#p04

At nearing footsteps, she breaks from her reverie and finally looks away from the great statue of Rhalgr. Her eyes feel strange for having spent so long staring up at Him. "... Ashelia," she says as she realises who it is, and gets to her feet respectfully. She looks more at peace than she did the last time Ashelia saw her; fuller in the cheeks and not quite so sinewy in the arms, though she's still alert and somewhat tense. "... Thank you for coming," she says, and she even sounds rested. "... I like what you've done with your hair."

Ashelia runs a hand through her hair a little awkwardly; she still isn't used to having short hair and isn't entirely fond of the style she's managed, but she appreciates the compliment from one of the very few people who saw her with her hair bleached.

"It's good to be back," she replies. She notes the changes that have come over Orella and knows that the same is true of her; Edge has said as much.

"Have you... been back long?" It's clear that whatever is on Orella's mind, she's hesitant to bring it to the fore. Small talk has never been her speciality, and certainly not when there are other things that demand her attention. An invitation, for example.

"Not very long, no." She glances around, looking somewhat impatient. Or perhaps just antsy. She, much like her father, no longer knows what to do with herself now that Ala Mhigo is free. "It's good to see you again, but if you don't mind my asking... why the Reach?"

At that, Orella shrugs, though she can't quite quash a tiny smile. "Ingvald and I are not the only palace guards here," she says, careful not to mention royalty too loudly. "Berend. A... Well, a jackass," she says with a shrug, "But a friend, too. We haven't quite decided what we're doing yet." She hesitates, looks past Ashelia. "It's... close to the Peaks. I-" And she takes a breath, careful to hold herself still, not to let anything spill over. "I think I mentioned some time back of an- of someone I- I'd like to introduce you to," she manages. "If you're up for a journey, that is." 

Ashe accepts the information about Berend and tries to file it away for her future reference. At the mention of a journey, however, her eyes light up. "Yes, of course. I've nowhere else to be for the remainder of the day."

Orella snorts at the look Ashelia gets - still just a kid, she thinks - and turns to pick up her sword, swinging it easily onto her back. She's had practise enough, by now. "I've been travelling with Helisent," she says over her shoulder as she leads the way, "So you'll have to forgive my chattering. I've gotten used to being a teacher again, it seems, and it's on the way past old history..."

Orella doesn't recognise the guardsman on gate duty as she leads Ashelia through the easternmost gate, but she nods at him all the same. Berend has taught her a few faces and a few names, whenever they spend time together - which is rare in itself, as the Resistance keeps him working hard despite the capital's liberation.

The tunnel leads them to the long-ruined remains of the Emprise temple, and the silence they share is comfortable, continues being so even as they march onward. There is much and more ground to cover, and the pace has been slower and easier with Helisent, having no particular destination in mind.

Still, Ashe asks questions here and there, and Orella offers what answers she has of the monks, of the land, of the rubble and ruins, though the closer they get to the Wash, the clearer the Watchtower has become in the distance. All she can offer is a simple, "That used to be Ingvald's village," and it does nothing to clear the storm that Ashelia's moue has become.

Ashe has been up this way before, but it's good to be back. She smiles at the purple flowers, thinking of the ones Edge and A'zaela picked for her. She stares up at Imperatoris, at the cannon that is no longer functional. Even now, it fills her with a feeling of rage, perhaps foolishly. "A shame," she murmurs in regards to Ingvald's village, but she says little more on that topic. 

What little conversation there had been dies off as the triple peaks stare down at them, both of them still feeling the Empire's eyes heavy upon their backs as they turn northeast of the river, and eventually come upon the incline that leads them to their destination.

Orella scowls at the beasts blocking the mountain path. "Suuds," she explains. "Shites, the lot of them. They didn't use to be so prolific, but I suppose with everything... Well. There's a waterfall ahead, can you see it?"

"I... yes, I can,” Ashe murmurs.

Orella nods. "Get moving. I'll take their attention and meet you there." With that, she draws her sword and stalks off into the main road. It seems a well-practised motion now, and she's thankful for the way the weight finally feels comfortable to her.

Ashelia makes to draw her gun, then thinks better of it; she would much rather leave Orella to her own plans, no matter what they are. She has only ever heard of this place, but those from the Peaks speak of it with reverence: Hidden Tear, a place where people went to mourn, before the Empire banned it for its religious significance. 

Orella's rolling her shoulders when she walks up the steps, surprisingly at ease. The sight of other Suuds in the area darkens her face,  however, and as she reaches Ashelia's side, she's muttering. "Assholes didn't even bother to send out patrols to clear the roads. Well," she says, a little louder, and turns her back on the tree, sits on the brickwork with one leg swung carelessly over the other. "Here we are. You heard of this place before?"

"I have," she replies. She wonders if it might be worth sending out some of her own people to clear the area, but her thoughts are drawn to Orella's movement, and she sits down beside the woman gladly.

With the clouds becoming evermore pervasive, even Specula Imperatoris is not quite so commanding, and without their gaze focused quite so strongly on the land below, Orella finds it a little easier to speak, though she can't look at Ashelia.

"I haven't been here since my grandparents passed," she says softly. "Never had the time, or couldn't get away, or- Well, you know the rest," she adds, and then pauses, thinking. Considering.

"My little brother," she starts, softer than before, "Should be buried here.”

At that, Ashe averts her gaze. "A peaceful place for anyone, I should think." Still, she notes the words "should be" - and if this is Orella's first time coming here in so long, then what of her brother? She leaves these questions unasked.

"...Thank you for bringing me."

Orella snorts. "Not if you believe the legends. Old women wailing something dreadful behind the falls. He'd have hated it," she continues. "He was a hellion. Always too loud, too excitable. Made me play swords with him whenever mother and father brought him to the capital." From the way she's talking, it's clear there's no venom in any of this. "I always wondered what he'd be like, grown up. He'd be..." and she has to really think about it, "Gods. Not even thirty."

"Around my age, then," Ashe says. Something catches in her voice. She's aware of the stone beneath her, of the spray from the falls, of the damnable towers in the near distance.

Orella just nods, watching the Suuds lumber in the distance, remembering this place the way it used to be, clear and cared for. She realises she knows little of Ashelia, in that moment - not how old she is, nor what her favourite foods are, not what her plans for the future are. The silence between them stretches out forever as she ponders all this, as she remembers those selfsame details about her brother.

And then, so quiet she might not have moved her lips at all: "I killed him."

The gasp that leaves Ashe is quiet, stifled; she doesn't know how to react or what to say, but she feels the grief in those three words. It was the last thing she was expecting, and maybe that is what prompts her eyes to fill with tears. She looks down at the earth to keep them from Orella.

"He should be here," Orella says eventually, lips numb. "Should be, but I don't know what happened to his body. It was- he left home to join the Resistance, back when it didn't even have a name. Stupid boy," she mutters, and runs a hand through her hair. "I don't know how the Garleans found them, but it was my unit sent to deal with them. He was- it had to be me," she says, and her fist balls up within her hair tightly. "I had to. I couldn't let them take him, or- do it badly. I- I had to. Quick. Clean. It was- it was dark, and he fought back- they all did. I kept my helmet on. He didn't deserve to know it was me."

"I'm so sorry," Ashe whispers. Her heart aches for her friend, another reminder that the Empire's cruelties will never truly be washed away with liberation, or with bloodshed, or perhaps even with time. "We'll remember him here. Or at the... the mausoleum in the Lochs. Or both." The words sound so desperate - futile - even to her.

"Why bother?" the words escape Orella before she can stop herself, but she finds she doesn't want to take them back. "He's long dead, he doesn't care for stones or thoughts or-" she cuts herself off, lets her hand fall from her hair once again. "Commemorate him and you'll have to do the same for every person that fell since Theodoric took the throne. You'd be doing that for a long, long time, for people who don't know who you are or what you're doing. I carry him with me, and when I die, that'll be it. As it should be." She takes another deep breath. "I suppose I wanted to... indulge. You remind me of him, sometimes, is all." 

"Thank you." The words are soft; for all Orella spoke of how brash and foolish and loud the boy was, she can only take the comparison as a compliment. But there's some other thought on her mind, and when she voices it, she's angry. Not with Orella or herself, but with something well beyond any one person. "Kugane was... I wanted to love it in the same way Edge does. But I'd look to the district where all the foreign embassies were located, and I'd see them there. The Empire. Still sneering at you, able to say and do what they like because they can get away with it." She has to take a deep breath to redivert her frustration. "Why shouldn't we commemorate them all? Theodoric, perhaps I'm in no position to speak for, but... gods, it's been only a moon and it's like the world is already eager to forget it. All of it."

For the first time, Orella wonders what Berend thinks of it all, how he'd earned his place in the Resistance, still taking care of his wife's lance, and resolves to ask him. They'd not been so dissimilar, once, but perhaps time has changed him as it has her. "Some of us," she reminds Ashelia softly, "Want to forget. Not that we can, but..." and she shakes her head, helpless in the face of this. "What would you do?" she asks instead.

"I don't know," Ashe admits. "I..." She has to stop for this next part, truly think on it. "I don't want revenge. To repay their cruelty. But neither is it enough for us to simply pretend that we should move on from it all. The Empire is no different or better for our victory, and we do all the world a disservice by setting aside that fact."

Orella finds she cannot quite disagree with that, but neither can she fully agree. She wants someone to be accountable, and the crown prince- the mad king- every one of them who could have been held accountable is dead. "I don't know what I want," she murmurs. "And I've spent a long time thinking about it. There's one or two heads I'd yet like to crack, to hold accountable- but as for the rest? Nescio. And I don't think I ever will."

She recognizes the Garlean word like a punch to the gut - something from her father's subconscious. "We'll have time, I suppose." The words are bitter as they leave her. "And in the end, it isn't any of us who will decide which histories are told."

"I suppose not." she's never thought about the far-off future like this before, but there are things worth living for, now. It's still novel, to her. Hesitantly at first, Orella raises a hand, lifts it to Ashelia's head, and musses the hair. A familiar gesture. A well-practised move all siblings know. "You've done good work, Ashelia. Never doubt that."

Ashe gives a little bit of a start at the contact but smiles nonetheless; a breathy little giggle even escapes her. "...It's good to hear," she admits, and she means it. "I can only hope-" She doesn't know quite how to finish her thought in a tactful manner. Hope I've lived up to what your order was meant to represent, perhaps.

"...Thank you for taking me here," she finishes.

And the faces of the people truly are tired. There are no smiles, no conversations held at stalls, nothing to imply the citizens live freely or happily.

Nothing has changed since Theodoric's day. The thought makes Orella furious and helpless all at once, as though by her hand has the city been so quashed for twenty years, as though by her hand has she shaped Ala Mhigo to the still-standing ruin it is today.

Ingvald has no words of solace for her. And why should he? He was but a boy when the palace fell, had done nothing but learn at her hand, had done nothing to enforce this misery on the people. All he can do is be a silent comfort and guide them towards the safehouse they both remember.

It had been an old hideout of the Kingsguard, for when the Palace closed its doors to its patrolmen. Long since has it been torn down by the men and women that watched them use it, and the ruins left to be cursed by those that remember, but amidst the broken stone the secret passage still functions. A trapdoor leads to the palace's waterways, a narrow passage too dark and tight for comfort, but necessity knows no comfort. Judging by the dust that covers the hidden passage, the Imperials do not even know of its existence.

"We'll rest here," Ingvald says. Whether he means the passage itself or the street bothers Orella none; she is to steal away during the night like so many of her kinsmen had done the night of Ala Mhigo's fall, and rue the next day when exhaustion takes her. "I can go," he offers, but Orella shakes her head.

"If I fall, I know you will keep the peace as best you can," she says, and tries not to think of Ingvald, standing alone against the city, with nothing but rags on his back and a flimsy sword in his hand, "But I could not- I couldn't-"

She can't finish her thought, but she suspects Ingvald understands. She'd failed him once. She couldn't do it again.

Instead he presses his forehead against hers and they stand amidst the ruins of their old lives in silence. She does her best to banish the thought of Ingvald, alone, the cells, the chopping block and prays hard enough for her heart to ache that Rhalgr can look after him in her stead.

She kisses him hard enough to hurt, pulls a cap over her hair, and leaves the Quarter once again. This time, there is no resistance. The Imperials, after all, have no cause to suspect anyone leaving.

The path to the monastery is long enough that she finds herself wishing idly that Rhalgr had compassion enough to look over her as well. The night is dark, the path to the High Bank lit by lightning sprite cores, and all manner of beasts are attracted to the lights. All are vicious in their own way, else they would not have learned to live in the Lochs. Ever has it been, and ever shall it be. Gyr Abania is a harsh, unforgiving land, where even the smallest of insects can raise angry weals upon the skin.

The quick movements of a dhara force her to abandon even the dusty path that runs parallel to the main road. With the sun below the horizon, she must needs move slowly. The trail to the monastery has long since been reclaimed by nature, and she has not trodden this path for years. She will not bely her ignorance with a sprained ankle.

Weeds hide the stepping stones that lead up the hill to the great building, still impressive after all this time, and a knot of abaddons plod to and fro, grazing on what vegetation remains them. Unarmed, Orella can only crouch in the shadows and curse under her breath, hoping they do not see her.

Luck, at least, is on her side in that regard. So long does she remain hidden that she loses track of time, but her knees ache when the wind picks up and blows some new scent past the beasts. As one, they all turn and lumber away, leaving the path free, and Orella sprints as never before, legs screaming for succor the entire way. Not for a single moment does she stop to check if she has been spotted by either man or beast.

When she turns, the path is still clear, the frogs' attentions elsewhere, and she thinks--

if You have forsaken Ingvald to make sure I reach the Sali--

but she cannot finish the threat. If Rhalgr has decided she is worthy of His watchful gaze, so be it. The mantle is not hers to wear, but she can bear it for a hundred heartbeats.

When the monastery had yet stood unperverted, Orella had visited it only a handful of times. It had not been for religion that she had come to the Lochs in the first place, and what favours the Twelve had bestowed upon her paled in the face of her own determination. Only the priests, the Fist, and the aesthetics had made their way to the Sali, a quarter day's journey from the city and hidden by the Aenadem. The first time Orella had come here had been to swear her oath to the crown - her true oath, away from the crowds and the heady feeling of showing off - under the watchful gaze of one of the Fist.

As had Berend. As had Ingvald. As had all the others before them, and before them.

Now rise, Ser Steelhand, some dark part of her mind whispers, and do your duty.

She expects someone waiting for her the moment she steps through the doors, but the building is empty. The passage leading back to the Undercity has long since been destroyed, and the egress leads further away from the city; she fully expects the abaddon's nest to await her in the back, but the night is quiet and free of beast and man. The moonlight shines through the hole where the ceiling used to be, and she thinks-

what if Ashley has forgotten?

The Sali's beauty has been stripped from it, the tiling destroyed or missing, the stained glass long since looted, and all at once it becomes a stifling space to occupy. She must leave, look over the far mountains instead, remember how to breathe. The night is clear, the moon strong enough for her to see fog rising from the Wreath, and in a moment of respect, she removes her cap. It does not feel right to hide herself here. At her back is her past, her regrets. Ahead of her are jagged peaks, and an ocean. Ilsabard. The Emperor.

Lamont.

"I am homesick for the mountains," calls a voice, so close that Orella startles and stifles a curse. So lost in her thoughts has she been that she's forgotten all but the moon and the land. "My heroic mother hills, and the longing that is on me?"

The question hangs on the air, familiar in a way Orella cannot quite place. Old poetry, she knows, but knows not - cares not - who penned them. Nor does she remember how it carries on. There are more important things in her life than pretty words. Her eyes remain affixed on the horizon, though she listens hard for footsteps, or for the drawing of steel. In another life, she would have drawn without hesitation, for friend or foe. In another life she would have heard someone approach.

In another life she would not be afeared for her life, weary to the bone and heartsick of misery.

"Oh, come now," her company sighs. A man with a voice suited to poems, soft and silky, warped only slightly by an unfamiliar accent. "You Ala Mhigans are all the same. No taste for poetry, any of you. The longing on me, no solace ever stills. Does that not bestir your heart? Surrounded by mountains, and not homesick?" A pause in which Orella cannot help but roll her eyes, and then he continues. "I presume you came for the view. 'Twould be a crying shame if any Imperial were to happen upon a young maid sneaking out to worship the Destroyer."

Something about his manner infuriates her in a way she hasn't been irritated in a long time. "What I'm doing out here is none of your business," she snaps. "What know you of the forests?"

"Oh, little and less," is the airy response, and she must swallow a curse.  If this is not who Ashley has sent, she must prepare to fight. Spurred on by anxiety, the blood pulses loudly in her ears, and she nearly misses his next words. "I care not for the stifling nature of trees. Not when the eastern spray is carried so far from home."

Orella's blood, racing as though she's run a malm, stutters as her heart skips a beat. The only spray she's never known came from the east and disappeared four nights before Theodoric's suicide, as ephemeral as the Seld's waves on a windy day. She'd thought it a stupid name back in the day, a hint to her brother-in-arm's proclivities and nothing more, but ever has she been short-sighted.

"Besides," her companion says, tone still casual, "East End has changed."

That is what she has been waiting for, and she can turn, relieved that Ashley has not forsaken her despite his absence, barely daring to hope, barely able to breathe-

and meets the eyes of a man she hasn't seen in twenty years.

"Well, shit," Einar says lightly. Orella chokes a laugh, short and stunted with emotion. As one, they move to embrace one another tightly. Twenty years it might have been, but comrades are they still. "I had my suspicions, but I wasn't sure if it was really you. Shit," he says again, and ruffles her hair before letting her go.

Thank You, she thinks desperately, even as she smacks his waist gently. Wherever Rhalgr's gaze is, His mercy is welcome.

"What in the seven hells are you doing back here?" Einar asks as she smooths her hair away from her face. "Last I heard, you'd run to Gridania. You should have stayed there, Orella, it's not safe here. The Resistance thinks they're making headway, but Garlemald is still-"

"No," she interrupts. Einar's eyebrows raise and he folds his arms; she mirrors the movement, and all at once they are at odds with one another. In another life she would not be so quick to butt heads with all she knows. "We're taking Ala Mhigo back."

Einar stares, expression enviably blank. He waits for further explanation, and when he gets none, makes a frustrated noise. "You're out of your fucking mind. Take back the city? Why? Just because the Garleans have the run of it-"

Once more, Orella interrupts, hands balled into fists already. "Have you not seen what the Resistance has done? They're all the way to Ala fucking Ghiri, and the march on the city comes in less than a sennight, whether you want it to happen or not. Have you given up? You? You, who marched every ilm of Aldenard, who sailed the Ruby Sea, who called this place home? You've changed, Einar," she spits, and takes a full step back from him, furious.

Einar scowls, but stays where he is. "And you have not," he comments. "Bullheaded as ever, charging towards whatever cockheaded conclusion you've drawn up. You accuse me of giving up-"

"Because you have!"

Now he steps forward, looking less angry and more thunderous. The look in his eyes could very well summon Ixion from the skies. "How dare you," he says, calm as a fair day upon the sea. "How dare you. I have remained in Gyr Abania these past two decades watching you, and Bloodhound, and every other person of note. That's right, Steelhand, I know only you two remained. I know what they did to you. I know what you did, and why you did it. I know when you left, and how, and everything else besides. I don't know why you still hold hope that this husk of a land can be saved after it's chewed you up and spat you out. Anyone else could beg faith, but not you. Not you."

The blood races in Orella's veins once more as she struggles to keep her anger under control. The silence that permeates the air now is sour; both breathe heavily, jaws set, muscles tense, ready to spring and fight, the both of them so very Ala Mhigan.

"Zartosht is dead," she says, words brittle, and they puncture the mood. Anger bleeds from them both, though they neither of them stop frowning.

"I know."

"Riot's alive. Helping. Near."

"I know."

"The others-"

"Gisfrid fled to the south," Einar says, and sighs heavily. "Folles' sister followed him. Berend is with the Resistance."

That makes up the rest of their immediate retinue, with a single exception.

"Wiegraf?"

The look Einar gives her is darker than night itself. Good, she thinks. "Alive," is the answer, "Last I heard, in the city, but if word of your Resistance has reached him, he'll have fled already."

"That shite," Orella growls, and as Einar nods in agreement, she considers the man in front of her. "And you?" she asks. "Why are you still here if you think it beyond saving?"

The answer doesn't come right away. Einar regards her with his warm brown eyes, lined in ways Orella doesn't recall. The wind picks up, blows his hair away from his cheeks. Somewhere down the line he's added a tattoo she doesn't remember, a faint, sprawling web that means nothing to her. When he realises what she stares at, he covers it with his hand.

"A present from the Garleans," he says, voice low with an emotion she can't identify. "From when I tried to leave. I changed my mind after they managed such a good job of cutting me open."

That seems to be all the detail he's willing to give, but Orella can imagine the rest well enough. A man fitting the description of one of the infamous Kingsguard, trying to buy passage out of the country. They'd have stopped him. Questioned him. Beaten him when they found his manner disagreeable, tried to mark him as he wrested free and fled somewhere safer. The wound would have healed messily, and he'd have covered it up no matter the cost or the pain.

"You changed your mind, but you didn't come back," she says. Einar shrugs.

"Why would I? To see the king's corpse? To be strung up beside him? I'm no fool, Steelhand. We all knew how the city felt. And I know how it feels now."

"Then you know change is coming," Orella insists. "As it was, so it is now. You might not be a fool, but all I see is a coward unwilling to pick a side."

Einar sighs, deep and weary, resigned to something beyond Orella's knowledge. The lines around his eyes deepen when he frowns like this, and she wonders whether it is better to die young or old. She doesn't have an answer.

"Is that so bad?" he asks after a time. "Cowardice? If it keeps you safe?"

She thinks of the cells, of the torture she has endured, and makes a decision.

"I'd rather be dead than be a coward again," she says, voice firm. "I've done my time, Einar. You know what comes. Join us or don't, but don't get in the way."

"And if I do?"

At her back stands her past. Her regrets. Every brick of Ala Mhigo has been permeated with her guilt. Somewhere in the palace stands the viceroy. Past the High Bank, Ashelia marches on.

The wind changes.

With her back straight and her shoulders dropped - still so familiar to her, and the old salute is a near thing - she feels more herself than she has done in years. And if that means she must needs cut Einar down...

"I can't stay here," she says to Ingvald when she returns.

They recognised him not at all, at first. Lucky. Still, he was no familiar face before the memories set in, and treated coolly until even that was dispelled. Mayhap it is in the way she carries herself - a soldier, an anomaly - or mayhap her face is more memorable than his, but Steelhand is yet known. Whispers of past misdeeds follow her and she closes her ears, well-practised at this at least. No amount of goodwill can wipe her slate clean.

Idly, she wonders if the noble's district has been cleared of the magitek carcass yet. She hasn't been to check.

Ingvald either understands all this or simply feels, like her, that the lingering stages of the occupation are too pervasive to stand. She doesn't pry. He asks no questions, simply nods and lets her anxieties take the helm, as they ever have done.

She could kiss him for that. Does. Relishes that little mercy.

Their things are packed by nightfall; they discuss, briefly, where to go. The night of the celebrations, after the great wyrm's fall, Einar had pressed rum - Ala Mhigan rum, fine and strong and rare, now - into their hands, and they had talked.

He had told them of Berend.  Of Reis.

Come the morn, he was disappeared once again, words left in his wake as though perfumed. The Undercity's gaping maw is inviting, but they were not meant to follow.

As they leave the city, Orella wonders why she has not yet told Ingvald of Ser's return.

They find him at the Reach. Berend yet matches Orella for age, but not for height, and bears his wife instead of enthusiasm upon his back, still a soldier, still insufferable when he ruffles Orella's hair and offers to have her shorn. Still family. Still real.

And as for family --

"I think there's someone as wants to meet you."

"Me?" Ingvald asks, wide-eyed, led away, a glance behind, hopeful, hopeful--

and Orella cannot find it in her heart to begrudge him this at least. He deserves what she cannot have.

They swap sorrows over the fire, the first they've ever let each other share.

"Let me," he says, drunk on misery as much as the bottle, and she lets him come close to cut her hair. She thinks, I wish your hand would slip as she sits deathly still, and his hands are careful as he makes her into herself again.

"Everything's changed, huh?" he murmurs.

Cut me open! she thinks desperately, and does not move.

She cannot make up her mind.

"I can't stay here," she says to Berend come the morn. Their mouths are dry with the hangover, stiff from the earth they slept on, cold to the bone with the fire long since burnt out. They are neither of them young. "I can't."

"They'll take to you," he promises, and she knows that given time they may well forgive her as they did for him. "They hated me, too, at first. And now look at me."

His sins are no less numerous, his hands no more clean than hers, and yet he has the audacity to boast. I do good work, is the unsaid. I help them as needs. I pay penance for those I killed. I help. I help. I do.

"I am," says Orella. "All I see's a jackass."

The dance is old but familiar still. His hand rises to smack her and she knocks it aside easily. Her elbow, caught, is pulled hard and she follows, a halay both wish to lead, and she leads, and he leads, and they laugh, arms tangled,  knotted together, wrestling without the wrestling.

"Bloodhound?" he asks. Orella tries to pull her arms back and finds them locked in place.

"There's two of them now. He'll cope. He'll do good. I can't."

"You can," Berend urgers, but her mind is made, and she pulls harder. Something gives. It isn't her. Her arms slide free and he scowls. "Maybe not here, but the Orella I know wouldn't give up like this-"

"The Orella you know is dead," she growls, and her stomach lurches when he moves to hit her. This time she bats the hand aside sharply. "You don't know me anymore. You don't know anything."

She gets to her feet, then, leaving him at the dead fire, and turns her back.

"Why'd you even come back?"

She has no answer for him.

She leaves with the sun still hanging full, knows Berend will explain in so many shrugs and sighs to Ingvald that she needs time to make up her mind.

Orella doesn't know what she is even meant to choose between. Death at the hands of a mob, furious for past transgressions long since paid penance for. Death on the plains of Gyr Abania, earth unto earth unto earth. Death in life, a slow death, a quiet death, a dearth of debt, of paying it back, of paying for it.

She is no Berend, mired in sorrow twenty years later, tied down to the memories of the dead, except for the ghosts that yet follow her in their tens, in their thousands, legions of them, an army of regrets----