[A/N]: Welp, it's already been a month since the last update... Don't do full-time jobs, kids. It'll kill your creativity :'3

This chapter's title comes from the song "Grim Ranger" by Lungs and Limber.

Quinn found out about the existence of her son around the period that happened once a year in which Gwen could be found sulking in her room. That year, however, had been worse than usual. In fact, with every cycle that had passed since the first, the less Gwen thought about it, and the more she could go on with her life. Until she met Quinn and his family.

Her mother knocked on the door one morning. "Gwen, you've been in there for three days now. Open the door, will you? Please?" When she didn't receive an answer, she sighed. "She used to be like this every year around this time. It's gotten better, though. Or at least I thought it had."

"Gwen, get your ass out here," Quinn said, slamming his fist against the wood of her door. "D'you hear me?" He pulled at the knob, but found it locked.

At first, silence. But then her mother said, "You have to help her somehow. She never lets me in anymore."

"Leave it to me."

Feet shuffled away, towards the staircase. Footsteps descended and made their way into the kitchen downstairs. The sound of ticking came from the lock, then a click. Then, squeaking filled the room as the door opened.

Gwen winced as she watched the light flood the space around her. Squinting, she pulled the blanket over her head and huddled up beneath it. Her voice cracked and was hoarse when she muttered, "Go away."

"Nah." Quinn stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. He stood for a while, perhaps waiting for his eyes to grow accustomed to the dark, before he moved closer towards her. Soon after, the mattress dipped with his weight. "Not until you tell me what all this is about."

"'s nothing."

"Doesn't look like nothin' to me." When the half-elf remained still, the other shifted in his spot. "I've got all day, y'know."

He yawned and pushed her closer to the wall beside her bed before lying down next to her. His breathing deepened as it always did when he was meditating. Or sleeping. Usually, she would comment on his supposed snoring. Today, however, she said nothing.

"Dad's been askin' for you, y'know. Your mother actually sent for me, sayin' she needed my help with somethin'. Should've known that somethin' was you. Mom wanted me to wait 'till she finished this pie she was bakin', but what's the point if you ain't gonna eat it anyway?"

"I have a son." At this point, she simply said it to get him to shut up. "Had. Have. Don't know."

"Is this the right moment to point out I've never seen a kid runnin' around here?"

A snort forced its way past Gwen's throat. "He'd be older than you are right now. Perhaps he's got a family of his own. I could be a grandmother and I'd never know."

"And why's that?"

"He…" Gwen licked her lips, felt how dry her mouth was. "It's a long story."

"We got time, don't we?"

She bit her cracked lip, but then she said, "It happened years ago, when you weren't even born. How absurd that must sound."

"It's very hard indeed to imagine you havin' a life before you met me, yes."

"I fell in love, if that's what you'd call it. With a human. He was great, at first. You know how it goes. We were going to have a child together. Going to be a family."

"Your mother must've been happy, what with her fascination with humans."

"She was. Still is. She… never really got it, I suppose. Why I feel this way. Sure, I lost a kid, but how could I go about hating an entire species for that?"

Quinn inhaled sharply, but kept his mouth shut.

"He took the boy and raised it with the knowledge that I had killed his mother. I saw him once and never again."

"You didn't try to find him?"

"No. Couldn't risk him getting to me again. I'm willing to lose the chance of reconciliation with my son if that means his father doesn't get the chance to hurt me again, somehow."

"I can see that," Quinn stated in a dry tone.

She should have snapped at him, should have kicked him in the side. She couldn't bring herself to do either and instead stared at the cracks in the wall beside her, traced them.

Her friend turned onto his side towards her. "Your mother. She said she thought this had gotten better. Whatever 'this' is. What was all that about?"

"Ever since I met you… your family… I've been… happy. Happier. As happy as I can be, at least. But I… I don't deserve it. I lost my son. Was a worthless wife and an even worse mother. I don't deserve any of this. I just don't." It felt like she was arguing with herself, the anger towards everything and everyone battling against her self-hatred.

Fuck the world. Fuck Elric. Fuck her son. Fuck them all. She owed them nothing. Life wasn't fair, so she should take whatever she could!

But she had failed them. Failed them all. Even her mother…

A hand landed on her shoulder and she gasped, shoulders tensing.

"That…" Quinn swallowed hard. "That has to be the most bullshit I've heard in my entire life."

With a sniff, Gwen muttered, "As if that counts for anything."

"Shush. You don't get to say that. Dumb elves and their victim complexes."

"What?!" The half-elf shot up and twisted around, fingers clawing at the blankets. Poised, ready to spring. When she met his steady gaze, she deflated and fell back onto the bed.

"Worthless this, worthless that. Is this…" He waved his hands around her. "Whatever this is, going to fix anythin'?" His gaze locked onto hers, but when she said nothing, he continued, "Is it goin' to make this Elric person feel better? Is it gonna give your son a mother? Hm?"

"…no."

"I say you're doin' this 'cause you like it." Gwen frowned and opened her mouth, but he went on, "You like wallowin' in self-pity 'cause it makes you feel good about yourself. Poor ol' Gwen, with all that emotional baggage. Scarred for life. Sure, you will be, but what use does actually lettin' it mark you have?"

Gwen growled but only curled herself into a tight ball. She didn't want to think about this right now. Why couldn't he just leave her alone? "Just go away."

A sigh escaped his lips. Not much later, his weight disappeared from the mattress and he took a few steps towards the door. "I'll see you in a bit, okay?"

He never did return, though. Didn't have to. By the end of that day, the half-elf had crawled back out of her cave. They never spoke of what had happened ever again.

"What you thinkin' about?"

Gwen shook her head and straightened her back while resting against the trunk of a tree. "Nothing. Just watching the fire."

It wasn't a complete lie. She had chosen a seat by this tree on the ground, maintaining a safe distance from the campfire while still feelings its prickling warmth spread its way across her legs. At least like this she could still keep an eye on it.

Richard sat on the other side of the fire, his hands tied together and a piece of cloth stuffed in his mouth. He stared at her without pause – she hadn't even seen him blink yet. Then again, she hadn't exactly stared back to check. James lay beside him, picking at his nails with a knife that he had gotten who knew where, but by now they should have been as clean as if he'd just bathed.

"Quinn."

The man sitting on a log to her right, closer to the campfire, hummed. The crackle of the flames all but drowned the sound out. If she hadn't been paying attention, she would have missed it.

"What… what happened to the others? Your family?"

From the corner of her eyes, she noted that James paused his nail-picking for a moment, but he soon resumed his grooming. Richard didn't react at all. Perhaps he was simply staring off into the distance and he had merely directed his gaze at her by chance.

"Do you really wanna know?"

She nodded. "Yes."

The sigh that left his lips sounded like he had witnessed enough to fill a hundred elven lives and then some. Even in the darkness, Gwen noted how he seemed to shrink. The lines on his face stilled so that the only movement in his expression consisted of the dancing shadows that the flames cast across him.

"I don't suppose you know what happened before the war with Nilfgaard. The second one. I said we fled when the troops attacked Aldersberg, but by then only me, my mother and Neassa were left." He narrowed his eyes at the campfire as he relived the memories. "The… the humans… They had started murderin' non-humans. Nobody knew why or when exactly it begun. Somethin' about the Squirrels working with the Nilfgaardians. We thought we were safe, though. These were the people I grew up with, y'know? I thought we were safe."

He clenched his fists and took a deep breath. Even from where she sat, she could see the corners of his lips trembling. "I fought my dad over it. Told him, no, we're not goin'. Not for his stupid hatred of humans. But when they set the neighbour's house on fire, he dragged us out the back door. By then it was too late, though."

Unfurling his hands again, he rested his underarms across his knees and bowed his head. The next time he spoke, it was in the smallest voice she had ever heard come from him. "They kicked the door down. The front door. Shoutin' like they were on a hunt in the woods or somethin'. I couldn't… Dad ran off and Emer went after him. I don't know what I was thinkin', but I took mom and Neassa away. Afraid they wouldn't make it on their own."

On the other side of the campfire, James had once more stopped picking his nails and had lowered his knife to the ground. Richard, on the other hand, had closed his eyes, but with how he had furrowed his brows, Gwen wondered whether he was remembering some memories of his own. The war had taken place not ten years ago. Even he had been old enough back then.

The half-elf herself hadn't seen much of the strife with Nilfgaard. Though she had seen the aftermaths of more than a few of their battles, it took a few months before she actually came across someone who told her of the invasion. The first time around, the fight had almost been over by the time she realised what was going on. She hadn't had as much luck the second time around, but it seemed that neither had Quinn.

"I went back as soon as the fightin' was over, though. Hoped they were still alive, somehow. And maybe they are. Maybe they managed to flee, y'know? Maybe they're out there somewhere, roamin' in the wilds like you did. Too scared to come back." Quinn chuckled, but it sounded more like a sob than a laugh. "'s not like I'll ever find out."

Gwen almost didn't want to ask the question, but she knew she had to. She didn't want to assume. Plus, he had to keep this in for how long? "What… what do you mean, 'I'? What happened to your mother and sister?"

The other half-elf pushed himself off the ground and walked over to the pile of wood they had collected before setting up camp. He knelt down beside it and picked up various twigs and branches, one by one, before making his way back over to the fire. It burned with almost the same ferocity as it had done a while ago, but still Quinn laid more wood upon it as if it would go out any moment now.

"Didn't make it. Neassa got ambushed while fetchin' water from a well nearby our hideout. Mom took her life not too soon after that."

"I'm… sorry to hear that." Her voice sounded so soft, she wondered if he had even heard it.

He shook his head as he sat down again. "Come, you must have some interestin' war stories to tell, too. 's not fair to let me hog this conversation all for myself."

"I, eh…" She bit her lip, hard and sudden, and the taste of copper filled her mouth. Trying her best not to think of the Squirrel who had forced himself upon her for refusing to fight for the Nilfgaardians – "If you're not going to aid us with your blade, might as well do so with your mouth" – she said, "I managed to evade most of it. Wasn't hard to do, all by myself in familiar forests. You haven't truly lived until your back hurts from sleeping in trees."

All eyes were on her then and she swallowed hard, feeling their heavy gazes scrutinise her. She cleared her throat with a cough and asked, "Say, perhaps I'm a bit late in asking, but what exactly is our plan here? What will we do next? And why did you bring him with us?"

James moved his gaze towards Richard and lifted his shoulders. "Probably would've come after us with more men if we let him go."

"Fair enough, I suppose. But still, what do you plan to do from here on out? And you, Quinn?"

Quinn, whose eyes were still glazed over, snapped his head up at the sound of his name. "What?"

"What're you going to do now?"

"Oh, ehm." He scratched the back of his neck and chuckled. "Well, to be honest, I hadn't really thought past this point. Didn't really believe we'd make it at all, to tell the truth."

The half-elf rested her forehead against her knees with a sigh.

"How 'bout you?" James pointed his knife in her direction.

"I'm going back to Vergen," Gwen said without looking up. She had wrapped her arms around her knees and squeezed her legs, nails biting into the skin there.

"What? Why?" came the question from two directions at once. Richard threw in a confused noise and tilted his head to the side for good measure.

"There's no way I'm letting that asshole Iorveth off the hook like that," she muttered. "I'm going to give him a piece of my mind. Perhaps stab him." Her fingers twitched as the thought took root in her mind and melted with the sizzling anger that never died out there.

Quinn all but choked on his spit. "Iorveth? As in, the Squirrel? Why… why would you want to do such a thing?"

"He was the commando leader in Flotsam. He's the one who sold me out."

On the other side of the campfire, Richard tugged his hands apart. He pulled at his restraints and whined. When James ignored him, the noises he made grew louder until Gwen nodded with a sigh. Only then did the big man lean over the other and drag the cloth from his mouth.

"That… That is suicide! Do you think that, just because of your relationship, he will go easy on you?!"

"Your relationship?" Quinn's head swivelled back to her.

Three pairs of eyes settled on her once more and Gwen pressed her back closer to the tree behind her, hugged her knees closer to her chest. "I'm not actually going to fight him." Or am I? "I just—"

"What do you mean, your relationship with Iorveth?" The other half-elf got up.

Gwen, too, pushed herself off the ground, her feet slipping twice before she could gain enough traction to stand up. She rested her fists against the bark of the tree, felt it sting as it dug into her knuckles, but she did not move. "What does it matter to you?!"

"Of course it matters if you're that elf's lo—"

"Don't!" the woman yelled despite the tightness in her throat. She pointed a finger in his direction and took a step to the side. "Don't you dare."

When her friend moved towards, James, too, raised himself to his full height and said, "Leave her be."

Though he was a little shorter than Quinn, the difference between his broad human shoulders and the other's half-elven ones, no matter how large he was compared to other non-humans, was visible even in the growing darkness of the forest. The two men glared at each other, with Richard looking to and fro between the two of them.

She could have slipped away in that moment. By the time anybody noticed, they would never find her again. Her knees trembled and her arms shook, as if fighting against her resistance. The tension in her body disappeared when, in the end, her shoulders slumped and she let out the breath she had been holding in.

"I just… want to talk to him. To ask him some questions. That's all." When Quinn opened his mouth, the frown still on his face, she added, "He is… He is one of the few people who've betrayed me and still live. I want to… I have to at least ask him…"

Why?

Why? Why? Why?

The men cast their eyes downwards as if out of privacy for her tears, though she tried her best to simply ignore them. If she couldn't hold them back, then at least she could pretend they weren't there.

"All right." Quinn nodded and looked up again. "Then I'll come with you."

"I don't… Well… Even though you're not a human… Let's say I had to do a lot to become one of them." That cursed weight threatened to trap her again, and the wind blowing against her wet cheeks made her think of his heavy breathing. She dragged up the image of the filthy human lying beneath her, blood staining his neck.

He's dead. For fuck's sake, he's dead. He'll never touch you or anybody else, ever again.

"And me?" Richard piped up. He had manged to get up on his knees, but even if he tried to run, he would never get far with James lurking behind him. "What will you do with me?"

"I don't know. Ask James," the half-elf snapped. The men blinked at her, almost like owls. "He wanted you to tag along."

"Only be—"

Gwen waved at him, as if dismissing the words. "Yes, yes, because he would've chased us. But what're we going to do now?"

"Leave him behind?" The large man shrugged and ignored the cries that erupted beside him.

"What?! Just let me go! Even if I wanted to go after you with the others, you'd be long gone by the time I get back here."

"Unless you use horses," Quinn muttered.

"Plus, I just told you where I plan to go," Gwen added.

"Seems like you're more for bringing him along than I am." James crossed his arms and cocked his head, one eyebrow raised.

Both half-elves hung their heads. Gwen bit her lip as she tried to think. There was no guarantee the elves would welcome her back. She didn't even know whether she wanted to be welcomed back. She had thought that she'd found a home, but they had cast her out. That, however, was not the point.

Even if the elves welcomed her back, and even if they perhaps allowed Quinn to accompany her… They would never agree to James or Richard, two dh'oine, stepping into the camp. And maybe she could persuade them to allow James to at least leave, but Richard was a guard of Vengerberg. There was no way they would believe that he did not have non-human blood staining his hands.

But she was right – if they let him go now… He knew where she was headed. He had the means to catch up with them, take them by surprise. The best option would be to drop him off at a nearby town or city. Yes… yes, that would have to do.

"Fine. We'll bring him with us, and we'll leave you somewhere along the way, when we get closer to Vergen." She raised her head to meet the others' gazes. "Acceptable?"

James merely shrugged and Quinn ran a hand through his hair that looked grimy even from where she stood. Then he nodded and threw some more wood onto the dying fire before he sat back down with a thud.

"I s'pose it'll have to do."

Gwen, too, took up her seat by the tree once more and rested the back of her head against the trunk.

"So," she began, staring up at the few stars that shone between the thick greenery of the forest through half-lidded eyes, "who takes first watch?"