the bill.

Don't get attached, Lashan tells herself, looking away while he realizes the worn linen feels nice. Do not. The enclave is a halfway point for most who come here and they leave once they're on their feet or have picked up some useful skills and contacts, or both. It's safe here, shielded from the worst parts of the world outside, but freedom is limited. This boy won't be here for long and will leave with a pleasant memory and a full belly. That's all she can do for him. She's not going to bar him from leaving or strip her people of resources to make his way forwards easier.

"Got it in one." There are three centers of life here: the temple of the Twins, the refectory where meals are served and usually taken, and the bathhouse. There are heavy clay pipes trailing away from the single-story building, giving the water time to cool before it ends up irrigating gardens. Lashan racks her brain for advice for a child who probably hasn't been through this kind of facility before. She's not going to go in with him and have the usual tiring, frustrating conversation. This land is cold and benighted. "Get your clothes on a hook in the entry room, then go through the left door. Cold cisterns are for rinsing over the drains, hip tubs are for scrubbing, and the big hot ones are for soaking while clean, and then you end up back in the entry and can dry off. Don't leave soap in the bathwater and if you're thirsty there's ceramic pots with dippers."

If he soaks, and maybe even if he scrubs too fastidiously, it's going to saturate the bandages and they'll have to be reapplied along with ointment. Lashan isn't sure it will come to that, he's young and will probably come out with dirt still under his nails and behind his ears. "One thing first. You going to give me a name or do I have to make one up?"

He would much rather have the explanation, which he listens to silently. He can't help but think of the day Gambino tossed him a salve after a particularly brutal day of sword training. The ointment eased the pain of his wounds, and meant the whole world in that moment. Was it pathetic to feel similarly towards this little kindness tossed his way? Was he still so naive and soft-hearted? So easily won over?

"It's Guts."

He decides not to muse on it too much. Best not make a big deal out of a favor. They had tried to kill each other just a little earlier, after all. And he doesn't entirely know her intentions - whether it be pity or something else.

For now, he'll focus on the immediate task and keep himself busy in this strange little town of hers.

That is a horrible name. Lashan hopes it's something from some language she doesn't know that just sounds like the local word for entrails but she is afraid that it's not. Her eyebrows lift, which is all the comment she'll make, although she wants to tell the boy he can go by any name he wants. Unless she absolutely has to, she's not going to use it. The next oldest male in the compound is four, it will be obvious who she means if she says 'Boy'.

"Come back to the infirmary when you're done," she says, and leaves him to it, stumping back along to the business of arranging food to be brought outside of the refectory hall. He's not going to like how it feels if he gets soap into that shoulder wound, she reflects, and she doesn't actually know if no one else will come in while he's there, but... she doesn't want to hang around outside warning people off. Maybe that baffled gratitude will wear off and he'll be shirty again.

The food is plain fare with no meat and no dessert, though the pot of pease porridge is cooked with cow's blood to strengthen it, darken it, and give it a sweet tinge. There are a handful of boiled dumplings with onion and egg filling, and some unleavened bread. There's an enormous amount of the delicate, pungent leafy arugula that's coming in thick now, with a little oil over it. The whole thing can be eaten by hand or with the flatbread. To drink there's a pitcher of sweet-tart water with a bit of vinegar and honey and mint leaves in it. It's not quite a meal from the plains and it's not quite a local one. The enclave is a particular little subculture.

Lashan considers calling over Vena to see about blackberries. No. No! Don't be absurd. She's just getting hungry.

Guts isn’t gone for too long, limited by his rumbling stomach and a bump into some of the girls returning from their exercise. Lashan might hear their brief altercation from the bath house, an exchange of ugly stares and few curt words, before he shyly wanders back to the infirmary fully dressed in her clothes.

There is quite a bit of muscle packed onto his frame, filling out the garments despite the awkward proportions. Although still holding onto some adolescent softness around the edges, the young mercenary already had the top-heavy shape of a man.

With the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, thin scars up his forearms were easily visible. Multitudes of sword nicks up his right - his left less so, due to the steel gauntlet he usually wore there. Both hands were less marked, though the callused palms gave hint enough of the kind of life he’d lived so far.

He looks curiously at the meal, used to the harshly utilitarian foodstuff of war camps and wild game. Silently, he starts with the porridge and begins to sip. He doesn't make for much of a conversation partner, taking small and measured bites of each dish. He'd never really had much socializing at mealtime, either because he was alone or with rough men who had little interest in what some boy had to say.

That was fine. He didn't particularly enjoy talking with them, either.

Lashan kept an ear out when the girls came in sweaty from staff practice. Sister Apothecary would have put him out like a light, and she thinks about it, for all that he's sincere in lack of malice right now. This is a difficult situation and she can't blame the girls for being unhappy about it. The enclaves are a haven for the strange and the cursed, and her mind-gift is unusual enough to make her judgement calls baffling and inexplicable. She has brought girls back who were very difficult at first.

"Sit with me. Eat your greens, they're good for you, and if you don't drink the shrub it'll attract flies. Flies are not invited to this table," is all she says, fully transforming into her mother for a moment. The meal is already blessed and the Twins don't expect unbelievers to participate in these rituals anyway. That's another reason not to get attached, she can't see him converting.

Guts eats more neatly than she would've expected. She knows he's hungry. It actually makes her slow down, which isn't a reaction she usually has to eating with a teenager, but she's suddenly afraid she'll leave him wanting.

At that age Lashan had been considered near-adult. Old enough for solo watch and messenger duty for some time, just old enough to start participating in battle, and she'd been rough-and-tumble in peaceful months, too, keeping up with the young men her age. She'd had some scars. Not as many as the boy does. He probably has more marks of injury than she does now. The older she is and the further from clan life, the more idyllic it seems.

"How's the shoulder?" she asks when there's not a lot left on the table. "Has it reopened?"

Being mother-henned like this is a new and strange experience for him. It isn't offensive enough to bounce off her too hard, beyond a mildly petulant side-eye. He'd been living on his own for years now, he didn't need to be told what to eat.

"Got a bit wet."

His hair is drenched and plastered to his head, if she needed any guess as to how carefully his dunk into the baths went. The neckline of the shirt was wide enough to see some of the dressing over his shoulder, and the strip was mottled with the dry, dark splotches of old blood.

"I can change the dressing myself. I've done it before."

From there, he lifts the bowl of porridge up to finish it up with a loud slurp. He didn't rush to eat, but everything offered would vanish off its plate. He seemed to particularly enjoy the savory dumplings and the extra flavor the onion provided them, the stern look on his face alleviated every time he savored the taste. A prepared meal like this was a rarity enough to enjoy it all while he could.

Aside from satisfying his apetite, he could feel the dizzy pressure on his head finally abating a little with a full stomach.

Edited 2022-06-15 07:46 (UTC)

In her experience when they're not outright starving children are always trying to get out of eating arugula. It's bitter-spicy, less tender than a lot of other edible leafy plants. Lashan raises her eyebrows again, unimpressed, and lets him have most of the dumplings with a trace of misgiving. If this boy grows any broader he's going to be too big for her clothes and then where will they be? She'll have to beg favors of her seamstress Sisters to put in panels.

"See that you do," she says of the dressing, although she'd hate to have to self-administer that spot. "There's salve and fresh linen on the counter. Leave the soiled bandages in the basket." 'Fresh' linen is rags cut to a useable size and shape, in this case, but they're clean.

She leans back in her chair, trying to come off as impenetrable and mysterious and not faintly baffled or concerned. Lashan really doesn't know what to do with this boy. "Normally the rules here are that everyone works, teaches, or studies or they're shown the door, but there's exceptions for injury." And old age, extreme youth, and advanced pregnancy, none of which apply to Guts. "Do you want to try and sleep this off, or should I show you where the gate is first? We've got a palisade, but it's here to keep people out, not in. Bandit problems."

She mimes spitting at that, though doesn't actually commit in an infirmary. They're remote enough, and have little enough portable wealth, that the kind of forays the enclave has been seeing come off as very suspicious to her.

Weird. What kind of bandit would go this far out into the middle of nowhere? There were plenty of trade routes that were easier targets, he muses to himself, mirroring her suspicions.

“No use trying to sleep without a sword,” he replies. He knows he would be too alert to rest weaponless. Asking them to provide one seems like a bit of a stretch, given how close he’d gotten to killing her.

He gets up to the basin, slipping out of the left sleeve to address the injury. The stab wound had been stitched up, forming a thick, angry line that radiated red from the cut flesh, but it appeared to be clean. He isn’t daunted at all by self administering the salve, though he winced a little where it stung rather suddenly.

It would be yet another scar to add to the scattered streaks of white up his arm.

"They'd better not try anything while I'm down," she grumbles. "Oh, yes, it's mostly up to the archers to scare the vermin off, but you still want swordswomen, and the best after me are merely decent." For all Lashan's self-deprecation, she's not burdened by false modesty. She was a career fighter, and in this cold land that just doesn't seem to be regarded as an option for women, so her Sisters just don't have that kind of experience. Here mixed-gender enclaves of the Twins have barely any fighting women at all, which is one of the reasons she's here at one that does not traditionally accept men.

Her fingers itch as Guts addresses the most pressing wound and here, let me do it is on the tip of her tongue. Lashan busies herself gathering the dishware up and stacked on the tray she brought it in on instead. Privileges of age and position mean she can get children to do a lot of chores, including bringing and taking away the tray when she's not entirely steady on two feet, but it's good manners to not leave them more work than they must.

It was ground in to Lashan early that you never let people know that you have any insight into their thoughts. There was actually a whole ethical code about it on the plains, when and where it was appropriate to use at all, but taking her ability for every advantage it can give her is what's let her survive to today. Dryly she says, "You can see why we'd balk at arming you, I hope. Even if it's peacebonded, you've given a lot of people a scare."

Their best fighter was her? He doesn't doubt she has the experience. Someone with that many scars doesn't lie their way through a dozen battles. But that means the rest of them couldn't match. That would be humiliating among mercenaries, unable to measure up to an old soldier that was nearly as wrinkled as a prune.

"Sounds like you shouldn't get picky if you're short on swords, even if the women are gonna complain."

A rather bratty way to offer to fight for them, but the sentiment is sincere. He was getting room and board, and didn't like being thought of as a pity case. So he'll offer the one trade he knows best.

Or they could keep him here unarmed, and he'll eventually pass out from exhaustion until he heals up. Either way would involve some form of misery, and he rather prefered to endure that with a sword in his hand.

Edited 2022-06-16 03:05 (UTC)

He would think like that. She decides not to comment. Frankly, none of the adult Sisters who've taken up the sword have come to it young enough to be better than decent. For visiting the closest village and guard duty in an area that doesn't usually get more than a sketchy wanderer or two now and then, that's plenty.

"Offering services for a stretch, my buck?" Lashan considers this, narrowing her eyes. "I can't just make that decision for everyone. You were a threat to my girls and to me, yesterday, and my Sisters are not as willing to put that aside as I am. But I could pass it on. They'd ask you to swear on your intent. I don't imagine you put much stock in that." She gives a faint, sideways smile. "What can I say? We all like think of ourselves as good judges of character."

They'd call up the vrondi again and have other mind-gifted individuals present, and they probably still won't want to release that steelbride he came in with back to him unless there's a clear and present threat out there. She could arrange something in the mean time. It's better, as the saying goes, to beg forgiveness than ask permission, but she also has been going quite some distance out of her way for a random mercenary who attacked her. Lashan could lend him a blade after this is sorted.

"I heard something of what happened outside the bathhouse. You'd better continue to turn away from hostility," she continues after a moment. "A number of the girls despise you. You can defend yourself if attacked, though I don't think you will be in any serious way. Bruise them, scare them, hurt feelings, it builds character. But don't be the first to raise a hand. And I shouldn't have to say this, but have restraint. My principal concern is always for my Sisters. I would die for them." That, Lashan says plainly and without any special emphasis.

"You heard all that, huh?"

It was awkward enough having a bunch of girls find him in the middle of getting dressed, much less ones that hated him. Their stand-off out front was hardly any worse than the usual characters he tended to share camp with, and he bore a bristly glare perfectly honed for the occasion. He generally thought little of whatever words were hurled his way (merited or otherwise) and mostly stood his ground silently. Mostly.

At one particular hurled insult, he dared some of the group to make true on their wishes to see him left dead on the battlefield. Do it yourself, if you want it so bad. was his challenge to them.

When nothing came of it, he decided to walk away. That's what I thought - the last taunt that came out of his mouth. Despite the attitude, though, he'd be lying if he denied that some of the words came from the embarrassment of the situation. It made it a little easier to swallow when it turned from teasing to a contest of something he knew.

"If someone comes looking for a fight, then they'll get one," he grumbles to Lashan, "That's how it works where I'm from."

He doesn't suspect he'll be getting that blade anytime soon.

"Some of it," she allows. Throwing it in his face was uncouth and unkind but he probably is going to die on a battlefield. That just happens, when it comes to that career. It can happen to even the best, and especially when they fundamentally fight alone without anyone to watch their backs.

"Yes, well, a fight. Not a murder or a maiming. This isn't where you're from, it's a heathen cult full of strange foreign ideas. The people in these walls aren't your enemy, even the rude ones, even the annoying ones. Even the ones who'll want to see you with a black eye, they don't have a killing intent towards people who aren't their enemy. And you can survive more punishment from these children than they can from you."

She's already planning how she can present the idea of semi-hiring him. Probably the Sister Priests are going to ask him some variation on this same thing.

The way she talks to him seems to hit a nerve, acting like she had to explain to some large monster with claws and dripping fangs how to behave. Ever since he could remember he was always the devil's child, the ungrateful runt, the one that bites the hand that feeds him.

"Too weak for a real fight is what you're saying," he snaps back, acting adversarial to try and hurt her just the same.

"Ain't my problem you've got a buncha lousy warriors playing with sticks."

He's not beneath the petty thought that he should have expected as such from a camp full of women and kids.

Edited 2022-06-17 04:44 (UTC)

The boy's tone surprises her. Lashan blinks, bringing her attention back to the moment. She almost smiles - now he's acting his age. Still, evidently she's hurt him. She opts not to acknowledge the defensive misogynistic cast to his thoughts, though it's pretty typical of males in the area.

"If by 'real fight' you mean the way you do, yes. Most people can't swing a steelbride well enough to make it worth using. I can't, and it's a bit too late to learn now." The plains aren't rich in metal and combustibles to work it with, so steel is mostly from elsewhere, and mostly in forms many different people can use. And which are more manageable on the scruffy little horses the clans ride. But that's not really what she should be addressing, is it?

"Boy..." No, she should say his name this once. "Guts. The fact of the matter is that I don't know you. None of us know you." Mind-gifts just can't take the place of experience and familiarity with someone. Maybe if she'd spent all day and night rooting through his head, but who has the time? "I want to give you the benefit of the doubt. I do. I'm aware that you're very strong and capable. But holding back is an entirely different set of skills. We've had girls here so used to having to do everything they could to survive that they struggled to see lesser problems as anything other than life and death."

Vena, who's appeared in the doorway as Lashan spoke, hastily steps back out of it.

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