Camp
64th day of Winter 217, evening of the battle against the Suffering
Vanja
It is night. Vanja sits with her back to the fire, out of habit, these days, rather than to protect her vision. She’s set her armor next to her on the half-rotted log she uses as a seat, and in the dark the firelight is mirrored back in the steel. The armor is scrubbed and oiled, but there is no keeping it dry in this weather. Vanja has treated her axes, too. The sound of her blades on the whetstone soft and rhythmic. She checks her straps. In the North, she worried about the leather cracking in the cold. Now she’s concerned about damprot.
The cookpot sits between Vanja’s feet, filled with water and woodash. Her cloak and layers of wool and sheepskin are close to the fire, propped on tree branch frames. Vanja knows the clothing will likely still be wet in the morning, but at least they will be clean. It had taken some time to rinse away ten days of blood, and in some places the fabric had seemed to rend underneath Vanja’s hands - tears in the cloth coming apart where it had been held together by her own dried blood. Vanja makes a mental note to ask Roux to borrow his sewing kit.
She checks her injuries. What should be her injuries. Instead, as Vanja passes a clean cloth over her abdomen, she finds a wide, white scar, flush with her own skin. Vanja presses her fingers against where the Wolf had gutted her. The jagged starburst where he’d twisted his sword. Vanja sucks in air through her teeth at the memory of the pain. Whatever had infected Talith had reopened the scar, only hours ago, but now it was as if that hadn’t happened at all.
Vanja has washed her face, too. Wiping away layers of sweat and blood and eyeblack. Her hair is wet around her shoulders. Vanja has cut the worst of the mats away, and combed the rest. She’ll rebraid it when it’s dry.
If it ever is dry, here. Maybe Isendel was just a place of rain and wet. Its sky clouded and Riverless.
Now Vanja is wrapped in a blanket. She is cold, but clean, and the warmth of the fire behind her spreads across her shoulders in a way that is almost comforting. There is still some time before her watch is up, as far as she can determine. The clouds make it impossible to tell the time by the sky. In her hand is a small branch of wood, cut from one of the bare southern trees that have started to intersperse themselves among the pines. Vanja speaks low and softly to herself, as she works. Imbuing the wood with strength and protection. With words of tradition, rather than magic.
Astarael
Despite her exhaustion, Astarael can’t seem to sleep. Her body aches, her mind is restless. Every time she closes her eyes, she re-lives that horrible moment. Talith goes limp in her arms, says her name, starts to say…
She can’t bear to even think about it. Astarael’s staring at the roof of Sav’s magic shelter. It obscures the night sky above, so she can’t see how much time has past, but it must be time for her turn at watch. Astarael looks at her companions around her, seemingly fast asleep. She envies them that rest, but knows she will not find it for now. She quietly gets up, and heads outside.
Vanja is sitting with her back to the fire, and to Astarael. She sees Vanja’s clothes, hung to dry after washing, and becomes more aware of just how filthy she is. She’s caked in blood, much of it her own, some from others during the various battles…and Talith’s too. She knows she should clean herself up. But she can’t bear to do it yet.
Her eyes blur with tears, the light of the fire smearing. It dances and twists before her, her mind bringing the memory to her again.
Talith, disappearing. Pulled away, out of her grasp, down into that crevice in the ground. Just like in her nightmares. Disappeared.
She wishes she had jumped in. Maybe a worse fate would have awaited her, but life now felt like torment. Her only solace is that perhaps if she had gone in, others may have chosen to follow. And that’s something she would not have wanted.
It was only their desperate attempt to heal her after, while she was under the influence of the Suffering, Sav’s tears and pleas, the concerned look on her friends faces, that gave her the strength to fight back in that moment. Otherwise, she had been willing to die then.
But no. She had to carry on. They needed her. Danica still needs her.
Astarael had made her way to Vanja by now, and she does her best to sit on the log beside her.
“I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d let you get some rest. I’ll keep guard.”
Vanja
Vanja looks up at Astarael as she approaches, and as Astarael takes a seat on the log, Vanja rises. She doesn’t leave, though. Instead, Vanja moves the armor, setting it carefully on the ground at her side, making space enough for them both on the log, before sitting again, herself.
“I appreciate it,” says Vanja. She pulls the blanket closer around her shoulders, but makes no move to go back to the shelter, turning her attention instead back to her woodcarving. For a few moments, there is only the sound of the fire - the pops and sizzles of too-wet wood - and the scrape of Vanja’s knife.
After a time, though, Vanja looks over at Astarael. Astarael’s face is smeared with dirt, save for clean tracks down her face. It’s clear she’s been crying. Vanja’s instinct is to channel her concern into action. To run the perfunctory medical checks she’s grown used to doing, after combat.
But she’s already done that.
Astarael would be fine, physically at least. And Vanja had never been skilled in this other sort of healing, of hearts and minds. Her mother could do it. Sigruid could keep her own mind calm, her own voice steady, and leave space for others to pour out their pain and fears and heartaches. Vanja was too restive, herself, perhaps, to be a steadying force, but she could try.
Vanja takes a breath before she speaks. She knows there is power in words. In speaking true things, but she doesn’t have the words for this.
“I don’t know what to say,” Vanja admits, honestly. “Astarael…at the fort, it was impossible. We did everything we could. There was never…”
She stops herself. Reminding Astarael of what had happened wasn’t helpful.
“I’m so sorry,” Vanja says, instead, “About Talith.”
Astarael
Astarael was surprised, when rather than go off to sleep, Vanja made room and resumed sitting on the log beside her.
They sit in silence for a short time. Astarael stares off into the night, focusing on the sounds of the fire, the rhythm of Vanja’s knife carving the wood. For just a moment, she almost forgets all else, and enjoys a brief respite from her own chaotic thoughts.
She barely even notices the chorus of voices, whispering on the ever present wind.
When Vanja speaks, the sound is jarring. Astarael startles a little, like someone waking from sleep. Tears well up again, at Vanja’s words.
Her throat feels tight. She nods, and ekes out a whisper of a reply.
“Yes. I… thank you.”
The sound catches, but she tries again.
“And thank you for telling me about how Talith felt about me, before we went into the fort. I needed to hear that.”
Vanja
“I should have told you sooner,” says Vanja. “But I didn’t want to betray his confidence.
“I knew him in Northgate, you know. Before we all met up in the mausoleum and set this whole…” Vanja pauses. She had wanted to say ‘conspiracy’, as it was the word the others used, but that implied so much more planning and the occasional success. It seemed like the only thing they’d managed to do so far was survive, and even that was true only in parts. She chooses a different word. “Set this whole disaster in motion.”
Vanja laughs, a short, humorless thing. More an exhalation of breath.
“In any case. I knew him before that, and I’d seen him with other women. It was like sport to him.”
Even as the words leave her mouth, she worries she’s caused more hurt. Vanja pauses in her carving, and returns her knife to her pack, speaking more quickly as she retrieves her sanding stone.
“What I mean to say is what he had with you, it was special. Different, it seemed. It was something he held so dear he didn’t want to move too quickly. He wanted to take time. Care. For the fear of breaking it.
“We talked about fate, once, Talith and me. And at the time I was so sure of it. The flow of the River bringing people together who were meant to be together.”
Vanja moves the sanding stone in small circles, along the rough edges of the carving. “But it’s…” She stops, as the stone catches, and continues without looking up at Astarael. “Awful. Unfair.” She shakes her head. “It seems almost deliberately cruel, that you didn’t get the time you should have. Because you should have had more than that spoiled moment in the snow. And it should be him telling you all this, now. And not me.”
Astarael
Astarael is bent forward, her elbows on her thighs, her face supported by her hands. She turns her face towards Vanja, as she talks. She almost smiles, at the description of Talith’s prior interaction with women as “sport.” They had never talked about it directly, but she had gleaned from listening to other discussions what Talith’s romantic history had been like.
That in itself had never bothered her. She couldn’t boast what she thought might be his “number,” but her own prior attitude towards sex and companionship had been of a similar vein, and she had had a few casual lovers of her own.
But it was not what she had wanted from Talith. And she was pleased to hear that Vanja thought he felt the same way for Astarael. Not that it did her much good now.
She wishes she could have told him she loved him.
Astarael just nods towards Vanja, in thanks and acknowledgement of her words. She resumes staring out into the forest before them, as much to hide her own tears as to keep watch for any danger.
Vanja
Vanja runs her thumb along the smooth edge of her carving. Astarael is quiet, next to her, and after a moment, Vanja fills the silence herself.
“I know you and I have never been…close, and I can’t pretend to really know how you feel right now. But I’ve known pain, too. Different, of course. Smaller, maybe.”
As if summoned by her words, there is a tightness in Vanja’s chest, and a twist in her stomach, as painful as the blade of the Wolf. Her own guilt welling up like blood. For the death of her mother. The unknown fate of her brothers. For Bax and the strange death-touched thing he’d become. She takes a deep, steadying breath.
“My own heartache…my own grief, it comes in waves. Sometimes I’ll forget, for just a moment, and then something will remind me, and the pain will hit me so sudden it knocks the breath from my lungs. And I feel as if I’ll drown in it.”
Vanja retrieves her oilcloth now, and passes it over the carving, watching as the wood absorbs the oil, drinking it in. The finished piece is small - only the length of her thumb - but the wood is strong, the finish faintly luminous in the flicker of the fire.
“You’ve been through more than I have,” Vanja says, “After everything you’ve already survived, when you were in Galoring. And on your own.” Vanja shrugs. “Maybe that’s made you all the stronger for it. I don’t know.
“But you don’t have to suffer this—” Vanja catches herself, and she can feel the color drain from her face at the poorly-chosen word. “I mean to say you don’t have to go through this alone. You can share it with us. Talk to us about how you’re feeling. Mention Talith when you think of him, if you like.”
At this, Vanja opens her hand, and holds out the small wooden talisman she has been carving. “The last time I spoke with Talith, he was working on something like this. A charm to match the one he wore around his own neck.” Vanja smiles at the memory, “He was…taking his time with it. Struggling a little, I thought. It’s clear he’s no woodworker. I offered to help him with it, but he said it was too important. Something he needed to do himself. Because it was for you.
“I think I’ve got it right, though.” Vanja holds the small, forked talisman up to the firelight. “I don’t know what it means, really. Talith said it was for protection, but it’s not a runeword I know. Not Dwarven or Giant.”
She presses the talisman into Astarael’s hand. “I know it isn’t the same, coming from me. But maybe it will be a reminder of him. Of the man he was before.”
Astarael
Astarael wipes her face with her sleeve, looks at Vanja’s outstretched hand, and accepts the small token, when Vanja hands it to her.
It’s an excellent copy of the one Talith wore. Maybe even better made than the original.
Talith was making one of these for me?
She’s stunned by this act of kindness. It’s true, she and Vanja don’t see eye to eye often. They are about as opposite as two can be. But the fact that she cared enough to do this for Astarael means a lot to her.
“Thank you, Vanja. Truly. Thank you.”
She eyes her dirty sleeve now, and the water before her.
“Hey, do you think this water is clean enough for me to wash my clothes? I haven’t seen my reflection in a while, but I’m sure I could lie down in the dirt and no one would easily spot me, with the state I’m in.”
Vanja
Vanja laughs a little at Astarel’s joke, and pushes the pot of water with her foot. “You’re welcome to use it, but I wouldn’t wash your face with it.”
Vanja reaches into her pack and retrieves a piece of clean linen from her medicine kit. She unstraps her waterskin from its place on her pack, and offers it, and the cloth, to Astarael. “Here,” Vanja says, “This is clean, at least.” She cracks a smile. “Fresh from the river.”
With this, Vanja stands and throws one end of her blanket over her shoulder, to keep it in place. She takes a few moments to retrieve her things from around the fire, and bring them to the shelter. Her pack. Her armor and weapons. Finally, she inspects her clean clothes only to find them still wet.
Vanja takes her cloak from its hanging frame and puts it over her arm, though, despite its dampness. She traces her finger over the embroidered edge, the familiar pattern sending a fresh wave of anxious fear through her, and without thinking of it Vanja finds her hand curled against her chest, around her own talisman, pressing her thumb against the runes her mother carved for her. With a breathless word, Vanja forces herself to be calm.
She can feel the riverlight spreading through her chest and rounding the sharp edges of her panic. When she speaks again, her voice is steady. Impassive.
“Keep an eye on all that, for me?” Vanja asks Astarel. “I’m hoping it’ll all be dry enough by morning.” She nods to her clothing. “Who’s to say, though. Maybe it’s something I’ll just have to get used to, if we’re going South eventually. Seems like it’s always raining here.”
With a final nod to Astarael, Vanja leaves the fireside and heads to the shelter.
Astarael
After Vanja leaves, Astarael unties the cord that holds the vial on her neck. She had already replaced the empty bottle of tincture with the full one she had retrieved after the battle with Roland and the Grand Inquisitor, and now she slips the wooden token onto the string as well. This will have to do until she finds something better.
She undresses, sets most of her garments to the side, and goes about washing her skin first. The water is cool, but the act makes her feel refreshed. More like herself again.
She picks up her outer tunic, stiffened with the blood and dirt that encrusts it. The wounds on her skin have healed - the magic leaving minimal scars, compared those she’s treated herself in the past - but the rips in the tunic stand testament to every cutting blow she’s received the past 10 days or so. It’s in such a ragged state that it’s not worth saving.
She takes out her knife, and carefully cuts a small section out of the front. A patch that would almost lie over her heart when the shirt is worn. The blood upon this fabric is not her own - it’s from Talith. She stashes it in the pouch on her belt, where her lightning-gifted stone is stashed, and goes about washing the rest of her clothes.
Some time later, they’ve all been hung to dry around the fire. Astarael has assumed a position much like the one she found Vanja in earlier. Wrapped in her blanket, sitting on the half-rotted log, staring off into the darkness.
It’s how Ethan finds her, when he comes to take over the watch.
She looks up at him, a serious and determined look in her eye.
“Ah, hello Ethan. Just who I wanted to see. I have something I would like to discuss with you.”
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