Harken

To live a long life beside friends…

It was the sort of peaceful goal that felt right at home coming from Eliwood, and it was one he dearly wished to become true -- whether he was there to see it or not.

"If that is what you wish, my lord, then you will have all of me," Harken responds regardless, intent on clinging to whatever redemption he may yet earn by properly returning to House Pherae's service. He owed much to Lord Elbert and Pherae as a whole, and if he could return even a fraction of what he'd been gifted by renewing his oaths to Elbert's son, he would do so without hesitation. Even if it took everything he had left, even if he was never fully redeemed of his failures, he would lay it all down in House Pherae's honor.

His eyes do flick up at that statement, tentative contact as he shifts his weight.

"I…shall try, my lord. I have much to atone for, and I cannot do that if I die now." Not yet. Only after sufficient punishment or redemption has been achieved. Why else would he still be alive to have this conversation now? "Of course. Whatever questions you have, I will answer as best I am able. Fodlan is…certainly different from Elibe. It would be my honor -- though, I am sure one of the locals would be better suited to properly learning of the area, if that is your desire, Lord Eliwood."

Such kindness was often a balm on festering wounds, but it could so easily twist like a knife with no malice in a creature such as himself.

"I am sorry and-- and truly regretful to have caused your Lady mother -- and you, all of you -- to worry over me."

With the beast’s focus being on Harken, Ashe took the opening the knight created to draw another arrow, looking for an opening to shut down both of its wings. But with it moving so erratically, finding a clean shot was difficult.

To make matters worse it seemed to have become wise to Harken’s attempt to distract it, its unnerving eyes locking on to the boy that had injured its wing. Despite being grounded it could still rush forward with surprising speed, and like it tried to do with the knight before, the beast plunged its beak towards where Ashe was standing.

Just barely, the archer was able to roll out of the way, narrowly avoiding a grievous injury. But the sheer impact of the beast hitting the ground caused a tremor. As a result Ashe lost his balance, falling to the ground painfully.

Amongst those stuck far too close to the rampaging beast was Ashe, and as the creature reared back once more, Harken knew he only had so much time to act.

"Covering fire, now!" he shouted to the handful of archers that had been able to make it clear, sword slotting back into its sheath as he pushes himself forward into a run. They didn't need to hit anything vital on the beast, they just needed to buy their comrades some time. Most had been able to recover, get to their feet and make a mad dash away from the bird -- the boy could not so easily, caught in its raging focus.

It was a desperate maneuver fueled by pure reaction, no thought to the next steps to come afterward.

Harken makes a dive just as the shrieking beast lunges, getting arms around Ashe enough to pull him into the rough tumble they take away from the attack. It isn't enough to fully get them out of range of the giant beak, and with his shield pinned beneath them, Harken can't even try to put up a defense--

Dark blood splatters from above them, the horrendous cry of pain from the beast unbearably loud from their close proximity. The creature's attack miraculously misses them -- though the jagged edges of its beak slam into the ground far too close for comfort -- the cause of its last minute slip becoming clear in the arrow now embedded into one of its eyes.

There's no chance to breathe in any relief, the wounded creature beginning to blindly claw at the ground with its wicked talons.

The blond laughed, warm and light. “Quite the combination of jobs, is it not? I am able to defend this place and its citizens, as well as offer teaching to those who are unable to attend the Academy above ground. There are many within the Abyss who wish for it, you know. Me and Sonya- we both possess the same duty: to guard this place, as well as to offer some instruction akin to teachers. My prowess in magic is abysmal, so I am quite thankful for Sonya’s presence.” His tone was in good mood, a slight shake of his head to try to reassure Harken once more that there was no trouble.

“If you know someone from the Abyss, then you need not to worry. As long as we can attribute a face and name to all who know of this place and its citizens, it is fine.” Curiosity couldn’t help but bubble regardless, particularly at how this Harken even got to meet Sonya in the first place. “I have no idea if she wants space or not, but I give you my permission to come there as much as you like. As long as you do cover up your tracks, of course.” He offered a playful wink. 

Still, as Harken went on about punishment with such intensity, worry was quick to blanket the professor’s features. An armored hand slipped through blond locks, pushing back whatever stray hairs stuck out- though the gesture was less for adjusting his appearance and more as a means to give himself a small pause. To think.

He thought back to all those years ago, of blurry faces and mildly muffled voices chastising him for saying things out of pure impulse. That a proper leader should always stop and think- and for the longest time Lambert knew he had been only considering said advice for the means of the battlefield and other administrative tasks. But in regards to dealing with another person? In a non-official manner? He had always been a bit rough around the edges in that regard. Stop and think before you scare the poor guy off- or put some weird idea in his head.

The conclusion of his reflection came through a soft sigh. “And pray tell, what horrid things have you done to be so fervently deserving of punishment?” His voice was soft, much more careful than before- almost fatherly. “Because throughout my life, I have met a number of people. Both good and bad, and by now I am confident that I know what someone with a truly rotten core looks and acts like. It was part of my job, you know. To be able to spot those and quickly deal with them before they are able to cause any trouble.” Arms crossed before an armored chest, his weight shifting from one leg to the other.

“You look like a good, but startled man to me. I see not a drop of evil within you. So what is it?”

Why she had been the only one to join him at the end in the mirror, he might understand a little better now. If this place was so secret, if the people that lived here could not -- for whatever reason -- extend those lives to the monastery above, did that not reflect the way she had failed or refused to meld into either side?

"Yes...Yes, her gifts with magic were most impressive. Had she not been there with me...events would have transpired quite differently," Harken agreed, stopping himself short of looking back toward the pathway down into the depths they'd just come from.

That being said, if she was down there right now, it was safe to say she wasn't looking to speak at the moment. If she desired it, she had but to find him. He would not intrude on whatever time she needed.

He tries to return some of the warmth Lambert was putting out, but his expression falls short of anything but wavering.

"I've no intentions of disrupting the lives of any in the...abyss? Is that what they really call it?" Apt a name as it was, it...didn't feel like the best one to live with. "But, should I return here in the future, I will ensure that I am careful about my coming and going, my lord."

“You look like a good, but startled man to me. I see not a drop of evil within you. So what is it?”

How was it that so many could meet his misery with such kindness, time and again? That could always change. All he had to do was open his chest and let it all spill out his mouth, and surely he would be met with cruelty again at some point. And yet.

And yet...

"The sword and shield are the tools of a knight," Harken began, knowing that a man like Lambert would know, would understand, "And, similarly, knights can be the tools of their lords. Tools are neither good nor evil, until they are in the hands of someone who is one or the other."

The blade was righteous in the hand of a king. Cruel in the grasp of a raider.

Was it not covered in blood regardless?

"What should be used to keep the peace of the people you serve can just as easily be turned against them. Who do they turn to, then, when those swords and shields brutalize them for coin that their lord knows they do not have? When those swords and shields turn inward on each other like a pack of starving dogs? When those swords draw blood more for entertainment than any sort of nobility. When those shields fail--"

He cuts off abruptly, gaze faraway and expression slack. A breath, two. Three. Brown eyes blink back into the here and now.

The burdens of expectation weigh heavy even now in another world.

Eventually Harken says something to surprise Leif though. Umber eyes grow wide moments before he asks,  “There were others?!”  It comes out louder than anything he's said thus far, spoken faster than he can even think. A nightingale from farther off sings his song, and those notes reminds Leif where he is— a setting not just for the two of them.

But even as he comes back into himself, his shock is still vivid across his face, training forgotten as he continues on.  “I'm sure... everyone in that battlefield died that didn't come from the Church. If there was anyone who escaped with us... I don't know if I've seen them.”

He supposes perhaps the Church might have hidden them, though for reasons he wouldn't be able to comprehend and perhaps might never as just a mere agent entrusted to help carry out the mission.

Some had seemed to relish in their new freedom of the mirror, but not all had been joyous in their cries. The young lord did not need to know of this, however.

"...I am sorry," he voices, with a bit more conviction than he had been speaking in up until now. "From our world or not, born of union or thought, they were still someone unique unto themselves. I did not...allow myself to engage with them as the people they were, and it is by my hand that they are no more -- nor was I there to witness the entire scale of the choice made, the battle you fought side by side with them in."

He doesn't know the extent of how well Leif came to know those in Haven, but regardless, watching them die all at the same time was hardly the sort of thing one just...walked away from.

That Harken knew all too well.

The truth is, Sanaki concocts all sorts of ideas all the time. Outlandish plans shaded in varying degrees of jest and irony, driven by frustration, mischief, or boredom. Perhaps she had become so accustomed to Sigrun's sighs of surely you don't mean that, Sanaki, or Tanith's bullet-point reasons why it would be an unnecessary risk, Empress, that for Harken to simply concur and pledge support, it's---

It's nice. (Dangerous, still, that kind of trust. A responsibility she's still not sure she's worthy of.)

She nods back, pleased as pie. "If it spares us the trouble of fighting even one more, it will have been worth it." All animals innately fear fire, after all. "My flames can't hurt me," she continues, focusing on the charge building up between her palms. "As long as you stay close, they won't catch you, either."

The fireball blasts a smoldering gap into the hedge, then the one behind that, then the one behind that. Sanaki wastes no time---grabs the swordsman by the wrist, for whatever good that will do---and starts running.

However, be it these cursed dogs or trained soldiers, Harken would carry out his duty here to the death.

He pauses, briefly, to stare at her brazen confidence.

Her magic could not hurt her? As if it had a mind of its own, and bowed utterly to her as its master? Or that she was so in control, or possessing of some mantel of protection that he was hitherto completely unaware of in regards to magic and spell-casters. Hardly an expert, but he had done quite a lot of watching and digging back...back in Bern.

Harken nods his understanding. "Then I shall stay close enough to not hinder your movements."

Because when the fire catches and everything begins to burn, their getting anything of use out of this endeavor will all come down to how quickly they can locate the evidence they need. The fire Sanaki unleashes is much the same as the one that had incinerated the skull of the dog that had dared to close jaws around her, and it blazes through thick foliage as if there was nothing in its way but clear and open air.

Proximity showcases the extreme heat as they dash off in its wake, the yips and howls of the dogs somewhere in the ash and smoke nearby. And if the howls of those dogs turn to something else in his ears, something far too human; the smell of burning things like rot and decay in his nose as they run through fire--

Until they reach what would have been a nondescript dead end in the maze, cut through by the fire to reveal more maze beyond it. It should have been nothing. It was not positioned anywhere of import -- not the direct center of the labyrinth, nor anywhere near an area that could be designated as the "end". It was off-center, closer to the street rather than nearer to the private land of the estate.

And as they begin to pass through the blazing corridor of greenery, his boot catches on something -- and then there is no longer ground beneath his feet.

A trapdoor. A passageway. Hidden beneath the green of the maze in an unsuspecting area, and they were now falling into the dark of it, fire blazing above and beasts howling like demons at the final gate.

It’s a fragile thing—shattered in an instant with a single swing of an axe.

His hand is already curled around the hilt of his own weapon when he springs past his attacker. The blade of his dagger glides against the man’s cuirass while he ducks beneath his arms—a glancing blow at best, but the icy enchantment on the blade means that he doesn’t need to penetrate the plate every time he strikes.

With a scant few seconds to breathe, his mind races to catch up. He watches his attacker’s shoulders tug at the handle of his axe with considerable strength—it’s not safe to turn his back and flee, not when that blade could be freed at any moment. The man’s a Pheraen, based on the name of his lord. Angry, obviously, at a man Legault himself hated nearly as much. He exhales a clouded breath.

“That man took many lives,” Legault says coolly, unwillingly call him master in life nor in death. “And his own is long over. Killing me won’t cause him any more pain, you know.”

If the sizable gash taken out of the tree is any indication, then reasoning his way out of this doesn’t seem likely. His eyes dart upward once more, just for a moment, but he has no time to search the skies. The moment that the Pherean moves, he needs to be ready to act.

It’s better this way, perhaps. To know little about who you work with. Perhaps your heart does not bleed as much when battle begins — you do not worry, overmuch, what will become of whoever is on the end of whatever weapon when you can barely recall the sound of their name over the rushing of your own blood in your ears.

… Or perhaps that is just a lie she tells herself, because when Harken (see? she remembers) slinks out of sight for a moment and then shouts noises that sound similar to Black Fang, she tastes blood in her throat.

The blood of her Wing, dipped and bleeding and begging for her help, for her lance, for her to—

Huxley slices through the air like his wings are swords themselves, and her own weapon is leveled, ready to attack the enemy. Her mind whirls as the wind flies through aquamarine hair, racing as her heart does. She’d thought the Black Fang had been eradicated along with Nergal’s life force, that they were safe from them, now, but Fódlan was a strange and mysterious place. All sorts of people from all sorts of places appeared, and perhaps, just perhaps, Harken had really found someone from the Black Fang, here, in the flesh, still drawing breath, still working through dishonorable, nefarious deeds, still besmirching the name of the 5th Wing, still dragging the bodies of her Wingmates through mud—

Fiora 12/12HP hits Legault 10/10HP with Armorslayer [Roll: 11+2 = 13; -1.5 HP, Legault 8.5/10HP]

It isn’t until her sword meets shoulder blade and she hears a quip with a rasp like smoke that the white around the edges of her vision relents enough for her to realize what happened.

“… Legault?”

Legault 8.5/10HP counterattacks and misses Fiora 12/12HP with Snow Stiletto [Roll: 7-6=1; -0HP, Fiora 12/12HP]

He swings at her, with no power in his weapon — something like a kitten playing without its claws extended. It’s easy to dodge, because he made it that way. He did not wish to hurt her.

Oh. It’s this Black Fang. The one that she, too, had once hated with a fiery rage, but has long since turned to a trusted companion. Legault, who she hadn’t been aware was tailing them, but could have guessed, because Heath was at her shoulder.

“… Harken!” She pulls the reigns on Huxley, and he, too, turns, long feathery wings blocking Legault’s willowy body from harm. “Stay your hand! This man has long abandoned the Black Fang.”

May, of course, being the operative word. Nothing can ever be that simple, it seems.

The third knight in their group, Harken, is a serious-looking fellow, his accent and armor both so Lycian it is hard to dismiss it as a coincidence. He makes little conversation, which Heath does not mind, but there's just something about him he can't shake. Perhaps he should have kept a closer eye on him, as he suddenly lunges forward, his axe burying itself in a nearby tree as he yells something about the Black Fang and the death of Lord Elbert.

"Hold, Harken! Fiora!" Heath knows immediately the identity of the man Harken seeks revenge on, before he catches sight of that striking flash of lavender. Damnation, Legault. It's Heath's own fault for not catching on earlier. "He's no threat!"

Fiora attacks before she can recognize her target, but her blow thankfully glances off his shoulder. She turns to confront Harken, to explain the circumstance, and while Heath truly hopes the man will see reason, that look of fury in his eyes does not bode well.

"Legault!" Heath alights near his friend, joining Fiora in their defensive positioning. He'll be damned if he lets him die here, after everything they've been through. "You should've...! Ugh. Nevermind."

There will be time to scold him later. For now, it seems they may be facing down an enraged knight, unless he and Fiora do really well really fast at placating him. Neither has a silver tongue, and the man who does is the target of this murderous rage. It doesn't look great!

"Harken, stand down. Fiora is right. I fought alongside Legault during the war, and I have come to know his character is a true one." Heath tries regardless, though his hand remains at his lance. A threat from Elibe, bent on wiping out survivors of the Black Fang...though it does not take the form he feared most, it's finally arrived. "Would you spill the blood of a repentant man, and a man under protection of the Church we serve now at that?"

Of course, the Fang would make sure to have a weapon that could inflict harm no matter the odds.

"And we are well rid of him," Harken spat, tight and harsh, the crack of wood interrupting his words as he pulls his axe free, "But it was those of your company that allowed him such a foothold, gave him the opportunities that stole so many lives--"

There is a powerful rush of wind as his two companions take note of the skirmish and swoop down from on high.

The pegasus knight strikes a blow, but abruptly comes up short once she sees the man in full. The wyvern rider does even less, seeming to immediately take to the defense of this scoundrel -- much to the knight's bafflement and outrage.

"Abandoned the Fang...," he echoes, rolls the words in his mouth and the notion in his head like something foreign and undesired. "That is not how they operate. Death is the only way out for their kind, yet he stands here now; breathing, walking, living a life stolen from others! Have you not lost comrades to his connections? You are a knight of Ilia, are you not? Or was the boasting I heard around tables and firelight of white Ilian feathers bloodied across the shores of the Isle naught but fabrication?"

Why did she stand at his defense? Why did she trust him?

The dragon rider he was less surprised by, though it was no less a betrayal.

"The ties of homeland stay strong, I see. I thought you a knight, a man of some level of honor, but cold blood runs thick in Bern's mountains. You think a man can run away from his sins? That he can simply put them down when they become too heavy?"

He's ranting, not loud but edges jagged and everything in him primed to snap. Pacing -- not out of anxiety but violent intent searching out any weakness it could take. If they fought, if they ran. He would pursue, he would finally do what he had set out to do in those mountains, even if it was but a fraction of the blood owed.

"Repentant? Repenting would be accepting the righteous punishments awaiting him for his deeds, not hiding in shadows to prolong his own existence. He would confess his sins to the church, and he would take hold the guiding hand of Elimine as his retribution was given to him!"

If he had to force his way through them to get to that man, Harken would do so without hesitation. There is the creak of leather from his gloves as his grip on the haft of his axe adjusts, tightens.

"Step aside."

In an ever moving board, pieces must sacrifice and be sacrificed. He knowns not the name of the ginger haired man who's victory he hoped for, only that the maneuver of before results in the healer being left open such that Fafnir can't stop himself from licking his lips. "At another time," he begins as he dips low, target as frigid as the color of his eyes within his sights. "I'd like to see what more you can do. Healing ill suits you."

The tip of his lance rides against the grass of the field and slashes upward against the man who he finds himself much too intrigued by. Had he his seidjarn, it would finish him so soundly, but all he can do is turn and kick at the man's chest, hoping the result is him going and staying down.

"Yes! This is a battlefield is it not?! Yell till your hearts content! You are a warrior are you not?!" His eyes return to the mage and he hopes she knows, the moment she stepped onto this field, she would be hit just as hard as the rest. The fire of battle truly burns now, the stakes well ingrained on both ends now.

He cannot move, and he cannot bring his voice to speak out either. His world is suddenly dulled down to something muffled and unbreakable.

Until the world outside his icy prison is just as abruptly shattered, Fafnir's expertly aimed blow sending Harken skidding through the dirt and grass along his back. Quick as the entire combination of attacks was, it leaves him slightly confused to be staring up at the sky now. Attempting to get up results in several injuries making themselves known, and the knight is forced to settle in his defeat.

"Ah...I am sorry I couldn't have provided more support," he apologizes blearily to his two comrades, before his gaze drifts to their foes -- now equally down a man. "Your teamwork is exceptional, my lords..."

Regardless, the field is his to command. From where she had graced him with her presence, the pommels of each lance are hooked together and he turns shifting to the side and away from her. Eyes preceded by an arctic chill look to his left then right. The man to his left has taken the brunt of the injuries yet slowed little.

"Your continued participation relies on how fast you decide to be. Have a few hits slowed you down or are you not yet ready to give in?" It's the best substitute for encouragement he has for a man he knows nothing of. He's familiar to an opponent at least, perhaps best then to get her out of the way of her.

And then there is him. The man in the springs. Never had he expected to see him, but he supposes with the skills he maintains, of course he would have interest in such things. Fáfnir thinks and thinks for two perhaps three seconds. Nothing, there isn't much to say to him. So he settles. "Never did I expect to meet you here."

Then to his opponent. his grin grows larger and he stands straight, his lance held out at his side. "You are aware who it is that's always targeted first in a convoy, no?"

Taunting the opposing side's healer felt unnecessary, though all the same, Sephiran doesn't waver from his original target.

"Be careful, everyone- don't overexert yourself. It wouldn't do to have permanent injuries from a mock battle, after all." A gaze cast, meaningfully, toward the medical tents. Normally, he would be working there. "But I digress."

"Ah, and I apologize, Harken. But I cannot have you patching up their wounds just yet…" Another short cast of light magic, and he is as good as new.

Harken pivots, both attention and body, away from Sephiran in order to fling his axe in Raven's direction. It was a solid hit, but as his limbs begin to shake, he knows it came at the cost of leaving himself open to another bite of Nosferatu.

Both Sephiran and the lancer make a mention of his position as a healer in this fight, and he must confess, he has never been on this side of the struggle.

"...I believe I am being made well aware of it, my lord," Harken coughs, throat dry, as he wearily keeps an eye on their shifting line of enemies. Both sides have taken some damage, so things hadn't tipped in anyone's favor just yet...but they may be reaching that point soon of the tides spilling in favor of one side over the other.