---- If ever a wise man comes forth and tells you that the gods are ill, and the world is dark: tell him what Ash knew from her first step. Tell him to look out at the sky above the canopy. Tell him to drag a lung of flowered air. Tell him to feel the crimson grasses beneath his feet and the rain-scented winds against his bare face. The cruelties of war, and the strife that makes progeny of life, fades behind the sapphire sun. It drowns beneath the hope of sunrise, and the warmth of sunset.
--- The huntress had no true place in a city; this first march confirmed it. The gateway back to Dukes crossing was oddly unguarded. They didn't tarry long. They rode hard - Ash and Evara on their taken mare, and Sujin on a nag of his own.
Nobody was sure when word of Ash's 'heresy' would reach the public, but they held no intent on facing the Veytors' retribution.
Dukes crossing was naught more than a speck on the horizon by the third hour. She had never seen it from this side. She supposed that she had never seen anything from this side. Ashtik lived in the westernmost point of the northernmost isle and had never deigned to stray far from her wooded hunting grounds.
Now she stood a world away, little more than a week after her whole world had begun to shatter. It had been a slow process till now; a hint at destiny here, a suggestion of struggle there. Now?
Now she fled her home with an army of zealots at her heels and her baby sister in her arms. Now she raced off to build a worldwide alliance against some... nebulous, world-ending threat. Ashtik, as she had been known in the weeks prior, now known more so as the Sparrow-Knight; the Black Champion. What next? The Black Heretic? The Scourge? Maybe just some stain in the road if she proved to be lesser than her fate-weaver might hope.
--- Sujin, the apprentice enchanter, had told her the trek would be short. Maybe two or three days. The first began in silence. Even Evara's tireless tongue tripped and twisted as she tried to talk of matters beyond their ongoing trials and torturous tribulations.
It was only as they reached the first forest that Ashtik remembered her final gift for Evara. She looked over at Sujin whom she had claimed as some sort of pack animal. He marched along with the chest purchased at the blacksmith's.
"Enchanter," she whispered quietly enough that Evara couldn't hear. He held back his reins and dashed to her side, almost ready to bow at her slightest beckon, despite the heavy load mounted to his back.
"Ashtik, how can I help you?" he asked, matching her hushed tone. She nodded for him to keep pace while she dug around in his rucksack.
The text had been gently stored atop all other supplies. "Thank you," she whispered to the slightly confused man.
Ashtik slipped her foot over the horse and landed beside.
"Psst," she whispered to her sleeping sister.
-- "Huh?"
"I forgot to give you your present," Ash beamed.
Ev cocked an eyebrow and unslung her crystal bow. "No, you didn't." Her confusion dropped in an instant as her eyes fell to the tome in Ash's hands. The dusty, musky, little old book seemed held together by sheer stubborn pride. It had the spine of a cowardly worm and seemed steeped in twice as much dirt; yet Evara looked upon it with eyes reserved for an engagement band or the keys the world's greatest castle.
"You... Magic?" she breathlessly muttered.
-- "Don't blow us up, eh?"
It sounded like Evara tried to thank her sister, but no words came out beyond a screech audible only to bats and cats. She took a steadying breath before her little steel eyes fixed within Ash's own. "Thank you," She whispered with power in the words. It was a thousand thanks in a thousand languages, all spoken in a single broken breath. It was awe, it was elation. It was fear, and all things fearful. It was joy, and all things joyous. If beaming eyes could light a fire, the world before her would be but a simple sconce.
She tore through the pages with the fervour of a mad prophet. She consumed each letter as though they dripped with the only water in a vast desert. She could barely contain the words within her mind and found herself reading them into being, into words aloud. She muttered every line and sang every spell. She recited every sentence and prayed with every footnote.
---- The whole day slipped by and she only stopped her worship of words as the sun failed to light the words any longer. She broke her avaricious gaze from the bountiful tome some place deep within the quickly darkening woods.
Ash noticed that her sister had finally re-joined the little party and said with a smile, "we're settling down for the night."
"Oh, how can I help?" Ev asked, her voice hoarse from her constant mutterings.
-- "Gather some sticks and leaves, I've got the rest."
It didn't take long before their little patch of dirt became a homely little camp. Evara erected a little mound of dry kindling and Ash lit it with a single strike of her dirk. They both followed their father's training and made up some mossy beds atop of sufficiently sturdy trees. They stopped in their work as they noticed Sujin erect some strange tarp and twig construction.
"It's a tent," he explained.
"A what?" Ev scoffed.
-- "A tent. You know, for camping?"
"Looks cramped," Ash laughed.
"Tis' longer than head and toe, though not so long as your tree; I suppose," He awkwardly chuckled. "It keeps the rain from me."
"So does a cover... That's why they call it a cover; it covers," Ash said.
"Indeed, and yet I fear no tree will quite support a man as... dense, as I. The ground and tent will suffice," Sujin said with a smile.
"You Forgelanders are strange," Ash hesitantly said before returning to her own spot atop of the tree.
"Shall I place some beast defences for the night?" Sujin called up after he was finished with his 'tent'.
"Beast defences?" Ev repeated.
-- "Indeed. These woods are thick with creatures, I'm sure."
-- "Don't worry about it, bud. Ash has us covered on the 'beast' front."
-- "Very well, if you are sure."
---- The night came quickly, and a traveller sleeps deeply when her travels take her far. A warning, though, for those who sleep too deeply in the dark and natural world. Sujin was right, beasts did lurk in those woods. Not animals, like we might fend off with flame, but creatures of myth and shadow. One such beast, a lesser of its kind but all the greater than a sleeping man, crept upon their camp.
It might have been a wolf, had its fangs not been so fleshy and tentacled. It might have been a spider, had its thousand, thousand eyes not seemed to peer out in such a strangely human way. It wore no fur, but chitinous spikes shivering over its canine-like body. It did not walk on paws, but completely human hands that shattered and stretched into feet at the end of every step.
It silently jolted and bolted; crawled and clawed across the forest floor. Leaves flattened beneath its weight, but none dared noise any protest. It might have panted, or maybe it was screaming, as its head rose and found the man.
Cruel and beaten magic oozed from his fingertips. He didn't deserve his lying soul, but this creature did. It took one single step forth before it was sent flying off in the other direction. Something had hit it, something all too large. It looked up and saw a beast of a grizzly bear which bore its pitiful fangs, and it growled its guttural threat.
It was enough to wake Evara, which was enough to wake Sujin. She dove from her tree to the safety of the flame while Sujin took up his battle axe and stood between the girl and the beasts.
Through the darkness of the night, all they could see was the nearest creature. The proud and strong grizzly. Ten feet tall and near as wide. It didn't seem bothered by the little humans behind it, but entirely occupied by something else within the night.
The man wasn't worth the fight. The beast made off into the night.
"Is that a bear?" Sujin shaking voice whispered to Evara.
"She's a beauty." Evara smiled from his back. "Put the axe down, Sujin."
-- "What? Are you mad?"
-- "I told you... Ash has this."
That was when they could see her. Ashtik Sai-Weleg, draped in black steel. She stood before the great towering bear in her brand-new armour. Her hair shimmered with the night flame and her spear caught the very stars above her. She didn't wield it, though. Ser Stabby had been planted into the dirt at her back, while she stood silently staring this great beast down.
"Ashtik!" He urgently whispered. He tried to rush to her side, axe in hand, but Evara caught his shoulder and held him back with a smile.
"Just watch," she grinned.
The bear uncoiled on its hind legs. It stood as a mountain over the short woman, though she barely seemed to notice. It stomped down before Ashtik but the huntress simply raised a hand to its nose.
"Thank you," Ash whispered and the bear calmed in an instant. What had been a warrior, a beast of battle, seemed now a cub with its mother. The bear fell to its side and snuggled its massive nose against Ash's relatively tiny body. It sneezed and sniffed about her but seemed utterly content to just lie on the ground before her.
Ashtik ran a gentle hand across its furry belly. She withdrew and found a fount of blood buried beneath a matted tuft.
"Ev," Ashtik whispered. Evara slipped past the stunned enchanter. He stood with his mouth agape and his eyes dumbly dancing across the spectacle. The bear lazily struck out at Evara's gentle approach and Sujin flinched forth.
"Oy!" Ash scolded. She gently smacked the beast atop of its head before saying, "she's here to help. So, be nice."
"Hello," Evara whispered to the bear as she slowly approached. She seemed almost as expert at handling the creature as her sister. She walked as slowly, and as small, as she could. Her eyes fell to the floor and her hands stayed balled in gentle fists as to keep her fingers protected from any nipping.
The young sister finally managed to come upon the beast, who gave no protest as soon as she began her efforts. Evara's eyes flittered between their natural silvery steel to some divinely golden flame. Her hands lit up the forest around them and Sujin could make out individual veins beneath the bear's fur due to its newly found internal golden glow.
The shine was shaky; she clearly struggled to hold it. Her powers coursed through the bear's wounded body but drained at her own. It was a full minute of wilful effort before the girl grew too faint to continue. Her golden flames extinguished into steel droplets. Evara wobbled and nearly collapsed until the bear itself caught her. She moved her head beneath Evara that the young girl might rest her weight against it. It rose, and Evara came with it. The young girl ended up draped over the great bear's neck like some squishy scarf.
It carried Evara to the campfire and set her down with an impossible delicacy for an animal of its heft. Ashtik followed along with a gentle hand stroking the great beast's hind.
"You shouldn't have come, girl," Ash whispered to the great beast. It snorted at her in response. "It was a dangerous thing to do. Thank you, but you need to be careful."
"Ah, Ashtik?" Sujin whimpered. His voice broke at his single intelligible word and his eyes dared not linger on the beast beside him. He managed, at last, to gather his jaw from the fallen leaves and continue his intended question, "what the hells are you doing?"
Ash must have only now remembered that she travelled with a third. A dirty glare found the meagre stranger in her camp while a gentle hand combed at the she-bear's tangled fur. She had the grace, at least, to shrug before going back to her beast and her sister.
Ash bundled the young girl beneath a blanket and a hug while the bear seemed to lend some of its great warmth to Evara. It encircled the sleeping girl and made a pillow of its belly for her.
"You can stay the night, if you want?" Ash whispered. The bear snorted again and nestled its nose against Evara's leg. "Then at least take some food before you go," Ash insisted.
She dug within her leather pack and drew out a paper wrapped ration of salted fish. The bear took it gladly, though she didn't eat it. She held it in her mouth as she nuzzled against Evara.
"She's not hungry, don't worry," Ash whispered.
"Speak for yourself," Evara meekly sighed from beneath her great fur blanket.
"Then we'll cook you a second breakfast," Ash chuckled, wrapping her steel hand around Evara's rosy little face. The bear noticed that she had awoken and took it for permission to leave the party as they were. It nipped at Evara's shirt and gently lifted her enough that it could stand without disturbing her.
"Thank you for helping us," Evara whispered, reaching a weary hand out to the bear. It met her halfway and nuzzled itself against her before bowing to Ashtik and fading into the darkness of natural night.
"I- You-" Sujin stuttered.
"Go back to sleep, Enchanter," Ash ordered. "We won't be disturbed again."
-- "How could I sleep after that?"
"Lightly and well," Ash snipped.
She took Evara's weight and helped the girl up to her little treetop nest. The younger had barely lain beneath her cover before dreams took her. Evara slept so softly, even after the ordeals and pains of the past weeks. Ash sat at her side for a moment. She wrapped Ev in her coverings as tightly as she could and watched the little shakes of her littler eyes and the quiver of her lips as she doubtless dreamed of victory in some grand debate.