Author's Note: And now, after four chapters of talking and negotiating, some action! This little arc is going to move a lot faster than what we just left because it's already in progress and nearing a turning point, so brace yourselves.

'Where do we start?' Einfari was sitting on a boulder, overlooking Berserker island from the top of its singular mountain, staring down at the village in the distance. 'There are a lot of humans down there.'

"We need to catch Dagur alone, or on an undefended ship. Then we can just blast him out of existence, or sink him and then blast him if he survives that." Heather was crouched next to her, using her friend's superior eyesight to examine the sprawling village.

Nóttreiði growled from his position slightly higher up on another rock. He insisted on watching Einfari's back, despite the other side of the mountain being untouched forest, far sparser than that of their home island. Nothing could approach unseen in those woods, and nothing could climb up to them, but he watched for danger anyway. 'Maybe lure him out somehow. give him a reason to go somewhere isolated.'

Was Nóttreiði, of all dragons, offering a suggestion in response to her? Heather smiled to herself and said nothing about it. Pointing it out would just remind him that he was supposed to hate her. If planning to kill someone distracted him enough to make him forget that, she'd let him be distracted.

"The problem is, we need to know what his routine is if he even has one," Heather agreed, getting back to the question at hand. "But I can't just go down there and find out because every Berserker soldier I've ever run into has recognized me on sight. We have to assume they all will."

'How, though?' Einfari asked curiously. 'He wasn't even entirely sure at first.'

"They're Berserkers; they probably grab every girl who matches my description." Heather didn't know why Dagur's men seemed to have a better idea of what she looked like than he did, but she wasn't about to question it.

Einfari shrugged her wings. 'Then we wait and watch. He's got very distinctive red hair and doesn't wear a helmet. He should be easy enough to track from up here. A little red dot in a sea of brown, grey, and yellow.'

'So we don't get to do anything yet?' Nóttreiði didn't sound pleased with that idea. 'Fine. But what if he never goes anywhere unprotected?'

Heather smiled dangerously. "Then we lure him out, as you suggested."

'Good.' Nóttreiði jumped off of his higher rock and headed out into the forest. He was probably going somewhere out of sight to relieve himself, or maybe to make sure they really were alone. His paranioa was mostly warranted for once, and directed somewhere other than Heather. That made Berserker island one of the more relaxing places Heather had been recently.

'He is so preoccupied with how much danger we might be in that he barely notices what you are,' Einfari purred. 'This is progress.'

"It's only progress if he stays like this after we're done here." Somehow, Heather doubted that. Once Dagur was out of the picture and they weren't in enemy territory, Nóttreiði would probably go right back to focusing entirely on her. "For now though, it's nice." They could concentrate on Dagur, and Dagur alone.

'Dagur certainly is energetic.' Einfari sounded impressed in spite of herself. 'He hasn't stopped moving all day. Like a hyperactive fledgling.'

Heather had to agree. They had been watching Dagur for most of the day, spying from the heights. Dagur had been all over the village in that time. The little red dot had gone from the docks to the armory, the apparently empty arena, and everywhere in between, with no apparent pattern. Never alone and never still, Dagur definitely seemed to be planning or preparing for something. Unless this was normal for him, which was definitely a possibility.

'He is always guarded and almost never alone.' Nóttreiði growled angrily. 'Not once this entire day.'

"So much for catching him alone." After a single day, Heather was convinced they'd need to hit him on the sea, or not at all. There was just no way to get a clean shot at him, even if she was willing to endanger random, likely innocent civilians in the process. At least attacking a warship would only kill soldiers, and would also limit the number of soldiers involved at all.

'So we lure him out. But how? We need to give him something to go after.' Einfari closed her eyes in order to concentrate.

Nóttreiði purred, a deep and unusual sound coming from him. 'Easy. He hunts dragons for fun, murderous scum that he is. And we just happen to be the rarest of all dragons.' He explained his plan. After a long discussion and a few tweaks, Einfari and Heather reluctantly agreed. They'd lure Dagur out, using his own paranoia and dragon hunting tendencies against him.

Einfari flew silently, mindful of even the sound of her wings beating. She didn't want to make a single mistake. She spoke to Heather, who was tense in the saddle, gripping her ax. 'Relax. This part's on us. Keep watch for anything I might miss, and we'll be fine.'

She felt Heather pat her neck, the non-verbal signal they had agreed meant she understood. Silence was crucial. They needed to be unnoticed until exactly the right moment.

Einfari angled down, and knew that Nóttreiði would be right behind her. He might be stubborn and frustratingly hateful towards Heather, but he was not stupid enough to go against the plan they had decided on, especially when said plan was mostly his idea. She glided through the clouds and towards the target. A moderately small patrol boat, doing its best to circle the island.

They had noticed this particular idiosyncrasy of Dagur earlier. He was paranoid, and this nearly worthless single patrol ship was clearly a result of that trait. It would likely never detect an invading force in time to do any good, but it was there nonetheless. She guessed that there might normally be more, but the fact that the bulk of Dagur's armada was still in the South probably attributed for the lone ship here right now.

At the moment, the ship was around the back of the island, and the furthest from land that it would get in its circuit. Einfari glided closer and closer, having swooped down as low as she dared. She approached the vessel and circled it once, silent on the night air.

Worryingly, the ship actually seemed to be well-armed, if the number of metal things lining the sides of the deck were any indication. That could have been a problem. She and her brother were not skilled fighters and had no experience against human weapons like that. They could not risk attacking the ship head-on, even if a more experienced Night Fury would be able to do it with no issues. The same danger that had stopped them from going after Dagur after the disasterous attempt at negotiation would also stop them here, were they to need to attack directly. Luckily, the plan didn't call for that.

Einfari inhaled deeply and roared the distinctive roar of a Night Fury, as loud as she could. After a moment, she broke her silent glide and flew away, as fast as possible, being sure to silhouette herself against the stars as she did. She was rewarded with the muffled screams of 'Night Fury!' as she flew away.

Nóttreiði caught up to her and chuckled. 'Phase one, success.' He seemed to be enjoying this.

'I like phase one,' Einfari admitted. 'Can we just keep doing that?' It would work, if more slowly than the complete plan, and she had her doubts about phase two.

'No. If this doesn't work, we'll move on to the second part of this.' Nóttreiði flew away before she could respond. She felt a flash of irritation. If he thought he was getting out of talking about this, he was wrong.

But she let him have his silence for the moment, dropping behind on the way back to the mountaintop they had claimed for themselves. 'Heather, you are really fine with phase two?' Best to be sure she would not be opposing both of them before making her opinion known.

"It's violent and bloody, satisfying Nóttreiði and baiting Dagur at the same time. It seems like a good idea to me. That ship had half a dozen men on it. If he can do it, I say go for it." Heather's voice was dark.

So she would be opposing Nóttreiði without Heather's full support. 'But the first part of the plan could work on its own.' Repeated buzzings of the same ship, night after night, would definitely tempt the crazed dragon killer out onto that ship in hopes of encountering the lone, angered Night Fury.

"It could, but Nóttreiði wants to do both parts." Heather scratched the back of Einfari's neck consolingly as they landed. "If you can talk him out of it, go ahead, but we may as well use what we have."

'I am going to try.' As long as Heather was remaining neutral, she had a chance. 'You get some sleep. I want to talk to him alone.'

"Really alone?" Heather whispered, outwardly nodding and faking a yawn. She need not have bothered; Nóttreiði was surveying the dark forest below them, not watching her.

'It does not matter.' Einfari had no problem keeping Heather in the know about her dealings with her brother; there was no real reason not to. Heather was already privy to the inner workings of the Nótt family, so Einfari felt no need to keep anything from her.

"I think I'll leave you two to it," Heather decided. "Don't be long. You need rest too, at some point."

At some point. Somebody needed to watch for danger tonight, and if she couldn't sway Nóttreiði from the current plan, he would need rest the most between the two of them.

If she could not. She was going to do her best. 'Nóttreiði,' she called out. 'I am coming up there.'

'I am not ready to sleep yet; I'll just keep watch.' He shifted to let her up beside him. 'Really. Go.'

'Nervous about tomorrow night?' She could hope. She didn't want to believe her brother could really do what he was planning, not without some nerves and mixed feelings. He wasn't a kiler, no matter how blind he was.

'Nervous? I am ready, and even looking forward to it.'

She whined softly. 'You are looking forward to dropping onto their ship and killing them.' This was not him, it couldn't be, but he was so sure he wanted to do that, and she didn't know how to dissuade him.

'It needs to be done, it can be done, and I want to do it. Yes, I'm looking forward to it.'

'And are you looking forward to telling Mother and Father about it?' She didn't know if that was going to make any difference, but she figured she would bring it up. 'Heather and I are condoning it, but what do you think they will say?' She would take back her acceptance of his plan if she thought it would stop him, but there was a delicate balance between trying to help her brother and condemning him, and something told her she needed to tread carefully there.

'What will they say? They will…' He growled angrily. 'They will lecture me on acting childish, and Father will implore me to open my eyes. Mother will give me sad stares for at least a week. It is not easy, being the only one in this family with any sense. I miss the days when we were all in agreement.'

'I miss them too,' she admitted quietly. 'But I'm not the one making it so that we do not have that anymore. You are.'

'You are all deceived,' Nóttreiði said stubbornly. 'The humans who live on our island are very, very good at it. I just have to wait for you to see the truth.'

'Which is more likely?' Einfari asked slowly, trying a new angle. 'There are four of us if we do not count Joy, who is too young to really weigh in on this. You, me, Mother, and Father. We are all intelligent, perceptive, and cynical. Yes?'

'Yes.' No hesitation at all. 'We are Nótts.'

'So, again, which is more likely? Three of us are all tricked, or one of us is too paranoid?' She poked at his side with a paw. 'The truth. In a hypothetical, which would you expect to happen?'

'There is no such thing as too paranoid.'

'Father once drove himself to exhaustion through paranoia, for absolutely nothing. Whether or not you believe he was right to be suspicious, you must agree he went overboard. So there is such a thing as being too paranoid.'

'What is likely does not matter; what matters is what is. You are all deceived.' He turned away from her. 'I am going to go get some sleep after all.'

'Brother…' She could not dissuade him. He just wasn't listening. 'I don't want you to do this. It's risky and unnecessary.'

'I don't care. I want to do it.' He glared down at the village. 'I came on this trip to protect you and kill humans. I've failed several times at one of those; I'll not fail at the other.'

If she could not stop him… she didn't believe he would fail. What she feared was what success would do to him. 'If you do this, there is no taking it back. All of this has been talk, so far.'

'Now I am going to put my claws where my words are,' he agreed. 'I know I am right.'

'And when you find out you were wrong, you will realize that this was all avoidable,' she whined. 'It will crush you. I know you; the guilt will be terrible. The guilt you're building up and ignoring, so sure it will go away, so sure everyone else you know is wrong.'

'There is no guilt.' He sounded less certain now, but no less determined.

'I hope there is,' she countered. 'Somewhere, hidden, repressed, but still there. Because if there really isn't, I don't know who you are.' If he could kill and be totally okay with it, he was not the person she thought she knew. Her mother and father could not do that. She most definitely could not do it, though she had killed recently. That was how she knew.

'Brother,' she said urgently, 'when it all comes crashing down, and I hope it does, for your sake… I'm still here.' She moved forward and rested her chin on his neck, embracing him. 'I'm still going to be your sister.'

'I know that,' he asserted, moving away from her. 'Why would you not be?'

'Remember.' She favored him with a sad look. Were the circumstances different, she would chastise him for taking her for granted, but that terrible anticipation in her chest was telling her that she needed to be sure he survived his built-up delusion collapsing on him, and that meant making sure he knew he had not lost absolutely everything, not threatening him with losing more.

If it crashed. She hoped it did. It had better, because the higher his mental blockade against seeing the truth got, the worse he became, and she couldn't break through it. Nobody else could. He would have to break it down himself, somehow.

Nóttreiði jumped down to find somewhere else to sleep, and Einfari set herself to the task of watching over both him and Heather, and hoping that something would change for the better soon.

"Well, looks like it wasn't enough." Heather wasn't that disappointed; the hope that Dagur would immediately take the bait had always been far-fetched. The patrol boat had just set off, and Dagur definitely wasn't on it. She could see his red head moving in between the docks and armory for what had to be the tenth time today. They had spent the entire day watching him, and he definitely had no pattern at all.

Nóttreiði growled. 'I figured. Time for phase two.'

Heather shared a look with Einfari, and Einfari shook her head sadly. So it seemed she had not managed to convince Nóttreiði to drop that part of all of this. Oh well. He was set on killing humans, and they might as well point him at ones that deserved it.

A few hours later, Heather and Einfari watched as Nóttreiði silently dove towards the ship, just as Einfari had done the night before. They were fairly far away, in order to not be seen. Tales of two Night Furies would be too suspicious. They wanted this to look like the work of a lone dragon, angry and vulnerable.

Nóttreiði swooped directly over the ship. On his second pass, he abruptly folded his wings and dropped like a rock, intentionally slamming into one of the two net-launchers on either side of the ship. He trashed it with his weight as he landed, and immediately spun, roaring full in the face of the half-dozen armed crew and immediately attacked the closest one.

His fighting was actually fairly inefficient, and he didn't really seem to know what he was doing, but what he lacked in tactics and experience he made up for in ferocity. He hit each Berserker hard and fast, often flinging himself into them before they could react. Night Furies were built for fast and brutal combat. There were quickly far fewer Berserkers than there had been before. Everything was going according to plan.

Heather felt little to no satisfaction from watching Nóttreiði tear into her enemies. They were dying, but they weren't the real problem, just the minions, and Nóttreiði was not going to improve as a result of this event. They shouldn't have let him do this… but Einfari couldn't convince him not to, and Heather knew very well that she would have done no better.

This was in the cards since the moment Nóttreiði joined them on their mission. Now it was happening, and there was nothing they could have done to stop it.

Einfari keened softly. 'I don't know who he is now,' she whined. 'And we let him do this. We let him come along.'

They could not have stopped him. Heather wanted to say that, but it felt false and hollow. This did feel like a failure of sorts, though Nóttreiði was definitely succeeding in his attack. He had not even been scratched yet.

At that moment, Nóttreiði pinned the final Berserker of the half-dozen who had been on deck. He looked into the man's eyes... but something he saw there made him pause. He glanced up at the carnage he had created, hesitated… and then backed away, letting the man up.

Einfari gasped quietly. Heather could hardly believe what she was seeing through Einfari's eyes. What was going through Nóttreiði's head right now? He was showing mercy. Why?

Then everything went wrong. Several more Berserkers exploded out from hatches in the deck, and one of them knocked Nóttreiði unconscious, striking him from behind. Einfari immediately dived at the ship, snarling angrily.

"Einfari, not yet! They have crossbows!" Heather hoped Einfari could hear her. "They aren't killing him!"

It was true. The newest Berserkers were evenly divided between restraining an unconscious Nóttreiði and looking to the skies, armed with crossbows. They clearly weren't taking any chances. It had all happened so quickly.

Einfari pulled out of her dive and circled back around. 'We need to get him out!' Her voice was frantic.

"I agree, but they'll shoot us down. Wait until they've lowered their guard a little." This was pretty much the second-worst case scenario. The only way it could have gone worse was if the Berserkers had killed Nóttreiði. Thankfully, they had settled for taking him alive. Just like they wanted to do with Heather. Taken alive, and turned over to Dagur. Another fate she wouldn't wish on anyone.

With a sickening pang of intuition, Heather knew what Dagur would do if he had Nóttreiði. He'd try to break him like he assumed Maour had done with the dragon he rode. Given enough time, he might even succeed. That was a horrific image. Dagur riding Nóttreiði.

They circled the ship in wide circuits, watching as Nóttreiði was tied down to the deck with dozens of ropes, and waiting as the Berserkers took turns cleaning up the carnage Nóttreiði had wrought. The crossbowmen never let up their searching of the skies while all this went on.

After two hours, Einfari was close to panicking. 'What do we do if they never drop their guard?!'

Heather considered that. "We'll wait another hour. If they still haven't let up, you can blast the crossbowmen, and drop me on the ship. I'll cut Nóttreiði free while you distract them." It was not a good plan, but it was the best Heather could come up with. But they would wait another hour first, ready to pounce if the crossbowmen lowered their guard at all.

There was a story his father had once told him. Not the big one, not the one about past pain, humans, and their evils. A less realistic story, one about two dragons who could not get along. He could not recall most of it, and he knew it had been made up on the spot.

The general idea, however, remained, lost in his mind but not forgotten. The larger dragon had tormented the smaller, and generally made his life miserable. But when the smaller dragon by chance discovered a major weakness on the larger, he had taken the opportunity to do exactly what the larger had, returning the abuse a hundred times over.

Neither dragon had been depicted as a good person. And when both had perished in an attack by humans, neither was mourned by the nest they had resided in. It was a convoluted and slightly disturbing story, one that managed to impart two lessons. The obvious one was that humans were bad; they were depicted as a terrible force of nature to be fled from and reviled.

The less obvious lesson, the one Nóttreiði was now for some reason remembering, was that opposing evil did not make one good by default. Bad people could fight each other. The moment the smaller dragon moved from taking revenge to tormenting the larger for his own sake, he became bad, and stayed that way until he died.

Why was he remembering that now? He wasn't sure. His eyes weren't working, and neither were his ears. A faint ringing was all he could hear, and the world around him was a dark brown wash of blurred colors. His wing shoulder hurt, but that was a constant now, as it had hurt ever since being dislocated. He also had a headache. Probably from being struck on the head.

Struck on the head… ambushed… not yet off of the ship… because he had paused in his assault. Because…

Because, he remembered vividly, he had at that moment become become just as bad as the enemy he was destroying. Attacking without warning, killing, targeting humans who were, while by no means harmless, not expecting or particularly deserving his assault. There were no innocent parties here, but that did not make what he had done any better in his eyes.

He was the small dragon in his father's story, striking and becoming just as bad as that which he hated. The line had been crossed. There was no going back.

Something heavy and dense hit him in the side. He flinched away, or tried to. There were lines of pressure all over his body, holding him completely still. From his tail to his head, and everywhere in between, sturdy bonds held him down to the deck.

Time passed. His senses slowly returned, and he could hear the Berserkers talking softly. The air smelled of blood and seawater. More seawater than blood, now. They must be cleaning up after him. The thought made him feel sick. But he couldn't even open his mouth to gag.

Where was Einfari? Probably gone, by now. She had warned him, over and over, at first subtly but lately bluntly, about this. Not about being wrong; he wasn't wrong…

Or maybe he was? He didn't want to think about that. She had warned him about being wrong, and about regretting his actions later. But now he was past the point of no return. She should just leave him to die here, like in the story. Let the humans take care of the evil by doing what they did best.

Or, maybe she had swooped in and gotten killed or captured while he was senseless. It was possible. He didn't know.

That thought gave him the will to force his eyes open, to look and hope he was alone in his predicament, to hope she was long gone, ideally after flipping and throwing off the treacherous scum riding her-

Was he sure? She had been right about him regretting this, maybe…

No. He was going to die in a few minutes anyway. He just hoped she was not here.

The colors his eyes registered slowly grew sharper and defined, as sight returned. It brought a splitting headache, but the pain was nothing compared to his relief. He was alone on the deck. Einfari was nowhere in sight.

Alone, aside from the humans scattered across the deck. Most were watching the sky, and a few were tending to the human he had let live.

One, in particular, caught his eye, because it was staring right back at him. He was no judge of human emotion or expression, but he would label that sneer as cruel or angry.

Angry, probably. Here they were, two equally horrible creatures. He did not want to have anything in common with humans, but now he did. He was just as bad as they were.

The human he was staring at slowly walked up to him, its obscured paws thumping to a stop by his head. Then it kicked him, and he saw stars. It said something, but he did not understand. Any of the other Night Furies he knew would have, but he and he alone of the pack had managed to stay so isolated from Maour and the others as to not have picked their language up in passing yet, something he had been proud of. Too late now. Far too late, and it would make no difference.

A high-pitched call came from his other side, a place he couldn't see. The human in front of him responded at length, before drawing something from the wrappings lining its body, a grey metal spike. This was the end, then. At least he would die before seeing the look of disappointment, or worse still, fear, on his sister's face. He didn't want to die, but it woud be better than knowing for sure that she was afraid of him, or even just so very disappointed. He should have known better; she had warned him.

The human knelt by his head and said something else in a low tone. Not being able to understand was a mercy, of sorts, as he doubted he wanted to know what it had to say to him before killing him.

The human carefully shifted a rope, exposing the side of Nóttreiði's head, just in front of the left ear. The tip of the metal spike, the false claw, was pushed at his head.

The human slowly, deliberately carved four agonizingly long gashes into the soft scales and skin, and then a long horizontal stripe across them, muttering a single statement as it did.

Nóttreiði couldn't howl in pain, though it was excruciating. The ropes were too tight. His pained whine, however, was clearly audible across the entire ship. The other humans turned to look at him, even the ones watching the skies. One called out curiously, and the one who had hurt him sneered a long reply, before kicking him right on the new wound.

That hurt just as much as receiving the gashes had; he whined again, louder. They should just put him out of his misery, but of course they'd draw it out. All he had believed about humans was true, even now. They were cruel and horrible, and they showed no signs of actually intending to kill him.

No, they wouldn't kill him. They would keep him captive, like they had his father, and he would meet some terrible fate. Death by forced combat, torture, being force to breed with other dragons? He knew all too well what humans were capable of.

A large impact on the side he could not see rocked the ship. The telltale building sound of a large shot gave him just enough warning to reflexively close his eyes before a massive blast rocked the side of the ship in front of him.

When Nóttreiði opened his eyes, most of the humans were simply not there. A few may have been thrown off of the ship, and there were a few who had dived for cover and escaped the worst of the blast lying around, dead from the shrapnel or the impact. All was still, save for the few flickering flames on the deck. Einfari stood in front of him, crouching with her back to him, growling dangerously. Heather was on her back, also staring out at the destruction.

After a moment, Heather slid off of Einfari and picked up a discarded weapon, hoisting it in a way Nóttreiði could only identify as defensive, while Einfari turned and looked at him.

Nóttreiði could feel the blood dripping from his new wounds, but that wasn't important. He avoided meeting his sister's eyes, too afraid of what he might see, desperately looking anywhere else as she quickly rushed to his side.

'Nóttreiði, hang on, we're going to get you out of here.' Einfari began flaming the ropes, having apparently deemed that more efficient than trying to cut them with her claws.

At that moment, Nóttreiði saw movement behind Einfari. He saw, helpless to do anything about it, the human who had cut him, wounded and bleeding out but alive, pick up up one of the wooden and metal contraptions he knew to be weapons, and aim it at Einfari's head.

Then a familiar metal weapon impaled the human, stabbing into the wood behind him after passing right through his throat. Nóttreiði involuntarily exhaled in relief.

Heather strode up to the now definitely dead body and put her hand on the hilt of the weapon, before apparently thinking better of it. As Einfari burned away the flammable bonds holding him down, Heather checked the other bodies on the deck.

'Nóttreiði, did I miss any?' Einfari asked frantically. 'Can you move now?'

Could he? Yes. Did he want to? No.

Would she give up and leave if he refused to move? Also no. So if he wanted to avoid looking into her eyes a little while longer, he had to move.

He slowly rose to his feet, keeping his eyes downcast. There was no more danger, but the damage had been done. He had crossed a line.

'Nóttreiði?' Einfari warbled uncertainly. She sounded so concerned. Didn't she know what he had done? Surely she had been watching.

'I can move,' he admitted, standing stiffly. His head was ringing and throbbing at the same time, and his wing shoulder still ached, but he could stand and even fly if needed.

'Then let's go.' Einfari turned to Heather. 'Heather, come on. Also, what is that?'

Heather was holding a harmless-looking bundle and stick, staring at them thoughtfully. She turned and said something to Einfari.

'That could be useful; bring it,' Einfari agreed, letting Heather onto her back. 'Come on, Nóttreiði, let's get off of this rickety piece of wood before it sinks, or Dagur sends another ship to investigate.'

Nóttreiði followed numbly, his head ringing too much to allow him to think beyond the moment. He was able to trail Einfari by doing what she did, but only barely; something was wrong.

'Over here will do,' Einfari hurriedly chirped, directing him to a nearby sea stack. 'Come on, land here.'

He did as told, almost overshooting thanks to the hazy pain in his head, his eyes both blurry and watery. It was curiously like being blind, but he was in too much pain, both mental and physical, to care.

Heather said something, her voice concerned. He knew her emotions; watching secretly to detect treachery had taught him about her, if not about her kind in general.

'A head injury.' Einfari nosed at the bloody wounds. 'I can't even see what's under all of this blood. We need to staunch the flow, somehow.' She pressed her tongue to his wound, and he flinched back, feeling oddly uncoordinated. The side of his head hit stone, somehow, despite the sea stack being flat and wide. Things began to spin in front of him, and he closed his eyes…

'No, don't sleep, sleeping with head injuries is bad,' Einfari whined. 'Stay awake.'

He almost wanted to sleep anyway, even if it would hurt him more in the long run, but he had disappointed her so much already. 'I'll… stay awake.'

'Good. Heather, do we have any rags in my saddlebags? He's not bleeding so much now, but we need to get the wound cleaned. I saw some idiot kicking him there, so there's probably dirt in it, and my tongue will hurt more than your hands with a rag.'

Having a human clean his injury? He laughed, a ragged and pained sound not at all like he had intended. Sure, why not? Now would be the perfect time for it to betray him, but it didn't matter anymore. He would bite its head off the moment it came close, and in that way stop it from ever betraying his sister. He was bad to the core anyway, so it was not like he had anything to lose.

'No, never mind.' Einfari leaned in, looking directly into his eyes. 'Later. Brother, something more is wrong. Do you know where you are?'

'Far from home,' he answered slowly. His memory was not in question; if anything, he would prefer to not remember who he was, and how badly he had failed, how far he had fallen. 'Enemy territory.'

'Yes. Do you know who you are?'

'A monster,' he admitted quietly, not able to stop himself. 'I wasn't before, but I am now. I am just as bad as them. Not fit to be a Nótt… not fit to be your brother…'

Einfari stiffened, before leaning in and almost smothering him, carefully avoiding his wound by pressing against him as much as she could manage at the same time. 'No, no, you just made a mistake. Remember what I told you last night? Repeat it to me.'

Did he remember? He thought back, taking far too long to dig up what she meant, her painfully accurate prediction… and her promise.

'I'm still here,' he repeated slowly. 'I'm still going to be your sister. You said that then, but this is now.'

'And it's no less true now,' she murmured. 'Come on, I saw this coming. It was going to happen. I'm just glad it did, instead of you getting worse and worse until we lost you for real.'

'I still think humans are evil,' he revealed, wanting to explain why she could not possibly still think he was worth caring about. 'I am just as bad, now.'

'Shut up; you're not thinking straight.' She made to bat at his head before thinking better of it. 'And I suppose I should be glad about that. You'd never tell me this kind of thing if you were.'

'I'd tell you anything…' He was losing his grip on reality again, the pain making it hard to think. 'I want to protect you… to protect Joy… But I can't now; I'm not-'

'You are a stubborn person who made a big mistake,' she cut in. 'I'm not saying it was right, or not a big deal. It was big and horrible, and I'm at fault too, for not stopping you. But now you have a choice. Move on, or wallow in it until you die or do something worse.'

'I…' Oblivion was coming for him now, and he couldn't stop it, but he knew he would wake, and he would hurt. He would hate himself for what he had done. 'Thank you.'

'For what?'

'Caring.' He let his eyes close.

Author's Note: This chapter represents a major crossroads in the story. Up until this point, Raethi's character could have gone any number of ways. One way has been chosen now, and the other paths are no longer possible. As to what way that is? Well, you'll have to wait and see. (Also, yes, I did just totally circumvent the whole 'captive Raethi or Einfari' idea, along with a host of other possibilities and tropes associated with it. We're not going that way right now; that's too easy.)