"Are you nervous?"
Lor'themar wiped his palms against his legs—not that it did him any good. They'd stripped him down to his drawers before they'd set off into the woods, under the watchful eye of the ranger-general, who oversaw each trial's start.
He'd never felt quite so exposed as he did now, with the sun beating down on him from head to toe. "No."
It was a lie, but one syllable wasn't enough to give him away. Besides, his voice hardly shook—not when he was really scared.
And when he tilted his head back, watching as the rest of their envoy vanished into the treetops, along with everything that remotely resembled civilization and safety, he had to admit to himself—he was really scared.
"Good." Halduron didn't look much like Halduron without his sleazy smirk and some worn-out pickup line on his lips; he looked more like a Farstrider—the real thing—standing slim, shirtless, and sun-speckled in a lonely shaft of light, the only one that'd managed to break through the trees. "A ranger respects the forest, doesn't fear it."
Well, Lor'themar didn't know the difference between the two—not yet, anyway.
But there were plenty of things Lor'themar didn't know, and he felt quite all right with that, because if he knew one thing, he knew that knowledge made for one hell of a curse. Knowing too much just cluttered up his mind so that he couldn't find the things he needed to know, and then he'd end up lost in his head, which happened enough on its own.
Some boys found this out early; he guessed he was just one of those boys.
So he tried to stay simple.
He knew how to hold a knife, long as he held it in his right hand, and he knew his Nothings.
He supposed he'd have to call them by their proper name once he'd passed his trial, because all the real rangers called them "Woodsmen's Words," but they'd always be Nothings to Lor'themar, and he'd always hear them in the ranger-general's silvery soprano:
"Take nothing but what you need; leave nothing behind. If you're sure of nothing else, be sure of three things: where your partner is, where your weapon is, where you are—in that order. And by the Sunwell, don't you ever—ever—ever…"
Damn it, he always forgot this one…
All right, he knew how to hold a knife, and he knew most of his Nothings.
And that was all he needed to know, far as he was concerned.
"Theron?" Halduron was asking now, as he held his blade up to the light for a thorough inspection. "You in there?"
Lor'themar knuckled his eyes back into focus, blinking blearily at the sky through cracks in the canopy. "Yeah."
"You got everything?"
Everything, in this context, meant a pair of loose linen drawers and a knife of his choice. He'd picked the one he won from Sylvanas in a no-weapons brawl—well, technically Sylvanas had won, but she'd given him the dagger anyway, so he liked to count it as a victory.
Well, linen drawers, a dagger, and a "hell of an unshakable resolve," according to the ranger-general. But Lor was still working on the last one.
He swallowed his doubts with an otherwise dry gulp, and nodded. "Yeah."
"It's only twenty-four hours," Halduron reminded him. "Less, if you don't include naps. We'll sleep in shifts, hm?"
"Yeah." Lor'themar traced the inscription along his dagger's hilt—he could count on one hand the few sights that made him feel safe and still have two fingers to spare, but the crest of House Windrunner ranked high on his list, preceded only by the banners of the Southern Sanctuary. "Only twenty-four hours."
By this time tomorrow, they'd be rangers—if they survived the wilds, anyhow. And if they didn't…
Well, it was a straightforward test. Live, and you received the opportunity to sign on with the Elven Ranger Corps. Die, and at least you didn't have to carry the weight of your failure around for all that long.
"Hope you sharpened that," Halduron told him, gesturing to Lor's knife with the razored tip of his own.
Lor'themar glanced at his blade, sticky with sap and tree pulp from his last sparring match with a birch behind the sanctuary.
"Here," Brightwing said, holding his dagger by the steel as he offered it to the younger boy. "You can borrow mine."
He managed a meek nod, with a burning blush that spoke for his gratitude. "Thanks."
Lor'themar might not have known knives as well as he'd previously thought, but at least he knew enough about good manners to make up for it.
He'd learned all about manners when he'd stumbled on the Southern Sanctuary; the priesthood was the first proprietor of polite smiles and pleasantries, or so said Liadrin.
He knew to always say thank you whenever someone handed him something, even if he didn't really want it. And he knew to always nod and listen when someone was talking to him, even if he didn't really want to hear what—
"Theron."
Halduron waved a sweet-smelling flower in Lor'themar's face, but there was nothing romantic about the gesture. Not in his expression, pulled taut and solemn, and surely not in those pale eyes of his—clear as ever, but they're looking less like water, more like ice with their predatory gleam just past the pupil.
Lor'themar staggered back a step or two, like he expected Halduron's fist to hit him square in the jaw, in spite of the wilted flowers clutched in his fingers. "Wh-What?"
Brightwing looked like he'd lost a battle with a bushel of steelbloom, streaked from head to toe in hues of purple and yellow the shade of bruises—courtesy of the fistful of petals in his free hand, if Lor'themar had to guess. "Take this."
It wasn't a suggestion; it was an order.
Plucking a few well-used petals from the stem, Halduron reached for Lor'themar's hand, which he didn't readily relinquish, but Brightwing was bigger than him—quicker, too—and he was smearing colors all along Lor's forearm before he'd even gotten the chance to flinch.
(A remarkable feat, as Lor'themar considered himself quite a good flincher.)
"Stop that," Lor'themar snapped, snatching his hand back. "Why're you dressed like a flower?"
"I'm dressed like a ranger."
He gave Halduron a deliberate once-over as he scrubbed at a purple smudge. "Never seen a ranger dressed like that."
"That's because most rangers are dressed in armor," Halduron said matter-of-factly. "We don't have that luxury."
Lor'themar smacked a mosquito off his shoulderblade; he didn't need a reminder.
"Those are only going to get worse if we head deeper into the woods," Halduron went on. "Ought to make for the coast."
He could hear breaker waves tumbling over themselves as they crashed against the shore from right where he stood, when he listened hard—he had phenomenal hearing, he'd been told, though the words were usually followed by some choice swears regarding his "miraculous inability to follow orders."
"Yeah," he said, trailing along after a short delay. "That's a good idea."
Of course it was a good idea, because it belonged to Halduron, and Halduron was a tiny tactical genius with umpteen testimonials—a firing squad in a fourteen-year-old's body, an acrobat from birth, a self-proclaimed future Farstrider from the age of five.
See, Brightwing bore a stunning resemblance to a ranger already, the real thing, even when he was smeared sticky with the blood of steelbloom.
It must've been the scowl, harder than steel and sharper than a dagger—well, sharper than Lor'themar's dagger, anyway. Or maybe the way his lips turned up at one corner in the subtlest trace of a smirk, the kind of confidence that dared the whole forest to just try to take him down. Or perhaps it was just the shine of sweat on his hairline, dripping down past his brow, the twig twisted in his hair, the dirt under his fingernails, the nature that simply seemed to cling to him—effortlessly.
When Lor'themar looked at his own fingernails, there was no dirt to be found. He could practically see his damned reflection, two big brown eyes blinking back at him.
(Liadrin had spent an hour buffing them before his "big camping trip," while Lor'themar scowled and insisted that it wasn't a "big camping trip," it was actually the single most important moment of his young life, and no, Lia, no nail polish today, Halduron liked to tease.)
So his first order of business once they'd reached the sea was to stick his hands in the sand.
He'd heard the beaches only got prettier the farther south one traveled, once the breeze picked up and the wind-beaten cliffs became white sand, sunbleached and softer than velvet.
Of course, as his luck would have it, they seemed to have picked the ugliest stretch of shore for miles around.
The woods hadn't quite given up their hold on this land, leaving a webwork of stubborn roots all along the sandy soil—damp, dark dirt that didn't support much more than scrawny cedars and a few bold tangles of razorgrass. And all this lay beneath a rotten-egg sky, stormclouds cluttering the skyline to hide what must've been one hell of a sunset.
His feet ached by now, but he knew better than to complain.
There was a sort of beauty in it, he supposed—the ground felt warm and wet to the touch, drenched by a recent rain, alive. The steam that clung to the soil was its breath; the thrum of cicadas in the brush was its pulse, everywhere and nowhere at once.
He immediately regretted stabbing his fingers into the sand.
Respect the forest, foolish boy.
Sometimes, the voice in his head sounded just like the ranger-general. But more often than not, that didn't seem like a bad thing.
"Theron."
Halduron's idea of a playful whack on the head sent the smaller boy sprawling face first in the dirt, but he was on his feet and panting in the span of a breath—albeit a big one.
"What the hell, Brightwing?"
Halduron frowned. "I said your name, like, six times."
"So you punched me in the head?" Lor'themar asked, clinging to the ties of his too-big drawers. He was blushing hard enough without his underthings around his ankles, really.
"I didn't punch you—" Halduron paused to muss up Lor'themar's bangs, the way they both knew fully well that he hated. "—I nudged you. Didn't expect you to take flight." He cocked his shoulder and flexed how he always did when Alleria was looking and he was pretending not to. "Guess I don't know my own strength."
Lor'themar scowled as he smoothed his hair back into place, but Halduron didn't stick around long enough to see it.
He'd made it halfway up a tree trunk in one bound, tugging at each branch as he swung from bough to bough. "Keep an eye out for trouble, Theron. I'm gonna get us some better weapons." Halduron put those knotted biceps to good use as he yanked at a skinny limb, which the tree yielded after a short—and ultimately futile—protest. "Greenwood doesn't make the best bows, but it'll do, in a pinch. You see anything down there we can use as fletching?"
Lor'themar shrugged. "What about these leaves?"
"No feathers?"
"No feathers."
Silence, save the shriek of another branch peeling free. It hit the ground with a soft thud, bent, and bounced back up, then spun and landed a few feet from Lor'themar.
"We'll make do." Halduron landed like a greenwood branch, springy and limber. "All right. Your job is to stand watch, you got it?"
"Yeah."
"You got it?" he repeated, shaking the smaller boy by the shoulders.
"Got it," Lor'themar mumbled, like a less-enthused echo.
"You've gotta pay attention, all right? None of that spacey, moon-faced, day-dreamy shit. Makes you look you belong in the Windrunner's trophy hall, when your eyes glass over like that."
"Okay."
"You got it?"
"I got it."
Halduron pushed a hand through Lor'themar's hair once more for good measure.
"Don't touch my—"
"Shh," Halduron interrupted. "Quit squealing, or you'll scare off all the game. Don't you want dinner?"
Lor'themar shrugged as he seated himself in the dirt. He'd eaten before he came—back at the temple, with Liadrin and Vandellor.
Vandellor didn't care for meat, but tonight, he'd served some choice cuts of lynx—a celebration, or so he'd said.
Lor'themar had eaten six helpings, and then he'd felt sick.
Well, he'd felt sick to start with; he'd always been prone to stomachaches, the nervous sort.
But he didn't need to be nervous—worse rangers had passed this trial. He'd been muttering those words between breaths since Vandellor had handed him off to the ranger-general, as he shucked off his shoes and his shirt and his shorts, then between heartbeats as Lireesa Windrunner led them deeper and deeper into the woods, in search of an adequate spot to abandon them.
She had to have heard him, at least once—not that she'd have shown it anyhow. A grim-faced warrior, that one, with a satin-smooth expression that suggested she'd never seen the likes of a smile crack her composure in all her years as ranger-general.
But Lor'themar was quite determined to change that.
He had high hopes for the next twenty-four hours, including (but not limited to) the following:
Firstly, he hoped he'd be a real ranger, with his own uniform and brand new boots, because as of yesterday, he could see his toes through his favorite pair.
Secondly, he hoped that he and Halduron would do so well at their test that the ranger-general would maybe be impressed, and maybe they'd even get a medal, because he heard sometimes—very rarely, but sometimes—the best new recruits got an award ceremony for their efforts. He'd like to take Lia along; she'd like that.
And lastly, he hoped that the world would've made one complete rotation on its axis, because he saw no point in hoping for anything if there was an apocalypse inbound.
Lor'themar didn't know if the planet could actually stop spinning, but he supposed if he could make Lireesa Windrunner smile, anything within the realm of his imagination was possible.
The thought brought a smile of his own to his lips, a vague twitch from somewhere within his reverie.
"Potential." That's what she'd said, the first time she'd seen him. The ranger-general had little time to waste on "salutations and niceties," which didn't matter much to Lor'themar, seeing as he hadn't the slightest idea what either of those words meant. "Look at his form—well, yes, I suppose he could use a few pounds—but he's got good bones, can't you tell? Well, if we don't pick him up, some brawling guild will. Let me see your hands, boy. Yes—potential."
Lor'themar had never had potential before.
He'd been born to a pair of peasants just past An'telas. His mother had been a seamstress with keen eyes and nimble fingers, and his father was the best miner on this side of the mountains—arms like pillars that could overhead press twice his weight in raw coal and knotted knuckles on each soot-black hand, perfect for blackening the eyes of little boys, when he took to drinking.
And Light forbid those black eyes cry—if Lor'themar had to guess, he'd say the man could spot the shine of tears behind a shiner even better when he couldn't see straight. And then there'd be fingers twisted in his collar, pulling him close so he could damn near taste the liquor on his father's breath—
"On your feet, boy—quit sniffling, you're better than this, we are better than this. Those northern nobles are never going to raise our wages if we don't make it known—stop crying—do you want to sleep in the tunnels tonight?"
No. He'd never had potential before, or anything like it.
Lor'themar didn't even know the meaning of the word till blind fear and a poorly-labeled sliver of a map led him straight to the Southern Sanctuary. He'd been a ragged runaway looking for Farstrider Retreat, cursing and clinging to the shadows when he realized his error, but he'd decided the moment a little freckled girl pulled him out of hiding and into the light that it must not have been a mistake after all.
Liadrin used the word "potential" quite frequently. Trivially, in most cases. Things could have potential to be other things, or "potentially" was used to predict a possible outcome, usually one she didn't believe in. But even three years at the temple and hearing that word twice a day couldn't lessen the luster when Lireesa Windrunner spoke it.
It stood alone, when she'd said it, a single word with all the worth of a sentence—a whole sermon, really.
Potential.
He liked the way she'd left it open-ended, like he could be anything, if he—
"What was that?"
Lor'themar's eyes fluttered open before he even realized they'd been shut.
Light, he'd nearly dozed off.
Yawning as he pushed his hair back, he scanned the clearing for any sign of life.
Nothing. Not even the grass made a convincing case, creaking as it rustled in the breeze.
"I heard something," Halduron insisted.
"Well, I don't see—"
A flicker of movement caught his eye as a tuft of gray fur tumbled into view—little more than a fuzzball with fangs, still yet to grow into its ears.
Lor'themar had been taught that lynxes were ferocious, ill-tempered beasts, with teeth to meant to maim and claws ever ready to rend. But when the kit mewled, it sounded like the stray cats that hung around An'telas. Not terrifying—precious.
"Light," Lor'themar whispered through a grin. "Wish Liadrin were here. She'll never believe me when I tell her—" He paused, straightening his shoulders as an idea dawned on him. "You think I can catch it?"
Halduron was testing out his makeshift bow—the branch had already begun to take the shape of a weapon, with a bowstring braided from bark fibers and a few sticks he'd whittled to serve as arrows. "I wouldn't try."
"Why not?"
He'd tugged out the ties that held up his drawers before Halduron could answer, dangling the string aloft like one might tempt a housecat. His grin only widened when the kit crouched low, wiggling its stubby tail as it readied an attack.
"Look, it's harmless!" he cooed. "C'mere, little guy."
"It's not the 'little guy' I'm worried about," Halduron said, the words tapering off into a whisper.
He'd gone rigid, like a deer staring down the sights of a fully-drawn longbow, eyes so wide they seemed all whites and cheeks so pale they almost matched.
Lor'themar's grin withered. "What?"
He recalled—a bit belatedly—that little lynxes, like most well-behaved children, didn't tend to stray too far from their parents, lest they stumble into danger.
Unfortunately for Lor'themar, this realization came to him within the clawed clutches of a furious (and very much full-sized) wildcat, and when it hit him, it did so with all the force of an enraged mother—or father, not that Lor found himself in the position to check—lynx, pouncing from the underbrush to defend its young.
Lor'themar was not a large boy, potential or no, so when the beast leapt at him, it wasn't exactly an exaggeration to say that he flew.
Must've been a few yards, easy—he'd blinked just in time to spot a blur in his periphery that looked vaguely like Halduron Brightwing as he tumbled back—and he didn't have much air left in him by the time he'd rolled to a halt, but the cat must've doubted this, because its first decree as king of the clearing was to crush the boy's throat in its jaws.
And Lor had thought he knew pain.
This was something else entirely.
This was blinding, pulsing pressure, like his eyes could pop out of his head at any moment. This was the tangy taste of fear—or maybe blood—on his tongue. This was agony, and he was very quickly learning just how many forms that word could take—burning and searing and aching all over, inside and out and in between. Everywhere he could feel, he felt pain.
It took little more than a few seconds of struggle for Lor'themar to come to the conclusion that he was dying.
He was not going to be a real ranger. He was not going to impress Lireesa Windrunner, and the only ceremony he was now destined to receive was a funeral. He wasn't even going to see another sunrise—the world would keep spinning, but he wouldn't be a part of it.
He was going to die.
The pressure pounding at his skull wouldn't let any other thoughts through. Gonna die. Gonna die. Gonna—
When Halduron stabbed the lynx, Lor'themar felt it through his whole body. In his hips and his shoulders, as the claws that pinned him pulled back into their paws, in his lungs as the lynx pried its jaws off his throat—they gasped for air at the very same time—in his head as the blood and the oxygen and the thoughts rushed back to his brain, all at once.
The cat wheeled on Halduron with a fury Lor'themar could hardly register, fear and rage all tangled up in a cocktail of bloodlust the likes of which no sentient being could ever know. But Brightwing was ready—didn't flinch, just held his borrowed knife at the ready, and when the cat fell upon him, it fell right upon that blade, too.
Dull or no, Brightwing buried it between the ribs, all the way up to the hilt.
It writhed once, maybe twice, but when Halduron yanked the dagger from its pelt, it went still.
Deathly still, was all Lor could think—his brain still starved for air—but he supposed that made sense.
When he clutched at his throat, he could feel his pulse throbbing against his thumb, three times its normal speed, but all things considered, he thought he ought to be thankful it was throbbing at all. His fingers came back sticky with blood, but he supposed he couldn't complain, because most of the spatters across his stomach didn't belong to him.
"And by the Sunwell," Halduron intoned, "don't you ever let your guard down, not even to blink—you are nothing without your eyes."
Right. That was the one Lor always forgot.
Wiping the gorestained blade in the grass, Halduron held it out at arm's length for a quick inspection. "Guess it was sharp enough, hm?" He gave the knife a twirl that resulted in it landing pommel up in the dirt, then proceeded to laugh like that'd been his intention all along. "You think I can have my dagger back, if you're not gonna use it?"
Lor'themar pushed himself to his feet, swaying when he stood, and retrieved Brightwing's blade for him. Seemed like the least he could do, given that he owed the older boy his life. When he plucked his own dagger from the dirt, still dumbstruck and dizzy, he was surprised to find it quite warm to the touch.
But of course it was; it'd been inside a living creature.
"You can tell everyone you killed a wildcat," Halduron said with a shrug. "Doesn't make a difference to me."
Lor didn't think he'd do that. He was having a hard time feeling good about any of this.
"Sorry," he blurted.
He didn't really know whose forgiveness he sought—Halduron's, the lynx's, his own, or all three.
"No big deal. Least we've got dinner now." Halduron's gaze flickered across Lor'themar's chest, tracking a trickle of dried blood back to the nick in his throat. "And some nice souvenirs, too. Those'll make some wicked scars, I bet."
Lor'themar's fingers flew to the source of the spill, pressing hard at the sore spot—one of many. He guessed Liadrin would have to believe him now, about the lynx and all. He'd leave out the part where he almost died—she'd probably cry—Light knew he wanted to.
More so every time he glanced at that beautiful creature, lying limp in the center of the clearing. There was a lot of blood in a lynx—he only realized now that it was soaking the soil, crawling across dirt and detritus as it spread. Looked like a wine stain and smelled distinctly of iron. By the time the sun came up, it'd be a carcass, stiff and all abuzz with flies.
But not if Halduron had any say in it.
Lor closed his eyes tightly shut when Brightwing sunk the blade into its pelt—the flesh seemed to part so easily, now.
When he opened them again, the whole clearing was a blur, just a smear of earthtones distorted through tears. He was going to cry.
Not because it hurt—it did—but because he was shaken and shaking and sad. Hot tears spilled over his cheeks, dripping down to his chin, but all he could think was how tears felt the same as lynx blood splattered on his skin, and Light, the life had just dripped right out of its veins.
Least Halduron had the decency to close its eyes before he started to flay the damned thing. "Wanna gather some kindling?" he was asking as he pulled off its pelt. Casually, like it was nothing. "Warm night. Blood spoils quick. Can probably get a good bit of this cut and roasted before bone sour sets in."
Warm night indeed. The hot breeze bowling in from the sea made his head spin—or maybe it was just the heavy scent of blood in the air, too potent to be pushed away by any gale—there was just so much blood—Light, he hoped the kitten didn't see, but it was long gone now—
"I'm gonna be sick," Lor murmured.
"What?"
"Gonna puke—"
"You sure?"
He clutched his sides and promptly lost six servings of sauteed lynx all over the brush beside him, as discreetly as he could manage.
Brightwing stood by all the while, eyes averted in a gesture that looked to be equal parts courtesy and queasiness.
And once Lor was feeling about five pounds lighter and twice as trembly, he coughed out one last apology and pulled himself back upright—only to fall back on his haunches so he could pull his knees up to his chest.
"You...doing all right?" Halduron asked. He sounded cautious, like he wasn't sure whether he really wanted the answer.
Lor hugged his knees tighter, clutching them like they were his last remaining tether to reality. "Yeah," he said with a sniff. "I'm just…" He paused to bite down on his lip, a vain attempt to stop it from quivering. "Halduron, I don't think I'm gonna be a very good ranger."
He was quiet for a moment—one merciful moment that Lor'themar might've cherished were his spirits a bit lighter. "Y'know why they make you wait till you're fourteen to join up with the rangers, right?"
Lor swallowed hard and shook harder, both his head and his shuddering shoulders.
"'Cause anyone who's lived that long down here is bound to have seen something die by that age," said Halduron. "Least that's what Alleria told me."
"Oh." He'd sort of believed dead things just...disappeared. That was how it went with his mom, anyway. He hadn't questioned it—and honestly, he could now safely say that he was glad he hadn't. "I guess."
Halduron reached for him—slowly, so as not to spook him—but he didn't go for the hair, not this time. His fingers brushed against Lor's shoulder as the boy sucked in an unsteady breath, hesitated for a split-second, then came to rest by his collarbone in the form of a reassuring squeeze. "I freaked out my first time too."
Lor'themar gave him a wobbly smile. "You did?"
"Thought I'd gone insane. Didn't sleep for days."
He hardly believed it—not the infallible Halduron Brightwing, no, it simply couldn't be.
"And y'know," Halduron added, "I think that's the mark of a good ranger. Shouldn't enjoy killing—you should enjoy the hunt."
"Yeah." Lor'themar was pretty sure he was just trying to sound like the ranger-general now, but it kind of worked. "I guess I can't enjoy the hunt if a lynx eats my face, huh?"
(Lor found this hilarious, but his humor seemed lost on the older boy, so he did his best not to laugh. The teethmarks in his trachea helped immensely.)
"Everyone says your first kill changes you," Halduron muttered. "That it makes you 'older' or something." He knocked Lor'themar on the head again, leaping out of range before he could launch a counterstrike. "And now you've gone and proven them all wrong."
Well, the joke was on Halduron, because he was older today. It was his birthday, after all. "Hey, Halduron?"
"Hm?"
"Can I tell you something?"
Brightwing shrugged as he made his way back to the corpse, picking up where he'd left off. "Don't see why not."
"Well, it's a secret. No one else can know."
"Okay."
"Not even Alleria," Lor added, just as a safety measure.
Halduron sighed as he sliced through skin and sinew. "Okay."
"W-Well," he said, picking at a scab on his knuckle, "I'm not actually fourteen." Lor chewed at his lip—it'd started to shake again. "I—I told the recruiting officer I'd be fourteen on my birthday, a-and he asked what my birthday was, so I told him. It's today. And see, he didn't ask which birthday, so I didn't lie, I don't think…"
Silence hung heavy in the air, like an executioner's longblade.
Halduron probably didn't know, or at least he didn't show it, but his reaction could very easily determine the course of Lor'themar's future. Or so the boy believed.
"You can't turn me in!" he blurted, after an unbearable, agonizing, pulse-pounding two seconds.
"Well, damn," Halduron said with a shrug. "Anyone who believes you're fourteen deserves to be duped."
Lor'themar crinkled his nose in his best hardened soldier's scowl, the one he'd spent hours practicing in the mirror, until Liadrin had caught him and laughed till she cried. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothin'."
"You don't think I could pass for fourteen?"
"I don't think you could pass for eight."
Lor scoffed. "I'm twelve!"
"As of today," Halduron pointed out. "Maybe try not to let your voice get so high when you whine." It seemed Brightwing had located his smirk and his sense of humor both—in the same breath, no less. "Actually, maybe just try not to whine. Like, at all."
"I'm not—" Lor'themar stopped short, biting down on his tongue like he'd just hit the ground too hard. "Yes, sir, Brightwing...sir."
"Now you sound like a ranger," Halduron told him. "Have to say, I like the sound of that." He pummeled the corpse with his pommel till the ribs gave way with a wet crack. "Throw a 'ranger-general' in there next time. And hold this, would you?"
He squeezed his eyes shut when Halduron dropped the rack of ribs into his arms—it didn't feel like food at all. "Yes, sir, Ranger-General Brightwing—um...sir."
Halduron gave a snort that sounded awfully graceless, for someone who claimed he could do a backflip without his boots on, anyway. "Nah, that sounds ridiculous."
"Ridiculous?" Lor'themar remembered too late that fourteen-year-olds didn't let their voices squeak like that. "You don't think you could do it?"
"Nah," he said. "Dunno if I'd want to." His grin looked like he'd stolen it right off the lynx in his lap. "Besides, I'm not a Windrunner. Not for real, anyway."
Lor'themar had heard that Halduron's mother had served as the ranger-general's chambermaid—born out of wedlock and everything, that was what Sylvanas said, but then, Sylvanas was a brat, always trying to make him say things he'd regret. And Light, was she good at it. But this time, he held his tongue.
Long as he could, leastways.
"Hey, Halduron?" he asked suddenly, just to drown out the sound of steel against lynxskin. "Why'd you decide to be a ranger?"
"I'm in love with Alleria." He shrugged nonchalantly, entirely unabashed—everyone knew this. "And I guess I figured I might as well. Guess it's the only thing I'm good at. But mostly because I want to marry Alleria."
Lor'themar scrunched up his nose. "That's weird."
"Is not."
"Is too."
"You got a better reason, string bean?" Halduron asked.
"I heard it was kind of like a family, sorta—l-like, well, that you don't have to be afraid of anything, and you're never alone." He nodded so hard his bangs fell into his face, and he couldn't even blame it on Brightwing, this time. "And I also heard that you got new boots."
Lor wriggled his toes for emphasis—he could hardly distinguish them from the dirt beneath, and his shins were mottled with newborn bruises. He thought he'd started to look like a ranger after all.
(Which was good, because he'd promised Liadrin he'd fight all the trolls in southern Quel'Thalas.)
Maybe Brightwing's logic wasn't so flawed after all.
Halduron smiled as he took the meat back from Lor'themar, dropping it in a pile atop a freshly flayed lynx pelt. "Bet we'll make damned good rangers."
"You think?"
"Probably."
He traced the crest on the hilt of his dagger as he dug the tip into a root. "Even better than the Windrunners?"
"Maybe not that good," Halduron admitted.
"Oh." Lor'themar carved some absent lines into the bark, squinting as they vaguely began to resemble lettering. "But we can still fight a lot of trolls, right?" he asked. "And get new boots? And be brothers in arms?"
"Long as we last the night," Halduron told him. "Hold still, kid."
Lor'themar spared him a glance—Halduron had collected a fistful of flowers that matched the smears all across his skin, violet on gold.
"The flowers again?" he whined, recalling Halduron's advice just a moment too late. "Do I have to?"
"Strong smell," Brightwing explained. "Keeps predators off your scent."
Lor frowned. "Like lynxes?"
"Yeah. Like lynxes."
"Oh."
Lor'themar didn't protest this time, silent as Halduron adorned him with his own set of wildflower warpaint.
"There," he announced, stepping back to admire his handiwork. "Now you look like a ranger. You've even—Lor, what are you doing with your knife? Quit that, you're gonna dull it worse—"
He sat up straight and smoothed his fingers over the carvings in the wood, suddenly feeling just a smidge self-conscious.
But Brightwing was peering over his shoulder for a better look anyhow. "What's that say?"
"What?"
"Can't read," he said with a shrug. "What's it say?"
Lor'themar grinned as he reached to ruffle Halduron's hair. "Brothers."