Itâs been over a month since sheâs seen the arsonist. Usually that wouldnât bother her- sometimes the mercenaries of the Estate wander off for months at a time. But the man had seemed a bit of a loner, and he hadnât wandered back, as so many of them were wont to do. They all eventually came out of the wilds and back to the Estate. The comforts of the Tavern or the Brothel call them home. Or⌠to this place that many of them have come to think of as some strange iteration of home.
She took some torches and a bag of food, set on searching the outreaches of the Weald. She heard from a few in town that the Arsonist â Luther, if her memory serves â was prone to camping out there. So, itâs that way she goes.
It takes a day, pushing through the dense underbrush. Itâs strange to spend the night alone at a campfire. Toustain is hit with the eerie and very real fear that this could happen when they were out on a mission. That someday⌠no.  No, she wonât think about that.During the daytime, when the light is good, the forest is nearly welcoming. Thereâs a sickly cast to the sky, and the trees are somehow not right, red moss growing on their flesh, creatures with yellowed teeth peering at her from long grasses in the odd clearing, but⌠itâs tolerable. Itâs much preferable to some of the other sights sheâs witnessed in the wilds around the Estate.
Toustain comes across a stream, and drinks from it, hand dipping into the clear water and bringing it to her lips. It isnât brackish, the riverâs current much stronger downstream as it gained ground. Â Here it was calm. She stabs at the fish until she manages to spear one, and cooks it over a small fire, turning it, watching its glassy eyes. The meat is serviceable but she thinks sheâs overcooked it, and the bones scrape at her tongue. She moves downstream at a serviceable pace, and as the sun begins to dip below the horizon, she sees it- smoke in the distance. Where there is smoke, there is fire. And where there is fire, most likely, thereâs an Arsonist.
She picks up the pace, vestalâs robes feeling a bit heavy on her frame by the time she stumbles into his campsite. The fire, of course, is the centerpiece of it all. But she doesnât see him â no, she. She does?She sees a man. Or a manâs back, specifically. Luther, she assumes, is bent down near the river, doing⌠something. Toustain narrows her eyes, stepping closer. The crackling of the fire covers her footsteps as she approaches, chin jutting forward as she tries to decipher what exactly is going on with his skin.
Lumps? Scars? Scars, she decides, straightening up. Sheâs twenty feet behind him, then ten, looking at the network of them, near cabling his skin, raised and indented, pink and white, the texture sometimes strange, like a fabric stretched too tightly over a frame. Toustain wonders for a moment what her own back looks like. But these marksâŚHer finger touches his shoulder and her eyes widen. She didnât mean to do that.