Fourth Stroke – Uneasy Truths

The day began with modest promise, but then, in typical mid-spring fashion, it started to rain in the early afternoon. Though the Claymore might be able to control her body's reactions, and the soldier to bear up with a campaigner's patience, the steady downpour nevertheless reduced their already limited conversation to nothing. Tyrin chose to march with her helmet on, obscuring everything above the base of her nose as well, so there was little point in Sylvia even bothering to look at her companion.

Well, she thought idly as they marched on. At least both our kinds still react the same way to weather. That is something I suppose.

One remittent effect did come out of the long chill rainfall; it quickened the pace of the pair, so they reached the small village of Eiderdale well before dark.

It was not much of a place to look upon, this modest hamlet, and even a cursory glance revealed that there was no true inn here. Such a fact was unsurprising, as they were distant from major roads. By herself Sylvia would not have much cared, even in the rain, she would simply sleep in the woods near the town and not bother the people, but Tyrin's presence made the Claymore hesitant to take such a course.

"Any ideas on what we should do for the evening?" she asked Tyrin carefully.

"That house there," the woman warrior pointed a gauntleted finger. "It's bigger than all the others, and looks to be a brewer's. I'd bet good money it doubles as a tavern and the master probably has a spare room to lend, for peddlers and the like. We should be able to bargain to stay."

Tyrin headed for the door, but Sylvia hesitated, wondering what she should do. It has been over a year since I stayed among humans at night, she recalled. That had been in a major city to the east, when she was having her sword serviced and needed to stay close to it. She could not freely remember the last time she'd tried to gain lodging among others, people often looked with anger and fear upon a Claymore, and sleeping in the woods had been an easy way to avoid annoying stares and arguments. Over time, she realized now in a small intake of surprise, it had surely become habit.

Hesitant and worried, but a trifle excited, Sylvia followed Tyrin.

The soldier nodded slightly when she reached the door, noting the glow of light from within, a sign that at least someone was active in the front room. Her armored arm smashed the stout hardwood with strong strokes, letting free forceful peels of noise. "Is the master of the house here?" Tyrin called out in a clear voice.

The door drew back a few moments later, revealing a disheveled and balding man with a beer gut. He had a friendly expression when he opened the door, but it instantly became suspicion when he eyes caught the shine of steel from the ladies' armor. "What do you want?" he barked with caution, retreating somewhat behind the cover of his door. Sylvia doubted such an act would have done him any good in the case of real brigands, but perhaps it brought him a bit of comfort.

"Not much," Tyrin began with a shake of her head, and she reached up to take off her helmet. Sylvia saw the warrior give the man her best smile, one that surely could not match her mood. With a bit of wistful longing, she considered what it would be like to have the chance to influence someone with expression instead of the overwhelming facts of her nature.

"A fire to sit in front of and dry off, dinner if you've the means to serve us, and a place to lay our heads for the night," Tyrin requested. "That's all, it's a mean rain that been falling, and we'd hoped to shelter from it."

"I've a room to spare since the peddler left yesterday," the tavernkeeper shrugged, and his eyes narrowed. "But you've a sword, and so does your friend, makes a man cautious you know."

"A cautious man wouldn't keep a person with a sword waiting in the rain," Tyrin shrugged. "He'd invite them in and take their coin, so as to avoid making them angry."

Sylvia found this exchange rather enlightening, and somewhat amusing, as the poor man blanched and stepped back in surprise at the implied threat.

"Ah, well, yes, I suppose…" he muttered, scratching his bald spot with a gnarled hand. "Yes, do come in, my apologies for my lack of courtesy." He opened the door and motioned them into a fire-lit room.

Tyrin stepped onto the wooden floor easily, shaking the water off as she did so. The master of the house gave her a forced smile, but then his eyes glanced onto Sylvia, revealed in the light for the first time. They bulged immediately, and she had the sudden impression of a speared fish.

"Claymore!" the poor man gasped. Silently he stammered and blubbered, hands grasping the door as if the only plank of wood when adrift at sea. Sylvia stood silently, having fully expected this, and unsure as to how to proceed.

Tyrin, already stripping off her wet armor, turned back to the door to see Sylvia still standing in the rain. "What's the problem?" she asked idly.

This comment seemed to shock the brewer back into activity from his moment of terror. "No!" he barked. "No! No!" he repeated the words, seeming to take strength from them. "I will not have a silver-eyed witch under my roof! I will not!"

Sylvia suppressed a sigh; she had more or less expected this. She had entertained the possibility that Tyrin's presence might have changed the circumstances, but it seemed that was not to be. "I am sorry if my presence offends you," she told the man. "I regret that you find me unwelcome, as I do not wish you harm, but it is your right to forbid me. Very well," she turned to Tyrin. "I'll see you in the morning." She turned to take her leave, regretting that she had even bothered; it would cause Tyrin ill-will for the evening.

The warrior woman's reaction was so fast and unexpected that Sylvia barely caught it at all, and there was no time to dodge away, she chose the only option and met it with a countermove as she turned.

Tyrin grunted as Sylvia's leg slashed in to strike her own and upend her footing, but she made the grab for the Claymore's neck anyway, and refused to let go. With much of her heavy armor still on the soldier out-massed the Claymore enough to tip them both to the floor.

The landed hard, in a nasty tangle. "Bah!" Tyrin spat, and shoved the shocked Sylvia off her. "Stupid, real stupid." She grimaced as she struggled to her feet again. "As if I'd actually attack you. I'm not an idiot, but it seems you are." Tyrin's expression was filled with an exasperated anger Sylvia could not properly understand. She recognized the irritation at being hit, but that seemed to be the least of it. Why is she so mad? Sylvia did not understand. Why did she grab me anyway?

"Travelers do not let themselves get split up!" Tyrin shouted; her mouth inches from Sylvia's own. "You're staying here with me tonight, and this sluggard here will just deal with it! I'd have thought you Claymores knew better than to let village folk walk all over you!"

"Miss I will not have any-" the brewer began.

"Quiet!" Tyrin grabbed the pudgy man by his shirt and lifted him off the ground so his stubby feet kicked in the air. She fixed the man with a hideous stare, an expression of anger Sylvia knew she herself never wore unless the yoki was surging through her.

"I. Am. Not. Sleeping. Outside." Tyrin made each word a lash. "You'll take our money and shut up about it. Sylvia here's way too courteous for her own good, but I'm not, and walking through cold rain's gotten me angry. So why don't you hurry and get us a meal."

"Yes ma'am, very good ma'am," the brewer mumbled as Tyrin let him down. "I'll get right too that, I will." He shuffled off to a back room.

Sylvia watched it all silently, wondering what had just happened. Why did she defend me? She could not fathom why Tyrin should stick her neck out in such a fashion. There was no need, she could have slept out in the rain; it was not a problem for her. Puzzled as to how to approach the issue, she tried an oblique approach. "You're not afraid he'll go and gather a mob?"

"With you here?" Tyrin grunted. "He's way too scared, and this hamlet's not big enough anyway," the woman's tone was yet filled with violent emotion. "Go and take your armor off already, you're dripping everywhere."

Sylvia complied, not having anything other course of action occur to her. Silently she wondered how long it had been since a human woman had given her a command. Her recollection turned up empty. Perhaps it was before I became like this? She dared to wonder. To think it has been so long.

Tyrin stripped off the remainder of her own armor, but did not discard her sword. Instead she placed it beside her on the long bench beside the room's single great table. She seated herself near to the warmth of the fire, but not so close as to obstruct her movement if something should happen.

Shortly thereafter the brewer returned, bearing a pot filled with some form of stew, a loaf of bread, and two large mugs wafting the distinctive aroma of hot cider. He avoided looking directly at either of them. "Here is your meal my ladies," he mumbled. "The guest room is beyond the door to the right," he pointed an elbow to a door that had seen many a battering from tossed ale mugs. "You may retire whenever you wish, put more wood on the fire if it is not sufficient, there is a stack there as you see." Sylvia flicked her eyes to confirm this, not that it seemed likely the man would lie.

The poor man placed the food before them, clearly struggling to avoid shivering. Sylvia restrained herself from shaking her head. Sometimes it is like this, she had seen it many times and always unpleasant. Those who fear us for no reason, why can some humans not control their terror?

"Uh…" the brewer managed to hold out a hand. "If you could…"

"How much?" Tyrin asked gruffly, already spooning out a bowl of stew.

The man named a figure, and the soldier reached down into a hidden pocket of her under-armor.

Sylvia was faster, and dropped the coins into the man's hand without ever touching him with her gloves. She did not force him to look at her, but spoke toward the flickering flames. "I believe that will be all, master, thank you."

The man managed to avoid bolting in his scurry from the room, but little more. His exit left the pair of women alone again. There was no one else present, the local farmers doubtless too tired with the chores of planting season to show up.

"You paid for me too!" it was almost an accusation, coming from Tyrin.

"Is that a problem?" Sylvia wondered, surprised again. She had never known people to refuse money, and surely a mercenary would not. Tyrin was presenting her with many strange and confusing things this evening, it was all disconcerting, and a cold feeling deep in her grew slowly with each new outburst.

The soldier did not say anything for a brief time, choosing instead to gulp down several mouthfuls. Then she turned back to Sylvia, and her blue-gray eyes peered deep into the Claymore's silver orbs, glinting in the red and yellow light of the fire. "Why pay for me?"

It was not at all what Sylvia had expected, and she was struck dumb momentarily. Why indeed? She mused, trying to sort through the jumble of her own thoughts. It had been an impulse, that was easy to recognize, but to find and explanation was much more difficult. It took her some time, but Tyrin seemed patient, focusing on her meal. Watching without hunger of her own, she eventually determined what to say. "Soldiers are paid for campaigns are they not?" she began. "If you travel with me, that means you have no employment, anything you spend would be whatever savings you possess. In that case I, since I am working, should be the one to pay. Besides, the money is largely meaningless to me anyway."

"You mean you get paid for killing yoma?" Tyrin's face bore clear surprise. "But you didn't take anything from the village where that one was killed…"

"That is so we do not waste it," Sylvia explained. "Once, we collected our own fees and handed them over to the organization directly, but there were problems, some of us took to wasting it all very rapidly, so the system was changed." She had been told that anyway, the truth predated her, but it made sense as far as it went. "The organization keeps by far the greater part of the fees, but we are paid back for our jobs periodically."

"They provide you uniforms though, and you barely eat anything," Tyrin noted. "Why do they have to give you money at all?"

"I am not exactly sure," Sylvia answered, truthfully, for she was not. "For myself, and others like me, it is probably not necessary, but we are not all alike. I think though, it is a helpful distraction to some of us."

"Distraction?" Tyrin's anger appeared to have completely faded and she looked on Sylvia with renewed interest. The Claymore guessed the warrior realized she had stumbled upon something important.

"Our lives are very hard," Sylvia said quietly. "We are always fighting with the yoma half deep inside of us. For many, this leads to restlessness, especially in times between jobs. I have heard that many soldiers, when they are idle for long periods, will lose themselves in drink or the like. It is like that I suspect."

Tyrin nodded, understanding what this meant. "You can't get drunk though, can you? I mean…"

Sylvia gave the slightest hint of laughter. "A puzzle. I think we could, but you'd have to hold us down and force our throats open to imbibe enough, which would be a challenge in itself."

Tyrin laughed as well, thinking on it, and took a strong gulp of her cider to clear her throat. "Indeed…that would be…quiet the challenge. But," she went on more seriously. "If not spirits, then what is the favored distraction of a Claymore?"

"I have heard of many," Sylvia replied, thinking about what she knew on this question, of the wants and inclinations of the various comrades she'd met over the years. "I think gambling is the most common."

"Gambling?" Tyrin mused. "Like dice? Or cards? That doesn't seem like something you'd get into, though I imagine those eyes' make you deadly at cards."

"I think it is more common to gamble on contests," Sylvia explained with a shake of her head, not liking to think about it. "Horse races sometimes, but more likely fights, birds, dogs, and even men, as they say there are dark places where that is done. I think the money provides a thrill to engagements we would otherwise find lackluster."

"Sport fights are a farce," Tyrin spat. "When you're gambling with your life in battle what's the point of betting money?"

Silently Sylvia agreed. To risk life and limb for nothing more than money was a hopeless endeavor.

"What else besides gambling?" Tyrin asked more lightly after the dark moment had passed.

"All sorts of little luxuries," Sylvia went on, recalling some of the strange things. "Perfumes for example, or such gemstones as we can afford, or even stranger oddities. I met one of us once who carried a collection of tiny porcelain cats with her in a specially padded bag. Oh," Sylvia realized she was leaving out something very important, out paused before adding it, her pleasant mood, only recently established, fading. Should I reveal this now? Or even at all? She doubted it could be kept hidden forever, but it was not something she truly desired to share. Perhaps, she thought. Perhaps Tyrin deserves to see, her sister will bear the same fate, but even so. In the end, she simply decided to speak, and leave it to the human woman to see the connection or not. "Of course, there's always men."

"Men?" Tyrin raised a questioning eyebrow. "But surely with your looks there's always a few adventurous young men…" she gave a quirky smile.

Sylvia avoided scowling, she was not surprised, had figured on Tyrin making such a remark. I accept this, she forced herself to think. Slowly, she reached up to the center line of her uniform. With deliberate care she pulled it open, down and apart.

"Hey, what are you-" Tyrin started, and then she saw, and her eyes went wide. Her mouth hung open, dripping bits of gravy slowly down to the table below.

Slowly Sylvia sutured up the uniform once more, hiding things again. "It doesn't hurt," she managed, trying to be kind, doing what she could to ameliorate the horrors of imagining one's kin in such a fashion. "It is simply there."

"I…" the woman stumbled over her words, all the sureness Sylvia had seen in every moment on their short companionship suddenly gone. "I had never imagined!" she sobbed, and tears began to flow down her cheeks, cold rebuke to Sylvia.

The Claymore had no answer. What is the proper thing to say now? What is the right way to speak an unfortunate truth to a companion? A friend? I don't know, I simply don't know. This saddened her almost as much as the choice to show her true self had. She did not understand friendship; it had not been something the organization wished to preserve in its warriors. They were competitors, and colleagues, and shared a bond forged of torment and toil no others could understand, but they were forced to stand in a single file line, never together.

So Sylvia looked on in silence as Tyrin sobbed, not knowing what to do.

In the end, after some time, likely short, but feeling impossibly long, the soldier looked up again. Her face was tear-stained, and haggard, but at last her eyes were dry. Slowly, her words chosen with obvious care, she spoke to Sylvia. "Thank you for showing me now," she said. "It is horrible, terrible, but I would need to see it eventually. Better now," her voice hardened. "If I learned later, after you had hidden the truth, I do not think I could have forgiven you."

Sylvia was completely disarmed by this fierce but kind remark. She could not accept what she had just done, making Tyrin cry alone, as the right thing. "Please do not apologize," she stuttered. "I handled this terribly, I should not have been so sudden, I should have given you warning, I should have done…" failing to find a satisfactory course of action she finished merely with a whispered. "Something."

"You know," Tyrin wiped her hand through loose hair with the ghost of a grin on her face. "For someone who fights demons for a living, you sure apologize a lot."

Sylvia could not come up with anything to follow that remark.

"I'll be alright," Tyrin added. "You never get used to the bad news, but you do become better at dealing with it, and I've had some practice." She lifted her mug of cider and took a long draught. "The pudgy man a least makes a good brew." Turning back to Sylvia she asked with more levity. "So you can still buy men even like that? I'm not sure if that's good or bad."

"Neither am I," Sylvia answered. She had never done it herself though. Such a thing was too crude, too emotional; she would not forfeit control in that way.

"So what do you spend your money on then?" Tyrin probed.

"Very little," the Claymore explained. "I am one of those who never seems to spend it. I bought a dress once, years ago, but I felt horrible in it and sold it after wearing it only once."

Tyrin looked her up and down slowly, clearly trying to imagine Sylvia in a dress and not succeeding effectively. "Why'd you buy the dress?"

It was a question Sylvia had been asked once before, but this time she found it actually pleasant to answer. Telling her reasons to Luny had not been so. "In a town where I killed a pair of yoma the people did not want to let me go without a reward. A man there was an artist, and he said he would paint my portrait. I couldn't wear my uniform because it was covered in blood, and I could not have stayed to wait for it to be washed. So I bought the dress," it was a bittersweet memory, being fitted for such a thing, wearing the awkward and unfamiliar clothes. She had thought being painted would be enjoyable, but the poor man had kept refusing to meet her eyes as he did so, and it had not turned out well. She frowned ever so slightly, recalled the irresolvable feelings of that day.

"And here I thought you might have just had the urge to look like a lady," Tyrin laughed briefly. "You do your best to speak like one, I must say. So what about since then, you can't just carry it all around."

Sylvia's frown vanished but she did not smile. "I opened an account with a bank in a city in the south. I deposit money there, to be held for the future." She spoke in a low whisper now, the words ghostly, mere wisps of vocalization. "One day, someday far from now, there might come a day when I no longer need to swing my sword. That money is my hope against that day."

Wisely Tyrin was silent for a time, hearing this, and Sylvia noted it with care.

"Well, I'm rather tired," the soldier said when she spoke once more. "Walking in the rain just drains the energy out of you. You ready to drag our gear into the next room and hope it's dry in the morning?"

"That sounds reasonable," Sylvia answered.

The room they had been given was decidedly not much to look upon. It was cramped, dirty, and contained only a bed and a miserable excuse for a nightstand.

"I can sleep on the floor, it's not a difficulty," Sylvia said shortly after they entered. Not that she desired to, but it was the proper thing to say, especially after what she had done to Tyrin earlier.

"Nah, we can both manage," the soldier replied. "It'll be a bit cramped, but that bed's clearly big enough to fit the occasional handsome peddler and the local girl who doesn't go for the local boys. Besides, it's not like either of us is a big particularly big woman."

"Are you certain?" Sylvia asked in all seriousness. "I am half-human half-yoma, you can treat me as such. I will surely treat you as the human you are." It was a cold thing to say, but it was reality, inescapable.

"Claymore or not," Tyrin returned with a hint of the anger she'd displayed earlier. "We're traveling together and going to be in danger together. That means we stay together. I've learned that lesson too well."

"I understand," Sylvia wondered if she did even as the words escaped her lips.

It was a very odd experience for her, sleeping next to someone. Even though they managed to keep a little space between each other, she could still feel the warmth of Tyrin's body flowing across the mattress and through the blankets. It was an unfamiliar feeling, something that called back the distant memories all but forgotten and blurred away by time. Sylvia lay awake a long time, thinking on such things. To be like this every night; sleeping beside another warm form. That is how most humans desire to spend all their days. Sylvia could hardly imagine that kind of life anymore. We spend almost all our days alone, dark and cold. I had long ago given up hope for anything else. Yet now? Her mind flashed away down many mysterious channels, calling up questions in the dark that blurred the lines of the careful world she had built for herself. Will trying to be your friend change me? Will that be good, or a disaster? Sylvia found no answers before sleep claimed her.

Notes: I've been forced to make an assumption in this chapter about Claymore's and money, but I feel it is a reasonable one, as both Clare and Teresa were shown to have money with them, and Teresa mentioned 'never spending' hers. I've also chosen to follow the same route as the manga and reveal that there's something horrible to do with the front of a Claymore's body with specifying what it is.

Also, I know it's been a while without any bloodshed, but I assure you, there's plenty of action to come.