***

Chapter 8:

Heart Versus Head

***

Yoshimo had screwed up and he knew it. He spent the entire trip to the De'Arnise Keep berating himself silently for it, and after a brief moment of trying to blame it all on Anomen, he decided it was impossible to shift the blame from his shoulders and gave up. Now, one day's walk from the keep, he had given up caring about how badly he had screwed up and instead only cared about somehow regaining Brynn's confidence and friendship or even a word or two outside of what was necessary to get through the day. Anything had to be better than her silence. She probably knew where the blame lay too, he figured.

He honestly didn't know what had come over him. Surprise, maybe, and a good dose of jealousy perhaps, to add that little kick of insanity. He certainly had been shocked to walk in and see Anomen mashing his lips against Brynn's knuckles, and more than just a little jealous. Then to run into them again the next morning... he had just snapped. It was only for a moment, but in that moment he had felt alive, like he was doing something he could really put his heart behind. His anger, his determination to fight Anomen to the death had been no lie, and neither had the shame he had felt moments later when Brynn had turned on him, her face red with anger. He had no idea how he could have been that stupid. He had no idea how he could have thought for even a moment that if Anomen were reduced to a cold corpse that everything would be better. He had no idea how much it would hurt Brynn to see the him and Anomen really fight. It had been a stupid, selfish mistake, Yoshimo knew that much, and every instant since then he had regretted that mistake with all his heart.

"Good afternoon, friend," Haer'Dalis said, sneaking up to Yoshimo's side near the back of the party, "I've been working on..."

"I have heard your new ballad enough times to make me sick of it already, Haer'Dalis," Yoshimo said bluntly. "Go away and sing your little tunes elsewhere."

Haer'Dalis gave him a grin. "You misunderstand," he said, "this is a new work. I've yet to figure it how it will end though and I was thinking that you might be able to help me out."

Yoshimo looked at Haer'Dalis coldly. "I am not interested in your works of fiction," he said. "Go away."

"But it's not a work of fiction," Haer'Dalis told him. "It's simply a story that has yet to find an ending, a love story. I need your help in figuring out if the dashing thief will ever tell his lady of his love for her, or if he will let the handsome but arrogant knight steal her away without even putting up a fight."

"Listen, tiefling," Yoshimo snarled under his breath, "unless you want to lose that glib tongue of yours I suggest that you go away."

Nonplused, Haer'Dalis said, "All right, just think about it, and perhaps you will find some way of helping me." With that he scurried up to Brynn, whistling the tune of a bawdy bar song.

Just think about it? Yoshimo gave a bitter laugh and wondered if it was possible that he could do anything else.

***

Brynn hated to admit it, especially after Anomen had been so attentive to her during the past two days, but the spark just wasn't there. Whatever relationship she had with Anomen was utterly spark-less. Sure she loved him, just in a completely unromantic sort of a way, more or less the way she loved all her close friends. She wished she could have it be otherwise, but she didn't see any chance of a spark developing no matter how much time they spent together, in fact, she was pretty sure that the longer they were in each other's company the more convinced she would be that there was nothing between them.

Try convincing Anomen of that though! Brynn didn't even want to think about how she was going to tell him she didn't care for him like he did for her. Even with her officially 'undecided' he was like a wriggling puppy at her feet if she said so much as one kind word. It made conversation difficult to say the least. More to the point she knew Anomen had a relatively fragile grip on his emotional stability. Although being accepted into the Order had seemed to glue him back together after he had been shattered by his sister's death that glue wasn't all that strong, as the incident back at the Copper Coronet had shown rather dramatically.

Which reminded her, she still had to corner Yoshimo and give him an earful for his part in that fiasco. It was his fault as much as Anomen's, probably even more so since Yoshimo had to know that Anomen wouldn't stand for blatant thievery. Really, that sort of thing raised Brynn's hackles too, but she didn't get into a killing rage about it. She'd have to talk to Yoshimo about that too, not only because it was wrong, but because if he got caught it would look really bad for Brynn and the rest of the Blades. She figured that as soon as she made things clear to Yoshimo she could end her silent treatment. Just two days in she was already starting to miss talking to him. Hell, two hours in she had missed talking to him. It was funny, now that she had a chance to think about it, how she had come to depend on him for his support and friendship. She would have cleared things up when they had stopped at the keep but he had disappeared when she went to look for him. He was too damn good at staying hidden when he wanted to for his own good.

Well, she would just have to track him down when they made camp that night. She would tie him to a tree if need be to get things straight between them. She was eager to have her friend and confidant back.

Walking at Brynn's side Nalia whispered, "So, Anomen seems to have been very friendly with you lately, is something going on between you two?" She nudged Brynn with an elbow and smiled slyly at her. "Come on, you can tell me, it's just us girls."

Brynn blushed. "Nothing," she whispered back truthfully, "he told me that he... well, he told me how he felt about me, and I said I'd have to think about it."

"Well, how do you think about it?" Nalia persisted.

Brynn blushed harder. "Hush you, it's none of your business!" she replied, playfully angry.

Nalia sighed. "I should have known you'd be tightlipped about this sort of thing," she said. "Oh well, I guess I'll just have to wait and see like everyone else."

Brynn rolled her eyes and laughed quietly. Nalia would be waiting for a while to find out what was going on unless Brynn somehow managed to figure out how to break the bad news to Anomen soon. As it was things were looking pretty sticky.

***

They made camp as the sun began to set, setting up their tents and bedrolls in the shade of an enormous tree. Firewood was plentiful despite the fact that Jaheira -as usual- had insisted that they only use dead fall. With the weather cooling as fall got into swing it was pleasantly cool out, though back up at Candlekeep it still would have been considered midsummer weather. Mazzy had caught a pair of rabbits while they had been walking, and though he got a little teary eyed, Minsc spitted them and suspended them over the fire to cook. The rest of dinner was a combination of trail rations and various green leafy things Jaheira had managed to gather from the area. Jan supplied two turnips. Most of the actual cooking was done by Aerie, who was the only one among them who had a good idea of how to cook a real meal without messing up.

After all the tents and bedrolls and such were set up and while dinner was being cooked, Brynn, and anyone else who was not busy with preparing the food, went to work on cleaning up their gear. Mostly Brynn spent her time shining her katanas until they sparkled like new in the light of the setting sun, but she also took a few moments to mend a few of her clothes that had gotten a little worn. Darning socks wasn't one of her virtues, but she could at least keep them wearable for a while longer. The grinding sound of stone on metal made by sharpening a sword with a whetstone was absent because by now everyone in the party had manage to acquire some sort of magical weapon, except Brynn that is, who refused on principle to use magical katanas and could do so practically because her training as a Kensai enabled her to imbue her weapons with her spirit when she fought. Besides which, her katanas had a great deal of sentimental value to her, they were good luck charms. It was no joke to say that a Kensai really became one with their sword, it was simple fact. After years of practice, training, and battling with her two weapons of choice Brynn had come to think of them as extensions of herself, almost alive, but not quite separate entities. The one she used in her left hand, given to her by her master, Touga, before he returned to Kara-Tur, felt as comfortable as a well worn pair of boots when she held it, the hilt molded through nearly a century of use before she acquired it to fit in her hand. In her right hand she held the weapon that she had discovered while poking around in some of the storage rooms in Candlekeep when she was nine. It had been hidden somewhere in a dusty box, stored away like some sort of museum piece that wouldn't fit in the display. She had felt a pull toward it even then, the sort of pull a salmon must feel toward the spring where it had been born. She didn't know if that meant she had been drawn to it because she was meant to wield it, or if her heritage manifesting even then, pulling her toward the path of destruction. Then again, she had been a child and very fond of pretty, shiny things, and it was by any standard a remarkably beautiful weapon. Near the hilt the blade was engraved with an dragon, not a normal dragon, but one of oriental design, long and sinuous with a mane and lion-like face. Even Touga had said that the craftsmanship was better than anything he had ever seen on a non-magical weapon, and he had been a damn hard man to impress.

Near Brynn, Haer'Dalis hummed the refrain from his new ballad under his breath as he cleaned his own weapons, Chaos and Entropy, fitting names, Brynn thought, for the weapons of the tiefling bard, and not bad weapons, for short swords. "...Her blades as bright as her shining hair," Haer'Dalis sang quietly. "Hmm... no that sounds odd, mayhap a change of words or tune..." he tried a couple of different melodies on for size. "Nay, it must be the words, some fault in meter or accent I think. Perhaps if I had the refrain be trochaic instead of iambic... no, that would throw the next stanza off all together." He let out a long sigh and put his swords away then left, probably to go puzzle out his poetic difficulties elsewhere.

From behind her Brynn heard an all too familiar voice shout lustily, "You've really need to clean me, I like to shine!"

"Boo says to shut up," Minsc said. "And so does Minsc!"

Smiling Brynn turned around and saw Minsc taking a rag to Lilarcor, his talking sword. Finding that particular piece of equipment had been a highly diverting side trip, once again putting Brynn into the city sewers. Not only had she come back with a talking sword, which she decided Minsc could best use, but she had also come back with a nasty cold.

"Hey! Be gentle!" Lilarcor's grating voice rang out again. "You're getting stuff in my eyes."

"You are a sword," Minsc said, to judge by his tone of voice a little disgusted with his weapon, "you don't have any eyes."

"Well if I did they would be right where you were just unmercifully scrubbing, you dolt," Lilarcor responded. "What I need is a lady's touch. Hey Brynn, want to... polish... me?"

Brynn laughed. She could all but see the sword winking at her with its nonexistent eyes. "No thanks, I don't go for animate inanimate objects."

"Stop making passes at little Brynn, sword," Minsc said, "that is not right... even Boo says so, and he has an open mind for a hamster."

"You might as well give up, Minsc," Brynn told the tall ranger. She stood up and sheathed her newly clean katanas. "Mmm, that food sure smells good... see you for dinner, Minsc."

"Good-bye, sweet cheeks," Lilarcor called after her.

"Stop that!" Minsc ordered severely.

Brynn shook her head, chuckling quietly to herself. That sword was crazier by far than Minsc ever was, but then again a quality weapon was a quality weapon and nothing could beat the comic relief value of Lilarcor's battle cries, especially when combined with Minsc's. Every battlefield had the chance of becoming a chuckle hut when those two were there. It really threw enemies off.

Mazzy was over by the fire, sitting on a log as she scrubbed the inside of her armor. Brynn crouched down beside the halfling woman and loosened up the laces of her boots. "Need a hand or two?" she asked.

"No, I am almost finished, but thank you," Mazzy replied pleasantly. She did one last good scrub on her breastplate and tossed her rag to the ground. "After near on a tenday without a cleaning I dare say I would be willing to learn how you fight without armor if only to avoid the stink."

"Yeah, but then your clothes would get all cut up," Brynn told her. "I lost so many shirts and trousers and stuff last year that I had a hard time keeping myself clothed."

Mazzy laughed. "Indeed, that would be an... interesting situation to deal with."

"Yeah, interesting," Brynn agreed, "but on the plus side it was real distracting to my opponents. Remind me sometime when it's just the girls to tell you how I stormed the Iron Throne's tower in Baldur's Gate in my underwear.

"Why when it is 'just us girls?'" Mazzy asked.

"Because Minsc's face still gets all red whenever he's reminded about it, and let's just say it's not the sort of thing I want Haer'Dalis turning into a ballad," Brynn replied.

Just then Aerie called out, "Okay, I think I'm done, you can come get your food now. I hope you like it, I'm not a very good cook."

That was of course just Aerie's shy modesty. She was a damn good cook, and every hungry stomach around the campfire that night knew it.

Minsc summed up everyone's feelings with a tremendous belch and the simple words, "More please."

After every last scrap of edible goodness was in someone's stomach the members of the Blades of Honor turned in for the night. All except for two, that is.

***

It was time for all creatures of the night to be up and about, and even thought the forest wasn't his natural environment, Yoshimo was a creature of the night. Which was why he was trying his best to sneak away from the camp and find a nice, solitary place to think. Besides which, he couldn't stand staying with the others, especially since Anomen was smiling a smugly confident smile as he slept. Yoshimo just knew what he was dreaming about.

"Hey! Come with me would you?"

Yoshimo froze in his tracks. He turned back to the campfire slowly and saw Brynn leaning against the trunk of a tall red pine. "Um..." he began.

"Yeah, save your 'ums'," Brynn told him as she walked over to him. "Come on, we need to talk." She led him to a small clearing in the forest where the light from the full moon streamed down and brightened a roughly circular patch of the forest floor.

As he expected Brynn got right down to business. "What in the world has gotten into you lately?" she demanded, her hands on her hips. "First you start disappearing at night, which didn't bother me too much, and then for some reason you go the idea that it would be a good thing to work Anomen up into a frothing rage, which did."

"Nothing is wrong," Yoshimo denied. Which was true, if having the woman you love fall for the resident mace-wielding justice obsessed knight could be considered nothing.

"Nothing?" Brynn asked archly. "Nothing, huh? So trying to kill Anomen, or get killed by Anomen is nothing? If I hadn't have gotten in the way one of you two would be a corpse right now and the other would be on my list of very bad people, something I'm sure you wouldn't like no matter which one you were. The two of you have been acting like bullheaded teenagers, and it's just a sign of how bad things are that I'm the one saying that because one, I was the world's worst bullheaded teenager not too long ago and two, because both of you are older than me!" Brynn paused to catch her breath. "I don't know if this is a human thing, or a man thing, but either way I can't understand it, so I want the both of you to stop it."

"This is a matter of honor, Brynn," Yoshimo said.

"Gah!" Brynn exclaimed. "That's exactly what Anomen said last night when I talked to him! What is it about you two that makes you so unable to get along? Hell, I even got Aerie and Viconia to get along and they're practically natural enemies!"

"The first words that rock-headed idiot said to me were that I was obviously incapable of taking care of you," Yoshimo replied, a sour taste in his mouth.

"You're not supposed to take care of me!" Brynn said, exasperated. "I'm the daughter of the god here! I can damn well take care of myself!"

"You are a woman, it is my job to protect you no matter how well you can protect yourself," he said. "It is the only honorable thing to do."

"I hope you know that Anomen said that exact same thing too," Brynn told him coolly, "only he said it was part of chivalry. I honestly don't see how the two of you can not get along! I'll be talking to one of you, and then go talk to the other and as if by some miracle the second with say nearly exactly what the first said. You two are practically mirror images!"

"I am nothing like that bastard!" Yoshimo argued hotly, offended by the association. How could she draw parallels between him and that arrogant, self-centered ass? They were as different as night and day!

"Fine, have it your way, the two of you are nothing alike," Brynn relented angrily. "Just try to get along with him."

"No," Yoshimo said, surprising himself by saying exactly what he felt. "I hate him, and he hates me just the same. I have held back this long for your sake alone, Brynn, but if he crosses the line with me I will not hold back again."

"I don't want to see either of you dead, damn it!" Brynn yelled. She pounded her fists hard against his chest. "I don't want to wake up one morning to find that one of you has murdered the other in his sleep."

Yoshimo grabbed her wrists. "I would rather die than see you in his arms!"

"What?" Brynn demanded. "Why? Do you hate him that much?"

"No! I love you that much!"

Yoshimo froze the instant he realized what he had said. How long had he kept that secret to himself? Months? It had felt like years, like centuries, but with the weight of that long guarded secret off his chest he felt ten years younger, and very afraid.

"Oh, Yoshimo..." Brynn began softly.

"No. Forget it, forget you spoke with me tonight," he told her quickly, hoping to salvage the situation somehow. "Forget it all." He let go of her and started back to the camp but she grabbed him by the shoulder, stopping him.

"How can you just tell me to forget?" she demanded to know. "I can't forget! I... I didn't even know! You should have said something... anything... "

"What would that have done?" Yoshimo asked, his words coming out a little more harsh than he had intended. "The end would still be the same! It cannot be, so forget I said anything."

Brynn's hand dropped away from his shoulder, and she said in a quavering voice, "All of this... all of it was because you loved me? I'm so sorry, I... I didn't mean to hurt you... not ever. I never meant for you to be unhappy."

Of course she didn't, which was why, despite his better judgment, Yoshimo couldn't seem to get her of his mind. "Please, just forget what I said," he told her, noting absently that he had resorted to pleading with her.

"I..." she paused and looked up at him, the moonlight illuminating her delicate features. "I... can't forget," she murmured. "Forgetting would mean that I would go on being happy... and you would go on being unhappy. I can't do that, not to anybody, and especially not to you, not after all you've done for me, not after all the times you've been by my side just when I needed you." She was slowly moving closer and closer to him as she spoke, and her eyes kept him rooted where he stood. Time seemed to slow as she reached out and took his hand gently in her own. "You've been my friend since I lost Imoen and... and I..." her words trailed off and a fearful sort of confusion filled her eyes. With his whole heart Yoshimo wished she would stop looking at him like that.

"I am sorry I even said anything," he murmured, pulling his hand out of her grasp. "Go back to the camp and get some sleep." If he was lucky she would wake up in the morning and think it was a dream. He turned away from her and started walking. He didn't know where he was going, he just knew that for the moment he didn't want to be near her for fear of more disastrous slips of the tongue. He didn't look back, not for a moment, the ground beneath his feet seeming to crumble away with every step.

***

Brynn stood in stunned silence as Yoshimo walked away. She stared after him, wondering how in the world she could have never known how he felt. He had always sat and talked with her, kept her secrets, counseled her, allayed her doubts, and all the time she had missed it. She had never even considered thinking about him in that way and she had just taken for granted that neither had he.

What was she going to do? Her ignorance had hurt him, even if he pretended it hadn't, and it might well have cost her his friendship too. A shiver ran down the length of her spine at that thought. If she lost him she didn't know what she would do. The idea that she wouldn't be able to talk to him like always made her stomach go cold and a dull ache start up in her chest. Somewhere deep down inside her something trembled. She had to go make things right, she had to do something, she couldn't just let things go unresolved, not if it meant losing him

She was running before she realized it. He hadn't gotten far, it was dark after all and unlike her he couldn't see in the dark. In seconds she caught up and called to him, "Wait!" Her knees felt like jelly and her heart was racing like she had run twenty miles, not twenty yards.

Yoshimo turned around, expressionless except for the resigned look in his eyes. "Brynn, please..."

"No!" she exclaimed hoarsely. "Don't tell me to forget, don't tell me you're sorry. I... I'm the one who should be sorry. It's my own fault I didn't know, and if I..." her throat tightened up and she swallowed hard, "if I lost you because of my stupidity..." Her voice failed her, the words just wouldn't come. Instead she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face against his chest, her eyes burning with the threat of tears. She could hear his heartbeat and feel the warmth of his skin through the soft cotton of his shirt.

Yoshimo hesitated, as tense as a bow string, and then awkwardly put his arms around her. It felt good to be close to him, not just comforting, like when one of her other friends put a hand on her shoulder or patted her on the back, but like a deeply pleasant sort of good. A strange, and all together new thought flashed through her mind. The heavy feeling in her chest, the tingling that started in her belly and spread like wildfire, the way her skin seemed to burn where he was touching her, was that the spark she had been looking for? She had nothing in her experience to compare it to, nothing to tell her what was going on with her, with the both of them. The only thing she was sure of was that if she did love him she didn't want to let her chance go by without doing anything about it.

She felt him bury his face in her hair, his warm breath prickling her scalp. "Brynn," he murmured, "Brynn... I should not be doing this."

"Why? Why not? I don't understand!"

He didn't answer for a very long time, and for a moment Brynn thought he would just go on holding her in silence. "Because this can only end badly," he said at last.

"That's no answer!" she protested. She lifted her head and looked up into his eyes, trembling a little as her nose bumped against his chin. "I'm so confused... I don't know what to think," she said. "You say you love me and then tell me to forget it, and I don't even know how I feel except that I've never felt this mixed up in my life! I like this, I like you and I like being near you, and I worry about you when you're away, and I can't help wondering if I've missed something, and if I'll miss something more if I just walk away and pretend this never happened." Yoshimo looked like he might say something, but Brynn continued on in a softer voice, "And the only reason I can think of that... that you and I would end badly is because of what I am. You're the one who stuck by me always, even when I tried to make you leave, and you always told me that my fate was my own to decide. Maybe... maybe things would go wrong, but I don't want to go through life not knowing if we were doomed from the start or if I lost my chance at love because I was scared." She stopped, not knowing what to say anymore. She was full of words and nervous energy, but she couldn't collect them into a coherent thought.

For his part Yoshimo didn't look much better off. His brow was furrowed and his eyes were distant, as if he were fighting some desperate inner battle of the mind and heart. He loosened his hold on her and brought on hand to her cheek. He flinched as his fingers touched her skin, but he didn't pull away and slowly he lowered his lips to hers and placed on them a kiss. She kissed him back with sort of clumsy and inexperienced, but genuine, passion. The confusion that she had been feeling melted away, and she knew that this was where she belonged.

***

To Be Continued

***

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A/N: Wee! Good heavens, folks, I'm so flogged after finishing this that I just didn't have the strength to bring back your usual author's note reader to give you the news. Writing mushy stuff takes the steel out of my spine and leaves me feeling gloppy. I much, much prefer battle scenes, there the only thing characters feel is the strong urge to survive. So anyway, if things seem out of whack compared to the rest of the story you now know why, but hopefully I didn't do to badly.

Blue