Remember; English is not my mother-language and I'm too lazy to grammar check every time.

Chapter 07

"Remember," Riordan began, his voice stern. "Block with both your arms holding the weapon and not-"

"Be hasty and hold it with one," Maryden droned. "Because the greatsword is heavy and a blow could tip you off balance because of the weight. I know!"

The older man smiled at her, a strange look in his eyes that made Maryden glance away, not because it was creepy but foreign to her. "Now come on Riordan, they are waiting for us!" She walked towards a smaller group near the Green Dragon inn, all armed and most of them male. Suddenly Maryden grew nervous, not so sure of herself as she tried to be and show, but a small push of a hand on her back took away the anxiety of her first mission with Riordan and his gang of mercenaries.

She could do this, she was trained to do this and she was good at it. Thus a young and barely of age Maryden took a deep breath and marched towards the group. Stuck her hand out and introduced herself boldly before Riordan could even utter a word.

"Hi there! I'm Maryden Treshyr, your newest member."

She woke up from a haze, blinking the sweat out of her eyes but her vision did not sharpen as it should be. Heavy footfalls approached her and something was pressed in her hands. A flacon. Maryden unscrewed the lid and tipped it back, the lewd water a blessing for her throat. She took only two sips before giving it back to the gigantic man, they couldn't afford to be greedy.

"Thank you, Kana," Maryden heaved as she hoisted herself up, using her sword and the rocky wall behind her for support.

"No problem," his baritone voice resonated throughout the cavern. They were deep inside Caed Nua, even below the lowest cellar in search of Maerwald of whom they could find no trace of. But despite they hadn't seen sunlight in several days, Maryden was determined he was out there. She felt it, she knew it. She hoped.

'But what if this was all for naught?' A dark voice inside of her inquired.

"You are looking pale-"

"I'm fine Kana, thank you," Maryden pressed, not caring that her tone was unkind. Dismissing the matter. "Have the others woken and eaten yet?" The Aumaua nodded.

"Good, round them up. We're moving."

Caed Nua was unkind to those who visited its belly. Monsters lived there that could not bear the light of day and instead dwelled in the darkness that was most kind to them. The fights were brutal, wearing down on her when they once again ascended a staircase. The ghosts that haunted the long-forgotten halls where man-made stone met hard unspoiled rock where a constant phenomenon around each corner. Each with tales of hurt and sorrow and revenge. After a while Maryden ignored them, her task clear in front of her; find Maerwald.

And finally they did.

Maerwald was a large, liver-spotted and barrel-chested man. With filthy strings of grey hair hanging in front of his filthy face. He tripped and cowered in a corner as they approached, holding up his hands as he cried out. "No! Keep away from us!" His rough un-used voice shouted. "Leave us!"

Edér looked at him hesitantly. "Maybe we should come back later?"

Maryden ignored the farmer-turned-fighter and took a few brisk steps forward, ignoring Aloth whispering her name in warning trying to stop her. "Are you Maerwald?" She commanded, throwing politeness in the wind.

The old man flinched at her words, looking at her over his trembling hand. Suddenly the flicker in his eyes changed, so did his expression and he nearly hissed. "Maerwald isn't here," he growled raspy. "And he is no fool! He has sent for no callers, begone deceiving spirit!"

The God-like closed her eyes and clenched her fist. After all the torture, the sleepless nights, the fighting she had to deal with this? A mad man that was once referred for what he was; a Watcher like her.

"My friend is a Watcher, she was told you could help her," Aloth's diplomatic voice was smooth to her ears. Maryden opened her eyes, trying to release her anger and frustration. They would not aid her with the delicate dealings of an ill mind.

The man turned to the wall, having a muttering and sputtering argument with himself. When he turned back to them he stood up, chest puffed and stance rigid and straight like that of a soldier. Another completely different person but with the same body.

"Maerwald will speak with you," he spoke with a confident loud voice that was so different from the other two. "But keep your distance, or you will have me to answer to." His posture changed again, slightly hunched over and the hands that he first held so tightly as his sight started to trembled again. This time his voice was old and feeble, matching his appearance.

"Unbelievable," Maryden heard Kana gasp behind her.

"Come to speak to Maerwald? Maerwald whose touch is poison? Maerwald who knows not his effect?"

Maryden let her posture relax, exhaustion washing over her as she regarded the old man, whose eyes were teary and twitchy. Continuously looking from her to her companions and back. Resembling a scared mouse who'd seen too much horror and is damaged because of it.

"I was told I am a Watcher," Maryden began softly. "And that you could tell me more about it, for I do not know what is happening to me."

Maerwald looked at the door opening behind their group, half-distracted as he mumbled, barely audible. "A window. A window to the ether where spirits dwell. Peer and reach to it, speak and listen to it." His gaze focused back in her, but not directly. As if looking beyond her very being.

"A Watcher sees souls. Reads them and knows their pasts of both living and dead. An empath." He exhaled feebly, his breath wheezing and groaning. "And the souls sees them back. Used it to help being in both realms, did I. What the gods wanted of me, thought I."

Maerwald then twitched and spasmed a bit before his stance once again straightened. "The gods put me in a world of vengeance, and I obliged." Then his head tilted forward, another gleam entering his eyes. "It was the gods' wishes that we protect those lands. My way was the only way to remove the foreigners!"

He returned to himself once more, pitiful and old. Weak. "Little did I knew."

Maryden regarded him and she approached him carefully but stayed at a fair distance should he attempt something crazy. "You've lost your mind," she observed.

'As are you,' the dark voice countered.

Maerwald shook his head, his tangled hair getting even more messy. "No, no! I found more of it! Too much.. too much to bear." He then looked at her, dead in the eye and straight into her own very soul.

"An Awakening."

The world was once again descending into darkness, albeit slow. The tendrils of the sun turned desperate. Grasping at the clouds setting them enflamed with golds and reds, as the sky above that turned from a gold to pink, oranges and eventual a purple and blue.

Maryden watched it with great intensity, forcing herself not to think but to enjoy how the warm rays of the sun got eventually obscured by the forest surrounding Caed Nua. Her eyes saw the first stars come alight, not fearing the fiery light of the sun anymore and wanting to illuminate the world in its place alongside the crescent moon.

She remembered laying on her back, when she was still very young, with her little brother. The grass underneath them a soft cushion as they attempted to count them, stopping after a while deeming it hopeless and try to spot constellations. Or make up a few of their own. The memory of it made Maryden smile at first, but then sad at the melancholy of it.

'What if I had been looking at my future self?'

The thought emerged suddenly along with the flashes of the crazed Maerwald and how he had been suffering, his past lives present and scrambling up his mind.

'No sleep for the Watcher.'

At deep, overwhelming sensation of dread filled Maryden like a wave, sudden and heavy. Causing her heart to drill against her chest and body to tremble. Before she could cry out in hysterics footsteps approached her, forcing her to swallow it all down and stand up. Willing the involuntary twitching of her hands to seize. It was Edér.

Right, she totally forgot about her companions bustling about, tidying up the bedrooms in the inn called Brighthollow, which walls she had been leaning against. The steward of Caed Nua had announced that she was now owner of the stronghold. It was nice to have a sort of place to come back too, but the work what it entailed to bring the keep up and running again was tedious and hard. Maerwald had absolutely done nothing to maintain it.

"Hey," Edér began. Voice soft and green eyes tender, his posture was hesitant as if approaching a beast, or so she interpreted. He looked her over and a brow slightly raised, observing. "Am I interrupting something?"

"No," Maryden sighed and clasped her hands together in front of her to still them. "I was just watching the sky," she nodded at the treeline. Only a soft orange hue was present but that was quickly fading, dousing the world in darkness.

Edér turned and look at it where she had gestured to. She noticed that moment his tired face and wrinkles that seemed to be set deeper than before.. and here she was having a mental breakdown while they had been working their asses off. When he turned to her again she spoke again. Maryden tried not to sound hopeful, secretly longing to be alone again so nobody could see her despair.

"Shall I clean the bed sheets?"

The fighter shook his head, a wave of his hand to emphasize his point. "No, Kana already did that. Durance had cleaned the rooms out and Aloth is sweeping the floors now. We all figured you needed.. uh.. some alone time after that."

Images of cutting down Maerwald as he ran up to her, arms raised and eyes rabid in attack. How his soul felt and disappeared when she sent it back to the Wheel. Maryden shuddered at the thought of it and hugged herself, feeling chilly though it wasn't cold outside.

"I-" she began, but her speech faltered, feeling as if her tongue was not her own and refused to work properly. So she stopped talking altogether.

Fearing his eyes Maryden looked at the spot in front of her feet instead but not seeing any of it as she fought the fatigue that was threatening to overwhelm her. Not only physically but also mentally. There was a crack inside of her, fragile but spreading wider and faster in front of Edér when he laid his large hand on her shoulder. They were gloveless and just as sun-kissed as his face. Calloused of years of hard labour, nails short.

He then gestured to the wall and ground with his other, voice soft but commanding at the same time.

"Sit down."

Maryden did, the tears closer than she would have liked and wiped the few away that threatened to spill. Edér plopped down beside her, their shoulders touching, and reached something out of the pockets of his breeches. His pipe.

"Edér," his name rolled off her lips in a whisper, hinting at a question that she did not voice.

The man did not reply in words, but in a understanding glance of his eyes whilst he took some dried herbs and crushed them inside the small chamber. A practice his muscles in his arms and the tendons in his fingers knew so well that he could probably even do it with his eyes closed. How he prepared his pipe was methodical, oddly calming.

Maryden then closed her own and let her head touch the rough stone behind her as realization nestled inside her gut. Edér knew. He knew how she felt because he's been on the same verge like her. He understood.

The smell of spice and smoke filled her nose. Overwhelming at first, making her wave her hand in front of her face for a moment and her eyes to sting, but then it became soothing. She looked at Edér take a drag from his pipe, blowing the whitish smoke away in a slow exhale, then he offered it to her.

Maryden took the pipe carefully. It was made of a dark wood; smooth where it wasn't carved expertly and she entertained the thought that he might have made it himself. Her lips closed around the mouthpiece where Edér's had been a few seconds ago, the wood warm. She then inhaled slowly, keeping it shallow.

The herbs where almost irritating her throat, threatening to make her choke and cough but she managed to control it and released the smoke, imagining all of her thoughts being drawn from her alongside with it. She took another inhale, before giving it back to Edér who had been watching her closely. It strangely helped.

"Thank you," her voice croaked, not because of the smoke, and she pulled up her knees to rest her arms on. Not quite a lady-like way to sit but then again she wasn't exactly a lady. His shoulder still pressed against her as he took another inhale of his pipe, the warmth of his body radiating through both of their linen shirts.

"Thought you needed it," he observed and looked at her again, the pipe dangling between his fingers. There was a small smile on his lips, not one out of mockery. Relief? "Apparently I thought right."

Maryden threw him a small grateful smile, one that he clearly caught and returned but in a more wider fashion. Somehow it made her heart and stomach flutter nervously but also in delight and looked at the grass near her feet.

"You did. I'd needed it for a while now. It's just.. " she paused for a moment, hesitant, but then decided to take the leap and unveil her demons to him. "I'm scared Edér. I'm scared of the future. Of what might become of me and of this Leaden Key, and Woedica. I might always seem to know what to do, but I don't."

The man beside her took a few drags of his pipe dousing them in silence that was a bit uncomfortable. The wind started to pick up the smoke much quicker than before, but the pleasant spicy smell lingered. His voice was soft when he spoke again.

"One day there was boy, young and wild. He was never scared, always the brave one. The unruly one. Then one day, he saw a dog growling and barking at him. The beast almost as big as himself, that was the first time he was terrified, but he vowed never to be scared again. To become stronger," Edér murmured, his tone neutral and a bit distant as if in thought.

"Growing up, the boy was scared numerous of times in his life like we all are, but each time he vowed to become stronger and stronger. Eventually the boy became harsh, a ruler with an iron hand and having stripped himself of everything because he could not feel anymore. He was incapable to understand others and became the tyrant that now rules Gilded Vale."

Edér shifted a bit, leaning more back like she was and stretched out his long legs, occasionally taking a huff from his pipe. "In truth we're all scared in the end, but Raedric chooses to bottle it up inside thus bringing his whole world down instead of facing it head on. Acknowledging it and learn from it, that is how you get stronger."

Suddenly Edér laughed, murmuring about how he started to look and act like his father. He turned to her, examining her reaction but in a more light-hearted fashion. He was trying to lighten the atmosphere. "I did not mean to get so philosophical, but you understand right?"

Maryden nodded, smiling a bit due to his infectious laughter. A portion of the dread and despair having flushed out of her system and though the whispers still lingered they did not drive her mad at this very moment. Inside she understood the journey would be tough, hard with ups and downs, but now she felt she could take on the world. He understood her.

"Actually I do. Thank you," she met his eyes this time without fear, but gratitude as she spoke truly from her heart. For a moment their gazes held each other, not in a competitive battle of wills like manner but merely regarding the other, both comfortable. Edér was the first to break away, scraping his throat and smothering his pipe, stowing it away before standing up. If she didn't know him any better she would think he was at unease and flustered.

"Let's head inside, before Aloth and Durance start to wonder we've been kidnapped or worse. You know how the Elf gets." He held out his hand to her, his previous moment of unease completely gone and replaced by twinkling eyes.

"He would be the perfect mother," Maryden chuckled and grabbed his hand, hers obviously paler and smaller. She let him pull her up, his grip strong and warm, and though she was no small woman he did it with apparent ease. Edér laughed at the mental picture.

When she stood on her feet, their hands held on a second longer before letting go just in time before getting awkward. A part of her instantly missed it, but Maryden took no heed of it and gave the fighter a wink and a nudge with her elbow. "Come on, let's save them from each other."

Just in time, because in the moment they walked inside Brighthollow Aloth was spewing insults in an odd accent at a guffawing Durance who barely held himself upright with his staff. The wizard's cheeks were a flustered red and he stood there with his fists balled and legs apart, almost like he would pounce the priest. Kana was standing off to the side, shaking his head in disbelief but also sporting a guilty smile.

"Wow, wow-" Edér could not hide the tone of amusement in his voice. "What's going on?"

"Aloth and Durance had a –uh, little conflict," Kana carefully explained, but did not expose details. The furious Aloth seemed to diffuse and his blush of anger made way for one out of embarrassment. His posture stiffened in its normal confines.

Maryden shot Durance a look of badly contained mirth, figured it was typical men's humour; about women. "Really Durance, Aloth again? You have got to be more original." The priest glanced at her, his dark eyes twinkling daringly and his ugly pock-scarred cheeks almost containing a fluster.

"Like how you are enraptured by my staff?" The innuendo was quite obvious. Clearly Durance had picked up her occasional staring at his weapon of choice slash walking stick. She couldn't help it since the wood almost lit up her vision with strange engravings, especially after a fight.

Maryden could hear Aloth gasp and Kana sputtered out of surprise. Edér sniffled, containing a chuckle at the jibe. Maryden only laughed, her good mood not getting spoiled by a riling priest. "Yes, it was quite exquisite. I will dream of it fondly, sleep well," at the latter she addressed the rest of them.

Waving the men good bye, whom murmured a 'good night' and other variations back at her, Maryden ventured up the stairs. Her footfalls heavy, making the wood beneath her groan. Slowly her good mood dwindled until it was just simmering on the surface now that she was once again alone with her own thoughts and fears.

Maryden entered the room where her pack laid in front of, hoisting it inside and draping her brigandine armour over one of the few wooden chairs. She shoved her greatsword underneath the bed, close to her when needed and a knife below her pillow for easy reach. Caed Nua was still far from safe or occupied and bandits were still roaming the area around it.

The room was not that massive, but quite luxurious. Containing a few chairs, a vanity and a large bed that could just fit two people or one big Aumaua. Maryden noticed that it still smelled a bit musty and opened the window just a bit for some fresh air. The bed also had an odd smell, but it beat laying on the ground with just her bed roll between her body and a rock.

Silence settled on the world around as Maryden laid there. She was exhausted, slowly allowing her mind to lull her into a dreamless haze due to it. Thoughts about Maerwald, her future or the road ahead simply crushed by sheer tiredness.

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