...

"Still can't believe you got him to appear in Baldur's Gate. He always hated the place," she commented long after Gale's tale had come to an end. "After his one trip there, I thought he'd barred himself from any mission there again."

Nana's pointed ears pricked up at the statement of an adventure of Thomas' that she'd yet to hear. "Oo, now you have to tell."

"Now, Nana, surely Brienna here has places to be," Gale interjected.

"Don't worry about me," came the hasty reply. "I can talk like this until the rooster crows."

Much to the dismay of Gale, it would be at least another hour of hearing about someone he longed to forget, and then possibly a longer couple of hours of Nana's questions, giddiness, and then pondering over truths and lies. He wondered if it were at all possible to summon a nocturnal rooster of some variety.

"Thomas must've been twenty-six, twenty-seven," started Brienna. "Been a soldier for a few years by then. Got himself some impressive title and was finally allowed to start leaving Cormyr and the surrounding areas."

"In a similar manner, much to yourself then?" Gale interrupted as he saw the obvious signs of incoming swooning descend over Nana's features.

"Not exactly. He wasn't leading around a group of novices in full plate. He didn't exactly tell me what he was doing, though. We didn't talk much back then."

"Since your father's passing?"

Brienna's hand slipped over Nana's. "He was distant after that. Thomas would visit maybe once a year to see how the family business was doing. He'd ask about mother, but they would never meet. He was…"

A cold-blooded killer, Gale thought to himself, his expression schooled well after similar discussions with Nana. They'd already seen the birth of the brother's fall into darkness; it could not have taken much more than the death of a strict disciplinarian to bring down the inevitable plummet into the awaiting nine hells.

"But after his visit to Baldur's Gate, it was like my big brother was back."

"How so?"

Was it an act, a chance encounter that had somewhat eased the demon beneath? A million questions were on the tip of Gale's tongue, and suddenly he wasn't so willing to let Brienna slip away into the night.

He watched the subtle squeeze of Nana's hand, as the two women both gazed at each other in some form of unspoken understanding, the same glance Nana had given him so many moons ago, when he had believed himself the only monster in her life. She would give so much of herself if it meant seeing a smile reflected back at her.

"Thomas," Brienna breathed, "he was exhausted, slept for days."

"Slept?"

She laughed at the absurdity of Gale's question, as if he should've known something so obvious. "Thomas never slept. Ever. Even when we were children, he would lie awake late reading, or he would be up with the sunrise to train in the meadow. When he came back from the keep, he slept."

"Quite different to our Nana, then," Gale concluded.

Brienna's hand flew up in excitement at the mention of Nana's sleeping habits. "Does she still do that thing with the blanket?"

"What thing-"

"Every night," Gale responded, ignoring Nana's clear confusion. "Many a good morn have I woken to befuddled mumbling and an unrecognisable limb protruding from the covers."

Staring between the two of them sat Nana, black eyes widened in shock and mouth agape. "Gale!"

"I jest, my love."

"I don't do a thing…" she mumbled to herself. "Unless it's that thing with your toes and-"

"Anyway!" exclaimed Brienna. "Thomas slept. For days. In his bed. And most importantly, alone. He started to join me for breakfast, though he ate little. And Nana, he started to smile."

It was an odd silence that settled amongst the trio in the cosy nook of the library. Gale was trying to picture a smile on the face of one whose eyes had been of frozen steel. The image was equally as chilling. Nana's own excited grin had softened with a sadness Gale had not seen for some time, and Brienna remained with a clutched hand in her own.

"That was the last I saw of him," she commented quietly, her gaze falling. "As my brother, that is."

*** Darkness and sleep were all Thomas longed for as the cart rattled its way back down the dirt trails towards Arabel. As an Ornrion, he'd expected to travel in more style, possibly have his own horse on which he could command his troops. Typically, none of this had gone as anticipated.

His young age, combined with his abilities to survive and follow rules, had set him apart from the other recruits of his company. He had been given what the officials called 'special assignments'. Initially, there had been a murmur of excitement, but that had soon turned to the distaste of apathy when he had been ordered to escort a reagent from one town to another. His transfer had not been a promotion, but a way of keeping him busy. A way of preventing the superiors from being shown up.

Baldur's Gate had been one such 'mission'. He was to deliver a missive as if he were some glorified courier, serve it directly to the Grand Duke and bow as if he gave a fuck. He was to follow the orders of someone not even worthy of shining his boots.

A jagged stone caught the wooden wheel, lurching Thomas from an unexpected slumber, one haunted by the recent visit. Nightmares he was used to, some he even longed to continue as he refused to open his eyes to the glare of the morning light. But those of the city, of hollowed cavities watching him from the darkness, of a woman caressing scarlet sheets on a bed of stone, those he could not wait to be rid of.

If sleep was to come, it had to be from his own bed. Only there could he forget what had happened and find his way back to reality.

*** Nana remembered clearly Thomas' smile, the way his thin lip would curve on the left side, causing his jaw to sharpen. She's tried so many times to bring about one naturally in his form, to hear a carefree laugh erupt from his vocal cords, but each time his eyes would falter. She'd catch the loneliness peering through or find herself lingering on a minute detail of his skin. How long had the scar been on his chin? Had those eyes ever known true happiness?

To hear that Thomas had smiled with his sister was like a breath of fresh air to the conversation. It meant that for some short while he had been happy, his heart free of the pain that smothered. With the thought was a jagged fragment of hope, of days left behind that she could hold on to, even if it were under Gale's disapproving gaze, and for reasons she couldn't explain, she didn't want to let go of it.

"Did he ever say what had changed?" she asked tentatively.

"Never," Brienna replied. "He often swore of Baldur's Gate and the city folk from there, destroyed any letter that came from the place, no matter the insignia. He even spat on the boots of a lord that came to visit mother."

That sounded like more of the behaviour Nana was used to. "Useless cowards…" she mumbled under her breath, repeating words she had often heard on long, drawn out nights in Iriaebor.

"Hm?"

"Oh, nothing. He just… Thomas wasn't particularly friendly to anyone, really, when I got to know him. I mean, he was friendly to me, and to some others when they were of use to him, but otherwise, he…"

How could Nana explain the disdain Thomas had spoken of others with? He loathed anyone beneath him, whether it be in rank or class. Few had earned any praise from him in the time she had spent with him, and she certainly couldn't think of any compliments he had given unless they were related to martial skill.

Brienna, thankfully, saved Nana the trouble. "Militaristic?"

"That's certainly one way of putting it," Gale uttered into a fresh cup of tea.

Nana shot him a glare, one saying that it was poor manners to speak ill of the dead. "He was very logical."

"Not during the month after Baldur's Gate," Brienna retorted. "For one whole year, he made my mother proud."

***

"Another for my friend," purred the woman opposite him.

For hours the pale-faced beauty with a long braid of white hair and a glimmer of mischief in her emerald eyes had sat with Thomas in the dimly lit corner of the Elfsong tavern. At first, he had been sceptical. She had approached him, bought the first round of drinks, then rather than rushing into questions about his armour or accent, she'd simply stayed quiet, savouring the bitter taste of the alcohol and watching the rowdy patrons come and go with the vanishing sunlight.

It was possible she was a prostitute, but then she dressed quite well in a choice of deep red cotton and black leather. Her make-up was light and clearly not cheap. Her cheeks pinched rather than rouged. Her accent placed her in the centre of Baldur's Gate, most likely born and raised there, and the way she walked with her head held high meant she was above others instead of below.

"You never told me your name," Thomas found himself saying with a slur.

"You never asked," came her reply, her hand snaking its way under the table of the bar and resting on his thigh.

He could already feel the heat in his loins at her touch, the tension growing with each squeeze to muscle. How long had it been since he'd been touched in such a way by another person? Lydia had only yearned for him during her working days, going cold soon after they wed. Despite whispers in the barracks, Thomas had sworn himself away from those he served with. They were rife with disease, of both body and mind.

It had been far too long, he scowled as her palm travelled higher, seeking to stroke and tease.

"Why does a soldier sit alone on a night like this," she asked, sliding up closer beside him, "when he could be in the arms of another?"

Thomas did his best to shrug her away, but still her hand lingered, the scent of lilies clouding his senses. "None have been of my taste," he muttered, pressing his lips to the edge of the cool glass, his sights fixed straight ahead. Where had he smelt such perfume before? Why did it quell the whispers of a blood starved creature buried beneath his skin?

Again, came the taunting grip through the leather of his trousers, his breath catching before he could swallow the acrid concoction that awaited him.

"None," came an amused whisper, "until this evening."

Lilies. Nothing else occupied his mind until oranges and pinks lined the horizon in the far distance. There had been nothing but the sting of her fingernails pressed into his back, the loose fall of white locks over his chest as she'd collapsed in satisfied glory towards his chest. Nothing remained with him but the whisper of her name on his lips. "Helena."

***

Brienna continued to describe the mundane yet almost exotic day-to-day activities that Thomas had carried out after his return. Sleeping, eating, even attending an organised dinner that had been set up by their mother. Though he was now older, there were still available women in the town. Some would even prefer a man once divorced, she'd explained. He had taken it all in his stride, nodding and agreeing just as his father had once done, and with it, Brienna had sat back bemused at who this stranger was in their household.

"And I went and asked him," she laughed, releasing Nana's grip and raising her hands up to imitate the conversation. "I said, Thomas, or whoever you are, what do you think you're doing?"

Despite the armour in the corner of the room, the subject of their conversation, Gale couldn't help but chuckle at how animated she had become. To think that a soldier of such upbringing could turn out so relatively unscathed; it almost felt surreal to him.

"And do you want to know he said?" Brienna continued, not waiting for an answer, "He said he was being the man he'd been born to be."

Slouching back into the chair, Nana frowned. "That…sounds dull."

"It was," Brienna confirmed, her tone becoming sharper as her irritation seeped through. "Every day was the same routine. He woke, collected the mail, breakfast, training. We would talk together over dinner and after mother had retired for the night, but it didn't seem to matter what I did, he would never tell me what brought him home."

***

Another off-white envelope curled and shrivelled under the heat of the fireplace's flames. The black ink of feminine lettering sizzled into wisps of smoke. The small lump of curled red hair burnt up before Thomas could work out if it was from a man or woman. This had been the fourth in as many days, and it seemed they were becoming more frequent with each he ignored. It would only be a matter of time before hair would become a fingertip, would become a severed head in a leaky cardboard box.

He had continued to tell Brienna that the mail was nothing but a ridiculous prank being played by the fresh batch of soldiers in the barracks. "They'd done this before." "Boys will be boys." But each time he had told another white lie, he'd heard the nails on chalkboard cackle of the true culprit.

Thomas had promised he would never leave, that he would stay by her side until the very end, but the moment he had been asked to obey, to bend the knee, he couldn't do it. What type of man was he if he were to-