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@branded-one

♞ Brown skin glimmered with sweat in the candlelit cave, choked gasps and groans emerging from chapped lips. Grainy images flashed through Casca’s unconscious mind, the reminiscent smell of blood all too real as her body thrashed and twitched. She awoke screaming, when the memories became too.. vivid. 

Confused by her surroundings, she began to panic. Moist cave walls illuminated by nothing but wearing candles and slits of moonlight encompassed her vision, and she jumped to her feet in a haze. She fell and busted her knees immediately, wobbling back up to a standing position, she looked down at her legs. They were trembling, and it wasn’t due to fear or adrenaline. She wailed at the memory, blood caked ebony locks bouncing as she ran. 

“Casca?” 

A familiar voice called out to her, and she darted towards what she believed to be Rickert. “Rickert!!? Rickert, where are you?” her eyes stung with tears, could it be? Was he truly alive? Then, does that mean..?  Her heart soared with the hope that it was all a dream, that everyone was okay, that she’d be met with a smug and drunken Band of The Hawk next to a warm fire. 

Foolish. 

What she was met with instead was a hysterical Rickert, kneeling next to an unconscious and mummified Guts. Her heart fell again.

                            A journal entry from my muse.♋ - My muse writes about yours. Perhaps the first time they met, or an event that was particularly important to our muses’ relationship.

The dark skinned woman sat alone at a camp fire, scrawling away in her leather bound journal, kept together by knots. It was one of her most precious belongings, and as far as she knew- absolutely no one knew about it. If they did, they were smart enough to keep their damned mouths shut.

Being in a mercenary full of men, being the only woman was hard enough. There were some things she could vent to these men about, but there were other.. more private things that she could not. Not even Griffith knew of the things that lye in this journal. 

The date is unknown. The year is 1160,

Where does the time go? It has already been a three years that Captain Guts has been with us as an official member of The Band of The Hawk. I never thought I’d take a shining to this man. For in all of my days spent with him he’s been nothing but a nuisance, a blubbering fool who had only gotten in my way, and yet on this day I have seen him in a new light.

It was another encounter with Chuder’s men, their affiliation is lost to me due to me fainting. Gross. It hurts just to write it. Of course I was rescued by Guts, the band’s constant hero. I wasn’t aware of what had happened until I came to consciousness hours later in a cave, miles below where we’d just been fighting to victory.. I remember my first thought was wondering why I’d been wet. I can to find out later that I’d fallen over the edge of a cliff into a body of water, and Guts came barreling after me, and took care of me in my unconscious state.

I was furious when I woke. Why did it have to be him? Of all people, of course it was him. The one man I’d wish it not to be- even Corkus would have been preferable in my own mind. I yelled and shouted and threw things, but not had the strength to do much more. I cried to him afterward, and I explained to him the woes of being a woman. A man could never understand what it felt like to be out of place in an army of men. He would never know the pain of being a sword that did not fit inside of its sheath.

I expected him to mock me, or to laugh at me but he did neither of those things. He actually listened to me, and did not judge me for my weakness. I still don’t know why he did this for me. I don’t know why’d do any of it. I’ve been nothing but awful to him and he has done nothing but bleed for me. Why do anything for me at all?

It wasn't until today that I realized I cared for him. We were ambushed amidst our return back to the band, and he took on 100 men by himself, letting me flee to get help. I still remember what he said to me. I don’t think I’ll ever forget. 

“return to your sheath.”