Generally each chapter will be a quest or so in game, some are so incredibly short, but this one tends to stretch into a good eleven pages, so enjoy!
Please review if you can! The more suggestions, comments, criticisms, etc. the better :)
Chapter 6: The Hounds and the Hunted
"Gavin! Gavin, look!" her voice is a hoarse whisper but she is so excited.
She's crouched in the shadows of one of the many arching roots overhead, her leggings stained up to her knees in mud and some unfortunate undead goo.
They woke at the crack of dawn as per the normal for the duration of their hunting trip. With no unlucky surprises from Marrow, they'd been able to quickly begin their hunt, following tracks on the small islands of dry land in the marsh, some as far as fifteen meters apart, but they were closing in.
And now she was kneeling in the water, eyes wide as she watches a flicker of sunlight reflect off of something white.
Gavin kneels next to her, hand on her shoulder, she can feel his excitement and apprehension in his hand, it makes her heart leap, nervous.
"This is it." He whispers, she can hear the thrill in his voice.
"Are you ready, sapling?" she draws her bow, knocking an arrow and aiming, pulling the string taut.
"Ready."
She shoots with the tap of his finger on her back, the arrow twhirrrrs in the air before tnk, it sticks into the pliant wood of a root just over the flicker of light.
The stag bolts, running further into the marsh, hooves making loud splashes in the water in frantic escape.
Gavin laughs and claps her shoulder.
"Good shot, Abhari." She beams at the praise, preparing another arrow when they run after the fleeing beast.
She crouches when she sees it again, kneeling on a small sandy island.
She can see it for certain this time, white fur a tinge blue in the shadows where he grazes, nipping at the roots over his head.
Marrow whines excitedly but she smacks his nose "Shush." He huffs and drops onto his stomach, body wagging with impatience.
Gavin's reassuring hand is on her shoulder again when he catches up, crouching next to her.
"He's wearing down," they can see the stag's knees wobble the slightest with flagging endurance, tired from the week's long chase.
She raises her bow, aiming once more, this time for the ground at the stag's hooves.
Her arms are shaking, she can't make a clean shot like this.
"Calm down, sapling." Gavin says with a gentle laugh.
He flattens his palm against the small of her back, whispering "Breathe."
"Maybe if you would stop laughing at me." She murmurs back to him and he snorts.
"You're a fine shot, Abhari, best sprout I'd ever seen with a bow."
"Thanks" but she does find her arms have stilled, and her fingers on the string are strong. She aims once more, breathes in, and lets the arrows fly loose.
Thwirrrr—shkk!
Her eyes widen when the arrow plunges into a pasty white hand that burst from the sand, aiming for the stag but crippled with the surprise arrow.
"Thorns." Gavin curses and stands, readying his mace and shield.
The stag is frozen, surprised at the undead growth, then head whipping around to the eerie moans of the undead closing in.
A horrid wet scrreeeeaach broke from the darkness, a human with no arms running from the darkness of the marsh, lips peeled back and rotten teeth champing down.
It lunges for the stag, her arrow catches it in the head and it drops before it can tackle the thing.
Gavin is a flash of light, one moment he is behind her and next he is by the stag, blocking the heavy mallet of a charr.
"Abhari! The stag!" He yells, grimacing as he shoulders off the weight of the hammer, swinging his mace around to catch the charr in the head, half of its skull obliterated with the force, bits of bone flying.
But the stag is stuck, stock still and frozen in fear.
Up until her arrow hits the root next to its head and it starts, bolting, jumping clear of the scrabbling arms of the undead searching for a tasty meal.
"Follow it!" Gavin shouts, ramming a minion into a root with his shield, it practically exploding on contact.
"But-"
"I can handle this, keep after the stag!" she nods, and stuffs her fear to the back of her mind, calling to Marrow who had run in at the sign of danger, tearing the throat out of a fallen norn.
She runs after the stag, ducking the claws of a charr and shooting an errant arrow into the leg of another minion, making it collapse face first into the water.
She doesn't realize she's not breathing until the sounds of combat are far behind her. Her vision swoons and she leans on a root, wet moss cool against her skin, only the sounds of the marsh around her now.
Water drips from the roots, splink, plink, plunk, into the water below, sun filtered through the canopy of roots and cliffs.
She knows she is near the end of the marsh, where only a wall of cliffs will greet her, there is no way out but behind.
No way out for the stag either.
Marrow's gentle nudge gets her breathing straight again, and she brushes off her leathers, calming her panic.
"Gavin can handle it." She looks down to her dog who watches her expectantly, "The stag can't have gone far." His ears swivel up and he whuffsgently, nose in the air as he searches for the familiar scent of his prey.
She searches as well, finding telltale signs of the stags retreat, hoof prints in mud, a fern crushed under the weight of the beast, a clip in a root when the stag turned too sharp, his antlers catching the side and scraping off a layer of moss.
"Marrow," her voice is soft after a few minutes of tracking, afraid that her voice would break the silence of the marsh and alert the stag to her presence.
The dog trots up behind her, sniffing the air with trepidation.
"Did he go this way?" she asks, pointing down a row of roots and rocks jutting out of the water, covered in green spores.
He stands on his hind legs to paw at a root, sniffing it then dropping down into the water with nothing more than a small splsh. He was on the hunt, stalking through the water up to his elbows, nose in the air and ears erect to locate the smallest sound.
His ears flick forward and he glances back at his master, then back to the opening in the roots he's zoned in on.
She crouches, quietly moving past him and towards the small island in the sun, water glittering in ringlets from the soft droplets colliding with the surface from the height of the roots.
The stag is there, head drooping with exhaustion and legs trembling from fright. He is splattered with black mud, patches of fur missing where undead hands got lucky, but otherwise unscathed, emotionally scarred, but safe.
He looks up when she crosses from shadow to sunlight, ears swiveling lazily towards her and eyes blinking slowly.
"Poor boy." She stands, carefully approaching the stag.
He does not move, does not try to run, and doesn't flinch when she's close enough to smooth the fur on his neck.
She smiles when he nickers her outstretched palm.
"You're all tuckered out, huh? Can't say I've got enough energy to keep chasing you either." She smiles, reaching to brush dry moss from his antlers and neck.
Marrow snuffles at the stag, ears pulled back when he lowers his head to look the dog in the eyes.
His big ears flick forward and back and Marrow barks, jumping back, mouth open wide and tail wagging.
Abhari laughs when he spins in a circle, jumping at the stag and back before prancing off, tail and head held high, barking happily at a hunt well done.
"Quiet." She laughs "You'll bring the undead." And with that, a black pit suddenly sprouted in her chest.
She didn't know what to call the feeling, but it made her hands heavy, throat thick and chest feel like it had been hollowed out.
Her skin prickled and every touch of the stag's bristly fur made her fingers hurt.
"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were worried about me." She felt a flush crawl up her neck as she turned half way to look at him.
He was disheveled, breathing harder than normal and splattered with bits of undead but all in all, in one piece.
He stood in the shadows, leaning on a root and favoring his left leg.
Ah, worry, that was the black thing inside her.
"Looks like we can go home, I think you'll like it." She reaches to smooths the ruff on the stag's neck. But that pit remained in her stomach, gnawing at her, she'd have to ask Gavin what it meant when they got back to the Grove.
She missed the gardens, the chiming bells in the main plaza and cool pools flickering blue and green light. Maybe it was homesickness? Caledon was certainly gorgeous in some areas, but dangerous, and she was tired, just wanted to lay in the shade of the Night garden for at least a week.
This part of her dream of dreams was over and she could use the rest.
"…Gavin," she turns, and suddenly stars burst in front of her eyes, blinding white. Something grabs her throat and she yells when her back hits the trunk of a root, splinters shattering off at impact.
Gavin gasps in pain and she blinks wildly, trying to remove the stars from her sight and the throbbing in her head.
She squints when her vision starts to clear, the hand on her throat squeezing just below her jaw, not choking her but certainly bruising.
She's surprised when she sees the darkness in his eyes, anger and contempt, her heart stammering, was his rage directed at her?
His grip tightens and she scrabbles at the root she's pinned to, trying to gain purchase with her feet off the ground, held up easily by the guardian.
She changes tactics and pulls at his hand.
"Gavin! Gavin, what are you doing?!" she doesn't know what's going on, was there something she missed? His hand is hot against her throat, fever? Is he delirious? She knew sylvari were immune to the taint of the undead but enough exposure and they could get sick.
"Gavin please-"
"I can't have you following me, Abhari." His voice is foreign.
It is dark and cold and makes her shudder.
"What do you mean? I-I don't understand." He smiles, a cruel sort, glancing when he hears Marrow's snarl.
He points at the charging dog and ghostly blue chains leap from the ground, wrapping around Marrow and throwing him to the floor.
"Marrow! Dammit, Gavin, let me go!" her nails dig into his skin, she can feel cool sap ooze underneath her fingers but he doesn't let go.
He squeezes her throat and she's afraid he'll kill her, right here in the Inlet where the undead will shred her body to pieces.
The two tears that escape her eyes is surprising, as is the sudden release that floods her lungs with air.
He takes a step back, she drops to the ground, knees hitting the dirt abruptly and her hand goes to her throat, coughing violently.
"I am sorry, sapling, but I am taking the stag. He will be a powerful tool for Nightmare." She looks up and sees the sadness in his eyes.
"The Nightmare court?" she woozily pulls herself to her feet, using the root for support.
"But Gavin… you aren't…. you can't be-" her eyes widen.
He laughs "I am, sapling, is that so hard to believe? You and your dream would paint me black but it is not so. I seek to free you from the influence of Ventari's tablet. The sylvari race cannot live in such blind optimism." He shakes his head "No, this creature will become a beast of despair and hatred by the court's hand." He reaches to grab the stag by the antler, steering the weary beast away. He does not fight.
Gavin's eyes light on her, and she sees them soften the slightest.
"Come with me, Abhari. You would be celebrated at the Court, possibly even knighted by the Grand Duchess herself!"
She shakes her head.
Her ears are ringing and her head is running in every direction but she knows this at least, is wrong.
"N-no Gavin, I c-can't… I won't!"
So he sighs, looking away from her sadly.
"Then I wish it did not have to come to this, my friend. May you have luck in the mists."
"This? Gavin! Gavin I don't-" want you to go.
But he is suddenly gone in the shadows, the stag with him.
She whirls around, searching, and screams.
"Gavin! Gavin! Dammit," she spins at the sound of low growling, a thorn wolf stalking from the shadows.
She's surrounded.
She can hear them now, Sylvan hounds turned to darkness, filled with nothing but the fear of their masters, circling her, half a dozen at least.
She reaches for her sword though her hands tremble, and tears flow freely down her face.
She wonders if it would be alright to let them kill her.
Maybe then this confusion and pain would go away.
The Alpha wolf snaps at her, maw drooling with an appetite for sylvari, Marrow leaps in front of her and snaps back, hackles raised and lips drawn back doubt he is half the size of the Alpha.
"Guess it's just you and me boy." No, she couldn't die, not yet, she still has to slap Gavin across the face before she can think about that.
It is dusk when she reaches the Grove. She knows she looks something horrid but she is so tired, and doesn't care.
She hears their whispers, her brothers and sisters shocked at her. She feels the pain in the back of her head, their surprise and worry and… disgust.
Her leathers are torn, desperately in need of repair, shreds of bark are peeled off her back and arms and she knows there is an oozing gash in her thigh that makes her limp, dragging her sword in the dirt behind her.
One eye is swollen shut and her lips and cheeks are bruised from running face first into a tree.
Silly mistake that one.
Marrow is not much better, limping from a garish bite in his shoulder, ear torn and paws bleeding.
He limps, she limps, they make a great pair.
"Someone get Kahedins."
"Caithe too."
She keeps walking because that's all she knows is certain.
Everything else is lies or liars, the only thing she can trust is her dog and the solidity of the ground beneath her feet.
When her vision swoons, she becomes not so certain of that either.
She is half way through the upper commons when a frantic hand grabs her arm, gently, but she still seethes and yanks away in surprise.
She turns her bleary gaze up to the sylvari, gentle green skin and short autumn leaves on his head, a soft worried look in his eyes.
"Kahedins." Her heart aches.
He is the Luminary of Dusk, firstborn and mender.
He would have been Gavin's mentor when he was a sprout.
"Sapling, by the Tree, lay down." He pleads with her but she waves him off.
"C-can't, need to… need to" by the Pale Tree she'd forgotten what she was doing.
She screws her face up, searching her mind.
"Need to… go home, warn Caithe-"
"I am here, sapling." Speak of the devil. The pale sylvari appeared next to her with Kahedins, and in that instant Abhari's vision flickers in and out and—since when did the floor go vertical?
"Whoa, easy sapling, you've been through much." Kahedins catches her fall, Marrow snarls but doesn't leap to defend her, his own wounds taxing him.
Perhaps the Sylvan is as confused as she is.
Kahedins eases her down, propping her head on his pack and checking her eyes, gripping both sides of her jaw to look her over.
"Open your mouth." She does unquestioningly and feels a cool thick liquid pour down her throat.
She coughs, but it feels good, like the mixture is passing through her and stitching up her hoarse throat and the bleeding wound in her temple.
She cannot feel the rest of herself to know if the tonic is working on her other wounds.
"Hmm…" she hums, smiling.
"What is it sapling?" he asks, already cutting open her leathers to take a look at the bleeding puncture in her stomach.
"You're healing… it's… hmm, nice." Wyieth was Nightmare, ah, that makes sense. She nods at her own realization.
"Makes sense."
She smacks her lips and closes her eyes, jerking when Kahedin's fingers prod her stomach and she hisses.
He does not apologize.
"Sapling, what happened? Where is the stag?" Caithe's face appears in front of her fading vision.
Kahedins snaps at her "Not now, Caithe, she needs rest."
Caithe scoffs but doesn't voice her interrogation again.
"Kahedins…" Abhari feels her voice croak.
"Yes?"
"Take care of my dog." Suddenly darkness is all around her, and she doesn't mind.
Gavin laughs and there is a fire crackling somewhere.
Her dog is snoring, and it smells like oranges and cherries.
"What are we doing here, Caithe?" she's cold. It's barely sunrise and here she is dragged out of bed and marched halfway across Caledon.
She can see her breath in a puff of smoke, been watching it curiously all morning, watching the wisps of… smoke? Steam? Curl up into the atmosphere and dissipate in a flicker of crystallized breath.
She'd missed most of what Caithe was saying to her all morning because of it.
"Sapling, for the love of the Tree, pay attention." Caithe pulls back the pale lotus leaves and cattails of her hair impatiently. She squints at Caithe, pursing her lips but doesn't rebuttal.
The thief sighs after a moment, "You cans see your breath because your internal temperature is higher than the outside."
"We don't have body heat."
"Doesn't matter, your throat is still warmer than the outside, we're insulators."
"Ah." Abhari smiles, Caithe rolls her eyes.
"What we are doing here is finding the stag." Right. It'd been four weeks since Gavin had taken the stag. And for four weeks they'd searched high and low, the Wardens, stray adventurers, soon as Abhari was well enough to walk Caithe had dragged her out into the Caledon from dawn to dusk, sometimes far enough into the night that it wasn't worth returning home. They'd set up camp, light a fire and sit in silence. Caithe's camps were nothing like Gavin's. They didn't talk, they didn't joke, and Abhari was afraid to ask what any of the packed fruits and dried meats were.
Caithe was a ruthless hunter, but she wasn't a warrior, raiding the Nightmare holdings for clues wasn't her style, interrogation and infiltration however were fair game. Abhari learned how to tread lightly, to move with the shadows and impersonate a courtier, much less interrogate one. It made her heart shudder, manipulating the darkness if just for an act was still giving in to her evils, the ones she didn't know she had hiding in the shadows of her mind.
"The Nightmare court gathers here on occasion. I cannot approach, they know who I am-"
Her mind scrambles and stomach flip flops so quickly she feels like she's going to be sick. "Caithe, wait a second, you don't mean…"
"Afraid I do, sapling." And all at once her nerves were standing on end. Caithe's cool palm on her shoulder wasn't as comforting as she'd hoped.
"You are a newly awakened sapling, they'll be eager to recruit you. You are… irresistible." "Isn't that what got me here in the first place?" she was a worm on a string, dangled dangerously close to a gluttonous fish.
Caithe's smile is weak "Be careful, Valiant, don't listen to their lies, there's no cure once you are corrupted."
"You know, that's not actually comforting." And the firstborn chuckles, "It's not meant to be." These dangers are very real.
The knots in her stomach don't ease but neither do they double.
"Alright" she breathes "Alright, I-I'll… talk to one of them… maybe lure her back here?" Caithe nods "We can interrogate her here, force her to tell us about Gavin and the stag."
That name, dammit, it still made her shiver.
"O-okay, I'll go now." She said it more to convince herself more than anything. Marrow was staying behind with Caithe, he'd grown a nasty habit of growling at every sylvari who got too close to her, protective mutt that he was.
His whines nearly made her turn around and run back to him and comfort the poor boy, the farther she walked down the hill into Aron's Woodlot the sadder his howls got.
"Just one more mission boy, then we'll go off hunting, you'd like that, huh?" she knows he can't hear her but still… it helps.
The Woodlot is a quaint sylvari village just along the Sandy Cove beach. They spend their days harvesting the spikeroot fruits planted throughout the beach, thriving in the sandy soil and half submerged in saltwater, and tending their scattered herd of siamoth's.
By the stars she had no idea how often she'd helped these saplings out by sending their herd back to safety and yet here they are, roaming freely without any sign of a fence in construction.
Sapling, she laughs when she realizes what she's just called these villagers, hold on to your roots, you're getting old, Abhari.
The Woodlot is surrounded, one side by water, another by a mossy green hill bound together with arching high roots and trunks, and the other a brown wall of cliffs where seagulls preen and look into the rising sun.
The sand glistens in both wet dew and its own shiny grains, the villagers are just waking—a village of Dawn it would seem—preparing their day of farming and tending to their crops.
For a moment, it seems right. Everything is just waking up, the flowers still hide in their shells, dew and water shines with flickering star light that dies the brighter the eastern horizon gets. The sky is feeling cream today, a warm radiance eating up the gentle blue night and banishing the lovely moon for the rise of the glorious sun.
"Goodbye my friends." She tells the fading stars "I'll see you tonight." They wink their goodbyes and good lucks.
When she arrives down the hill where Caithe has vanished and Marrow has camouflaged easily with the tall grass, she feels the darkness descend.
Not her darkness, not her Night, but that of Nightmare.
The villagers see it too, in the form of three courtiers emerging from the cliffs, sauntering down the gully into the beach like they rule the place. These three courtiers, she can feel their darkness, can feel their roots of evil entwined inside them, the corruption that has turned their souls black. The one with pale oak skin beckons the villagers, long blue leaves entwined in vines and pulled back from her face with a ring of wood.
She calls to the villagers in a sensuous voice sure to tempt the tender-hearted, and puts on such a charming smile, Abhari almost misses the venom in her bright teal eyes that lock onto hers like a basilisk's stone gaze, "Ah, freshly awakened and already you've been lied to."
"Your eyes should be open! Yet they are closed to all but the teachings of long-dead philosophers." The one that stands next to her speaks up. His voice is low and dangerous, growl in his throat and promise of death surrounding him. She can't see much of him beneath dark armor that covers his face, just a small slit where she can find bright green eyes filled with fury. She cannot keep his gaze when he looks at her, turning away, she can hear him scoff.
The one that speaks next is smaller than the others, her pale green skin and soft amber eyes and curling petals do not give off the essence of nightmare, but her voice is tainted, sharp as briars and threaded with a threat.
"The centaur, Ventari. The human, Ronan. Neither were sylvari! Why do we lend their words such credence?"
She knows they've rehearsed this, give a speech long enough to pique interest but short enough to make like ghosts when the Wardens appear. Bright eyes speaks again when Briar finishes, "Ventari's tablet shackles us. In its shadow, we're slaves to an imposed morality, rooted in foreign ground and trapped forever."
Teal eyes takes her queue, "I say no, and so should you! Look within yourself. The Dream is many things. It is light and dark, love and anger, good and evil. So are we." Abhari does not shiver or shy when she finds Teal eyes is only watching her, narrowing in interest and a small smirk pursing her lips.
She does not shudder because she has a role to play, and she's dug up the darkness in her heart and wears it on her sleeve for the courtiers to see, to draw them in, like a foal caught in a snare, Teal eyes is hers.
Briar finishes their charade with a flourish, standing on her toes to beckon to the villagers who have gather curiously.
"Come to us in the forest, saplings, and we will teach you more. We will give you freedom and give you the truth."
There are already whispers when the three courtiers retreat from where they came, Teal eyes frowning in disappointment when Abhari does not immediately follow.
She listens to the villagers first, she wants to know what they think about Nightmare, with Caithe's bias and the Grove pure of nightmare roots, she had little to go off of.
"Mmm… that was—disturbing." One of the saplings mutters, rubbing the back of his neck nervously, while another spoke up cheerily as if she didn't know the weight of her words.
"I have to admit, they made a few good points."
Abhari does not stay to listen to the villager's opinions change to gossip of the previous day's happenings. Instead, she slips away, following after the courtiers distancing figures.
Teal eyes is not surprised when she turns around at the sound of Abhari's deliberate footsteps, and the other two seem pleased.
"You seemed the clever one of the lot." She grabs Abhari's wrist with surprising strength and boldly pulls the sapling flush against her.
Don't blush, dammit.
"Do you have questions about the Nightmare court?" Teal eyes purrs and she has to resist with all her might not to shudder.
"A-a few," she manages to stammer out, pulling away from the courtier but not far enough to suggest offense.
"But I'm—shy, could we, uhm, talk where others will not hear?" she does not have to fake her racing heart or stuttering words, or the nervous flicker to the two courtiers behind Teal eyes.
The courtier smiles knowingly and releases Abhari's wrist, "Of course we can, my pretty one."
I'll show you pretty.
She leads Teal eyes away from her comrades, back up the moss covered hill into the nest of twining roots and trunks covered in vines and spores. She does not see Caithe, or Marrow for that reason, and fears for a moment she's lead the courtier to the wrong place.
But then she sees a patch of ground shift just the slightest to her right, and sees Marrows eyes flicker with hunger at the sight of the courtier.
And then Caithe makes her grand appearance, stepping from nothing into the clearing, Teal eyes jumps back so fast she stumbles and runs into a root.
"Wait, what is this?! What're you doing?" She looks at Abhari in a panic, eyes wide, the ranger can hear her mind racing from where she stands.
Caithe laughs "I thought you courtiers loved a good betrayal. Now, tell us where Gavin took the white stag." Teal eyes changes when she hears Caithe's proposal. Her eyes narrow and she steps forward, snarling at the firstborn while running a finger across her neck threateningly "Come over here and make me. I'll kill you both."
The fight is… boringly short. She'd expected more from a Nightmare courtier but… not all of them could be as good as Gavin, she guesses.
Marrow leapt the moment the courtier drew her sword, teeth clicking together when he latched onto her arm. Teal eyes' scream does not frighten her, it does not chill her, and instead, she finds a temper and fury that burn in her core. Nightmare is evil and hate, torture and murder, a den of liars, this courtier deserves no pity.
Between her, Caithe, and Marrow, Teal eyes is on the ground, bleeding out from a gash in her side from one of Caithe's daggers, and poison ebbing in her bones, a personal concoction from Abhari. Her breathing is slow and she's about to pass out, until Abhari steps on the woman's neck, the fury still burning inside her. How dare you.
"Listen here." Her voice is foreign again, just when she was getting used to it she'd find another tone that would surprise her.
This one is… dangerous, low, and angry, "You're smart enough to know you're in trouble. Tell us where you're keeping the white stag, and you can go back to your friends." Caithe, at least, seems impressed with Abhari's resolve.
"Alright! Alright, I'll tell you," Teal eyes coughs when Abhari lets up, stepping back and letting the courtier pull herself up, staggering on her feet.
"B-but—if I do, the others…"
"They'll never know it was you who ratted them out." Abhari assures her, "Trust me." She does not see Caithe ready her blade.
"G-gavin… he has the stag, in a camp up north—in Hemlock Coil." See? Was that so hard?
Caithe steps forward, flickering white-blue daggers drawn, "Thank you. Now, we'll keep our word. We won't tell anyone that you talked…before you died."
"Caithe!" Her eyes aren't teal anymore. With Caithe's dagger dug hilt deep into her stomach, they fade, a darkness infects that brilliant abalone teal, until they go pale, a slate translucent layer coloring her blind.
The firstborn lets the body drop, wiping off the glittering gold sap off her dagger.
"A quick and bitter end. A better death than they give their prey." She looks up to Abhari's venomous glare.
"Valiant?" Abhari doesn't know what this feeling is, just that it is dark and furious and burning like a star inside her. She does know that acting on it would bring nothing good, so she turns and walks off, ignoring Caithe's shout, up until the firstborn's hand closes around her shoulder and she whirls around, striking the thief in her jaw.
"No, Caithe! Dammit, I gave her my word, and you killed her! You've made me a liar… I-I don't like it." Caithe's shock softens, "She'd have warned the court we were coming."
"I know but… thorns, look at me, I'm angry," she laughs, "that's new."
"Listen, valiant, we did the right thing."
"No… no I don't believe that, Caithe. This is my hunt. This is my dream, you are just along for the ride! But you've been steering me this entire time in your direction, I'm done!" She snaps.
All she wants to do is run home. Run to where she can be alone, where her shouting won't be heard, where she can scream at the sky and cry until the sun goes down.
Dammit, Gavin. It always came back to him and his choice that still ached something fierce.
"You—you're right." She blinks in surprise when Caithe admits it, rubbing the back of her neck and looking down, sighing.
"I have been… commandeering your dream and I—apologize, you need to walk your own path, sapling and I… will let you choose which way to go. I will follow your instincts." It's humbling honestly, having a firstborn apologize to her.
"From now on, Caithe?"
"From now on, Valiant."