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X.

Annia had seen the smoke through the impenetrable cover of trees. She could smell how thickly it hung in the air. With Tristan having gone on a different route, as he sometimes did when threats were high, Annia was left to investigate alone.

This was what she enjoyed about scouting, when there was something to scout. Her silent steps and piqued senses always sent a thrill through her, keeping her that much more deadly. Sometimes she hated that she was such an efficient killer, a conflict all of them struggled with, but when it was just her and nature, she could be the silent hunter without having to take life.

But Annia felt her insides twist as she neared the source of the smoke, her tranquil mindset destroyed as she saw the first signs of a village now smoldering.

Her first instinct was to proceed and search for survivors, but she knew if there were any and they needed aid, she couldn't do it alone. Every second was precious as Annia sprinted back to Sarafax and raced him to where she had last seen Arthur and the knights, the caravan train only a couple hundred yards from that spot.

What seemed destroyed from a distance was hopeless when one walked through the debris and cinder filled streets, fires still burning in some places. Any survivors had surely fled, their neighbours and family who had not escaped had just been left to the flames. Hardened as she was by fifteen years of war and death, Annia still felt tears well up.

"They surely never had a chance." Gaheris's voice sounded heavy with sadness.

"Search for any still living." Arthur knew his order was futile, it could be heard in his tone. This was what they all hated most, when innocents died in conflict and there was nothing to be done for them.

Movement out of the corner of her eye made Annia pause and look to a small house, a shack really, that was almost completely burned to the ground. A small section of wall still stood and it was behind this that Annia could have sworn she saw someone moving.

Edging closer to it, Annia placed a friendly look on her face while her hand reached for a dagger, preparing herself for anything.

Crouching behind a broken table, was a small boy who was injured badly. Annia felt her stomach drop at the sight of the child, who couldn't have seen more than eight summers.

His face was bruised and bleeding, his leg horribly misshapen, and Annia could see his skin was pale through the dirt and ash, indicative of how much blood he had lost.

Stepping closer, Annia saw a woman lying near the boy, her eyes staring into the sky. Annia guessed since they had the same dark hair that this boy had just lost his mother.

She knelt down next to the boy, who instantly tried to fight her off,

"Get off me!" his voice was weak and hoarse, probably from breathing in the smoke, so he wasn't very loud. Neither did his frail body hold any strength.

Annia held his arms away from her, his nails no less sharp for his lack of strength, and said calmly, "Easy, lad. I'm here to help, you don't have to be afraid. You're safe."

"My mama! My brothers. They just came… I couldn't do anything…"

"I know. I know." She pulled him close and wrapped her arms around his small form, rubbing his head gently as his hands clung to her. Truthfully she needed this child to be calm if Dagonet was going to be able to fix any of the damage done to him. The damage inside well… that was another matter. Annia didn't even want to think about what this boy had been through. No child should ever have to experience something like this.

Picking the child up Annia ran to the others, shouting for the healers to tend to him. After answering what questions she could, where she found him, were there others and so forth, Annia made to put the child in the medical wagon as instructed by Dagonet, but when she attempted to leave, the boy snatched her hand and held on with a surprisingly strong grip. By now, most likely out of curiosity, Gawain and Galahad had joined them in the wagon, their tasks obviously completed.

Annia smiled down at the boy, "You need not worry, lad. The men here won't harm you, they'll make the pain go away."

"Will you stay with me? Please?"Annia glanced up at the other knights present, a little shocked at his behaviour. Children, save for Bors's bastards, usually avoided Annia like the plague for her fearsome reputation. Then again, this boy didn't know her.

Nodding she seated herself on the floor of the wagon, crossing her legs with the boy's hand still clutching hers.

"My name is Annia, by the way. What's yours?" She didn't want to know what the knights would say about this little touchy moment.

"Marcus."

"That's a nice name."

Dagonet appeared with all his potions and tools and began inspecting the boy's wounds. Every now and then Annia's hand would get squeezed and Marcus started crying when the giant moved to his leg. It wasn't broken badly, but it needed to be set.

"Will it hurt?" his voice was full of fear.

Annia sighed, why her?! Her brothers had always said never lie to an injured man.

"It will Marcus. But don't worry, I'm right here."

"You should brace him." Dagonet said.

Oh gods will it be that bad?

Annia nodded and got up to sit behind the boy, wrapping one arm around him to keep his arms still while the other hand gripped his forehead so that he thrash his head around.

"Deep breath, lad." Well at least Dagonet remained calm.

The little body stayed rigid as Dagonet splinted the leg, quiet sobs escaping him periodically.

The group was leaving the village by this time, what little they could do having been done. Annia watched the soldiers march past the wagon, their red and gold helmets contrasting the bleak hillsides they were passing through.

Once Dagonet had wrapped the splint he gave Marcus some sleeping syrup. Annia once again made to leave, wanting to give him some peace and quiet, but the boy wouldn't hear of it.

"I don't want to be alone." Annia settled herself back to where she had been, with the boy lying with his back against her chest, and waited for him to fall asleep.

"Mama sings to me sometimes, when I can't sleep."

Annia smiled in self loathing, how had she not seen this coming?

"I'm not a very good singer, Marcus. I'd give you nightmares."

"Don't care."

After another minute's debate, Annia sang a lullaby Vanora liked to sing to her younger ones.

She only managed to get a few lines out before the little body became slightly heavier.

Annia slipped out from under him and jumped out the wagon, her legs suddenly stiff.

"Who knew you were such a softhearted sap?"

"Shove it, Galahad." Gone was the sap.

"Truthfully, Annia. That was very kind of you." The woman smiled as Arthur handed her her reins. After Annia mounted she moved Sarafax next to Arthur, an issue plaguing her mind that had settled as soon as she found little Marcus.

"What will happen to him, Arthur?"

"The boy will have to be placed in the care of a family willing to take him in."

Children had been brought to the fort before, victims of violence and loss, their parents in the next realm. They had always been given to families to be cared for. To this day there was not a child without some form of a family at the fort. Arthur had seen to that himself.

"I cannot think of the horror that will be with him for the rest of his life."

"I should think you would be the one person that does understand, Annia."

"Perhaps that's true. But I was allowed to grow up first."

"So this is you grown up?"

She let out a laugh. Rarely did Arthur tease, never when on a mission. But Annia knew he was just trying to ease her worries. And it was working.

Her calm did not last long.

Annia had about five seconds in between feeling the hairs on her neck stand up and the sounds of the first few arrows being let loose.

All that was left a few minutes later was the eerie quiet that follows a battle. The men slowly starting taking stock of damages. The supplies had been successfully protected, and there were no casualties.

By the size of the party that had attacked them, it was not a predetermined decision. Most likely a group of Woads that just happened upon the travelers and had decided to attempt to steal the supplies they spied. Which explained why it had been so easy to defeat them. Too easy.

Looking around, it became apparent that not all were present.

"GAWAIN!"

The scream was enough to send birds fleeing into the sky, blood chilling and shrill. Gawain didn't even have to think about the sound's owner, he and the others running into the tree line to find her.

When they eventually found Sarafax, Annia's horse, Gawain went cold at the realization that she wasn't with him. But the sound of sobbing sent relief flooding through him and he followed the sound another fifty feet. What he saw when he came upon the woman, kneeling on the ground and weeping softly, took that relief away and replaced it with… nothing.

As he stared down at Annia holding his brother's lifeless body, all Gawain could feel was numb.

The blonde knight didn't move, or speak, his eyes just gazed unseeing at the man he had failed to protect. Gaheris was his little brother, his safety was his responsibility. He was just two and twenty summers old! He could hear Annia talking to him, the woman pleading with him to do something, but a haze had settled on Gawain's mind and he was unable to function.

"What happened?!" Arthur stepped into Gawain's line of sight and knelt next to Annia.

Annia just shook her head, "We were ambushed, I couldn't get to him in time… I couldn't…"

Another sob escaped her and she clutched the man closer. She was covered in his brother's blood, the gaping wound in his stomach would have made Gawain's stomach turn if he hadn't seen it many times before. Dagonet came with his herbs and salves, but Gawain and everyone else knew full well he was too late.

After feeling for a pulse, Dagonet let out sigh and shook his head to Arthur. Annia moved out from underneath the body, her sobs having quieted but tears were still running down her cheeks every few seconds. The other knights moved to place Gaheris on his horse, covering him with a cloak. Gawain's eyes still hadn't left the spot he had first seen his dead brother, but something tugging on his arm finally made him move. He looked at Annia's tearstained face and tried to listen to what she was saying.

"We need to go, Gawain."

Sorrow hung heavy on the knights as they rode back to the fort.

They had lost brothers before, fifteen years meant there was plenty of grief for knights that had fallen.

But this…

Annia just couldn't escape the burden Gaheris's death had brought on her.

It was even worse every time she looked at Gawain. The resemblance between them made Annia instantly think of Gaheris every time she looked at his brother's face.

The one small solace Annia had to hold on to was the fact that Marcus had found somewhere to call shelter, if not home. The fort's butcher and wife had approached Arthur not long after word was sent that there was a child refugee in need of care.

Marcus had been reluctant to go, his arms wrapped tightly around Annia's waist. A small part of her was annoyed that this boy had decided to attach himself to her of all people. How in the world was she supposed to care for a child with the life she led? The boy hadn't left her side since they left the site of the battle. When she'd emerged from the trees, blood all over her hands and clothes, Marcus had run to her, saying that he thought she was the one that was dead. Unlikely since she was the one that had screamed, but he was eight. This fear had apparently made Marcus adamant to stay with her, and Annia still didn't know why and she couldn't bring herself to ask. She wasn't a gentle looking person, hell Dagonet held more charisma than she did when she was dressed in her armour, but Marcus didn't seem to care. So with the thought that soon they would be back in the fort and he'd be given to someone who would want him, she let him ride back with her, letting him talk about his life and family. Why he was so clingy became clear when he said that Annia reminded him of his mother. Well if that didn't tug on the old heart strings, Annia didn't have a heart. Her desperation to be rid of him made her think that that was true, but she knew it wasn't that she didn't want him, it was that she didn't want him to grow up with a mother figure like her. When she came back from missions, covered in the blood of lives she'd snuffed, she didn't want a small child to see that. He'd been through enough without developing a fear of her too, likening her to the people who had killed his family. No, it was better that he live with a proper family that would give him the love he needed. Love Annia didn't think she had in her. Love for her brothers, yes. Love for the family she left in Sarmatia, that would never die. But love for a child? It was too much of a responsibility.

So she had calmly explained that Marcus couldn't stay with her, but that she'd be at the fort too so it wasn't goodbye, and he'd left with the butcher's wife.

Now she had to deal with the loss of her brother.

It was entirely too selfish to think of Gaheris as her brother, when one considered the grief his real brother must be seized with, but Annia didn't care. She had come to love these men as family and they all felt the sorrow and emptiness that followed Gaheris's death. The thing that weighed the heaviest on all their minds she was sure, was that they were so close to their freedom, but now it had been robbed from him.

Gawain had been absent from the burial, something that was unheard of for the knights, but Annia had spied him at the grave afterwards as the sun was setting, and there he stayed long after the stars had appeared.

A door had never been so intimidating. But Annia's stomach was knotted as she knocked on the door and waited. When no one answered she tried again. Gawain wasn't in the tavern, and he wasn't off with some barmaid that she knew of, so that left here. And now he was ignoring her like a child. They had barely spoken since Gaheris's death a week ago and frankly she was sick of it. She understood he was in pain, she probably understood more than anyone, but he was refusing to let anyone in. they had all tried to talk to him, but all they got in answer was a cold stare.

Now Annia was determined. He would at the very least just speak to her, even if it was to tell her to take a flying leap!

On the third knock Annia was forced to step back as Gawain threw his door open and stepped into the passageway, an angry look on his face that had never been directed at her before and stung unlike anything. A look that only softened a fraction as he realized it was her, he still looked plenty annoyed.

He raised his eyebrows at her, a very condescending look in his eyes as he waited for her to reveal why she was banging on his door. Annia sighed as she watched his eyes try to focus, the smell of ale thick in the air around him.

Annia had planned a speech that she was sure would break through this barrier of ice he had put up, but it decided to abandon her head as she took in the look on Gawain's face. If she thought she meant nothing to him before Gaheris died, it was only confirmed now. Annia shook her head, ignoring her own feelings for once, and said shakily, "May I join you?"

For several moments he just stared at her, as if trying to figure out whether she was serious or not.

Annia walked into the room when Gawain waved a hand for her to enter. The gesture said, "If you absolutely have to."

But Annia ignored the hurtful way he was treating her, she knew it was just because of his grief. By gods she was going to get through to him, though. Even if she had to physically throttle the man, he would listen to her! Everyone was worried that losing his brother had finally made Gawain crack. If they saw him twice in the last week, it was a lot.

Annia pushed her anger down, replacing it with gentleness. She turned to the knight who was leaning heavily against the closed door, watching her with a bored look on his face. He had obviously expected one of the knights to eventually try and talk to him. Get him to 'open up'.

"It's alright to need someone, Gawain."

She thought he would tell her to leave. She expected him to spurn her attempt to comfort him. She waited for him to speak, to shout, to cry… anything!

Annia threw her hands in the air, her volatile side taking over despite her best efforts to be restrained and caring. "Why do you shut everyone out?! All of us, we want to be there for you… I want to be there for you!" she ignored the realization of what she had just said and continued, "I know it hurts, but you don't have to let the pain do this to you-"

She stopped as his arms enveloped her, pulling her closer to him than they had been in years. Well, apart from one exception that she cared never to revisit.

But now Gawain was the one clinging to her for dear life. She smiled to herself as she wrapped her arms around him, her hand going to the back of his head that was tucked into her neck.

"I was supposed to protect him." He still didn't shed a single tear.

"No one expected that of you Gawain."

"I expected it of myself!" he let her go and paced the room, his hands in his hair, "He was my brother, I was the oldest, it was my responsibility to look after him. It's my fault he lies in the ground now."

"No, it's not." It sounded as if she were just trying to reassure him, but Annia spoke the truth. It wasn't his fault, but she wasn't ready to tell him the truth just yet.

Gawain stopped pacing and just stood there, his eyes boring into her for a moment before he just sat down on the floor with his back against the wall. He motioned for Annia to join him and she obliged, lowering herself so that she sat next to him, but faced him.

"I had hoped after fifteen years I'd be used to this."

"You mean after fifteen years you'd hoped to have turned to stone?"

He nodded, "Sometimes I think that I've become immune to the grief, I think that maybe it won't hurt anymore. Then I feel heartless for thinking like that."

"You grieve for our brothers, your brother, Gawain. Wanting to be free of that pain doesn't make you a bad person, just a normal one."

They talked for a few more hours, about nothing in particular. At one point Annia moved so she was sitting with her back against the wall too, a sign of her tiredness, but every time Gawain felt Annia start to fall asleep, he'd ask her something, anything else and she would smile drowsily before answering. He didn't have any real need to hear her answers, but if she fell asleep he would effectively be alone with his thoughts. And he didn't want to be alone.

Just before dawn, though, he let her drift off, resting her head on his shoulder.

He had thought on more than one occasion during their conversations to tell her of his feelings. But for some reason his tongue seemed to stick to the roof of his mouth every time he wanted to form the words. He dismissed it as his grief getting in the way. He'd get his chance soon enough.

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