Author's Note: Yay, next chapter! Hopefully this doesn't feel too disjointed for anyone who hasn't read Heartsbinding which technically comes between the prologue of SotP and this chapter. As usual, I own neither of these lovely characters, and am in no way looking to be sued (though you'd have better luck bleeding a rock, anyway). I think this is the first combat I've written that's ever been put up somewhere, so I'm very interested in feedback on it (and of course everything else)! Thanks in advance, awesome people!

Chapter 01

In Defense of Hearth and Home

Lyn wrapped both hands around the warm clay of the mug and sighed both happily and wistfully. Oh, how nice it would be to be inside beside the fire, wrapped in blankets, holding Florina...

She had had plans for the evening (and the night); plans to take their relationship beyond kissing. No-one she had known in the Lorca had even waited until Heartsbinding to do that much, and yet here they were, a month past the date, and still just cuddling and kissing. Mostly, she knew, it was Florina's nervousness, shyness, hesitance, and general reluctance, but she didn't blame Florina. No, she blamed Ilia for its damn funny ideas about what kinds of affection were acceptable.

The pegasus knight had explained it as being because having children was extremely important in the eternally cold and harsh climate of the northern country. Children to tend the inhospitable ground, to help with manufacturing, to help keep the population up despite blizzards and avalanches and general death by cold. Perhaps it was logical, but to beat such an aversion into its people...

Lyn shook her head and sighed, bringing her thoughts to a halt. What had been done had been done, and she had covered that mental ground innumerable times in the past. Florina was opening up, was the most open and affectionate Lyn had ever known her to be, and the swordswoman was ecstatic about it. But it was harder and harder, sometimes, to hold her so close, to nuzzle the crook of her neck, and ache so badly for her...

'Eventually. When she's ready.' Lyn took a sip of the tea, just recently brought up to her by Florina, and let her eyes make another circuit of the dark hill around her.

She did not make a habit of sitting on the top of their half-built cabin in the dark of night. Though on a brighter night, with more stars and a full moon, it would be awfully romantic. 'I wonder if it's possible to put a window in the bedroom ceiling...' Before the idea could do more than occur to her,her musing was interrupted by the very reason she was perched on the roof, wrapped in a cocoon of blankets and bearing tea in a fire-warmed mug. A shadow of movement out of the corner of her eye, this time from the east, had her head snapping around and her hands setting the mug aside.

With the fluidity of long and hard practice, her mug-warmed hands picked her bow up from where it leaned against a wooden support jutting out of the top of the cabin and tugged an arrow soundlessly from the quiver behind it. In a breath's time the arrow was nocked and the bow drawn, her hand brushing against her cheek and ear as she held it steady, sighting down the end of the arrow for the shadow she had seen.

'There!' It moved again, against the breeze rather than with it, and with a soft 'twang' the arrow seemed to disappear from between her fingers and reappear in the chest of a man who tumbled backwards and down the hill. "Four," she murmured quietly, her breath rising in a little puff-like cloud. Lyn sat the bow aside once more and picked up her tea to take another sip from it. The sip turned into a long gulp when she found that it had cooled sufficiently.

It was damn chilly for March. All the more reason to be spending it inside rather than outside on the barely-begun second floor of their cabin. But perhaps that was the bandits' thought too. A nice little cabin, sitting all on its own in the middle of the plains, ripe for the plundering and, perhaps, using.

Four men down and they still hadn't backed off, despite being completely unable to see Lyn from her perch. It helped that she was shielded somewhat by the wall studs for the second story. The few hopeful arrows they had loosed blindly in her direction had either sailed harmlessly between the studs or sunk into them with a soft thud. None had even come close to Lyn herself.

Perhaps more helpful was that, exactly as they had planned for, Florina had placed a hooded lantern in every window, each focused as tightly as possible to increase the light that shone out of each. The mirrored insides of the little lanterns reflected and focused the light from the flame, making them much brighter than a traditional lantern, and allowed for more direction control.

In this case, they provided great beams of light shooting out in all four directions, illuminating the bandits and fouling their vision.

It was quite the clever plan, and one that Lyn was indescribably proud of Florina for thinking of. 'And as well as it works, once we explain to the Kutolah every family on the plains will be protected by it.' Sitting on top of the unfinished cabin as she was, trying to look at Lyn was like trying to sight on a bird flying near the sun.

Wood scratching on wood behind her had Lyn turning around where she sat and reaching out one hand to take Florina's as it poked up out of the square opening in the floor beneath her. As quietly as possible, Lyn hauled the smaller girl up and through the temporary trap door.

"Are they still out there?" Florina asked in a soft whisper, mouse-like in its quietness.

Lyn pressed the mug of tea into her hands and leaned across the space between them for a brief (by necessity) kiss. Her fingers brushed Florina's wrist as she released the cup, and Lyn had to step down on the urge to let her fingers explore up the girl's sleeve further. 'Twice damned bandits.'

"Well there's four fewer out there, but they are definitely still lurking," Lyn answered as she settled back against one of the wooden beams again. She wanted so much to reach out and pull Florina into her lap, but it would be difficult to move for her bow in time to fire if she spotted another bandit. "Did you check all the charms? They're still functioning properly?"

Florina nodded and knelt down beside Lyn, their shoulders lightly touching. "Yeah, they're all still good. Erk said when the effect wears off the text will be gone, but it's all still there as far as I can tell."

With a little sigh of relief, Lyn pushed the worry that the bandits would try to torch the place out of her mind. Erk's fireproofing charms had come just in time, arriving in Bulgar for them to pick up less than two weeks prior. They hadn't looked quite as Lyn had expected. The large sheets of soft vellum had been awkward and difficult to place until they had decided to put them under the rugs. That the arcane circle drawn on them wasn't visible supposedly wouldn't keep them from doing their job in warding the surrounding area against fire.

She was curious how they still allowed candles and fireplaces to be lit without a problem, yet would keep the walls and furniture flame-retardant. Lyn was also too smart to ask, though; Erk's explanation would probably make as much sense to her as a discussion on the intricacies of managing herd animals would to him.

"Then as long as I can keep them back until sunrise, we should be just fine," Lyn answered. She reached out to gently take Florina's wrist and raised her hand so that she could take a sip of the tea without taking it away from Florina. "Thank you for the blankets and the tea, sweetling."

Though it was dark, Lyn's eyes had long ago adjusted enough that she could see the faint blush on Florina's cheeks. That was how she had known which pet name to settle on; it was the one that made her blush and smile the most, of course.

"I wish I could do more to help," Florina answered. The smaller girl scooted around a little bit, trying to be as quiet as possible, then surprised Lyn by laying down on the ceiling/floor and resting her head in Lyn's lap. "I wish I could send you to bed and take a shift on lookout."

There was real regret in her voice, and Lyn smiled down at her reassuringly. "I think Huey would disown you if you ever took up the bow, Florina." The gentle tease brought a small smile to her love's lips. "Though I think for the next few evenings, if they do leave in the morning or sometime tonight, you and Huey should probably fly circuit to see if you can see them." Lyn laid a hand absently on Florina's stomach, rubbing a soothing up and down pattern as they talked. "Though since they do have bows-"

"Stay up out of range, I know, Lyn," Florina cut in, offering a smile to blunt the way she had cut her off. "I've scouted armies that had bowmen before." Florina laid one hand on top of Lyn's, bringing it to a stop, and gave her fingers a little squeeze. "I almost hope they do stick around until tomorrow; maybe seeing a pegasus knight on the wing will discourage them."

Lyn's face darkened, but she nodded. Florina was, of course, perfectly capable of taking care of herself. She had swooped in often enough to rescue Lyn and others in the past, she certainly wasn't going to be done in by some bandit who could only gather the nerve to prey on two girls living alone on the plains. And to try to hold her back would be unfair of her, would make it seem like she didn't have faith in her. And that was a discussion they had finished years ago.

It just seemed even more important, utterly vital, that Florina stayed safe and warm and here in her arms. Heaving a sigh, Lyn leaned down for a kiss that Florina met her halfway for. "I'm sorry," Lyn murmured against the lavender-haired knight's lips, her own forming a sheepish little smile.

Florina giggled and reached up to thread her fingers through Lyn's hair and draw her back down. 'So soft and warm...' Florina's tongue darted boldly between the swordswoman's lips, and Lyn raised an eyebrow in surprise as their duel commenced. Lyn pushed aside the little voice that warned her against being distracted and leaned down further as the duel turned to her advantage and her tongue moved to explore Florina's lips.


To her own surprise, and significant embarrassment, Florina heard herself moan quietly into the kiss. She squeezed her thighs together a little bit, trying to ignore the growing warmth that was spreading through her, ignorant of the cold March breeze. Lyn pulled away a little bit for a breath, and on instinct Florina followed, never quite letting her go. She nipped at the older girl's lower lip, then soothed it with the tip of her tongue. Lyn's laugh was throaty and a little frightening, almost predatory, but in a way that made Florina want to do it again.

The twang of a distant bow was decidedly out of place, all things considered, and took the both of them an extra second to process.

Florina reacted first; bows had a deeper seated meaning to her, and she broke the kiss with a hushed gasp and slid off of Lyn's lap to lay flush against the wood beneath her as a feathered shaft embedded itself in the wooden beam just behind her.

With a quietly muttered curse, Lyn snapped up the bow and an arrow, then rose to one knee and drew the bow in a single fluid motion. For a long moment she stared into the darkness before abruptly relaxing without firing the arrow. "Damn, I don't-"

Another arrow pierced the air near them, this one flying above Florina and beside Lyn, arching over the cabin and striking nothing, but coming close. 'They're trying to distract us!' Lyn spun and loosed the arrow before Florina would have thought she had a chance to sight, and Lyn's muffled curse confirmed a miss. Before she could reach for another arrow, a feathered shaft appeared in the wood just beside Florina's head, and the girl squeaked and shimmied backward toward the trapdoor.

"I think they're- damn! Here they come!" Lyn grabbed another arrow and fitted it to the string, and in an instant it was gone.

A loud thump filtered up through the half-closed trapdoor, and Florina jumped in surprise. "Use the doorway as a choke point! I'll get as many as I can!" Lyn's whisper was loud and harsh, as if for use in a play so that the audience could still hear and understand, but it was unlikely the bandits would hear over the sound of them bashing on the front door.

Without replying, Florina slipped back down the trapdoor and dropped to the floor directly, rather than using the rope ladder to get back down. She grabbed at the hilt of a steel sword sitting in easy reach on a crate, already drawn, and stepped around the cold firepit in the foyer. The door visibly shuddered again as someone pounded on it, and the tell-tale squeal of metal bending spoke ill of the hinges' likelihood of surviving the night intact.

It had been some months since she had even sparred, but between the muscle memory that helped the leather-wrapped hilt find a comfortable place in her hands and Lyn's lack of hesitation in trusting the defense of their home to her, she found herself feeling more oddly light and almost...looking forward to it. At least, looking forward to the chance to prove to Lyn that she could take an equal share in all parts of their new lives.

The door shuddered again, the wood creaking, and Florina stepped closer. Whoever it was had a beat that they were striking the door to, and that could be subverted for use against him. Mentally, Florina counted down one, two, three heartbeats, then flipped the bolt lock and twisted the door handle. Pulling the door open with her, Florina stepped lightly backward and the bulky form of a hulk of a man charged through the doorway, tripped on the border of the firepit, and fell straight into the ashes.

The tip of Florina's sword pierced straight down into the back of his neck, scraping against the bone of his spine until it struck the stone at the bottom of the firepit and she yanked it back out.

Florina's stance differed greatly from Lyn's. Really, it was fairly amateur all around; her preferred position in a fight was on Huey's back, and the pegasus had a good mind for how to move to afford Florina the best angle of attack. On foot it was more difficult. She planted bare feet wide and held the sword in both hands at an angle before her, the tip hovering at eye level of the next man in the doorway.

He and his two compatriots behind him blinked in surprise, yet to recover from the door simply opening and their comrade being neatly dispatched by a young girl. Normally Florina resented how young she looked, in comparison to Lyn in particular, who was blossoming into a beautiful woman. Florina still looked the teenaged girl she had been when she had met with Lyn for the second time those few years ago.

In a fight, however, it worked to her advantage. The lot of them grinned, and the two in back traded grins. "Well, ain't this a ni-" Rather than let him complete the thought- 'What sort of fool wants to talk in the middle of a fight anyway!?' -Florina lunged forward, switching the sword to one hand, and sunk half the blade's length into the man's stomach before he could even raise his axe. Just as quickly she stepped back into her original position, finding her center, and returned her sword to its two-handed hold.

The man gurgled and coughed, only to moan in pain at the jerking of his innards. Clutching his stomach, he stumbled backward into the other two who stepped quickly out of his way, and then sprawled backward on the ground.

They stared down at him, then back up at Florina, and their grins turned to sneers. "You bitch!" As one they lunged for her, impressively coordinated, but apparently ignoring the width of the doorway. One shoved his shoulder against the other in an attempt to make it through, and the second's shoulder slammed into the doorway and sent him stumbling backward. Axe glinting in the little light that escaped from the backs of the lanterns, the one that made it through aimed an overhead strike at Florina.

Long ago, Florina's instinct with a sword had been to try to block such things, but Kent had quickly broken her of that with a demonstration that involved a shattered sword and, had it not been practice, a very dead Florina. Instead she caught the thick bladed axe at an angle and shoved to one side, redirecting the blow around her without stressing the steel blade to the point of breaking. The axe breezed down beside her and she stepped in close enough to smell the sweat on the man's clothes. She brought her knee up into his groin with a sharp jerk, and the axe clattered to the floor behind her.

He collapsed with a wheezing groan while Florina danced to the side and brought her blade up, then down against his neck. It broke with a disgusting snap, and Florina wrenched the sword back up out of the cloven bone and readied it for the third man.

Unusually for a bandit, he had already dropped his axe and raised both hands in hopeful surrender, and Florina saw that he had gone white as a sheet. He was young, on second glance, barely older than her. 'And yet how many has he killed? And how many would he go on to kill later?'

The decision of whether to accept his surrender was taken from Florina, much to her relief, when the man sprouted a feathered stick from the point where his neck and his shoulder met. He howled in pain such that Florina felt herself shiver, and then fell into silence when a second arrow sunk into his skull and he dropped like a sack of meat to the doorstep.

"Is that the last down there?" Lyn's voice was distant, on the roof, and it cracked in a way that made Florina's pulse race.

She ignored the cold core of worry that rapidly formed in her stomach and stepped over the bodies to glance around outside the doorway, but there were no more in sight. Any who were further distant Lyn would be able to see for herself. "Yes!" she called up, then stepped back into the house and leaned the sword against the open door, then finally bolted for the rope ladder.

Quick as she was, Lyn had already set her bow aside and sat back down against one of the beams that would eventually form a wall of their bedroom. Even in the darkness of night, Florina could see the discoloration spreading down the older girl's sleeve and across the left side of her chest. Though Florina stifled a gasp with one hand and her heart contracted painfully, she didn't stop as she cleared the edge of the trapdoor and crossed the area quickly to kneel beside Lyn.

Of the two of them, Florina was the better medic, and had seen much worse in battles past. She had served alongside the likes of Serra and Priscilla in the aftermath of many battles, helping with mundane practical medicinal skills on those not so badly wounded as to require magic, or when the proper healers were too weary to continue. She had even worked on Lyn a few times, particularly early on before they had made it to Caelin.

The source of the bleeding, of course, was the shoddily crafted arrow sticking awkwardly out of Lyn's left shoulder. Florina kneeled beside her and reached out, laying gentle fingers on Lyn's arm and shoulder near her neck. "It looks like it probably glanced off the bone, but where it's placed..." Florina sucked on her lower lip thoughtfully, moving her fingers lightly toward the entry point of the arrow, ghosting over the material Lyn wore. "I bet it's in the muscle."

The swordswoman's half-sigh half-grunt was not unexpected. Pulling an arrowhead out of muscle was harder and more painful than if it hadn't pierced too deeply. Florina glanced around them, then up at the sky, and bit her lip in frustration. "Do you think you can get back down into the house, Lyn?" Treating her on the roof would be pointlessly difficult, and she would still need to be moved back inside. 'Maybe I can get Huey to-'

"I think so, if I hang onto one side of the ladder instead of trying to use both hands," Lyn answered, voice strained as she looked at the trapdoor.

Florina reached out to take one of Lyn's hands in both of her own and gave it a squeeze. Lyn turned to look back at her, head cocked slightly. "If not, just say so. I can try to rig something with Huey and we can maybe lift you down to the ground..."

But Lyn shook her head and withdrew her hand slowly from Florina's, using it to pull herself up into a standing position. "No, I'd rather just get back in now. I'll be alright." She looked back at the trapdoor and swallowed. "Though you might want to go first..."

'In case I need to catch you,' Florina finished mentally, and nodded. Quickly, she stepped in close and gave Lyn a brief kiss, then stepped over to the rope ladder and shimmied down quickly, but didn't move away from the bottom. "Ready!"

By the time Lyn had gotten down to the bottom and slumped a little bit into Florina's arms, she was breathing and sweating as hard as if she'd been in a drawn out duel, and Florina wasted no time in laying her out in the stone-floored foyer on a thick pallet and several blankets. After kicking the bodies out the front door, Florina got a cheery fire burning and set to work on the wound.

Well supplied with wine, Lyn was able to relax to the point that Florina could help her out of her robes and tight black shift, then drizzle a strong alcohol-based disinfectant on the wound. Actually removing it took some time. Each mis-directed wiggle that caused a gasp of pain from Lyn drove a tiny knife of guilt into Florina's chest, but of course there was little else she could do. But the arrow wasn't buried any deeper than a third of its shaft, and after a quarter hour's work the rough-forged tip came free and the flow of blood doubled.

Florina tossed the arrow into the fire and quickly did what she could to reduce the bleeding after applying another generous amount of disinfectant to it. It was too awkward to apply a tourniquet to, so she was left simply holding a towel against it as firmly as she dared.

Eventually she was able to bandage it with a warm poultice spread over it, by which time Lyn had fallen into a largely alcohol-induced sleep.

Rather than try to move her to bed, Florina dragged more blankets in to cover her with and stoked the fire further before cleaning up after the not-quite-surgery. She retrieved Lyn's bow and quiver from the roof and closed the trap door, then sat to clean her sword. Between the long and repetitive process of weapon maintenance and watching Lyn's chest rise and fall in deep, even breaths, the adrenaline that had been pumping through Florina's system managed to more or less drain out, to leave weariness in its place.

When she was satisfied her blade was free of blood and sharpened to the state it had been before the bandits had struck, Florina fetched a blanket for herself, banked the fire, and laid curled up next to Lyn, though not touching her. The knight tended to move somewhat in her sleep, she had been told, and she didn't want to risk knocking Lyn's shoulder. As if her pillow were magic, sleep took her almost as soon as she laid down.