The story had come out in one large burst when Primrose was finally able to gather the party together so that she could share the truth of her rationale behind traveling in the first place. She couldn't seem to make herself stop talking once she had started, and the words simply flowed in a way that she couldn't prevent. Primrose sounded more like she was talking about bad weather or a simple report with her tone, detached and dismal as it was, rather than her darkest traumas and issues. Then again, Primrose supposed that it was easier to frame her issues in that way when push came to shove.
She refused to make eye contact with anyone as she explained the story, instead choosing to concentrate on the floor below. She didn't give anyone the chance to offer much of a response either, figuring that she would be able to face their disgust after everything had already been placed out on the table for them to understand. It was better to cope with it all at once rather than to deal with the painstaking process of everything being dripped down to her mind and emotions as the minutes went by, after all.
When Primrose finally did glance up, her explanation finishing with the fact that she was following the path Helgenish had left behind, she was met with seven expressions of horror. Even Linde and Hägen, animalistic as they were, seemed to realize that there was something incredibly solemn being discussed. Primrose's immediate reaction to the horrified expressions was to prepare to rise to her feet and gather her things to leave. Surely H'aanit would prefer to sleep alone in the room for the night anyway, especially given that she had multiple animals following her trail with every passing second.
That was when the unexpected happened. Tressa, who had been sitting near Primrose on the bed, practically threw herself at the dancer, her arms wrapping around the brown-haired woman's torso. Primrose was still as could be for a long moment, unsure of how she was meant to respond to this, before she shifted her attention so that she was staring down at Tressa directly. Something in the back of her mind instructed her to say something, anything, but she wasn't able to actually convince her mouth to follow those directions.
"That's awful... I'm so sorry you had to go through that," Tressa murmured. "I wish that I could kill Helgenish again, but I know that we can't bring back the dead."
Primrose couldn't help but feel as if she had been the one stabbed in the chest at those words rather thane Helgenish, the knife twisting in the cavern of her ribcage. Still, she did her best to shake it off, though that did little to help with the fact that she was still breathless and struggling to say much of anything in response to Tressa's reaction to the tale.
"I don't know what to say..." Ophilia said, her eyes still wide as could be. "Those three men who killed your father... I understand why you're doing this, Primrose. I can see why you decided to hide it from us up to this point too. This is a lot to handle all at once, but you aren't going to have to face it on your own anymore."
Primrose wanted to say something. Truly, she did, but she wasn't able to make herself no matter how hard she tried. Instead, she was ultimately cut off by a decisive nod from none other than Alfyn. "I agree with Phili. You want to go after them because they destroyed your childhood and took your father away from you, and that's not something that I can particularly fault you for. Just... Don't try to do all of this on your own, alright? Helgenish sounds like he was dangerous enough, and these men of the crow are bound to be worse."
"Surely there are no objections to us continuing to accompany you from here on out," Olberic said as he eyed Primrose with hardened determination and scrutiny. His arms were crossed, and everything about him was somewhat shaded. Then again, Primrose supposed that if anybody was going to understand what she was struggling with, it was going to be him. After all, Olberic was on a quest that could potentially lead him to revenge as well, so he was bound to comprehend the issue that she was attempting to confront.
His words were enough to send Primrose crashing back down to Earth. She glanced around the room, finding the sympathetic eyes of Cyrus, Ophilia, and Alfyn along the way. Both Olberic and H'aanit's expressions had grown stony and hardened, and Therion's face was hidden beneath his scarf, but there was clearly something on his mind even so. Tressa's face was out of view, but Primrose was still sure that she could imagine the worried expression that the younger girl wore.
"No... Of course I don't have any issues with that," Primrose said, doing her best to ignore the voice at the back of her mind that whispered that it was just a matter of time before she lost them too. She resisted the urge to pick at the skin beneath her nails once again, the sensation of Yusufa's blood starting to rise in the forefront of her head for what felt like the millionth time.
Continuing to speak took much more effort than Primrose was willing to admit, but she managed to push through regardless. "I... I just wanted you to know what you were getting into before we advanced any further. I understand that this is hardly what you were expecting to find yourselves involved with, and I wanted you to be aware of what was coming next," she explained. "The path that I walk is a dangerous one, and the last thing that I want is for any of you to feel obligated to accompany me on it."
"We're friends, aren't we?" Tressa questioned as she looked up to Primrose from the grand display of a hug that she had been performing. "You've done a lot to help us out up to this point, and if this is what you think is best, then... We trust you. Of course we trust your judgement, Primrose."
The word struck Primrose strangely. It wasn't that she particularly disliked being called someone's friend, but there was something in the deepest part of her mind that was screaming that this was wrong, that it had to be some kind of mistake. She was more than happy to have companions that she could stand alongside, but the paranoia of something falling out of her control remained all the same. She had gone without friends for years, and when she finally managed to connect with Yusufa, everything came crashing down around her. She wouldn't ever be able to help Yusufa again, but she would be able to escape this situation if she had to. Maybe she would be able to keep the group from getting hurt and take the brunt of the danger herself by traveling on her own.
But no matter how much Primrose tried to convince herself that this was the best option, she found herself smiling down at Tressa gently. The taste of betrayal rose on the back of her tongue, but she did her best to ignore it, her conflicting emotions threatening to smother her if she wasn't careful enough to push her way out of the hurricane swirling around her, the dancer at the eye of the storm. She found herself nodding. "Alright... If you understand what's happening and still wish to help me, then I suppose that I can't stop you," Primrose told the rest of the group, continuing to do what she could to ignore the anxiety mounting quickly and firmly at the back of her head, though that remained easier said than done.
"We'll do what we can to help you no matter what," Ophilia assured Primrose with a gentle smile that seemed to be just as bright as the sun despite the lack of overhead light in the dim, darkened town of Stillsnow.
All Primrose could do was offer a pathetic imitation of that very same smile in return. She didn't know how to respond to this, but she sure did hope that she was able to work through her feelings sooner rather than later, because she was already starting to drive herself up a wall with her lack of understanding. For once, something in her life hadn't gone horribly wrong, and in a way, that was the worst part of this whole situation.
Even hours later, after all of the other people in the room had streamed out to go to their own rooms, Primrose couldn't stop thinking about the conversation where she told them everything about her past. She stared up at the ceiling vacantly, unable to figure out how she was meant to feel no matter what she was supposed to feel. Her chest had swallowed anything resembling positive emotion, leaving behind an empty gap where she knew grief was supposed to be. Why was she mourning people who had vowed to stay by her side? Why did it feel like they were already destined for death just by agreeing to stand by her side as she pressed on in the name of her destiny, her vengeance? That had happened to Yusufa, hadn't it? Perhaps her going with them was her mistake, driven purely by her wandering mind in the wake of Yusufa's loss. She shouldn't have put them in danger in the first place, right? This was all wrong. Everything was wrong, and she was going to have to fave the consequences of that soon enough.
Night had fallen properly, and the group had wound up eating in the inn's lobby thanks to the building offering food for residents each night. Primrose had been silent the entire meal, unable to force herself to meet the gazes of anyone else in the group. It felt wrong for her to reach out to them and ask for much of anything, so she instead resolved to remain quiet. That was what she deserved, and it would be easier for all of them if she stayed on her own until it was necessary to break out of her shell. That way, they would be in as little danger as possible. The last thing that she wanted was to pull them into her fight in full. It didn't feel right.
Her mind was a war between her own selfish indulgence and her knowledge of what was right. Primrose shouldn't have been dragging them off into her own issues, and she was making a mistake with each passing second that she stayed with them. Still, she couldn't seem to force herself to leave no matter how hard she tried. She wanted to be with them even though she knew that she was being selfish and putting them at risk because she couldn't admit that she couldn't let go. She didn't want to release the last traces of love that she had in her life after Yusufa's death. She had been given a taste of what it meant to not be alone when Yusufa confessed her friendship, and then, it was gone like ashes on the wind only moments later. Primrose knew that she had to surrender her own emotions in the name of their safety, but that was so much easier said than done, and she couldn't seem to take the first step no matter how much she knew that she was messing this up.
Primrose rolled over once again, her eyes falling on the wall. She couldn't sleep, and she didn't think that she was going to be able to rest for quite some time. H'aanit had seemingly fallen asleep quite some time ago, drifted off under the influence of their long day and difficult battle against the goddess Aelfric. To Primrose, it was almost impossible to believe that they had been in S'warkii that morning. The battle against the ghisarma had been less than eighteen hours prior. How did that feel like a lifetime ago with Sunshade even farther into the past?
"Primrose?"
The sound of H'aanit's voice struck Primrose perfectly still. Her shoulders went tense, too weary from her internal battle to put on a mask that made it seem as if she wasn't arguing with herself as to if abandonment was her best option. She was glad that she wasn't looking in H'aanit's direction so that the huntress wouldn't be able to see the fact that she looked like a dear caught in the line of a bow.
H'aanit sat up in bed, shifting her legs off to the side of the mattress. "I knowen that thou is awake," H'aanit said coolly, clearly not deceived by Primrose's attempt at a late-night performance. She sat there for a long moment, examining every inch of Primrose's body silently in a wish to pull the girl from her facade.
Primrose seemed to understand that she wasn't going to be able to escape H'aanit's scrutiny after a handful of moments passed where H'aanit didn't go back to sleep. She sat up slowly, uncaring as to how messy and haphazard her brown hair was as it cascaded down her shoulders, her hair tie abandoned for the night. Primrose pressed a smile onto her face despite the fact that she knew she was full of crap. "Is something the matter?" Primrose asked, throwing up a final defense in an attempt to keep from falling apart under the weight of her own issues.
H'aanit's eyes narrowed, and Primrose resisted the urge to shrivel under the huntress' critical gaze. Somehow, everything about her was even more striking than Helgenish had been, and Primrose felt as if the huntress was able to see through every wall that she had constructed over the past ten years to critically watch the little girl at the heart of the collapsed concrete castle in Noblecourt that lived inside of Primrose's soul. It was as if Primrose was the one who had been struck in the heart by an arrow rather than the ghisarma that fell earlier that morning.
H'aanit didn't even need to say anything for Primrose's shoulders to deflate as she finally gave up on all attempts at continuing to hold her facade. She wasn't going to be able to get away with this, and she was fully aware of such a fact. Primrose didn't know what to say in response to H'aanit's staring either, so she simply looked at the huntress through the darkness, glad that Linde and Hägen were asleep on the ground and thus unable to make distractions that would likely only make this situation more excruciating than it already was.
"What plagueth thou?" H'aanit questioned simply, the inquiry striking true without any issues. "I can seen that there remaineth something on thy mind. Hiding the truthe doesen nothing but distress thee. Speak thy mind, Primrose."
The dancer wished that it was that easy to say what was bothering her. She couldn't even seem to articulate the truth of her emotions to herself. What could she even say? 'I want to leave because I'm dragging you all into my problems even though you agreed to help me in spite of the demons that I bring'? That didn't seem right. Nothing seemed right. Primrose's throat seemed to close up on her, refusing to give her the chance to squeak out even a word or two that would explain what it was that continued to keep her awake late into the night and apparently thrashing around loudly enough in her bed to wake H'aanit.
"None of this is right," Primrose finally managed to push herself to say around the gap in her chest that seemed to be perfectly content with trying to swallow her whole. "You shouldn't have to be involved with issues of mine. None of you asked for this, and it's wrong for me to ask you to join me in defeating the men of the crow. This is a dangerous path that I walk, and I don't want any of you to get hurt."
H'aanit held up one hand after Primrose was finished speaking. "We volunteered for this danger. We aren here because we chose to be. Thou hast nothing to fearen; this was our decision," she said carefully.
"You could get hurt, and I don't want any of you to put yourselves at risk for my sake. None of it is worth it, and the last thing I want is to drag you into issues that don't involve you to begin with," Primrose continued, her voice coming out strangely dark. There was a figure in the back of her mind that looked strangely like Yusufa that appeared heartbroken as she spoke those words. Not for the first time and certainly not for the last, Primrose had to wonder what Yusufa would think of her if she knew the truth about what Primrose was trying to do. Would Yusufa have ever said such kind things to her if she knew that Primrose was going to use her power to turn around and murder people in cold blood? Would Yusufa have been so nice if she knew the truth of Primrose Azelhart, lady of Noblecourt, rather than Primrose, a nameless and faceless dancer from Sunshade?
"And taking on all the risk by thyself is a bettere decision?" H'aanit questioned, her gaze as critical as it was striking as she watched Primrose with analysis in her eyes.
That was enough to immediately render Primrose silent; she wanted to say that she agreed with that being the best choice, but no matter how hard she tried to convince herself to speak those words, she couldn't manage to force them out. It didn't feel right for her to push people away when she had finally found her home. Once again, she repeated inwardly that she was as selfish as it got. She couldn't put herself over the wellbeing of others; Yusufa had paid that price once before, and the last thing Primrose wanted was to leave a trail of innocent blood in her wake.
"Precisely what I thought," H'aanit told her, seemingly having realized that Primrose wasn't able to answer the question. "Thou will not be able to pushen us away. We made our decision. Thou cannot stoppen us now."
Primrose offered H'aanit a small nod at those words, knowing that she was going to have to take quite a bit of time before she would be fully able to register them as truth. She didn't know how she was going to convince herself that this was the case, but she would figure it out one way or another. She owed this much to herself, didn't she? Was that even true? How was she supposed to find the truth anymore when she barely understood what she was trying to accomplish aside from vague outlines ten years in the making?
"Alright," Primrose forced herself to say as she licked her lips, desperate to fill them with some degree of warmth in the wake of the Stillsnow air's bitter chill. She eased herself back against the mattress below, still uncertain as to how she was supposed to process everything that she was hearing from H'aanit. None of it felt right, and everything tasted a little bit like betrayal on a fundamental level, leaving Primrose unable to tear the ugly twinge from her tongue no matter how hard she tried.
"Getten some rest. When dawne arriveth, we pressen on to the man of the crow," H'aanit declared, saying it less as a suggestion and more of a statement. Everyone was going to be there whether Primrose wanted them to come along or not; they weren't going to be taking her rejection as an answer, and they were going to be present no matter what. H'aanit was just the beginning, hardly the most stubborn of the group's members, and they were all bound to side with her when the morning did come and their mission was placed before them.
Primrose offered an imperceptible nod into the darkness, and this time, when her face hit the pillow, she found herself overwhelmed with exhaustion. However, she knew that this had nothing to do with the fact that she felt better about the situation. The guilt still felt like it was consuming her, and she didn't think that she was going to be able to escape it no matter what. Her emotional battle had wiped her of all energy though, and Primrose knew better than to fight her body's needs. She would work this out in the morning, but for the time being, she had a mission to prepare for one way or another.
Primrose was, unsurprisingly, restless as soon as the barest streaks of sunshine began to clear up the darkened gray into a pastel silver on the horizon line. Primrose rose with the sun, something that she had never done back in Sunshade when all work seemed to end with the dawning day instead. It only took her body a handful of moments to remind her of everything that she was to be looking forward to that day, and her stomach knotted itself into something nauseating a moment later.
She was going to kill the first of the crows that day.
Primrose had been waiting for the day for years upon years, spending so long in the tavern of Sunshade as her last ditch effort of picking up any bare trace of a clue that she could get her hands on. Still, that didn't erase the fact that all of this felt wrong somehow. She knew that it was her dread about dragging the rest of the group into her problems, but she couldn't seem to convince herself that it was alright no matter how hard she tried. H'aanit's words continued to ring in her mind in the silence.
There was one thing that Primrose did know for sure though: this was a choice that was out of her choice. She had chosen her path the instant that she told them about the crows, and the others had decided on their own fates as well. That led them down the same path of destiny as her, and they were going to pursue it to the end out of loyalty toward a girl who was still afraid of saying that she loved anyone. Primrose had willingly detached herself from the tale that she was telling when she explained the men of the crow because she didn't think that she would be able to handle it if she allowed herself to recognize what she was talking about. Had everything always been so overwhelming? Why did it seem like nothing had gone right since Yusufa died? Had things slipped out of her control even before that and she was simply too numb to her own suffering to realize?
Primrose's thoughts started to get to her sooner than she would have liked, and she found herself needing to excuse herself from the group's trip to the inn's lobby for breakfast before food could be served. She was planning on returning, bound to the words that H'aanit had spoken to her the night before, but she needed to clear her head as soon as possible, and the best way to do that was to take a deep breath of the cold air and hope that it could get rid of the rattling nerves at her core. It was a shallow bit of optimism, but what else did Primrose have in that moment?
She leaned against the side of the inn once she was outside, her eyes shifting up to the skies overhead as she tried to clear her mind of everything that threatened to consume her. That was much easier said than done, but at least she was taking steps in the right direction. That had to count for something, right?
"Primrose."
The dancer felt as if she was going to jump out of her skin at the sudden call of her name, and she glanced up before her eyes fell on the person who had just come out of the inn's doorway. It was none other than Therion, his head tucked low into the scarf that he was wearing. He was holding the fool's bangle on his wrist still to ensure that its jingling didn't alert Primrose to what was happening in his haphazard attempt to ambush her. Was that what he was even trying to do? Primrose couldn't tell, but she knew that her defenses had started to drop since this sudden internal conflict washed over her.
"Is something the matter?" Primrose questioned as she addressed Therion carefully. She felt as if her voice was liable to start shaking any moment now if she wasn't cautious enough to keep herself under control, so she simply watched him carefully to make sure that she was able to remain focused.
"There's something that you need to know about this place," Therion told her, taking a step closer to her. His boot crunched in the snow below, but he didn't seem to mind it in the slightest.
Primrose watched him nervously as Therion came close enough to her that he would be able to whisper in her direction. Something about his sudden shift in demeanor was nerve-wracking, and Primrose didn't know how to handle it. She had known him to be detached and aloof up to that point, but this version of Therion was almost as anxious as she was. Therion hadn't spoken much the night before, and the more that Primrose thought back on it, the more convinced she was that he had been distracted throughout their conversation. It wasn't that he disproved of her methods when he was just as shady in terms of past and future actions; he was simply focused on something else, and it was enough to absorb all of his concern at the time.
"Be careful while we're here. I think that this town is just like Sunshade; it just does a better job of hiding it," Therion explained quietly.
That sent an immediate chill running up Primrose's spine, and her eyes went wide. The idea of Stillsnow having anything in common with Sunshade left her mind racing a million miles an hour, and her heart skipped a beat. "What do you mean?" she questioned, doing her best to push out thoughts of something darker than Therion was implying.
This place is like Sunshade. I'm going to lose someone else here. The rest of the group is going to wind up dragged into my problems, and they'll pay for it with their lives if I'm not careful. This was a mistake. All of this was a mis-
"There are dancers here," Therion told her eventually, cutting to the heart of the matter without hesitation. "Something darker is happening in this town than most people are realizing, and I somehow get the feeling that if we continue down this path, we're going to wind up in trouble. Just... Be careful. Don't go anywhere alone if you can avoid it. I have a bad feeling about this place." Therion's gaze fell upon a small building squatted close to the ground in the distance, and he seemed to be glaring daggers at it. Somehow, that only made Primrose feel worse, and she hadn't even realized that was possible.
Primrose nodded her understanding, seeing that this was Therion's way of showing that he cared. Had he not just warned her about something dark, ominous, and sinister, Primrose would have teased him playfully for this. Instead, she allowed Therion to lead her back into the inn as she did what she could to ignore the pounding of her heart in her chest, a sign that everything was somehow even worse than she had imagined. She didn't know if the suspicious aura of Stillsnow had anything to do with the man of the crow, but she was sure that her stomach was starting to churn at the mere thought, and that was enough to make her beyond nervous.
Entering the inn once again made Primrose glance out over the other members of her party as she struggled to push down the thought of something going horribly wrong that ended with one of her companions buried beneath the snow the way that Yusufa was laid to rest under the sand so many lifetimes away. Why did it feel like Primrose lost everyone that she cared about? This was why she had been operating alone for so long, and the world had proven her point time and time again with its natural affinity for brutality.
But she had already made her decision to trust the others with her story, and they were going to be following her no matter what. Primrose's promises that danger would follow her didn't deter them in the slightest. They had made their own decisions the same way that Primrose had, and she somehow doubted that they were going to be changing their minds. She could see it in the way that they all watched her with wary concern as she and Therion settled back down into their seats within the inn lobby. They were going to be there whether she wanted them to be or not, and she was simply going to have to see where this path took her.
If there was one thing Primrose knew for sure, it was that she wanted to get in and out of Stillsnow as soon as possible. She wanted to be able to leave this first step in her past so that she could lay all of this to rest. Stillsnow was a twisted place, and if she was a danger magnet, the least she could do was pull her friends out of the dark setting when the chance came up.
She owed them, and herself, that much.
Chapter time!
This chapter is another transitional one and a pretty important chapter in terms of Primrose's character development and working past her attachment issues and the complications that come with her story in general. Because of how dark her story is, it needs a bit more time to breathe, so here we are, offering it the chance to thrive. Primrose has a lot of emotional baggage, and she needs to get all of that off her chest before she's able to fully trust the rest of the group.
Speaking of the others in the group, you can see how much they're starting to care for each other, especially with the individual scenes of Primrose with H'aanit and Therion. They're making steps in the right direction as they get to know each other better, and soon enough, everything will fall into place. For the time being though, we get the opening signs of their dynamics starting to develop and flesh out in full. Plus, Therion showed that he can care about people after all! Who would have thought?
Next time, we'll actually kick off Primrose's chapter two proper. Until then, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Feedback is appreciated. Have a nice day, everyone!
-Digital