The first thing Jarvis felt was pain. His eyes flicked around the room. There were trays of potions, bloody knives, and other odd surgical implements stacked on tables inside the small tent. Faintly he could hear the moans of other injured men. He tried to sit up but he was too weak, and gave up after a few futile tries. The horrible throbbing ache in his stomach prevented him from going back to sleep, so he contented himself with looking around at the parts of the room he could see. His clothes were stacked on a table to his right, blood soaked and torn. Come to think of it, he wasn't wearing anything besides a pair of cloth trousers. Tremulously he lifted a hand and put it to his chest, pulling his fingers over the skin to test his injuries. There was a knot of scar tissue on his belly, a thin vertical cut where the arrowhead had slammed into him. A gust of wind made the entrance to the small tent flutter and a ray of midday light flashed in for a fleeting moment and then disappeared.

***

Arien waited, arms crossed outside the first of the long rows of infirmary tents. It was an intolerable place, screams drifted up now and then from men deep in the grips of pain. There was a stench of death that pervaded everything. At the sound of footsteps she turned and saw a male healer dressed in a blood stained tunic bustling towards her, humming a tune under his breath.

"So?"

The healer flipped through a list and nodded.

"Yes, he's in a fit state for visitors, a little weak perhaps, but nothing that he won't get over with a good hot meal or two. Twenty seven down, thirty six across. Small white tent."

The elf thanked him and began walking into the sea of pitched tents. Healers rushed past occasionally, shouting something frantic, gripping a potion or instrument or sometimes a wounded man. It was barely controlled chaos, but it was nothing compared to when Arien had first brought Jarvis in. The temporary hospitals in the city had been all filled up by then, and she had had to drag him out into the main encampment at the base of the city wall to get help. Then the grass was slick with blood, and the screams were fresh. The sounds drifted up to her from a black pit in her memory.

"Thirty-five, thirty six."

Tentatively she pushed the tent flap aside. The assassin lay on a small wooden table, bare save for a pair of worn trousers. The elf flushed, she had never seen the assassin without a shirt on. Scars of every shape and size dotted his lean frame, including the one that had just formed over his stomach. Blearily, he looked over at her and raised one arm.

"Who is it?"

Arien took his hand gently and squeezed it, her soft skin meeting his calloused palms.

"Me."

Jarvis voice sounded like a rasp.

"Please, I need water..."

The elf nodded and looked around the tent for anything the healer might have left behind. Her eyes alight on a small stone pitcher and she brought it over to him. His hands grasped it but were too weak to lift it entirely. He strained for a few more moments before Arien reached in and helped him. Together they tipped some water into his mouth, some falling over his lips and onto the desk. He gulped the clear liquid down thirstily, the elf replacing the jug on the side table when he was done. The only place to sit was a battered old rocking chair in the corner. Arien retrieved it and sat down next to Jarvis who tried to smile. The smile turned into a grimace and his fists clenched.

"Augh..."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, my stomach."

Arien again put her hand over his

"Is there anything I can do?"

"No, no, I'll be okay."

The assassin flinched as another wave of pain wracked his midsection, and he tentatively tried to converse.

"Well what about you, what happened after I blacked out?"

"Nothing of consequence, I hauled you back to the casualty collection point."

"Is that where we are?"

"Yes, we're just outside the city."

Silence reigned for a moment and then Jarvis voiced a question that had been gnawing at the back of his mind ever since he had woken up.

"How long has it been since the last antidote?"

"A week and a half."

"What? But I th-"

"I lied. You weren't really poisoned."

Shock flitted over the assassins pale face.

"Are you serious?"

"Deadly."

To the elf's surprise he began to laugh hoarsely.

"Gods above I'm gullible. And to think I followed you all that way?"

He continued to laugh, but abruptly stopped as another paroxysm of aches gripped him. His whole body stiffened and his teeth clenched down so hard that the gums began to bleed. A low moan escape his lips. Arien laid her hand on his forehead, whispering softly to him.

"I'm here Jarvis, relax, I'm right here."

***

Dusk was settling over the encampment as Arien helped Jarvis to walk. He had made progress in the space of a few hours, but he was not quite strong enough to walk yet. She had mended his clothes with a few simple words in the ancient language and Jarvis had changed into them slowly, with a little help from the elf. After almost a half hour they made it to their sleeping tent, a patchwork of brown canvas hastily sewn together, only slightly bigger than the one Jarvis had just left. Furnishings were decidedly spartan, there were two cots on either end and a large table in the center. Arien helped Jarvis down onto his cot and sat on her own. His eyesight had also gotten better as the pain decreased, and to him, Arien looked different. Her eyes had shadows under them now, and the pupils themselves seemed to look through something instead of at it. She smiled less now, and her demeanor seemed more somber. Jarvis's thoughts turned to his vision. His mothers face floated up to him and raw emotion made him squint back tears. She had been so real... Silently he reached into a pocket in his tunic. Maybe it was still there. His fingers closed over something soft and he pulled out a small piece of white linen. On it was a fairth of his mother. Her face echoed warmth and kindness. Across from him, Arien looked up from where she had been sewing a patch onto a spare blanket and frowned.

"What is that?"

Jarvis handed it to her and she took it, examining the face.

"Oh, I've never seen a fairth on cloth before. Who is she?"

"It's my mother. A traveling salesmen did it for us once."

Arien passed it back and continued her sewing

"In Gil-Ead?"

"Oh no, I didn't always live there. When I was young I lived with my parents out near Melian. We had a good size farm there. I haven't gone back because It runs a little too close to Uru-Baen, and I don't exactly have a stellar reputation with the Empire."

Arien handed the picture back and Jarvis tucked it into his pocket.

"What about you? I assume you grew up in Du Weldenvarden."

"No, actually, I didn't. I was born there, but I got sent to live in a human city when I was nine."

"Why?"

"It's rather complicated. Suffice to say, local politics were a little touchy at that point, my mother was negotiating between two factions and felt I wasn't safe there. Not all the elves wanted to go to war on your side you know."

"Not my side."

"The Varden's side, yes, but in the beginning not all of us wanted to set one single foot outside of the forest. It had worked before was the motto, seclusion would work this time. Let the humans struggle over who controls what. It was an ignorant stance, but it died hard, and there were some unpleasant affairs before all ways said and done. Anyway, I got sent away to a farming town near the borders of the wood, and I was apprenticed to a human magician. Most elves aren't like me you understand, most of them are, by my standards, well, "tightly wound" shall we say. They rarely ever betray their intentions, and some of the things they do are just- odd."

The elf laughed softly to herself

"I have just enough memory of my home to think human habits odd and just enough time spent out in the human world to consider my own race odd. I am twice cursed."

"Why didn't you go back?"

"Back? Elf conflicts last much longer than human ones, and this was no different. By the time it was over I was no longer a child, and the only real time I had spent with my mother was at one end of a scrying mirror. So when she invited me to come back I declined. She had sent me away before merely because I was an inconvenience and a weakness, and now I was damned if I was going to answer at her beck and call. So I left and joined the Varden as a spy."

Arien sat and looked a little embarrassed, as though she had not meant to say that much. Jarvis simply nodded. A silence fell between them and the elf returned to her sewing.

***

The next afternoon found Jarvis and Arien in the remains of Feinster. The fires had all died out and the smoke had settled onto everything in the form of thick ash that swirled into the air when it was disturbed. The two walked slowly up the road that they had taken, seeing the city for the first time, free from the haze of battle. Little puffs of grey kicked up around their feet as they walked, muffling their footsteps. It was utterly silent. The Varden had taken their remaining soldiers back to the encampment where they could be better cared for, and the citizens who had not fled at the first opportunity stayed inside, fearing the occupiers. It was an odd moment of peace, that would be shattered sometime the next day when the bulk of the Varden's army moved itself into the city. For now it was a tomb, a grey haven. The overcast sky had grown darker and threatened rain, a distant rumble of thunder booming in the distance. Their wanderings eventually ended them in the courtyard where Jarvis was shot. Absentmindedly he examined the arrow shafts sticking out of the ground and attempted to pluck one out. It held fast and only a black tuft of feathers came away in his hands. He let them fall and looked around. Through the churned and devastated earth the first shoots of spring grass were pushing their way up, adding an odd tone of green to the mostly colorless landscape. A single massive tree lay in the center, the main cobbled path up to the castle wove around it. It looked as though it had been set on fire and hastily put out. In some places the bark was scorched and there were no leaves on it. The elf considered the tree for a moment and then crouched, catlike, before springing into one of the lower branches and climbing upwards. At the top she stood and looked out. Jarvis called up from below.

"How is the view?"

"Come see for yourself."

Jarvis was not much of a tree climber, there had not been many trees in his home and none of his assignments had ever required knowledge of how to scale one. Once he started however, the rest came naturally and soon he was sitting next to the elf on a high branch. To their front he could see all the way down the slope of the plain and into the Varden's camp, little trails of smoke from cooking fires spiraled up and dissipated like little fingers. The city walls engulfed them like protecting arms, and inside their reach lay countless little houses and alleys, buildings and criss-crossing lanes, a spider web of humanity that ringed inward towards them. To an outside observer, they might have resembled odd grey birds, as their clothes and faces were coated in ash. Another peal of thunder sounded closer now, and Jarvis tasted metal.

"It looks like rain."

The elf turned and pointed away to the east.

"Yes, yes it does."

Jarvis followed her finger and saw a wall of silver advancing towards them, proceeded by a slight hiss. The wall raced over the plains towards them and swept into the Varden camp extinguishing fires. The raindrops away with it. The city looked like a rock being polished, and slowly, second by second, the grey veneer was shaved away by the rushing water. Jarvis felt his hand warm broke upon them at last, in a light shower, warmed by the sun hidden behind the clouds. The water washed over them and the city, everywhere carrying the ash and looked down to see Arien's palm lying on top of it. The assassin turned and looked into her eyes, now only inches from his. Finally, she bridged the gap and their lips met. The kiss seemed to last an eternity as Jarvis's blood pounded in his head. When they broke away the elf was also flushed and she smiled, despite herself. The rain continued to pound away, but the two paid no heed to it.

(A/N If you don't see me posting updates, don't give up on me, I'm working out the rough edges in a new plotline. Feedback is very much appreciated.)