Without any change as dramatic as a sunset, the light dims until the flat grey sky is black, pierced by thousands of distant stars that offer only the haziest of illumination. Only when the darkness cloaks her features does she speak. "Of all the things to ask, Gann. Well. Casavir."
She pads away; there is just enough light to follow her along the smooth rock as the sea's voice fades to the merest whisper. "He was sworn to Tyr as a paladin, to fight injustice of any kind, by any lawful means. When I met him, he had chosen to protect the farmers and traders of Old Owl Well against the orcs that threatened them. He had decimated their numbers and carried the fight nearly to their leader's lair... they called him Katalmach," she adds, almost under her breath.
"Katalmach?" he asks, eager for her to continue, unwilling to push her harder or more directly. He has never heard this word, and he is not familiar with 'orcs' either, but those do not concern him.
" 'He Who Loses Himself in Battle'," Tarva translated absently. "The Rashemi would say 'a berserker'. I've never seen another to match him in close combat when his blood was roused."
"Not even yourself?" Gann asks, both intrigued and aware that she is not really answering his question. "Tarva, you disappoint me."
Even in the gloom, he could see the faint shake of her head. "When we sparred, he could rarely get past my guard to land a blow. But in a heated battle, when he lost his head... oh, that was another matter entirely." She sighs. "He was a good man, one of the best I ever knew – kind-hearted and loyal... but he could be so infuriating sometimes, when he started talking about the proper way to do things, or got maudlin. Asking to be buried with a quartet of long-dead knights so he could discuss honour with them for eternity, for instance..." A slight huff of air, almost a laugh. "Of course, Sand just had to point out that they probably didn't speak Common at all, and then start wrangling with Zhjaeve over whether that would even be relevant, Neeshka wanted to rob the graves, Khelgar was admiring the stonework and Elanee was whinging about having a roof over her head, while Grobnar was trying to rhyme 'hacked to bits' without resorting to Bishop's ... hmm, suggestions, Qara was getting that pyromaniac glint in her eye again, and Shandra..." her voice falters.
"You miss them," Gann says, and then grimaces inwardly. Painfully obvious comments are not his usual – or preferred - style.
"Of course," Tarva says softly, as the dream shifts around them. The sky lightens again, showing him a field of rich brown soil, dotted with young plants, a few houses in front of a towering stone wall. Tarva's beside him, but out in the centre of the field stands her own dream-projection of herself, hazy and immaterial. "But you were asking about Casavir... Let me show you."
So he focuses on the dream-Tarva. The last light of the dying sun lingers on her straight back; a strong wind tugs at her hair, and swirls the hem of her loose grey sleeping gown about her bare ankles. Her eyes are fixed on the horizon, where a livid mass of storm clouds roil, illuminated from within by sporadic bolts of lightning. She is praying, and the Tarva beside him murmurs the same words.
"Great Chauntea, all this land is yours. All that grows in our fields does so at your word. All that we sow and tend and harvest is your gift to us. You know how badly our crops need this rain. Please, hear me. Send it to us, sweet Earthmother..." her voice trails into inaudibility, her eyes close, but her lips are still moving as she implores her goddess for aid.
Gann remains silent, with some difficulty. Travelling with Kaelyn and Tarva hasn't changed his mind about the preening, strutting creatures they call gods... but this is important to her, and that's enough.
The lightning strike, painfully bright, blinds him for a moment, and it's accompanied by a great crash of thunder. Tarva's eyes fly open as the wind, heavy with the scent of rain, strengthens, and she watches as the clouds, heavy with rain, fill the sky. "Oh, Chauntea, thank you!" she breathes as the precious rain begins to fall. She spreads out her arms and tilts her face upward, the driving rain almost instantly soaking her through, plastering her hair flat to her head and her robe against her skin.
Gann simply watches, ignoring the dream-rain that does not touch him and Tarva's quiet presence by his side, paralysed by the fierce exultation that lights her dream-face. She looks so alive, so right, so happy – and he's seen her neutral, or off-guard, or enjoying herself, but never happy - surrounded by the thrumming sound of water on earth, swaying gently in the rain.
"My lady?"
The dream-Tarva whirls around, the sound of Casavir's voice instantly wiping the joy from her face. Gann could almost hate him for that alone. She faces the paladin perfectly composed. "Yes, Casavir?"
He removes his cloak and settles it over her shoulders. "You're soaked."
"Yes," she says, and irritation flickers in her eyes. "And it's wonderful. You didn't need to come out here after me. Edario won't forgive you for getting your armour all rusty."
"Forgive me, my lady, but I did. Your attire is... unseemly." The muted shock on her face is clear to Gann, but the paladin doesn't seem to see it. "You are a lady of rank, a commander of soldiers, and..." his voice roughens slightly, "and a woman. As such, it is hardly appropriate for you to be out in public, dressed only for the bedchamber."
"Casavir." The tone of her voice is a plea, one the man does not heed.
"Please, allow me to escort you inside."
"No," she says, but her defiance is weary and without strength, the refusal of a small child who knows she will give in sooner rather than later. It seems uncharacteristic of the Tarva whom Gann knows. "Casavir, I need to be out here." She searches for the words that will sway him. "This rain is a gift from Chauntea, and I should give thanks."
"Your attire is... inappropriate," says another voice – Bishop, easing out from the shadows, mimicking Casavir's deliberate delivery. Gann sees the momentary slump of Tarva's shoulders before she tries and fails to square them, and the way Casavir bristles. "As I understand it, most Chauntean rituals require the participants to be wearing a great deal less. I'd just come to the conclusion you weren't that devout."
"Bishop," Casavir growls. "What are you doing here?"
"Same as you, paladin," the ranger says, and his amber eyes slide over Tarva. "Enjoying the view."
"Enough," she says, handing Casavir back his sodden cloak, ignoring Bishop's open appraisal. "Enough," she repeats, and she sounds defeated, the rain streaking over a face empty of emotion and all the more miserable for it. She pushes past them, heading back for the keep. The two men start to squabble, faint and insistent, before Tarva banishes them back to her memory.
He turns to look at her, stony-faced in the pouring rain. "So your paladin friend was a strait-laced fool who didn't understand you in the least."
"No," she says, and there's a ghost of something like fondness on her face. "If that's what you saw, I made a mistake in showing you that. The point was, I didn't want to hear what he had to say, but he was absolutely right. Nobody else would have told me that I was making a spectacle of myself and come to bring me in."
"He was wrong," Gann says. She had been happy, and of what importance was the paladin's narrow idea of propriety compared to that?
Tarva stares at him a moment, then shakes her head. "Well. It seems I haven't really answered what you asked yet, have I?" She's hesitant and very quiet as she begins to stutter out a sentence, then stops, takes a deep breath, and tries again. "You witnessed that dream, Gann – you know what he said."
"I do," he concedes, then, more gently, "and what you said. More importantly, what you did not say. He heard you say that you didn't love him... but that wasn't what you said, was it?"
A long silence, and then she sighs. "No. No, it was not."
"And why –" she cuts him off.
"Because I didn't know! I didn't know anything!" Gann knows a moment's doubt at the sound of her voice; she sounds like a different woman entirely. She paces back and forth, the words spilling forth like blood from a wound. "I didn't know he felt that way, and I didn't see it coming, and I didn't know what to do!"
She comes to an abrupt halt, and quietens. "I didn't know whom to believe. Casavir was a paladin. Paladins do not lie, but they don't break their vows, either, and he had... My father had told me - but he lied to me for twenty years... And there was no time! Black Garius was breathing down my neck, the Sword was pulling me out to the Mere constantly, and if Kana didn't need me for something, Nevalle or Nasher did... And then there was that moment with Bishop, and I knew I'd miscalculated with him, I'd missed something - and that was dangerous, he was dangerous, unpredictable, and there wasn't time to find out what he'd do..." She stops, takes a breath, slows her words once more. "We'd fought that day. I was tired and I was frightened – I knew Garius would attack soon, and people would die. And Casavir asked for a moment, and he said, he said - that. I didn't know what to say, but I knew Casavir. Whether he was sincere or not, I owed him some sort of answer. So I tried to explain, and I failed..." She says the next words so calmly that it takes Gann a moment to understand them. "And Bishop was right, although I think I knew it before then. I killed him with those words."
"Tarva, no," Gann protests.
She looks up at him, her face drained of emotion, and asks with the simplicity of a child, "Was that all you wanted to know?"
Not really; although she has shed a lot of light on herself, he still needs to think and sort it out in his own head. The most important question of all has yet to be asked or answered, but after wakening the ghost of the man who had loved her (and whom she might, perhaps, have loved) - "Tarva, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have –"
"No, you shouldn't have. Just as I should have trusted you and not asked about Anya." She shrugs slightly.
She forgives him, and – "The two things are hardly equivalent," Gann says.
"They are to me."
- and suddenly the words are there. Not straightforward, not plain, but no less heart-felt or honest for all that. "I did have a reason for asking, as it happens. I have a... confession, of sorts, to make."
Her eyebrows rise a fraction as she accepts the shift of subject. "Isn't that rather more Kaelyn's line of work?"
"Not in this case." He would have to tread this measure with great care, but the day that Gann-of-Dreams could not set his words to dancing a twisting path was the day his voice was silenced forever.
Her face softens, very slightly; only one who has watched her as intently and as long as Gann has would even notice it. "Well, then, I'm listening."
"I have been very careless."
"Carelessness, Gann? Really?"
"Verging on criminal negligence. There is a certain... object of mine; while it never left my possession in my life, it was never quite whole. I might even say that it was flawed and cracked in a dozen places." He looks at her; she displays no emotion, although she is listening intently.
And she has absolutely no idea what he's talking about.
He can work with that.
He hopes.
"I cannot be entirely sure under the circumstances, but I believe that it was during our wandering in the Skein that this state of affairs began to change. Or perhaps that was simply when I noticed it." He can hear that his voice, usually so melodious, is low and almost rough; he cannot seem to modulate it correctly. He can feel Tarva's eyes on him, but does not look up to meet them. His courage only stretches so far – which is perhaps why the words that came to him are so oblique. "After our escape, I discovered that this thing of mine been made whole – and no sooner had I realised this than I also realised that I had lost it. That is my carelessness."
"Lost?" Tarva asks. "We did leave the Coven is rather a hurry, but you should have said something, Gann. We can go back – it's clearly important to you, or else you wouldn't brought it up –"
"No need," he says, just as surprised as she is by the nervous chuckle that bubbles from his lips. "As it happens, I know exactly where it is. Where it has always been, of course, or else I could not have survived so long... but mostly, the important part, it is in your keeping."
"Gann," Tarva says, one hand tugging at her hair. "This possession that is lost and found and in more than one place at the same time... you're not making sense. It's more like a riddle than a confession. What precisely are we talking about here?"
Yes. That's it. That is all he should say; she is an intelligent woman and she has all the pieces she needs to decipher his meaning. When she does, it will be up to her to decide what she wants to do about him. He will say nothing; she will have as much time as she needs (or her curse will allow her) to consider...
It would be so sweet to answer her question, to tell her openly that he loves her, but even more than he dares to hope that she could love him in return, he fears to become another of the memories that haunt and pain her.
So leave it to her –
"Very well," he says quietly into the silence, assuming as much of his usual manner as he can. It isn't much. "Let it be a riddle. A challenge – just between the two of us."
She studies him, her head tilted to one side. "No help?"
"Only from me, and only if you admit defeat and request the answer. However, I believe you have all you need to solve it. You discovered my mother's identity with much less to work with."
Tara inclines her blue-black head, the faintest trance of a smile at one corner of her mouth. Seeing even that much warms him; even after the memories and the difficult, painful questions they have shared tonight, he can make her smile – as much as anyone can. "Well, Gann, you're on."
"Good luck," he says. "For both our sakes," and dissolves the dream before she can ask what he means by that.
