“My wayward apprentice and his charge.” He clasps Hytham’s outstretched forearm and the grin that follows turns to something genuine that warms the black of his eyes.

Hytham looks to one of the Danes, a woman, tall and with hair the color of frosted straw. 

“Eivor, this is the healer we found on the road, the one I spoke to you about.”

She smirks and tosses her head with a chuckle, sending her war-braids spilling. “With the spark in your eye as you did? Yes, I remember the story.” She ignores Hytham’s spluttering and turns to you. “As Hytham has said, I am Eivor, of the Raven Clan. If you can mend scratches, you are welcome.”

“I can mend more than scratches,” you assure her, “But I hope it will not be needed. Thank you for allowing a stranger in your midst. It is a generous offer.”

Eivor nods, though her attention returns to Basim and the other Dane. The latter is an immense bull of a man. He has been quiet thus far, his face serious. Something about it bothers you the longer you look at it, until you are staring, and you are sure recognition is only a thought away.

Something in the eyes, the hair, the chin...

Warm breath on your cheek draws you from your thoughts. Hytham is near, very near, leaned over the distance between your horses.

“We will ride soon.” His eyes find yours. Blue, you decide. Today, they are blue and gilded like a king’s crown. You cannot look at them long, glancing downward to see his fingers flex. They hover in the air, as though he may reach for you. You wish he would. A steadying hand would do you good right now. You watch, disappointed, as that hand falls to his thigh.

What does he read on your face, you wonder? Fear? You certainly feel it, you have since rising this morning, and doubly so when you and Hytham had arrived at the camp.

You fear being recognized atop your stolen mare. 

But of the two dozen faces you count milling about, none belong to the Dane who had set you on this path. You don’t dare ask after him. As the others speak of plans, you remain silent, intent on looking disinterested, even as you listen.

Hytham’s promise holds true. Within the hour, you are riding. Basim guides his horse to the other side of yours, and you find yourself caught -- guarded -- by these pretend monks. It sets your jaw to grinding, even as you remind yourself to be grateful for their protection. The Danes stop watching you as the two men close ranks. Maybe it is the threat in their curved swords or the seriousness of their faces. Either way, no one bothers you.

Hytham, you understand. You have never made friends quickly, but the man is as close to one as you have. But Basim? He owes you nothing, no matter Hytham’s claims. When he watches you, it isn’t with a man’s interest, as you had first assumed. He seems curious. Like a cat watching a bird before deciding whether or not to crush it under a paw.

There is as much danger here as you would have found had you kept to the road alone.

The reins protest between your fingers and you realize that you are squeezing the leather tightly enough to color your knuckles. 

Wilting flowers do not survive as long as you have, but there is nowhere to run should you catch the wrong eye. You are eased when Basim informs you that most of the party will follow the large Dane tomorrow, parting from your smaller group that is bound for Ravensthorpe. 

Riding a little farther in companionable silence, Basim catches your eye. His face is free of the road-dust that cakes so many others, and he lets you have your moment’s study. The cracks and crannies reveal no secrets, however, and you eventually look away. 

“He is not here,” Basim whispers, “Do not look so worried.”

The words do not land as Basim perhaps hopes. There is no feeling behind them, and you are left frowning at the road ahead. That uncanny knowing will not settle -- something is amiss, and if it is not yet so, it will be.

Is this a mistake? Am I a fool? Not long ago, you would have called such a neatly presented gift as this one a trap. But the years you have spent in motion, never lingering until arriving at Fremedeleigh, are weighing on your shoulders. The frown settles into the lines of your face as you squint into the early autumn sun. 

But it shines brightly, and if it knows what lies ahead, it keeps those secrets to the heavens.

.

………….

.

Something is wrong.

Fitful dreams weave webs of a dangerous face full of teeth and hateful eyes. They stir you, until you are pulled from their depths by fear and the night’s encroaching cold. For a moment’s time, you do not open your eyes to the blackness. Instead, you listen. A fire crackles beyond the flaps of your tent, the sound warm enough to chase away some of the chill. Softer still, voices murmur in the rough tongue of the Dane’s. You hear no breathing from the opposite corner. The woman who had agreed to share her tent has yet to come to bed.

But despite the gentle sounds of a well-guarded camp, a tickling in your bones tells you that all is not as it seems. You have heard the quiet before, and you know the danger that comes with it. 

You open your eyes to darkness, unable to feign sleep any longer. 

And for the first time, the knowing fails you.

It has come too late and met a cannier foe. 

You see nothing, but you feel a weight sweep over your face as a heavy, callused hand cups your mouth and presses hard. Breath is driven out of you on a gasp, but the air meets the resistance of a palm and you are forced to swallow it back down. Cold, gripping fear balls in your chest, and you flail, striking at the body that settles above you.

Thighs press on either side of your middle, lifting only as your left arm is wrenched down and caught under one knee. You strike again with your free right arm, aiming high, clipping the intruder around the head. A voice hisses at you in the darkness, the sharp sound of sucking breath through teeth, and when you strike again, the hand that holds your face shifts to dig its nails into the skin of your cheeks and jaw.

“Found you, foxling,” says the voice. It’s sound is harsh even in a whisper, like the noise of a body dragged over rocks. 

‘Foxling’. You know at once who has you - the mad Dane. 

“Next time, find a hole farther from your hunter.” He titters softly, and through the darkness, you think you can make out the gleam of teeth. “Now, how shall I skin you?”

A sudden effort from you sends him forward, loosing his hand enough for you to sink your teeth into the meat of his palm. He tightens his grip, lifting your head in the span of his large hand, and then sends it cracking back against the ground. Sparks burst behind your eyes as, dimly, you register his weight shifting, moving to better subdue you.

He leans low over your ear, his breath hot at your neck. “I think I will kill you,” he hisses, “What our Raven-feeder doesn’t know won’t hurt her. Let’s start here --”

You don’t need to see it to know steel when it presses at your skin, the tip of a dagger digging into the flesh below your jaw. You squeeze shut your eyes, pressure mounting as you try again to throw him off. A rustle of fabric at the edge of your hearing stills you for a single beat of your heart, and you feel the Dane go rigid atop you.

A woman’s voice cracks out, “Oi, what’s this? Find your own tent for your business -- oh, it’s you, Ivarr. I didn’t realize.”

Light from the campfire spills past her, chasing away the shadows from the tent’s interior. For the first time, you can see Ivarr above you, his weathered face and neck flushed, his lank hair obscuring half his face and the snarl that forms on his lips. 

“Can you not see I am busy?” he growls, one hand still tight over your mouth, the other poised with a jagged little knife, the end of which you can just barely see.

The woman hesitates, glancing back over her shoulder. The sounds of campfire chatter have ceased, replaced by the noise of quick steps crunching over stone and dirt. Ivarr sighs, sitting back to rest on your knees. His weight is heavy -- you had learned as much during your struggle, and you know that you had been right in your brief observation that he is a larger man than his build and movements would have you believe on a glance. 

A second figure appears in the opening and a grin curls around Ivarr’s lips. “Ah, Wolf-Kissed! I found a --”

“Get off the woman, Ivarr.” Eivor steps forward and when she is near, the fingers of one hand curl in the back of Ivarr’s shirt. A moment later, he is lifted off of you, Eivor sending him stumbling back. 

Ivarr rights himself with fluid whirl, so smoothly you would think he had not just been tossed away like refuse in the wind. “She is a straggler, Eivor --”

“A survivor,” the woman snaps, “She has escaped you. What rock did you emerge from under, Ivarr? I thought you had returned to Shropshire.”

“I smelled a rat,” his cold blue eyes turn to you, “Had to come check the larder.”

You try not to let him see the shudder that runs through you as you pull your cloak around your shoulders. But he sees past the movement and smiles again. He is almost ugly, except for the moments when the light catches his eyes and the glint in them distracts you from the scars and deep angles. There is a depth in them that frightens you -- it dawns on you that those eyes are not those of a madman, as he first seemed, but rather a very singular personality, one that revels in the sort of violence that nearly left you cut from ear to ear.

A crowd gathers beyond the walls of the tent; you can hear their shuffling and their murmurs and see their shadows playing through the cracks. Two men push past, and a breath leaves you in relief as Basim appears with Hytham at his heels. Hytham’s worried gaze finds yours, dragging over your face to land at a spot near the left side of your jaw. He scowls at what he sees there and it is only then that notice the trickle of warmth running down your neck. Ivarr’s cut had been a nearer miss than you had realized. All over again, the rising, frozen fingers of fear grip you tight.

Basim gestures between the two glaring Danes. “I see our new friend yet lives. Perhaps we can move our arguments outside?”

“Piss off,” grunts Ivarr. He sweeps past Basim. “Unless you want to argue with the tip of that curved sword.”

“Entertaining as that would be, it would be a mistake.” Basim’s eyes shine with a look that would have most men stepping back, but Ivarr only waves a hand at the man.

He calls on his way out, “Somebody get me a drink! If I can’t kill horse thieves, I will drown myself in ale instead.”

At last, the tent is quiet, save for the quiet shuffling of feet. With Ivarr gone, Eivor turns to you. Her eyes run from your feet to your head, her lips quirking. She gestures to the wound left near your jaw. “Seems you’ve a scratch to mend already.” 

At that, she slips out, Basim following her. Only Hytham remains. He looks grim, as he so often does, his eyes on the ground near his feet. 

“Frown much harder and you will dig a hole,” you say, though the words are difficult to get past your lips.

“Good,” scoffs Hytham, “Someone can bury him in it.”

Harsh words, but hard to disagree with. The bite in them surprises a grin out of you. The fear and panic are fading, and you find yourself moving on steady feet to Hytham’s side. The press of your hand at his arm draws his eyes up to yours. He seems to at last catch himself, shaking his head. 

“I am glad Eivor was here,” he says with a gentleness you feel in your chest.

“You and Basim were not far behind her,” you remind him.

“Cutting a throat is a quick thing. If he meant to do it, I think we would not have been here in time.”

“If he meant to do it?” You raise a hand to your neck, fingers sliding over skin tacky with drying blood. 

“Even Ivarr knows better than to kill a woman in the middle of camp.”

“So he meant to frighten me then?” He had done a fine job of it. He had snatched up your life and held it between his hands on a whim.

Hytham shakes his head again. “I think he likes to play with his food.”

“Must we call me that?”

Hytham laughs, even as your stomach churns. “You are right. I am sorry. A poor image.” His cheer sobers quickly, his eyes settling on you once more, though the shine in them remains. When you had joined him at his side, you had placed yourself nearer to him than perhaps you should. He has somehow closed the distance further still without you noticing, the heat from his body warm across the small space. So close, you can see the freckles across his cheeks, remnants left from a time in a sunnier climate than England’s. He appears to be considering something.

“Here,” he says after seconds have passed, “Take this.” With one hand, he reaches for you, his palm soft over the back of your hand. With the other, he reaches around to his side and frees a small, sharp-looking knife from his belt. He presses it into your outstretched fingers. “In case Eivor is not around next time.”

“What of you?” The question leaves you without you meaning it to, and your cheeks heat mercilessly. Hytham’s gaze softens in the light.

“It is my knife. Think of me when you stab the man with it.” His fingers run over the back of your hand, so light it could almost be imagined, and you shiver at the touch. He pulls his hand away.

“That’s very cut-throat of you, Hytham.”

“You would be surprised how cut-throat I can be, healer.” At this, something passes over his expression, but it is gone before you can name it. “Now, get some rest.”

“Goodnight,” you tell him. He slips out of the tent, pausing before the flap can fall. He catches your eye, smiles once, and then is gone.

.

…………….

.

The next morning, your mare is already saddled when you find her. 

Ivarr sits atop her, grinning down at you as he braces against the saddle. The mare tosses her head, snorting when he pulls her reins tight. You frown as you watch his fingers wind their way through her silver mane, twirling the hair, taunting you. 

“You’ve taken good care of her,” he says when you come to a stop safely out of his reach. “So kind of you to return her to us.”

It is another cold day, cloudier than the one before it, but anger heats your face as you glare at him. But what can you say? She is not your horse. She belonged with the Danes to start with, not quite stolen, but it’s a near enough difference that you won’t argue it. One glance at him tells you that Ivarr knows this, as he knows that you are snared by your helplessness to protest. 

He nudges his heels into her sides. She comes to you, her velvet nostrils flaring as she noses your arm. As you reach to pet her, heat spreads behind your eyes, unreasonable and traitorous. She is a horse. Nothing more or less. Still, as you feel her warm breath on your palm, it feels as though Ivarr is taking something more from you.

And when you find the nerve to meet his eyes, you know that has been his intention from the start. 

He smiles, all teeth. 

“They say you are a healer. Or did they call you a witch?” He tilts his head - mocking you. “Dark seidr, that. So, tell me, witch, why is it that you did not heal all those people? What good are you if you cannot attach heads back onto shoulders?” His voice rings with the sing-song sound of a child’s rhyme. It echoes in your ears like bitter wind. He digs his heels into the mare’s sides once more, circling her around you. Her dark eye watches you as she passes, and somewhere in your heart, you think that the beast is sorry. Ivarr continues, his voice rising loud enough to turn heads. “Instead, you ran. Like a coward. Do you know what we do to cowards?”

The blood in your veins goes cold as you glare spitefully up at him. You want to spit at that grinning face, or claw at it, or sink Hytham’s knife into the socket of one of those eyes. Ivarr leans closer, craning down until his face is only a foot from yours. He studies your face and his eyes glimmer at the boiling wrath he must read there. He raises a hand, runs his thumb over his lip as though to taste the air as it sours between you. 

When you do not answer, he says, “We polish our blades with their innards.”

Coward. Witch. They are only names. But as they slither out from his lips, they sound like curses, echoing in the back of your mind. Hands clenching at your side, it takes all your effort not to reach up and drag him from his horse. He likely won’t fall for that trick twice. 

Instead, you raise your chin, and try not to think about how your insides feel as though they have turned to water. 

As levelly as you can, you reply, “You did not manage it the first time, nor the second. Do you want to know what they say about you? They call you ‘boneless’.” You peer up at him, unblinking. “I wonder if it is because you do not have the spine to back up your words.”

A boom of laughter fills the air, startling the mare and sending her prancing. He snatches her reins and pulls her back around to face you. 

“You,” he levels a finger at you, “you, I will skin cunt first. The Raven Clan and its strays will not protect you forever. Rest easy knowing that your fate is already sewn. You won’t be my finest kill, but I am a man who can find joy in the little things.”

He pulls at the mare, rounding her with a bellowing whinny, and leads her away. 

“Luck is not what I would call it,” you tell him. Cursed, more like, with just enough sense of foresight to survive all these years. It has never been a great enough gift to be useful, only one to plague you late at night. 

When you fall silent, your eyes turning again to what had been your home, Hytham edges his horse nearer. The heavy press of its chest against your leg warms you, reminding you that you are not alone. He says, “I will escort you.”

A kind offer. He is kind, though you don’t think he would appreciate being called such now. He watches you with worried eyes, his hands flexing over the reins. 

Appreciation warms your chest, but you force it away, steeling yourself, and you shake your head. “You should look for your friend and Basim. I see no roving Danes.”

He gives you a wry smile. “I was imagining more a loose timber falling on your head. But you are right. I should find Basim.” He thinks for a moment. “Return to this spot when you are done. We -- or, I -- will await you here.”

“I will.” The prospect quickens your heart. A new life so soon. “Good luck, Hytham.”

“And to you. Do not get eaten by Danes, healer.”

With that, he turns his horse and rides south to where he hopes the Danes have camped. You tie off the mare at the base of a nearby tree -- it wouldn’t do to be spotted with a Dane’s horse. 

It wouldn’t do to be spotted at all.

.

-----------------

.

Fremedeleigh might as well be gone. Few of the buildings stand. The air buzzes with the sound of flies and you must cover your nose to shield against the reek of rotting corpses whose names you once called.

When the guilt starts creeping, you tell yourself that it was always to be this way. Their day to join the earth had come, but yours… 

As you flit between the skeletons of buildings, you hope that today is not your day. Timbers creak in the wind, like whispers and following footsteps, and each time, your muscles tighten as you press a little closer to the shadows. The Danes will have moved on. But scavengers, both human and animal, can still be a danger. Your mind conjures an image of the rabid, blue-eyed raider emerging from any of these blackened doorways as you pass them by. Each time the specter returns, you force the thought away before nausea and fear can do more than turn your stomach.

Fate proves kind. Your home is burned, unfit to keep out wind and rain, but some -- only a few, in truth -- of your stores remain. The balms have melted, ruined, and your dried herbs have gone up like tinder. But the box in which you had kept your seeds for new plants and a few vials of oils, condensed a season past, have survived the flames. A few of your other belongings have managed, too.

The under-dress you stole away in is ruined to holes, and you change into the one dress you can find that has not been burned too badly to wear. Gratefully, you find your winter shoes intact. There is little else to carry. A cut-throat idea springs to mind as you are leaving, but though it slows your steps, you do not have the heart to follow it. You should scavenge the other homes, but the thought of robbing the neighbors you had left to death sours your mood. 

You leave as quickly as you came. 

.

----------------

.

Hytham comes with the nightfall. The man is quiet, but his horse has no right to be so, and both come as something of a shock as they appear from the thicket nearby. You stand from your place at the mare’s feet, patting her silver neck to soothe your nerves, and you try hard not to be bothered by Hytham’s grim look. The man, you are learning, makes a habit of stoicism that does not seem to come naturally to him.

A waning thought has you thinking of his smiles, but you brush it away.

Now, however, as those odd-colored eyes find yours, a cold prickling lances your belly. He climbs down from his horse and stretches, but the action does not seem to loosen his worries.

“We will rest here for the night and meet the others at dawn,” he says. 

“The others?” Your chest tightens. “Basim and your friend?”

Hytham looks away. He has already started pulling at his belts and straps. Such has been the way of your recent evenings.

“And the Ragnarssons.”  

Ivarr Ragnarsson. The name flits through your mind on a chill. He will kill you, if only to save his pride. You have seen men like him before, but none have been as lasting in their impression. 

“Then our roads divide after all,” you say quietly over a knot in your throat. Hytham does not look at you. A new home has been a close thing, but close things are not for you. You prefer sure ones, and risking your life does not bring those. You clear your throat and gesture to a spot of ground before you. “Sit. I won’t send you off with an aching body.”

In the dimming light, the shadows of Hytham’s face catch in a frown. All the same, he sits, shedding his upper garments while you start a small fire. As the wood burns to coals, you search your stores for anything that might ease his chronic aching. He has been good to you these last few days, as you have been good to him, and were these few oils not all you had, you would send him away with one or two of them.

You withdraw a few, these bled from peppermint and sage, and spill a little of both into your hands. You warm them between your palms. These are actions you know, and performing them, simple as they are, takes some of the weight from your chest. 

As you turn back to Hytham, you pause. The glow of flickering flame lights his skin, his eyes, and for the first time that you can remember, you think a man beautiful, rather than handsome. He sits with his arms around his knees, his gaze on the small, licking fire. He is a dream that does not belong in these cold hills. A dream that tomorrow you will force yourself to wake from. 

You ease over to him, forcing a smile. “You will smell like one of England’s elves when I am done with you.” 

The soft teasing of your voice only drives Hytham’s gaze away. He stretches wordlessly to the side, angling himself so that his back and the sore ribs that plague him are exposed to you. 

“This will help more than coals in a scarf,” you assure him.

Still, he says nothing, but with the first pass of your oil fingers over the taunt muscles of his back, you feel him tremble. The sigh he makes is silent, given away only as it mists in the chill air. 

“You are tense,” you whisper, running a knuckle between where his ribs meet his spine. 

“I am fine.”

“You are ridiculous. What was discussed with those friends of yours that has you so...so…” You frown as something in your chest keeps you from teasing him again. The lean, corded muscles of his back feel like wood under your hands, he is so tight, and though you work, nothing you do eases him. “Hytham?”

The sound of his name has him sighing, this one less pleasant than the last. He cranes around to look at you. He really is a fine man, you think, your eyes roving the slope of his nose and the pout of his -- no, you stop that thought.

Tomorrow he will be gone, and the short road to a new beginning with him. It does not bear thinking about. 

Hytham appears to be studying you as well. A knot carves between his brow and he glances away. You resume your work and this time, you notice that the muscles are not as tense as they had been before. He lets his head fall between his knees. 

It is a long while before he speaks. 

“You should not run so easily.” He lifts his head. “Your plan to go to Ravensthorpe should remain the same. Basim would not let the cur harm you.”

Your lips twitch. “Is Basim my stalwart protector now? I do not see him.” You lean near, around to his ear. “Is he hiding in the trees?”

Hytham’s eyes fall shut, long lashes splaying over his cheeks. Quickly, you lean away. You had not meant -- 

But then, maybe you had.

Hytham answers you after too many seconds. 

“He asked after you. He feels...ingratiated to you.” The word is ground out through clenched teeth. It occurs to you that Hytham does not care for the fact that anything having to do with himself should involve ingratiation on the part of another. Another pain, one of many.

“I soothed your aches,” you say through a smile, “And you kept the wolves from dragging me off.”

“It was a fox.”

“A wolf makes for a better story.” You pinch the meat of his side. 

And...he shudders. The feel of his prickling skin beneath your hands is not at all unpleasant. But it is something for dreams. Now, you must talk of reality. 

“Besides Basim,” continues Hytham when his breath has settled, “Eivor will not let any harm come to you. I spoke with her. She agrees Ravensthorpe could do with a healer, and her word is near-law.”

Eivor. This must be the unnamed friend he has mentioned. And a woman...oddly, this eases some of your hesitation.

“You sound keen on this?” You do not like the hope that wriggles into your voice at the question. Or maybe it is a statement. Because Hytham does sound keen on it. 

He turns to look over his shoulder again, more quickly this time. “I like Ravensthorpe. I am keen on its success.”

“You are keen,” you say with a grin, “Keen and fine. What else are you, Hytham?” You pull your hands away and let them rest in your lap. 

He is rosy-cheeked, that’s what he is.

“Tired,” he snaps, “and wishing you would get on with it.”

“Forgive a humble healer for her sins, priest.”

He makes a face. “Perhaps you should not come to Ravensthorpe, after all. There are too many jesters there as it is.”

“Make up your mind, Hytham. Shall I stay --”

Hytham glares at you, but there, again, is a telling twitch of his lips. A new home, perhaps, is not gone after all. Merely eclipsed by a brief fog that had rolled in from these moors. 

“Then you will not run?” asks Hytham when you at last turn away to gather up a few cooling coals into his sash.

“I suppose not. Though if Ivarr Ragnarsson swings for my head, I make no promises. Now, stop your fluttering, priest. This will be warm.”

But he does flutter.

‘Healer’ they call you, and it’s just as well. You left your name behind in a faraway place. 

You count a spring with them and then a summer. But just as the north-country snow melts, time changes all things.

One gray morning, when the mists are heavy over the moors, something besides the creeping cold wakes you. Wood creaks under a layer of furs as you sit up in your bed, rubbing sleep from your eyes and straining to hear again what drew you from sleep.

There is only yawning silence. It stretches past the walls of your house and over the hills. Beyond your walls, the wind is still, the farm animals not yet restless, and the corner fire is long dead past the comfort of crackling embers. 

No, you realize. It has not been noise that has awoken you.

A feeling swirls in your gut. That’s it. A pack-and-run instinct that you have trusted before. And just that simply, it occurs to you that life here is over. You can rebuild. But you must first survive.

‘Witch,’ they once called you. ‘Uncanny’ would be closer to the truth.

The floor is chilly beneath your bare feet as you slip from your bed. You grab nothing, not food, nor tincture. With a hand to the cord that holds the small draw-string pouch around your neck, you know you will have only a few pieces of silver. That, and your life, will be enough.

You have felt this feeling before. This knowing.

You take only your dark woolen cloak from the back of a chair and, wrapping it around your shoulders, you peek past the hung sail-cloth that serves as a door and out into the foggy blue of early morn. 

Quiet. Still. A calm before a storm.

Yes. You know this feeling. 

You melt from the shadows of your home, around the side and between the stables and granary. You know the families. Saxons on one side, Danes on the other. One has children. The other an elderly mother. She had been the first in this place to call you ‘healer’ when you eased the ache in her old bones. 

Silently, you move on swift steps until cold mud from the cart path gives way to tall grass that stings your feet. There, you crouch. You move a little further and listen for nothing. The further you go, the more guilt turns your stomach. So many are still asleep in their beds. You are their healer.

But you cannot save them. 

Near the edge of the field stands an ancient oak, out of place and far from its brethren in the forests to the east. It stands among the high grass, a field’s width from the village. You lower yourself against the gnarled base, settling down until all can see of the village are the plumes of smoke from the hearth fires drifting into the sky. Your feet are chilled to numbness, caked in mud and grit, but your hands shake too badly to massage the feeling back into them. 

Instead, you wait, and you exhale your breath between your knees so that it does not rise above the grass. 

And you do not flinch when the first of the battle cries pierce the air. You had known they were coming. Danes. Different from the peaceful breed settled here. 

Screams follow smoke, and then follows the wafting scent of blood and shit on the wind.

You had known.

You sink lower against the tree and in an awful moment, wish that you might freeze. When the wishing is unanswered, you try not to listen as the screams grow fewer and farther between. The terror of the butchered turns to gleeful cries from the invaders. How long has it taken? The sun has yet to clear the sky. Another sacking done in England. Danes killing Danes, killing Saxons, killing all. But not you. Not yet.

And then you hear it.

A sound separates itself from the victory din. It begins as a rustling through the grass, not soft as your steps had been, but moving quickly and toward you. A wayward Dane? A survivor?

Lie still, you demand of yourself as your muscles seize on instinct. You press yourself deeper into the dirt. A fool would run. A dead fool. Whatever comes, it cannot know you have hidden yourself here, tucked yourself away amid the roots and reeds.

A set of shoulders and a dark head above them glade over the tall grass. He is a Dane. You can smell the blood on him, see the gleam of it against the shaved side of his scalp. At his nearness, your heart pounds until it rattles your teeth, but you do not take your eyes from him. If he spots you, and only then, you will run. It will be the death of you.

But he cannot see you. Not here. But even as you think them, those thoughts sound like lies.

The Dane curses, and it is then that you hear the slosh of liquid against clay walls. His steps are burdened. Carrying something. He shakes the bulk in his arms and you hear the splatter of something wet over grass and smell the cloying scent of oil and pitch.

They mean to burn the fields.

And you with them.

Why harvest, when you can ransack? Why spare lives, when it is easier to take gold from a corpse? 

You are a healer, but you would kill them all if you could. 

The Dane moves off, his back to you now. His shoulders are slim, his body lightly armored. If you run, there is every likelihood this one will overtake you. But you cannot wait, not as you hear him call out in his rough language for fire. A torch. You will have to slip away or face certain death in this snare.

You shift, quiet as a hare in the underbrush, and begin to move eastward. Wet ground seeps into the thin fabric of the under-dress you had escaped in, but you ignore the spreading damp against your chest as you crawl. The sound of a horse’s braying and the noise of hooves through grass drives you forward. You know without looking that someone has brought the Dane his torch.

The crack of a mad laugh sets your teeth to grinding. The Dane shouts, “Let the ravens pick their fill through the smoke!” 

“Careful that you do not burn with the fields, Ivarr,” says another voice, too full of reason to earn anything other than ridicule.

The Dane laughs again and soon, the rush of fire catching fuel overtakes the sound of him. It spreads and crackles at your back, wind carrying the heat, carrying the flame. Toward you. 

You’ve no choice but to run now. 

You’re going to die after all. By fire or the swing of an axe, it doesn’t matter. Dead is dead. Perhaps, this is punishment for leaving the others unwarned. If that is so, you are cut by the bitter thought that the divine has been swift in retribution.

Heat licks at your calves sooner than you expect and you push to your feet. The forest is a league away, over crag and hill and the sludge of the moors. You will never outrun them. But perhaps the flame and smoke will hide you  -- 

“Aha! Look there! One last sheep left to gut!” The bark of the Dane drives the breath from you. “Give me your horse!”

“But Ivarr -- “

A snarl from the Dane is all you hear before the noise of your bare feet beating over grass drowns out the rest. The moors. You need only make it to the moors and then the muck and hollows will slow him. 

With a gasp of relief, you clear the field, legs burning and catching beneath a skirt heavy with mud. Another small hill lies ahead, this one rocky with moss-covered stones. You dart up the first slope, casting yourself over one rock just as you hear the thundering of hooves nearing. 

The Dane laughs, a hollow, delirious sound that you have heard before from madmen you could not cure. You glance back, your eyes drawn to the sheen of teeth. His is a gruesome smile, crooked and jagged like a jack o’ lantern on Samhain. Fear boils away the cold as you register just how near he is, and you spot a hand sweeping at you from the back of a dappled horse.

“Where will you go, foxling?” he jeers. “Run! Run faster! This is no chase!”

A protesting snort from the horse ruffles your hair as you near the top of the hill. The beast proves a blessing, and you throw yourself from its path just as the Dane reaches for you again. With curse, he flails at the air, and before he can turn his mount, you are struck with an idea. 

Instinct has always served you well and as it beckons, you listen. Leaping with a snarled cry, you catch hold of the Dane’s outstretched arm. Your weight and the momentum of the horse unseats him and for a moment, a very brief one, your eyes lock with his. They widen, surprise sparking behind the wild blue of them, and in the instant before he falls, you think you see a grin turn his lips. 

He strikes the ground with a thud, crying out as the horse’s hooves catch his legs. You leap over his body as it rolls, your fingers twisting into the mane of the horse. One bound and then another, and you find your purchase, swinging yourself up into the saddle. You look back over your shoulder, eyes narrowing in focus on the Dane as the horse rocks beneath you. He staggers to his feet, yards away now, and he laughs.

“Well done, little fox! Run, while I catch my breath!”

His laughs grow louder, wilder, and when you turn from him, you dare not look back again.

.

………………………………………

.

There might as well be snow. 

English nights are cold when spent in nothing but a damp shift and cloak. The horse, at least, makes good company. The village is three nights behind you now, three nights that you feel in your empty belly. On the first, you had not slept, fearing the mad Dane would appear from the shadows. The second had passed in the cradle of old ruins. The third, you had found an abandoned home.

Now, with morning blooming outside, you saddle the horse, a mare whose name you do not know. You had spent the night considering names for her, to replace whatever the Danes called her, if it had been anything at all, but in the end, you decided on nothing. You’ve little fondness for all the names given to you, so you will not do the same to her.

She is simply the mare, as anonymous as her rider.

A starving rider, you think grimly as you swing into the saddle, with your stomach growling to remind you that wild raspberries do not take the place of bread and mutton. 

“Will you share your grass?” you ask the mare as you lean forward to scratch between her ears. “You do not seem as starved as I.”

She snorts as though to say too late, and with a glance at the earth below, you see that she has eaten the greenery to nothing.

Muttering through a smile, you say, “Ah, payment for saving my hide. I understand.”

A half-day’s ride brings rain. You pull your cloak tighter around yourself and take solace in knowing bad weather means fewer travelers, and fewer travelers mean less likelihood of bandits. It is by that reasoning alone that you are surprised to see two figures crest the hilltop ahead. Both ride horses of their own and as they near, you cannot make out their faces for the sodden white hoods they wear.

Better unfriendly than dead, you adjust your own hood, and hunker lower over the saddle. You guide the mare off the path to make way for the riders. Monks? They look like men of the Cloth, perhaps on their way to one of the Saxon holdings. If so, they are riding into Dane territory. 

But that is their problem, not yours.

Your teeth grit as one slows his horse as they pass. 

“Traveler,” he says, his accent strange, as foreign as yours. “Is it this way to Fremdeleigh?”

Fremdeleigh is ash and ember now.

In your hesitation to speak, you cut your eyes upward beneath the edge of your hood. Looking at the man, a length of curling dark hair falls about a dark, trimmed beard. More than that, you cannot see. The other rider, slightly smaller, hunched as though the ride has pained him, turns his face away. Of him, you can see nothing.

The man is waiting, and should you hesitate longer, you risk more questions. “Fremdeleigh was that way, yes.”

The man is quiet for a stretch. 

“Was?” His voice...such a simple questions gives you chills. It is a dangerous voice, one that has you wishing for highwaymen rather than priests. If they are priests. The knives and daggers strapped about the men are not lost on you.

“Perhaps it is, if it still stands. Danes took it three days past.”

The men share a look, though you doubt they can see one another’s eyes. You make to move the mare forward.

“A moment,” says the man. “Do you come from Fremdeleigh?”

“Why do you ask this? What is left of it lies down this road. Brave the Danes, if you must go there.”

“Perhaps I make a habit of braving Danes?” Charm settles in the man’s voice too late. It does little soothe your wariness. “And I ask to know what sort of Danes they were.”

Needling man. You should not let his prying bother you, but Fremdeleigh is not so far behind you that the question’s answer is easy to face. 

“The wicked sort,” you reply, and at this, you think you catch a snort of agreement from the second man. “Now, safe travels to you both, strangers.” A rolling growl from your stomach accompanies your words, and you quickly turn your face away.

You have just set your heels into the mare’s sides when the first man calls out, “You’ve a hungry look about you. Perhaps you would trade answers for a meal?” 

Another dinnerless night feels more than you can stand. But a part of you would sooner starve than risk a camp alone with these men, who are perhaps not as godly as their robes would claim. 

The man seems to read your thoughts. Surely, he has figured you to be a woman by now. An easy target, if he wishes it. “We will not harm you, this we swear. We want only your time and to ask a few questions.”

“Men have done worse to women with smaller promises than that one,” you reply. 

The rain is coming harder now. The mare throws her head. If you do not get her beneath the shelter of trees, she may take herself. Your stomach growls again. The pain of emptiness is setting in. You consider your choices for a moment -- a hungry, endless ride through this weather or hooded men, armed to the teeth. Before the man can refute this -- indeed, it seems he’s rather reluctant to argue this at all -- you make up your mind. 

“Remove your hood,” you say, “I would know your eyes.”

The twitch of a smile appears beneath the beard. “As you wish.”

He raises his hand and pulls down the hood, revealing a head of thick, black hair to the elements. He is a foreigner, and farther from home than the Danes had been. His skin has the dark cast of men from the east, his eyes darker still. 

They are a killer’s eyes. You know it the moment they meet yours and a prickling begins at your neck. But this one is not rabid like the men from whom you had fled. He is a killer, but something tells you he hunts more dangerous prey than you.

“Very well,” you say when you can stand to hold his gaze no longer. “Answers for a meal.”

“You are no longer worried we will kill you?” he asks. You do not think he is as surprised as he feigns. 

“No,” you reply simply. 

The other man, smaller and quieter, shakes his head beneath his hood. This one thinks you stupid or mad, but he winces before he decides to protest, and just as silently, he settles over his saddle and looks away.

.

……………………..

.

The thick trees are shelter enough for the three of you. Several times, as you watch the men set about tying off their horses and building a small fire beneath an outcropping of rocks and a fallen log, you reconsider your foolishness. But when one of the men, the quiet one, retrieves bread from his satchel and places it before the fire, you are finally coaxed down from the mare.

“Here,” he says, handing you the bread and a helping of...dried fish, you realize as you unwrap the parcel. “It is fish.”

You know fish when you smell it. This one does think you stupid, after all. Perhaps he is right. But obvious though the words are, you are surprised to hear that his voice is softer than that of his compatriot. It is better suited to a poet than a man strapped to the teeth in blades. As he pulls away, you get a glimpse of his face, still hidden beneath the hood, and find it younger than the other man’s.

“A Dane’s meal,” you reply, glad your eyes are shielded by your own hood.

“A Dane’s meal is still a meal.” He turns away and sulks over to the far side of the fire. His movements are hitched, a hand going to his side as he lowers himself down. You see no blood on the white of his robes, so perhaps his is an old wound. The healer in you nearly as what ails him, but you hold your tongue and take a bite of bread.

The other man moves more quietly than you would like, crouching beside the fire, his eyes and expression hardly warmed by its flames. He tries to smile at you, but seems to know that will not earn him any faith, and after a moment, his expression slips back into something cold and unreadable. 

“I am Basim,” he says, “This is my...friend. You may call him Hytham, if you wish, though I cannot promise he will hear you over his groaning.”

“I am fine,” says the other man, but you know a lie when you hear it.

You swallow your mouthful. “Strange names to hear in England.”

“Strange times,” mutters Hytham. 

Basim’s eyes run from your feet -- still bare -- to your face, and you fight the urge to draw in on yourself. The urge passes as you realize there is nothing lecherous in the look; it is...appraising. It sees more than you care to reveal, and you make up your mind to eat quickly.

“You have the look of someone who is running. Can I assume it is from Danes?”

“You knew that when you offered this meal. What is it you really wish to know, Basim?”

His lips twitch again. Is it an uncontrolled tick, you wonder? A man like this strikes you as one who has very little outside his control, so perhaps the smiles, if that is what they can be called, are intended to put you at ease. 

“We are looking for our friend. We have news for her.”

Looking for a Dane.

You frown at the dried fish and cast a wary-eyed look at Hytham. “A Dane’s meal, after all. You should have just said so.”

“Would you have taken the first bite?” asks Hytham.

You make a face and it is then that you learn that Hytham does not hide his smiles so easily as Basim. You look back to the other man. “I saw little, I’m afraid. One Dane chased me. That is his horse.”

“You stole his horse?” Basim raises a brow. 

“He deserved worse. He was scarred. A bigger man than he looked. Another called him Ivarr. That is the only name I heard.”

“That is name enough,” says Basim. He sits back on his heels and gestures to you. “Please, eat.”

As you take another bite, you’ve half a mind to ask if they are friends of this Ivarr, but doing so will open the door to more questions and both these men seem the sort to prefer asking them. You have made it this far; you’ll not have your throat cut for nosiness. As you eat, the skies darken, until midday could be mistaken for night, and thunder rolls overhead.

Hytham’s voice draws your glance. You had thought the man dozing as the conversation waned, but he is awake, though his mouth is set in a bitter line. “That’ll be Thor, or so I’m told.”

“You should have stayed in Ravensthorpe,” Basim says, but his scolding is gentle. 

“I tire of four walls. I am fine.”

Liar.

He stretches out his legs, but the motion seems to pain him. He catches you looking. “It has been a long ride.”

“A long ride on an injury, even an old one, can do a man more harm than the change of scenery will do him good.” You shove the last bite of bread into your mouth and swallow. Hytham -- and Basim, too, you notice -- eyes you cautiously as you stand. Or you think he does. He tilts his head, hood slipping until you can see a little more of his cheek. You kneel beside him and ask, “What is bothering you?”

“Not an old injury,” says Basim, “but not a new one, either.”

“Let me look. It will be my thanks to you both for sharing your food, and it will pass time in this rain.”

“Are you a healer?” 

“I was. Before Fremdeleigh burned. I will be one again once I am settled.”

“I am fine.” Hytham’s jaw takes on the proud jutt of someone determined to let their pride outweigh their sense. At last, he has enough of the hood, and sweeps it back so that he can glare at you properly. You had been right. He is younger than Basim, perhaps younger than you, though the handsomeness of his features is weighed down by a pain you had only glimpsed beneath the hood. 

Despite Hytham’s potent scowl, you shake your head. “That’s the third time you have said so and each time, your whining gets louder.”

A rich crack of laughter from Basim startles you both. “Perhaps I should leave you to her and I shall ride to Fremdeleigh?”

“I should think he has learned this whining from someone,” you reply, and this quiets Basim. “Best you stay and hold him down. In case any bones need re-setting.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Hytham tells you quickly. 

“How would I know? You will not let me look.”

“I am -- “

“Fine! You are ‘fine!’” you snap. “Pass the time in pain, then. Have your raider friends look after you. Three days ride from now.”

This pales him. His eyes -- you could not name their color if you tried -- flick to Basim. “Three days? You said it was two.”

“I thought it was.” Basim holds out his hands, but somewhere in the dark of his eyes, you think he knows better. “A simple mistake.”

“You do not make mistakes,” grouses the younger man. He looks back to you. “Have a look if you wish. Or spare me the slow death and kill me now.”

You smile. “I can do either.”

“A healer and a horse-thief. Strange company to find on the road.” Basim stands, drawing his hood over his head. “Swear to me you will not kill Hytham...” He pauses, his eyes flicking to you, and you realize that he has neither asked your name, nor have you given it.

“You are leaving?” asks Hytham, voice rising above the patter of rain. “Leaving me with this stranger?”

“I am riding ahead. Something tells me I leave you in capable hands.”

“No,” protests Hytham. “I can ride.” He gets to his feet. You watch as he grits his teeth through whatever pain plagues him. He holds his ground, even as you stand to reach for him should that change. 

“Follow when you can. And you,” Basim looks to you, “If our paths do not cross again, go well. I would be careful returning to Fremdeleigh, were I you. If what I know of Ivarr is true, he will care less for his horse, and more about the woman who dared take it from him.”

Return to Fremdeleigh? The possibility had not occurred to you. Fremdeleigh is gone. 

Hytham’s protests cease as Basim reaches his horse, lifting himself into the saddle with a grace you’ve only seen in woodland creatures. He waves once and is soon vanished beneath the forest boughs. Hytham spins on his heel, brushing past you, and drops back down by the fire with less swiftness than which he had stood. You know the sight of a man wounded in more ways than one, and some wounds, even you cannot heal.

Instead, you set to business. “Off with this,” you say, tugging at his tunic. He scowls, but the fight has gone out of him. When the tunic is removed, bared skin is revealed to you. The man is, without doubt, not a priest. His chest and arms are wiry with muscle, a few faint scars marring the skin here and there. It is only a happenstance glance that you notice one of his fingers is missing, cut cleanly at the knuckle. 

“You move like a man with broken ribs,” you say, “How long ago did this happen?”

“Months.”

“And it still pains you so?”

“It is the cold.”

At this, you smile. “Foul stuff, the cold. Breeds barbarians.”

Hytham tries not to smile, but that, too, strains him. His friend’s departure -- if that is what Basim truly is to him -- has left him sullen, but he withstands your prodding well enough. Only when your hands run down his sides does he shy. 

“I am --”

“Do not say ‘fine.’” 

Instead, he says nothing.

His skin is warm to the touch, a good sign for the circulation, and you notice that your roving fingers leave gooseflesh in their wake. 

“The bones have set.” You sit back, drawing your feet under you. “Unless you would like me to break them again, this pain will revisit you. If I had my stores, I could make something to ease the burden, but those burned with Fremdeleigh. For now…” You cast your eyes about, at last coming to rest on the sash that had been removed with Hytham’s tunic. “Give me a moment.”

A moment turns into a few minutes. Hytham eyes you warily when you ask for his sash, but agrees, only to panic when you near the fire with the fabric in hand. He is quieted when he sees what you are doing. You wrap a few cooling coals in the material, testing their heat against your wrist, and returning to his side when you are finished. 

“Press this here,” you tell him, “It will soothe the ache.”

“For a time?”

“For a time.”

Bitterness clouds his expression, but it is short lived, disappearing with a nod. “Thank you, healer.”

Your fingers flex at the word. You had not thought to hear it again so soon. Last time, it had taken a year, maybe two, after you had lost everything to find yourself again. As Hytham’s eyes meet yours, you wonder if, perhaps, the Danes were not as thorough in their destruction as they had hoped.

Hytham’s eyes study your face; they are keener than you had given him credit for, and you feel them pulling at the edges of what you wish to hide. 

“What will you do?” he asks. “Could there be anything left of your home?”

“In Fremdeleigh? I doubt it. If I returned, I would likely only find Danes.”

“The Danes are not all so bad.” His smile is wry one, a little more honest than you would like. Either it or the fire has given a pretty flush to his cheeks. “You were unlucky to cross Ivarr. He is a menace.”

“You know him?”

“I know of him.”

“Will you go to Fremdeleigh? To find Basim?”

Hytham nods. “He is testing me. To see if I will return to Ravensthorpe, or follow him. I am good for more than reading scrolls and maps.”

“You look as though you are good in a fight.” You tap a finger to one scar that runs over his shoulder, paler than the rest of his skin. He glances away when you say this, like a maid who has been she is pretty. “It would be a risk to return there. Not when I’ve no promise that there is anything left to salvage.”

“A shame,” says Hytham with a smile, glancing at you, only to look away again. “All this bread and...fish,” his nose wrinkles, “is going with me.”

“Speak plainly, priest.” Your teasing is less pleasing to him than the idea of dried fish, and he waves you off with a flutter of a four-fingered hand. “If you’ve an idea, let’s hear it.”

“Return to Fremdeleigh. Recover your stores if you can. And if you can, come with us to Ravensthorpe. A healer is always welcome, especially one who is not empty-handed.”

“Healer?” You raise your brows with a laugh. “In Fremdeleigh, I am a horse-thief. What if this Ivarr recognizes me?” 

“He cannot recognize you if he does not see you.”

“Spoken like a man who watches the world from beneath a hood.”

Perhaps it is the firelight, but you think you see Hytham’s ears flush a deep red. “Do as you wish,” he says after a moment. “I ride when this rain stops.”

You untie him and the entire way back to Prosperity, neither of you speaks. Rush and the others tend their wounds as you walk on numb feet toward the showers. There’s a heat between your shoulder blades as the distance grows and you know he’s watching. He watches until you disappear.

You feel tired and dry-eyed, unable to cry as you pass the day alone. For the first time, the years you’ve spent with Rush make the hours you spend without him harder. Because he doesn’t understand you the way you understand him. You settle into the room Kim Rye has assigned to you and you close the door and turn off the lamp so that the space beneath the door shows dark to anyone who passes by; the moonlight shining in through the open window is enough for you to bandage your busted hands.

It’s well past dark, perhaps creeping into the early hours of the morning when a soft knock at your door draws your head from your pillow. You rarely sleep since the train incident, so it’s little inconvenience for you to pad across the cool wooden floor and pause to listen, your hand over the knob. It’s him - you know it with the same certainty with which you know your name. He’s come to question you why you came for him again and again, why you are so much like and so different from him when he hasn’t asked you to be, why you keep throwing yourself into the line of fire for him instead of with him. You have all those answers, but whether or not you give them to him tonight is a different matter.

Because, because, because, you’ll say instead, because you would for me.

The door knob is cool to the touch when you find the nerve to turn it, opening three inches of space so that you can half-meet Rush’s gaze in the dim light.

“Did I wake you?” he asks quietly.

You shake your head and step aside to let him in. Rush never hesitates, not with you, and he steps inside your room, asking without asking - that’s how the pair of you are, symbiotic. Until today, you remind yourself, until Rush had somehow stopped understanding.

“You look better,” you tell him, though you suspect the shadows are granting him no small amount of grace. His steps are heavy, slow and thudding as he goes to the patchwork chair in the corner and folds down onto it.

“Don’t quite feel it,” he shrugs and the ink-wings on his neck seem to flutter, “Not yet anyway.”

“You’ll get there, Rush, you always do -”

“Yeah, well maybe I wasn’t supposed to this time, Captain.”

The sharpness in his voice jars you, somehow like cold fingers across your face.

“ - did you ever think of that?” he asks. “Even once?”

It’s anger then, a bitterness that he can’t reconcile with the idea that you had surprised him. Rush’s hands flex over the arms of the chair. He wants to stand but he’s too tired and ends up sagging further into the cushions. His voice is softer when he speaks again, his face turned out toward the window.

“What would these people have done if we’d both died today?”

“Rush, I -”

But you don’t have this answer, not one you can tell him that he won’t be ashamed to hear. Because the truth is that these people are no different from any of the others these past years and none of the others have ever made a damn to you, not like they do to him. Their happiness, their lives, are a byproduct of the reason you fight.

“You’re angry with me,” you say instead, just so you can hear him admit it.

“You’re goddamn right I am.”

This time, the frustration overcomes bruised muscles and Rush gets to his feet, straining beneath borrowed clothes. He’s always the bellow to your flame, stoking the fire and fanning the heat, but tonight the sharp edges you had heard about from his youth are showing, gleaming in the moonlight with hard eyes and bared teeth.

“Stop,” he punctuates the words so that they bite, “being reckless, Captain.”

“Stop making me then!” you snap, returning fire with hands against his chest. Volatile like a star or a gas planet, you’ve never been able to temper your words like Rush can.

“I never asked -”

“You fucking didn’t have to!”

You shove without meaning to, that fire burning blue, but Rush takes the hit and holds his ground. His eyes narrow, so dark in the shadows that the blue looks inky black. Quieter now that his breath is on your cheeks, you say, “You’ll never have to.”

Whatever gives you away - maybe it’s your voice, maybe a tremble in your fingers you can’t stop - brings Rush’s mouth to a thin line, one turned down sharply at the corners. He doesn’t understand.

Right up until the moment he does.

His palm finds your arm, warm against the skin, and slides down, his fingers catching around your wrist. He says your name, not Captain, not Cap, but your name and you feel it in his chest as he repeats it. He’s inched closer, closed the distance, and his heartbeat runs away against yours.

You’ve never surrendered a fight. Since the bombs fell, you’ve fought until your bones were broken and you couldn’t get rid of the smell of blood. Even before Rush, you never let anyone know when you were beat. Why, then, your next words come so easy, you’ll never know.

Turning your hand in his grip, you catch his fingers.

“Rush...this is a bad world to love somebody in.”

The frown that knots his features hurts you; it cuts and each moment is salt in the wound. His free hand finds the back of your neck and there’s a weakness in his fingers you haven’t known before when he draws you closer to press his forehead to yours.

“Is that why you do it?” he asks. “Fight this fight?”

For me, he’s asking.

“I’m not playing hero,” you say, but you nod, and his lips part as your breath dances past.

It’s like standing in the sun too long - you’ll have burns where he’s touched soon enough. This isn’t him pulling you to your feet; he’s trying to keep you upright and the mutual effort of it charges the air.

When he kisses you, his lips opening yours, it’s a salve on open wounds. There’s a gentleness behind his tongue that you don’t expect from someone who burns as hotly as Rush does and when your mouth opens to him, you learn what surrender sounds like - it’s a groan from his belly, hungry and weak and tired, and it draws you closer to him. The hand on your wrist sets you free, traveling down to the small of your back where it presses and curves your body into his.

He’s hard against the front of your pants and you wonder how long he’d been that way. The way he swallows you, drinks in all you give him, tells you that it must have happened before. Rush pulls you into him and holds you there, the roughness of his beard leaving your jaw and throat raw as he kisses, tattooing you with words against your skin.

Like the sun, you think, or the bonfires from your youth, he’s warm and gentle against your face, and when he nips your ear and whispers your name, you press harder against him, until your name comes again, rougher, breaking like water over stone.

“It’s gotten harder,” Rush mutters, catching your face between his palms, “asking you to fix these problems.” He takes a breath and you swallow it down. “For years, it feels like, it’s been a damn trial every time I send you out.”

“I don’t mind,” your lips press against one palm, “I never have.”

Rush grins - you feel it, taste it.

“That’s the problem.”

He guides you back, your steps awkward until the backs of your thighs bump the bed, and then he’s pressing you down, bracing himself over you and leaving you to reach for him. But his hands chase yours away and snare in your hair as his lips find the column of your throat. You’ll have marks there come morning, but you’ll wear them proudly because they’re his. Above you, you feel his weight threaten to give and one hand comes to rest at the back of his head. It calms him, slows him, and when you draw him up, he finds your lips again. With a sigh and a shiver, he shifts himself off of you, towards the edge of the bed, and draws you into his chest.

“If I lose you to this fight...” his words taper off, lost in the darkness, the thought not worth finishing.

You smile and the world feels somehow lighter around you.

“Once upon a time, there were happy endings,” you say and his arm tightens around your shoulders.

“Didn’t anybody tell you?” He presses a kiss to the top of your head, sighing when your palm slides beneath his shirt to rest over his heart. “That’s what we’re doing here.”

Far Cry 5

Hope County Bird Watching Series:

Staci Pratt x f!Reader

Whitetail Dove, part one:

https://freshneverfrozen.tumblr.com/post/177214428353/whitetail-dove-part-one

Whitetail Dove, part two:

https://freshneverfrozen.tumblr.com/post/177325634043/whitetail-dove-part-two

Whitetail Dove, part three:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15748608/chapters/36907008#workskin

Sharky Boshaw x f!Deputy/f!Reader

Chickadee

https://freshneverfrozen.tumblr.com/post/177657220958/chickadee

Eli Palmer x f!Deputy/Reader

Mourning Dove:

https://freshneverfrozen.tumblr.com/post/177834271143/mourning-dove-the-first-moment

Jacob Seed x f!Deputy/Reader

Raptor

https://freshneverfrozen.tumblr.com/post/177699473948/raptor

Far Cry New Dawn

Thomas Rush x f!Captain/Reader

One Foot in the Fairytale:

https://freshneverfrozen.tumblr.com/post/182967660558/one-foot-in-the-fairytale-thomas-rush-x-reader

Roger Cadoret x f!Captain/Reader

WIP

Resident Evil

Leon Kennedy x Reader

Running Time:

https://freshneverfrozen.tumblr.com/post/182830690333/running-time?is_related_post=1

Better Judgment, Part One: 

https://freshneverfrozen.tumblr.com/post/182852887183/better-judgment-pt-1-leon-x-reader

Fallout 4

Arthur Maxson/f!OC/Danse:

Never Again Unto the Breach:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/5285624/chapters/12200774

Arthur Maxson:

Bête Noire

https://freshneverfrozen.tumblr.com/post/162644768068/b%C3%AAte-noire

William Black x Reader

Nuka Cola Dark:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/8319979/chapters/19054048

Original Interactive Fiction

The Porthecrawl Witness, Demo Chaps 1 - 3