#avvar!cassandra

As she was patrolling through the woods on her own initiative, she found tracks that looked Avvarian. While she normally would have passed them by and figured it to be a hunter or someone who would turn back so soon as they realized they were in Hakkon territory, something instead made her follow those footprints.

And that had led her to one of the most bizarre things she’d ever seen.

An Avvarian man hung upside down in one of the trees, drying blood across his body in various splotches, though there didn’t seem to be any cuts or bruises as a source.

When he saw her, he brightened instantly. “Hello! I don’t suppose I could get a bit of help, could I?”

She stared up at the man, unmoving, for several long, drawn out moments, wondering if she shouldn’t just spear him where he hung and leave him for the birds.

He seemed to read that in her expression, as his smile slipped and he pinched his brow together. His face was red from all the blood flowing the wrong way. “I…I’m here on my Gods’ behest. There was something wrong, and they wanted me to fix it.”

Cassandra cocked her head and crossed her arms. “What is wrong?”

“I…cannot quite say. They’re being rather finicky about it.”

“If your Gods brought you here, they had better make themselves known.”

No sooner had the words left her lips, then a single reddish light glinted into being, flitting anxiously around the man before fading away slowly. While it could have been an illusion created by the man—obviously a shaman—she felt that, when dealing with any Gods, it was good to err on the side of caution.

It took almost fifteen minutes to get that man down—how he’d managed to tangle himself so badly in tree branches was beyond her—but as soon as he hit the ground, she turned her back to him, disinterested in whatever his task might be.

“I…I don’t suppose you know this area, do you?”

As the hand landed on her shoulder, she gripped his wrist and flipped him up and over her, so that he landed on his back on the ground. “Do not presume to be so friendly.”

“Well, it’s just that you’re here, so clearly it’s for a reason.”

“The reason being that I followed a fool.” Cassandra waved him off. He was thin, for a man, almost as willowy as a lowlander. “Tell me, should you be making your Gods wait so?”

Despite her attempts to get him to go away, he insisted that he needed a guide, for his God was somehow as lost as he was.

“They’ve not been here since the trees were small things, and they don’t dare tread into the dreams guarded by other Gods.”

With a pronounced sigh, Cassandra turned back to him. While she’d considered simply skewering him, if she did that, it might anger his Gods—God, from the look of it—and she didn’t wish to be so disrespectful, even if it wasn’t one of hers. “If I help you find where you wish to go, you will leave me be?”

“I will.”

“And you will not change your mind or bother me further?”

“I will not.”

With a disgusted noise, she shook her head, unable to believe she would let herself do this. “Where is it you need to go?”

The shaman was named Galyan Ar Annette O Lionhold of the Red Lion Hold—he had no legend-mark, unsurprisingly—and he was looking for a waterfall.

When he first described it, she’d just about tossed him off the nearest cliff, but as he spoke, his God began to speak with him more and told him details that rang familiar to Cassandra.

With only a second’s hesitation, she led him through her home to the where he was seeking.

It took three days on foot, and the man chattered away the whole time. At first, Cassandra considered threatening him to shut up, yet something stayed her sharp tongue, and she let him ramble on. Despite his weak appearance, he seemed adequate enough at surviving in the mountains—even if he had gotten caught in a tree somehow.

“Tell me how you ended up so high in the air,” she said on the eve of the third day, figuring that if he was going to talk, it might as well be about something that would interest her—a lot of what he said interested her, not that she would admit it.

“Well. It’s a little embarrassing,” he admitted, glancing away from her as his cheeks flushed. For the first time, it was as though his words had dried up. After what felt like an eternity of prodding on her part, he finally winced. “I tried to float myself up above the trees to get a look around. It worked well enough, until it was time to come down.”

“So the blood was yours?”

“I’m a fairly apt healer,” he proclaimed, seemingly taking that as an excuse to change the subject. “Fortunate, that. I might have bled out before you found me, otherwise.”

…-…

They stood before the waterfall the next afternoon, and despite everything, Cassandra felt odd telling the man goodbye.

Even so, she’d held her end of the bargain and saw no reason to waste her time further. She was probably missed in her hold at this point, and she had a feeling that if anyone came looking for her, they’d take one look at the waif she was helping and drown him.

It was the end of an odd adventure, nothing more.

She’d barely made it a few yards down from the waterfall when she heard the sounds of something exploding and had, without thinking, whirled around and headed back to see what was going on.

There was a small cave behind the waterfall, and she found Galyan there, surrounded by ash wraiths.

Though she’d been bent on charging in, the man’s way with magic stopped her, and she was enraptured by how easily he moved and cast. While she hadn’t thought much of him before, she had to say that were she in a fight, she’d be confident with him at her back.

Even as she thought that, two of the wraiths slithered up behind him, and she snapped out of her awe.

With a yell that startled the wraiths and Galyan alike, she charged at the nearest one, distracting them from their original target and keeping them occupied while he healed her and helped pick off the monsters.

When two tried to overwhelm her at once, Galyan swung his staff into one, delaying it just long enough for Cassandra to off the first and then bash the second with her shield.

When the last of them fell, he grinned at her, pulling a small sphere from his bags and walking to the back of the cave. What looked to be little more than old rock proved to be an altar of some kind, and as he placed the sphere down, the entire room broke into wild light, countless Gods flitting about the ruins in jubilation.

Cassandra had never seen anything like it.

And then, just as quickly as it had happened, it was gone.

When she looked, the orb appeared as little more than added rubble, and she quietly marveled at whatever task she’d helped with.

Galyan trotted back over to her, a wide grin in place as he stopped in front of her, leaning forward a little to peer into her eyes. “You’re quite lovely when you fight, you know.”

At that, Cassandra let out a startled gasp. “You are…not serious.”

“Oh, very,” he assured her before sighing and letting his gaze wander wistfully toward the exit. “I suppose this is where we part ways, isn’t it?”

For the first time since Anthony’s death, she wanted someone to stay.

Foolish, that. After all, he wasn’t even from her clan.

But his smile had been one of the warmest things she’d seen in years, and she found herself oddly disappointed to part ways with him so suddenly.

He seemed to linger a moment, as well, before leaning forward and giving her a quick kiss on the cheek.

With that, he was gone. Back to wherever he came from. The Lion’s Hold.

…-…

Hakkon’s Keep was a whir with whispers as everyone talked of the fool who had come to request to steal a bride. It almost never happened here, as it was assumed that beatings would be considerably worse from Hakkonites than other clans, and yet…

And yet Cassandra couldn’t stop herself from heading to the village elders’ home, to see who the great fool could be.

Somehow, she knew.

Before she heard his voice, before she saw that head of brown hair, that willowy body, she knew.

Galyan Ar Annette O Lionhold of the Red Lion Hold.

His gaze happened toward her as she stopped in her tracks, just inside one of the entrances, and he smiled brightly and pointed right at her. “I’ve come for her.”

Silence reigned within the wood walls, no one sure what to make of his proclamation.

And then, with a heavy sigh, Cassandra knew what must be done. If she didn’t, then this man’s fate would hang over her forever, and oddly enough, that wasn’t something she could bear.

Striding forward, she rolled her eyes as he greeted her warmly and then shouldered him, looking to the elders as a disgusted noise caught in her throat. “Close your eyes. I’m being stolen.”