---- She found herself drowning in loveless lovers and maddened murderers. Ravens fluttered over unburdened snow as she landed without legs and heard without ears. The blackbirds sang tiny tunes to one another, though none held any whisper of harmony. Songs of ancient legends and tragic tales bound from the ice-burdened trees.
Then came another voice. Not that of a bird, but of a woman. Tears and wrath filled her cries.
"I can't lose her! Take what you need of me, demon, just save her!"
-- "You seek her life; You will have only her perdition. Take my offer and every path will be planed, and every river will be sprung, and every choice will be made - all to find her at our end. She will live to die, and die only so that she may live at last. Her heart will beat thrice, end twice, and love only once, before it is broken beyond cure. Become, it will, a seat of desolation. Hell: its sole and grand destination."
---- She floated in warm velvet waters. A cloud of cotton held her beneath its embrace, and the warmth of a stone hearth brushed her left cheek, while rough bandages sealed her right. The long dreams slipped from her mind as quickly as the waking world took form.
"I- What?" Ash sighed. "Who... are you?"
"Ash?" a meek voice begged from her side. "It's me."
--"Ev?"
"Yes," she whispered. Ash hadn't opened her eyes, but she could hear Evara's smile on the word. A gentle hand stroked over her sweat-sodden brow. "How do you feel?"
--"Bad."
--"I'm not surprised. It took a lot to patch you up."
"Wha- What happened?" Ash asked through her haze.
"You were... stabbed," Ev choked. "We- I thought I'd lost you."
"But- The bandits?" Ash urged.
--"Dead. Nearly to the last man."
--"H-How? I heard them blow their horns. Didn't they attack?"
--"Only a few. The horns weren't theirs; they were the Baron's."
"The... Baron?" Ash repeated. Finally, her eyes peeled open, and lilac velvet blocked her view. She lay in a four-posted bed with its grand curtains drawn. Evara lay at her side, though she wore strange garb. She seemed ill-adorned for the forest and bramble, but then again, so did the all-too-cosy bed.
"Aye," Ev said. "He hasn't told us why yet, but he was already nearby when we sent word. They marched on the camp, but most of the bandits were either sleeping off their drinks or running for the hills. Those who stayed to fight fell upon their own blades. Still, we managed to capture one or two, not that anybody's spoken to them yet. "
--"Then... where are we?"
"The keep," Ev answered lightly.
--"The baron's keep? That's a two-day ride."
--"It's... been a week, Ash. You've been in bad shape."
--"A week? But the rest of the village? Our parents?"
"Most survived – Mum and Dad included," Ev assured. "But..."
--"Carolet?"
--"I- We can talk about that later. Right now, you need to recover."
"Ev," Ash sharply said. "Where is Caro?"
--"He- I'm sorry, Ash. Sir Carolet didn't... He-"
"-Did he die well?" Ash grimly asked, her voice held low by stones and gravel.
--"He... would have been proud to die as he did. I do not know if that is the same thing. He died soaked in the blood of lesser men."
"It wasn't the blood shed that would have made him proud," Ash groaned. "It was the blood spared. He'd have been proud to die as a protector instead of a warrior."
"Is that why you-" Ev choked her thought away, sighing and placing her weary head against Ash's pillow.
--"Why I what?"
--"That can wait a while... At least until you are recovered."
"I'm fine, Ev." Ash dragged a sharp breath through her teeth as she sat up. She felt terribly weak, with every muscle in her body feeling bloodless and static. An empty numbness consumed her left hand, while her right had never felt heavier. "What were you going to ask?"
"I- You left, Ash. You just left. No warning, no goodbye, nothing. You could have died... You nearly did! And what? Not a word?" A tear sprang on the little girl's rosy cheek. It seemed to catch both by surprise, but lasted barely a second before Evara swatted it away.
"Ev... I-"
--"No! What the fuck were you thinking? Who am I kidding? You didn't think! You just marched into their camp alone, injured and outnumbered... AND YOU DIDN'T EVEN SAY GOODBYE!"
--"Evy-"
--"Don't you dare 'Evy' me. You nearly died for nothing!"
"But I didn't die," Ash weakly protested.
"Oh, well that's alright then!" Ev snapped. "As long as you only end up in a coma, I guess abandoning me doesn't matter."
Red rage filled her cheeks, and a tear welled in her eye. She looked Ash up and down, her eyes sticking to each splatter of blood and dirt that she had painstakingly cleaned and healed.
It seemed she forced a great effort of will into holding back her anger for a breath. Evara looked to her sister and quietly eked, "I'm sorry. Now isn't the time for this. Just focus on getting better."
"It's okay, Evy. Just let it out," Ash smiled, cupping her heavy right hand around her cheek.
"No," Ev sighed. "Just... I need you to promise me something."
--"What?"
--"I- I need you to look me in the eyes and swear to me that you'll never do something that stupid again."
"Well, I can't promise that," Ash said, trying not to chuckle despite herself. "We aren't all as intelligent as you, little sister. Idiocy is ineve- inevi-"
"Inevitable," Ev finished with a resigned sigh.
"Aye," Ash sniffed. "I can't promise not to act a fool."
"Fine. Then swear to me that you won't kill yourself for anyone. No noble fate; no great acts of self-sacrifice. Most of all: no heroic deaths. Please," Evara begged.
"I swear it," Ash simply replied. Her heavy hand wrapped beneath Evara's chin and brought her face high enough to lock eyes. Her sincerity must have been clear to Evara by the pure confusion in her little leer.
"Just like that?" Ev doubted.
--"I swear it. I won't give my life for anybody or anything... except you, of course. That's a given."
"I don't understand?" Ev admitted.
--"I'm not a soldier, Ev. I have no intention of dying for some grand cause. I just want to go back to being a huntress. Once the conclave says I'm no Champion, we can just... move on from all this."
"Hang on, you still don't think you're a Champion? More than that, what do you mean you won't give your life? What happened to that attitude when you snuck off into the night to fight in the camp?" Ev demanded, her sorrow fading quickly and giving way to her natural inquisition.
"I- Didn't do it for the village. I just... didn't see any other way that you would survive," Ash admitted. "If I killed the leaders, I hoped they wouldn't be able to organise an attack. I- did it for you, Evy, not them."
"But then why not say goodbye? Why just leave me all alone?" she pleaded.
"I didn't want to worry you," Ash insisted.
--"It's better that your death would have been a surprise? Or that I'd never have known you died at all? Ash, I understand your drive to protect me, but you don't get to 'protect' me from worrying about you. It's not right; it's not fair."
"Maybe," Ash admitted, and she said no more. A cold look caught her amethyst eyes. One that brought an end to the conversation in an instant.
"Very well," Ev huffed, knowing full well that no more would come of the argument. "Go back to sleep. I'll tell father and mother that you're recovering."
The child rose and slipped through the hanging curtains with barely a sound, but for her pattering footfalls.
"Ev," Ash whispered. The child made no effort to respond. Past the curtains blocking her vision, Ash wasn't even sure if she remained. "What I do – whatever I have done or will do – it's all for you. Sometimes... Sometimes you won't like it; sometimes you'll hate me."
Silence hung in that little corner of their little nation. After long enough, Ash assumed the child had left her. She collapsed back into her feathered near-death bed with a sigh.
"I'll never hate you," whispered a little breeze through a slowly creaking door.
---- A new dawn rose. She had never seen one so bright. The fresh light bled through her lilac curtains.
She drew them back and saw her chambers for the first time. A table was set to the side of her bed. Bloody bandages hung over its edge while a set of surgeon's tools looked well-used. She wondered why they hadn't yet been removed.
Her bare feet set upon the stone floor though quickly recoiled back into bed. It would seem the dawn's warmth had yet to reach the foundations of this keep.
Ashtik wrapped herself in a thin blanket and set again upon her adventure. Her winding path brought her to a mirror made of silver, framed in gold and hung upon the hearth beside her bed.
All too quickly was the mirror made her foe. A monster mocked her within. Scarring gridded her right cheek, like the checkers of a gameboard. It was not so much as to be disfiguring, but it was much worse than she had realised. How damaged she must have seemed before the raven-haired temptress, unless she had caught the wound in the later battles. Had it been some fragment from the crates, through which she had been thrown in the scrap, which had caused the damage?
She stepped away – or more so, she stumbled back from her own reflection.
The rest of the room held a claim to all the beauty she had lost beneath her new scars. Silks and cushions; paintings and splendour. This was no ordinary dormitory. This was palatial.
Were it not for the painted oak roof beams and exposed stone walls that were so quintessential of the architecture of her homeland, Ash might have assumed herself whisked away to some palace of the sunrise empires. Fine Oaranic gowns hung in the open wardrobe. Matran vases rested beneath paintings of the Forgeland's vast cityscapes. An Aobian axe was mounted beside a Tenpic rapier, while an assortment of gods-only-know-what else lay as fine ornaments.
"My- My lady," a meek voice squeaked with such fright she might have seen a ghost. "You are awake!"
Ash turned as sharply as her pains would allow. A young woman stood so deeply bowed she must have been inspecting individual specks of dust along the cobbles, or at the least getting a good sniff of them.
"A- Are you okay?" Ash awkwardly laughed, covering herself more properly with the blanket.
"Yes, my lady," the woman stuttered.
"You can... stand up, you know?" Ash offered.
The woman hesitantly obeyed. Dirty blonde hair fell before her eyes, but she seemed too focused on keeping a bundle of clothes in hand to swipe it away. After an uncomfortable moment, with neither party entirely sure as to what they ought to say, the girl blew the hair from her face.
"Are you well, my lady?" the woman asked. She must have been of an age with Ash, though much less rugged and weathered.
"Who... are you?" Ash slowly asked.
"Oh! My lady, I am Kat," she timidly answered.
"Ashtik," Ash simply nodded, beckoning towards herself.
"Yes- Yes, of course," Kat smiled, though her gaze never climbed from the dusty stone floor.
"Can I... help you?" Ash questioned.
"No! My lady, Tis' my purpose to help you," the girl sputtered.
--"Help me? With what?"
"I am your handmaiden, my lady. I am to help you with all you need. The baron has asked that I bathe you, clothe you and ensure your utmost comfort while you share his hall," Kat explained, finally wrangling her gaze towards Ash – if only for an instant. She didn't quite reach Ash's own eyes, however, as her strange leer fixated upon Ash's marked and marred left hand.
"I'm supposed to be comfortable while you bathe me?" Ash scoffed woodenly.
--"If it is desired."
--"It is not."
"Of course, but I would recommend bathing before the festivities begin," Kat meekly said.
--"Festivities?"
"Tis to be a feast in your honour, my lady," the girl said.
--"In my honour?"
--"Y- Yes, my lady. 'Tis not often one hosts a grand Champion, let alone one as storied as yourself... my lady."
"Can you stop calling me a lady?" Ash sighed. "It's unnerving."
"Apologies, my-" the girl stammered. "What would you rather I say?"
"How about Ash? That seems to work for everyone else."
"I see. Very well, Ash. Might I go inform the baron that you are ready for him to begin preparations?"
"No," Ash thoughtfully said. "I have some things I need to take care of first... Plus, I think you're right about needing to bathe. Could you point me to the river?"
"River?" Kat chuckled. "My L- Ash, you are more than welcome to make use of our extensive bathhouse."
--"The what?"
"The... bathhouse. It's where we keep the baths? I can promise you that it is much more pleasant than the river."