my head is in the dumpster

me: yeah whatever. i dont feel shit

5 minutes later: only in death does duty end

Jousting at the festival to impress your lady love!!!

Symptoms of cursed sword possession include:

- Uncharacteristic bloodthirst.

- Mood swings.

- Whispering to the sword when they think you aren't looking.

- A tendency to stand in gloomy corners.

- Skin rashes.

If you suspect your knight has a cursed sword, take them to the local mystic or priest as soon as possible. Immediate action saves lives.

The seige persisted, and so must she.

Her lady's camp was not far, and the archer that struck her down with the arrow now whistling against the breeze from its home in her belly wouldn't be, either. An assassin sent to intercept the knight on her way to her ladyship, the knight is certain; no one else could have known her route through the woods. A spy.

She had to warn her lady, had to protect her. But the arrow had buried too deep, torn too gravely, spilled too much blood. The red trail through the snow was a painted testament to her perseverance, but the body is a finite animal, and it can only take so much before it collapses. So there she lay, praying to any god that would deign an ear for a rescue.

Her party had split up not far back. Surely one of them would find her, one of their keen sets of eyes would see red and follow.

The cold bit into her like a badger finding her already dead. Sometime ago, a slow drift of fat twirling snowflakes had begun to fall, and as they kissed her freezing skin where it peeked from her frosting armour, stinging her face freed from her helm paces back, all she could think was how it would soon obscure her tracks and her only chance at salvation.

Her hope was leaving with the last dredges of her body heat, but she could not bring herself to give in. A warrior's instinct as ingrained in her as that oldest human will to live: she had to keep her pledge.

Through lashes heavy with exhaust, a shadow broke from the trees. The knight fought to focus her eyes, the reins slipping. A familiar shape, trailing a fur-lined cape and hood, clinking softly as it neared, metal and glass tinkling against each other.

The party's healer.

The knight would have wept if she'd had any tears to give up. She could barely croak out their name as they approached, but still she twitched a smile. The healer's boots punched out a slow measured march through the crisping snow, no hurry in the rhythm.

They tutted in their usual fashion and toed at the knight's leg when they got close enough, the way they would when they found their party members poisoned or paralysed or slashed and battered in a heap on the ground after taking on some foolish risk. Their eyes were bright with amusement.

"Oh, dear sir knight," they crooned. They gave a lightly scolding shake of their head as they bent at the knight's side and inspected the scarlet puncture in her chainmail swallowing the arrow shaft. "What a mess you've gotten yourself into."

"No time," gasped the knight. She found she could no longer focus her eyes quite right and the healer's image was slipping from her, blurring so intensely she could not make out the tool in their hand or meet their eye as they watched her. "Our lady... there is danger. Set me right."

The healer put out a hand, but not to the wound, not to gesture and incant with. Their fingers carded into the knight's hair instead. They had teased at her hair countless times when she was splayed out, injured and helmless, saying it was a shame she kept it under a silly metal cage all the time when it was so pretty.

It was by then drenched with melted snow and cold sweat. The healer's mouth curled into an easy smile and they did not answer or heed the knight's order.

"No games. Please, I beg, I must go."

"Yes," murmured the healer as they slipped their hand from the knight's hair to their cheek, rubbing a soothing thumb across their frigid skin. Even their tempered warmth seared like a glowing iron. "You must."

Confusion broke to disbelief and then to despair across the knight's face. That was the other jab the healer always took with the knight—without that armour of yours, you can't hide a single thing.

The knight used all she could muster to lift her head and squint at what they healer was toting. She could barely fight down the convulsive cough that took her when she saw it.

A quiver, near-to full, the fletchings identical to the one decorating the arrow in her stomach.

Looking closer at her companion—the person who had so many times wrenched her back from the brink of death, whose arms would drag her helpless form to safety and whose hands knew so well the stain of her blood, her friend—the knight saw the string of a bow across her chest and the end of its wooden body sticking out behind her hood.

"No," the knight pleaded. Her shivering turned to violently spasms and she shook her head, movements shallow and wild. "No, not you—"

"I always liked you," whispered the healer, their voice like a lullaby as the knight's vision began to edge with black. "Admired you, even. I used to revere your relentless hope in her, our lady. You made me believe she could truly lead us into peace and prosperity. But you've seen how that's gone, how much suffering and how many lives lost rest on her shoulders. It's too late. Something must be done."

"Please..." the knight chattered, more air than word.

"Relax, my friend. Lay still."

The healer stood as the knight tensed and hacked. A hot trickle warmed her chin and her mouth filled with copper. She struggled to follow, to push up and grab at the healer, but her limbs did not respond. She could no longer feel them.

The hands that slung the quiver back over their shoulder were as clean as the fresh-fallen snow, and after another moment of quiet observation, the healer stepped away.