---- To walk with fate is such an odd feeling. To know destiny parts from your every step. To know a thousand years of death and strife dog at your heels. To see the entirety of heaven in a single wildflower, and to know it was planted a lifetime ago in hopes that you might simply pluck it.
Sparrow-Knight, Black Champion, Heretic. So many new titles, yet the same worn-out old boots wading through the dirt.
The path before her seemed so empty, though a thousand passers-by obstructed it. She did not march with purpose. She trod as gently as she ever had, as not to disturb the cobbled streets any more than needed.
--- It was a short path to the inn, long as it felt. One filled with formless thoughts and boundless angst. She passed a tavern filled with familiar men. Soldiers, armoured in the baron's colours and singing northern songs. They laughed and cheered; drank and danced. One even called out to her by title, though his voice failed to pierce her haze. She carried on, unaware of his beckons and bellows.
A chapel stood tall across the street - three carved statues at its peak. They were humble, though majestic as anything holding the visage of a god would be. In the centre, she of Gold. The kind and gentle mother of man. A flow of jet stained wood marked her free-flowing hair, and a thin golden leaf gave her a cold metal gaze.
As always, to her right stood she of Steel. The patron of purpose, bloody as it may be. Her grim face was masked beneath a full steel helm, though she wore a heavy cloth robe across her shoulders. A parchment, stained red, fluttered in her hands and battled the breeze.
To the left of the duo was the formless thing that had claimed Ash's life as its own. No carver would dare capture his visage, lest he take notice. A mound of ashen wood took the form of a man's shadow. The mass atop of it could have been his head but lacked eyes or even a nose. The outstretched mounds could have been arms, or tendrils, but seemed to her like branches on a flame scorched tree.
Everything bore his abstract suggestion. Shadows watched her walk. Sparrows seemed enthralled by her mark. Folk walking past seemed to look with four eyes: two of their own and two of his.
Ash did all she could to cast the feeling aside as she neared the end of her walk.
---- The old door eased open to an inn as silent as the grave. Three men sat in a corner, nursing their cups, while a scattering of others sat around. A pair of young lovers made eyes from the shadows, and a well-built young man scoffed down a bowl of fragrant pork stew.
"Child," the innkeeper nodded from behind his bar. "Are you well?"
Ash scanned the inn one more time, finding no suggestion that the Veytor monks had returned.
"I- Yes, thank you," Ash whispered. She slid along the bar and took a seat before the old man. "Any trouble?"
"Not a peep," he grunted as his cleaver cracked open a lamb shank, the bone splitting in two from a single swipe.
-- "My sister still sleeps?"
"Dunno," he sniffed. "Hasn't left her room since you went."
"That's unlike her," Ash whispered."
"Being threatened by Veytors tends to sour yer' mood," he said, slashing again.
-- "True enough."
-- "Can I get you anything?"
"Whatever's strong enough to burn," she sighed.
"The only spirits allowed in the northern quarter are beneath the sepulchres. Rest of us gotta rough it with posset ale and sugar wine. I think there's a tavern up the road with some piss weak vodka imports, though," he said, pouring her a tankard of ale.
"Posset ale?" Ash repeated, taking a cold swig from the metal tankard.
"It's something for the grannies to drink in winter. Hot milk and ale."
"Hot milk?" Ash gagged. "Wouldn't it curdle?"
-- "Yeah, makes it creamy. Supposed to be nice – not that I'd ever touch it."
"No," Ash agreed from within her cup. She drank all too quickly. The tankard, nearly as large as she was, had almost been emptied in a single breath.
"Slow it lass," the keeper said. "Plenty of day yet to burn."
"I know," she sighed, taking another swig and slamming the empty cup down. "Just preparing for this next bit."
The huntress rose from her seat and made away from the bar. "Oh, and here," she called out, throwing him two gold disks from across the room. He hid them quickly and, for the first time, he smiled.
"Take care of yourself, lass."
---- Three meagre smacks called out against the shabby wooden door. Tiny footfalls pattered within. A shadow cast under the door as Evara stood behind the threshold.
"Who is it?" Evara called out. She took a strange tone – deep, as though mimicking the voice of an older woman. The result suggested a pubescent boy stood guard behind the door.
"The grand Champion," Ash tiredly answered.
"Ash!" The door swung and the child dragged her inside for a hug.
It was gorgeous within. Truly the 'luxury suite'. Where the mouldy wooden door suggested a dilapidated interior, Ash realised it was a disguise. Camouflage to protect the luxury within. A hearth lay beneath an ornate silver mirror. Velvet curtains draped over the oak bed frame. A plush carpet lay across the entire floor. Even a wooden bathtub sat at the far end. Ev stood in some clearly borrowed robes, her hair soaked and flowing down her clothes. She ushered Ashtik into the room and Ash quickly removed her muddy boots before they could stain the carpet. She sat atop of the king-sized bed and noticed a strange tome, leatherbound and wet with ink.
"That was Vamet's," Ash realised.
"I- Yes," Ev said with a blush of guilt. "I- took it."
-- "What?"
"He told me to!" she insisted. "Said that he owed it to you for some contract you fulfilled."
-- "Contract?"
-- "Yeah, he said he contracted you to defeat the bandits."
"I turned him down," Ash said.
-- "Well, he said the terms were fulfilled, even if you hadn't intended on doing so. But..."
-- "But what?"
-- "But he said I could take this or a set of armour. I- I thought you'd want me to take the armour."
Ash chuckled, rounding her hand over Evara's shoulder. "You're a better writer than warrior. Keep to the pages... as long as you read it to me."
Ash turned a page and tried to parse the meaning of even a single word. It was of no use; she had gathered more meaning from chicken tracks than she could from these ornate markings. Evara lay on her back beside Ash and took the tome into her hands.
"Does the sheer act of greatness preclude goodness? Can one be both good and great? My experience is little, though my readings are vast. In many men of renown have I found a commonality. A tipping point where directed goodness became terrible greatness; where they made a choice and decided that their goal was more important than their hearts. I worry that my sister will make such a choice, should she be ordained. I worry history shall remember her, and that memory shall be written in blood," Evara nervously recited.
"It's never jolly with you, is it?" Ash giggled.
"Would you rather I write some smut? It seems all anybody wants to read anymore," Ev joined Ash's laugh, though hers was faint in comparison. "So, come on. What happened?" Evara finally asked.
She sat up and propped herself on her elbow. Her sprawling mess of damp hair dripped down her forehead and off her nose.
"Your hair's gonna tangle, Ev," Ash grunted. She walked to the bathtub and took a towel and brush back to the bed. She wrapped the towel around her sister's shoulders and started combing through her hair.
"Why are you being nice?" Ev laughed.
-- "When am I not nice?"
"You aren't exactly the 'brush my hair' kind of nice. You're more the 'I killed a bear for you' type," Ev said. "Are you trying to soften me up or something?"
"I..." Ash sighed as she mindlessly combed through Ev's long – and thoroughly knotted – mane.
"What? Did something happen?" Ev pressed. She didn't turn to look at Ash, she knew it would be easier for her to speak if Ev wasn't looking.
"I'm the Champion, Ev," she finally whispered.
"Oh," was all Ev could manage.
-- "Champion of Black."
"So... Like, the end of the world?" Ev slowly said.
"Yeah," Ash sighed. "End of the world."
-- "Well... Shit."
A little candle flickered in the corner. It danced over Evara's dirtied clothes and discarded shoulder pad. A shadow sprung across them as the sun bled through the drawn curtains. The hearth held the only heat in the world, so far as Ash was concerned.
"Then..." Ev whispered. "What's the plan?"
"I don't know," Ash admitted. "But White told me to head west."
-- "West? You plan on going for a swim? And who's White?"
"White, the Champion of White," Ash sneered.
"What!" Evara exploded. She quickly spun around to face Ash, seemingly unfazed by the brush catching in her hair. "You met the Champion of White?"
"Aye... Gave him a smack in the teeth as well," Ash grunted.
"Bullshit," Ev replied. "He's never been hit before. Not even the blood queen could get him."
-- "Then I'm proud to have popped his cherry, and his nose."
"No, you don't understand Ash. The man can see the future. He knows what you're going to do a week before you do it," Ev insisted.
-- "So he knew I was the Champion before the mothers met?"
-- "I don't think so. I read that anything further than a few seconds into the future gets increasingly fuzzy. He can see long enough to dodge a punch, but a conversation a day away would sound as though it were taking place underwater."
"Well," Ash snickered, "he didn't see me coming."
--"I'm still not convinced."
--"No?"
-- "You got your ass beat by a bunch of random bandits, yet you hit the untouchable man?"
"First off, I won both those fights... technically. Besides, I didn't beat him, we just fought for a bit," Ash recounted with an ever-increasing self-doubt.
"People don't fight the Champion of White; they survive him," Ev sighed. "But you aren't a liar, so how did you do it?"
-- "Honestly? I don't know. I think... it was something to do with my glove thingy."
-- "Your gauntlet?"
"Yeah, that," Ash snorted.
-- "What happened?"
"It... started glowing, or something. Bands of purple lightning shot from the metal, and there was this... aura? Like black dust in sunlit mist. I couldn't move, and it was icy cold, but I could still look around," Ash dreamily recalled. "He had his blade to my heart; I think he thrust it in, but then he was frozen. Everyone - everything - was frozen but me."
"So, you hit him while he was frozen?" Ev pressed. Her steel eyes lit up as she wrapped herself in the tale. Ash could almost look behind her little pupils to see the imagined battle raging in her head.
"I knocked his bloody teeth in while he was frozen," Ash boasted. It made Evara laugh for a moment, though she quickly grew grim and sat back before her sister.
"What's the bad news?" Ev bluntly asked, her brow crooking and wrinkling.
-- "I never said there was bad news."
-- "But there is, isn't there?"
She dreaded telling her. She dreaded her tiny sister's colossal wrath, but she knew she had no choice.
"You're going back with the baron," Ash finally said.
-- "No, the fuck, I'm not!"
"Ev-"
-- "-Shut up, I'm not going to let you fight off the apocalypse alone!"
"Listen to m-"
-- "-You're useless on your own! How are you going to forge an alliance if you can't even make eye contact?"
"Evara!" Ash finally managed. Her sister had jolted to her feet and begun pacing across the decadent room. "Now listen to me, this is not up for debate. I am fighting the apocalypse, you're right, but I'm also fighting the Conclave and every allied nation. It is no place for a fucking child. You're going home where you can be safe," Ash snapped.
-- "But-"
"-You can throw all the tantrums in the world. You can insult me as much as you like but come the dawn; you'll be riding with the baron," she hissed.
-- "Ash-"
"-This is probably going to be the last time we see each other - maybe for a very long time - let's not waste it. Please, I won't change my mind; don't waste our day arguing."
"Then," Ev sobbed, "what? How are we supposed to spend our last day together?"
A tear fell, and a dozen more. They seemed to flow so easily for Evara, and so harshly for Ashtik. She was 'strong', she was 'stoic', she was a rock that didn't know how to crack.
"Don't suppose you wanna' get drunk again?" Ash tried to joke.
"No," Ev choked. She ran into her sister and forced a soggy hug.
"It's not all bad news," Ash said.
-- "No?"
-- "I got you a bribe - I mean present."
-- "What is it?"
"I haven't picked it up yet. We'll get it together," Ash took her sister's face into her hands. She felt the wet of her hair through her black steel skin. She felt the warmth of her blushing cheeks and the very beat of her heart.
"A parting gift?" Ev choked.
-- "Don't call it a parting gift, call it... Me spoiling you, one more time."
"'One last time', you mean," Ev grunted.
-- "If I meant it, I'd have said it."
"It's not fair, I can't get you anything," Ev groaned on.
"Don't worry about it, you can get me something next time," Ash winked. "Now get dressed."