Chapter L - Dedicated to Memory

"How's your first siege going then, miss pretty?"

Fehn's face was stern as she held a cup of wine to her injured brother's lips. Purposefully pulling the cup back before he was finished drinking, Fehn quipped,

"Oh, well I'm happy to see you've not lost that stellar humour of yours. Think how scared I would have been if you'd had."

Luca's face cracked into a smile at his sister's testiness. Grimacing at the arrow-wound on his shoulder, he sat up and gazed around blearily. All around him were soldiers, all wounded, all being tended to by various people, matrons, healers, and other soldiers who had not been hurt.

"We're taking a hit then."

Luca deduced quietly to himself. Fehn nodded and watched concerned as Luca's eyes screwed shut at the biting pain rocketing through his shoulder. Clicking her tongue, Fehn placed a hand on his good shoulder and pushed him back gently,

"For Mara's sake, sit back already! You'll do yourself more damage."

Flashing her a roguish smile, Luca waved his sister away and gripped her cheek playfully, hooking his fingers around her ear, he tickled her neck making her more irritated with him and causing her to suck in a breath and bat his hand away roughly.

"Ah, wee Fehnrah. Always worrying - don't. I'm the one that's went an' got hisself shot. I'm fine, though…Here, shouldn't you be holding the fort…literally?"

With a shrug Fehn picked up the cup of wine again and passed it to Luca's outstretched hand,

"Aye, but father told me to come down and have a look at you. He's hopeful that we can weather the enemy and outlast them. So much for glory, simply outliving a body isn't very glorious."

She sighed and didn't see Luca give her a sidelong glance from behind the rim of his cup. With a chuckle, Luca licked his chapped lips and commented lightly - a hint of cheek in his voice,

"Oho, look at you! So what, you want to run down - claymores at the ready - and what? Smash the pirates into submission? We're too few here, you know. We'll need to wait until the 'regulars' get here, this isn't our line of work."

Sulkily, Fehn brought her knee up and rested her chin on it as she looked at Luca,

"I know…It's just, father's always going on and on about grand battles and all that, and here we are; holed up with canon-aid banging at our walls, a dead lord and almost half of us injured. It's just a little less…"

"Glamorous?"

Luca interjected brightly before Fehn smacked his helmet lightly making him recoil and hit his head off the stone wall,

"…Exciting. It's not as heroic either. Just feels a little, pointless. Don't you think?"

Luca laughed at that and spluttered into the cup. Banging his chest and coughing, he tried to ignore Fehn's dark inquisitive gaze. Flicking his equally dark eyes up to her, he faltered a little before shrugging carelessly,

"What does it matter? We do what we do and we do it well. We were born for this, little Fehnrah. No point plying ourselves t' anything else…"

Her level eyes did not leave him as he looked away and said almost to himself,

"Although, I'd pay the Emperor's fortune to make sure I never had to brandish a blade again…It's not really in my blood, you know, fighting?"

Leaning in, Fehn placed a comforting hand on Luca's muscled shoulder,

"My dear brother…"

Fehn began tenderly, her lips twitching. Luca turned his head and gazed up at her - his grief almost comical,

"Yes, Fehnrah?"

He asked while sipping at his wine. Without a word, Fehn smacked the bottom of the cup and watched as Luca's eyes widened when the cool wine slopped down his chin.

"You're a terrible liar."

Both of them ceased their teasing as their father gracefully strode over from the stairwell and eyed them fondly,

"Ah, now that's how you tend the wounded in Barbarian Land eh, Fehn?"

Fehn dipped her head while Luca snickered,

"I apologise, sir."

Her father waved it away,

"No need t' stand on ceremony, my cub, I just got promoted."

Luca sat up,

"Promoted?!"

Penitus nodded and gently eased his helmet off of his head allowing his long black hair tumble out. Fehn watched them curiously, her father and her brother, while they spoke; while Penitus relayed the news of his promotion to his son, he scooped up his hair and with his other hand, unlaced a thread of ruby red silk from his belt and used it to tie back his dark locks. With another nod, he wiped his glistening forehead and said to Luca,

"Aye, shot with an arrow. Went right over the wall and down into the bluff. Poor fellow, is that stew?"

Fehn nodded and fetched a bowl and filled it with stew for her father. She rolled her eyes when she heard the inevitable;

"Fehnrah? Be a dear an' get me some to, eh?"

Shaking her head, she filled up two bowls. One for her father and one for her brother. The men were still chatting when she brought over the two bowls of stew,

"You not having any yourself, pet?"

Asked Penitus as he spooned the beefy stew into his mouth. Fehn shook her head and kneeled beside Luca as she passed him his bowl. With a nod, Luca took it and smiled.

"Our bell here was just saying how much she's enjoying her first siege."

"Oh, aye?"

"No!"

Fehn blushed and looked away from her father's quizzical eyes. Fiddling with her gauntlet, she shrugged and said in a mild tone,

"I just said that it was different is all."

There was silence and Penitus looked to his boy to decipher what his daughter meant. With a wry shrug, Luca kept his eyes in his bowl and waited to hear what their father would say.

"Well course' it's different, sweeting. We're not at the court now."

Luca giggled and Fehn promptly slapped him on the arm without taking her eyes from her gauntlet. As her brother yelped and tried to keep a hold of his bowl, Fehn peeped up and locked eyes with her father. She stiffened as he set aside his half-empty bowl and got to his feet; his armour hardly worn even though he had worn it during countless skirmishes and came to kneel before Fehn. Her eyes level with his, he took her little delicate hands in his own and looked from his daughter to his son. They both gazed back with the same dark, heavy-lidded doe eyes, the same long straight noses with arched level eye brows.

"Everything is different out here. Everything changes the moment you draw a blade, believe it. In the throws of battle, Luca, you know this,"

Luca nodded and Penitus looked at Fehn and said only to her,

"You get in a sword fight, m'dear, they try to kill you, you try an' kill them right back. Remember it."

With a bright smile, Luca prompted while setting his empty bowl aside and reaching out for his wine again,

"Aye, Fehnrah, but mind; we're Anonamies, there's no trying for us! You'll get em' no problem. But father does have a point, if someone tries to shank you, don't ever think; retaliate. And you make that pretty face the last thing they see before the Void."