(669 A.C.)

Esseli did not smile like Ott thought she would at his words. I accept, he’d said without hesitation, but even he knew how stupid this was. Esseli was a military-trained fighter, silver-haired mage, and wielded an enchanted blade that did something though Ott still didn’t know what. Ott had a mace he didn’t know how to wield and a makeshift wand. There was the light crystal still in his pocket, too, though he had no idea how that would help him at all.

He was royally fucked. But at least the other prisoners would get the chance to escape this way.

Still standing beside him, Wanily tugged on Ott’s sleeve. “You can’t do this,” she urged. “This is just--you’re just going to die.”

Ott smiled at her. He could tell her he would be fine, but for once, he didn’t feel like lying or putting on a show. “Take your griffin and go, Wanily. Become the Archmage and whatever else your little heart desires.”

Wanily’s eyes brimmed with tears. Ahead of them, Hush and Shush began to pull open the gate to the camp, revealing the woods beyond. It was a sight Ott hadn’t been sure he would see again, but it seemed now that looking was all that he would get.

“I don’t want anyone else to die for me,” Wanily murmured.

Ott frowned, but before he could comment on that, Esseli moved forward. “Ott, you will move toward the middle of the courtyard and wait for me. The rest of you prisoners--” she stepped aside with a small gesture to the gate-- “are free to go.”

At first, the group hesitantly began to shuffle toward the gate, toward freedom, but when the bandits didn’t attack and not even the werewolves made so much as a twitch, they quickly began to pick up the pace. By the time they reached the gate, they were running out into the wilderness.

All except for Wanily, who stubbornly remained by Ott’s side, and Eko, who remained at hers.

Esseli looked coldly down at her and her griffin. “That was not a request, child. Are you not glad to finally be offered your freedom? After that failed escape attempt that I so graciously allowed you to live through?”

Wanily shifted beside Ott, moving her weight from foot to foot, and said nothing. Instead, she gave Ott another pleading look, but Ott had no idea what she wanted him to do.

This was the price he paid for her to live. She would get out of the fire unscathed. Ott, on the other hand...

Well, he’d get his chance to fight Esseli. That was all he could really ask for, too.

“Or I could kill you and your griffin now and be done with the matter?” Esseli spat. “Leave.”

“Go, Wanily,” Ott said softly, placing a hand on her back and giving her a light push. “Please.”

Wanily took a single step forward and stopped again. “Come out burned,” she murmured. “Come out burned but alive.”

Ott smiled. He wouldn’t promise her anything.

She stared up at him for another moment before finally shuffling out of the camp. Eko spared a glance and a soft chirp for Ott, nodding to him like Ott was supposed to know what that meant, before he strode after Wanily with his head held high. Ott watched their backs until they finally reached the treeline. Wanily looked back, face twisted with melancholy, before she ran into the woods after the other prisoners, Eko right on her heels.

“Well?” Esseli said, already marching to the middle of the courtyard. The bodies of the other prisoners rose on either side of her like small mountains, and when she turned to face Ott, it was with a frigid glare. She entered a battle stance, sword held in front of her. “Come face me, little bard.”

Ott took a deep breath, tightened his grip on his weapons, and strode forward to meet his fate.

He tried to think if there was any way for him to win this. Esseli stood confident before him, and why shouldn’t she? Ott didn’t have half the training or skill as her. Her bandits watched on from the wall walk or the ground by the gate, and he doubted they’d take kindly to him killing the woman that paid them. Same thing went for her werewolves and the dragon still circling overhead--any of them were bound to interfere if Ott even got close to winning. Which he doubted would even happen.

He stopped about fifteen paces away from Esseli, readying his mace and his wand. Did he know any spells that would help him here? A lot of combat spells required more conduits than just a wand, and the only other conduit he had was the stupid light crystal. Maybe he could try to blind her with a light spell? It was about the only thing he could think of, but he doubted how effective that would even be with how bright the sun above them already was.

Just how powerful would the light spell be? Crystals were powerful, he knew that, but it wasn’t like he’d used very many in the past.

On top of all that, he still didn’t know what enchantment laid on her sword. It could be something as simple as being able to cut through metal. It could be something as extravagant as throwing balls of fire. Or it could be anything in between. But why did it glow? Enchantments didn’t usually do that--and even if they did, it was when the magic was in effect, not just idly waiting to be used.

So did that mean that Esseli’s enchanted sword was always using magic? Why?

Ott was broken from his thoughts by Esseli slowly advancing, sword extended in front of her, ready to strike. She began moving to the left, and Ott did likewise, falling into circling each other.

“You could have stayed with me,” she said softly. Ott said nothing, but Esseli’s hard expression didn’t shift. “Lived a relatively easy life of pleasuring me and traveling by my side. I treat my pets well.”

“Don’t forget, general,” Ott hissed. “I’m a bard through and through.”

“Right,” she drawled. “A purveyor of freedom and love and joy, is that it? That’s why you allowed yourself to be captured in the first place. You wanted to free the people I imprisoned, take down my operation from the inside.” She suddenly smiled and nodded to one of the piles of bodies crowding them in. “How did that go?”

Ott could spit at her, tell her she was a monster. Tell her that she represented everything wrong with the progression of humans, that she embodied the cruelty they’d learned that came with their compassion. Instead, he threw himself at her, bearing down on her with his mace.

She easily evaded the overhead strike with a quick lunge to the side. Ott expected her to retaliate with a slash, but she twisted her blade around and struck him between the ribs with the pommel of her weapon. A precise attack that made Ott wheeze, stumbling back and lashing out with his mace again. Esseli ducked into a roll, slipping under the swing and popping up behind Ott.

She could have ran him through and been done with it. Instead, she kicked him square in the back, causing him to stumble forward this time. Ott grunted and whirled around to face her once more. She retreated quickly, falling into her battle stance again with an air of ease and confidence.

She was toying with him.

Ott gritted his teeth. She knew just as well as he did that this fight would last exactly as long as she wanted it to. But Ott wasn’t about to call it quits just because he didn’t stand a chance. Did the bards of old exercise caution just because they were angering the gods themselves? Of course not. And despite all her malevolence and competence to support it, Esseli was just a person, as mortal as him.

The crystal in his pocket weighed against his leg. If he could goad her into an attack, he might be able to use the crystal to blind her. It might not work, but it was about the only thing he could think of. Ott didn’t expect to live through this whether he killed Esseli or not, but if he could slay her, he would count his life as a worthy sacrifice.

“What’s the matter, Esseli?” Ott goaded. He winced when he breathed a little too deeply and it sent a pang between his ribs. “Afraid to face me properly?”

Esseli arched an eyebrow at him. She started moving to the left again, forcing Ott to circle with her. “What about this fight makes you think that you could handle ‘properly’?”

Ott glared at her, all show and one he hoped was convincing. “Why bother with a duel if you’re just going to flounce around and toy with me? If you’re going to take me down, do it.”

Esseli laughed. “But it’s so much better this way.”

Ott smiled. “Do you think the emperor thought the same? Exile over execution?” Ott tossed his makeshift wand aside, leaving his hand open. “Come at me!”

When Esseli attacked, he’d only have a split second to grab the crystal in his pocket. He didn’t want to do so now and tip her off to his plan. He would just have to be quick.

Esseli’s mirth disappeared. She regarded Ott coldly, still moving, one foot then the other in a slow prowl. Ott felt exposed under her gaze, like she knew what he was thinking, what he was planning. More likely, she was just noting all the ways she could kill him.

She struck with hardly any warning. Ott just barely noticed the way her stance shifted as she put more weight in the balls of her feet. It was his only indication that he was very much about to die if he didn’t do something very quickly. With one hand, he raised his mace to try blocking her attack. He plunged the other into his pocket and gripped the light crystal. Turning his head away and squeezing his eyes shut, he seized the idea of the exact spell he wanted to cast and let the crystal do the rest of the work.

Light spells could be some of the simplest spells to cast, though it also depended slightly on the nature of the spell. Making an object glow, especially one not being touched by the caster, was more difficult than just making light appear nearby. Sustaining the spell for any prolonged length of time would weaken the light or require more magic to make it as bright.

Ott didn’t do any of that. He didn’t need to. He just needed to have a bright enough, split second flash to blind Esseli. It would be one of the simplest spells a mage could cast. Even without a crystal, Ott could have created a strong enough beam of light to rival sunlight. But when the spell was amplified by one--

Even turned away and with his eyes closed, Ott’s entire vision went white. Esseli screamed in pure agony. Ott batted his eyes, trying to will away the slight blurriness at the edge of his vision, and focused back on Esseli. She’d dropped her weapon to press the heels of her hands into her eyes, her lips curled and teeth clenched.

“You son of a bitch!” she cried. When she dropped her hands from her face, Ott cringed at the sight of her eyes. Not just bloodshot but the white had turned a complete, harsh red, with tears streaming down her face in twin trails. The moment her hands fell, she cried out again and brought them right back. Sensitive to the daylight?

It didn’t matter. Esseli was defenseless, and she seemed to know it. She dropped to her knees, one arm coming up to shield her eyes and the other scrabbling in the dirt for her weapon. “I’ll kill you,” she spat. “You little shit, you’ll die for this.”

Her hand on the ground was more than a foot away from her weapon. Ott almost pitied her. Almost.

He moved forward, mace gripped in both hands. She must have been able to hear the scuff of his boots in the dirt because her movements became more frantic. She lowered her arm, red eyes squinted against the light. The tears raced down her face faster as she groped blindly for her weapon.

“I was the greatest general in the Tirandan army,” she hissed, though it sounded closer to a sob. “I will not be killed by some pathetic bard. I will not be killed.”

“No?” Ott said, hefting his mace up over his head. “I didn’t take you for a liar and a murderer, general.”

He knew she couldn’t see him, but she raised her head, baring her teeth at him like a cornered animal. Ott brought his mace down. Esseli’s right hand found the hilt of her blade.

Ott’s mace never connected with Esseli’s head. Ott wasn’t entirely sure what happened. One moment, Esseli’s skull was about to be crushed under the force of Ott’s swing, and the next, he found himself sprawled on the ground three feet away from her with a terrible pain fastened in his shoulder and a dark mass taking up the corner of his vision. He was too shocked to scream, but he at least had the sense to take the mace still in his hand and bring it toward whatever was stuck to his shoulder.

The thing growled and disappeared from his field of vision. Ott’s mace connected with nothing but the dirt beside his head.

He didn’t waste a second. Scrambling to his feet, he brought his mace up in front of him just in time to block a swipe from a wicked set of claws. The werewolf that had attacked him--Shush, he thought--drew back with a snarl. It crouched low to the ground and began to circle Ott on all fours, teeth bared and growling lowly.

Around that time, Ott became aware of a sharp pain in his pointer and middle finger on his right hand, the one gripping the mace towards the bottom of the shaft. He glanced down, blanching at what he saw. It wasn’t that Shush had scratched him. No, when Shush attacked, he’d sliced Ott’s two fingers clean off.

Ott stared at the bloody stumps on his hand dumbly. It didn’t matter, he told himself. He wasn’t even going to get out of here alive anyway. It didn’t matter that he’d never be able to play his lute or flute or the majority of the other instruments under his belt again. He would never get the chance anyway.

Ott shook himself from his stupor as he heard movement behind him. He risked a glance over his shoulder to see Hush stalking forward, one hesitant step after the other. Was it Ott’s imagination or did Hush look like he didn’t want to attack him?

In the end, he supposed it didn’t matter. Whether or not Hush was somehow being forced to attack him, Shush seemed more than happy to do so. Even one werewolf would be more than capable enough to end Ott’s life.

He whipped his head around to look over his other shoulder at Esseli. She still knelt on the ground, one hand clenching the hilt of her sword and her other arm raised to protect her eyes. She was trembling, tears still slipping down her cheeks and her lip curled--though in anguish or anger, Ott didn’t know.

Could he at least take solace in that? The fact that he may have permanently blinded the great General Pikerman with her own light crystal? He supposed he would have to, he thought, as he fixed his attention back onto Shush. He wasn’t going to get anything more.

Shush abruptly stood again, snarling. It was about to lunge at him, Ott knew that, but what was he able to do to stop it? Blocking the attack would just be delaying the inevitable--if Ott even could block it.

He let his mace fall to his side. Shush’s lips curled up in the mimicry of a smile. Somewhere behind him, Hush still approached. There was nowhere to run, nothing to do. Ott sent up a quick, silent prayer to Amera, thanking the goddess for allowing him all the love he’d gained and given in his life.

A bird-like screech cut Ott’s prayer short. He furrowed his brow, wondering what new threat there could possibly be now, before something flew straight into Shush’s back. Something fast and golden with a wide wingspan and white feathers and--

“Eko!?” Ott cried. The griffin paid no heed to Ott as it plunged its sharp beak into Shush’s shoulder, his paw scrabbling at Shush’s back and raking deep into its flesh if the agonized howl Shush gave was anything to go by. It reached one long arm up and behind it to slash at Eko, but he dropped to the ground and quickly made space between himself and the much bigger monster.

Eko was here. Eko was here, which meant Wanily--

“What was that?” Esseli snarled. Ott whirled back to face her, but she remained on the ground. Without looking--not that she was able to--she took her sword and pointed it at Hush. “Do something, Hush.”

But how did she know--?

Of course, Ott realized. Esseli spoke about harsh enough strikes and kind enough caresses, but there was more than that necessary to make a beast like a werewolf or a dragon heel. The dragon hadn’t been able to fight against her, no matter that it wanted to. Eko had remained unphased by Esseli during all this time, even though she’d had time to train him. Hush didn’t want to attack Ott, but he had no choice.

Esseli’s sword was enchanted to make new god creatures heel to her. It had nothing to do with how cruel she was. It was because she had magic on her side.

The twang of several bows broke Ott from his thoughts. There were many bandits on the wall walk still, and as Eko flapped his wings and took to the skies again, they wasted no time in trying to shoot him down. Ott inhaled sharply. Eko had come back to help him, but Ott would be powerless to return the favor.

The arrows, aimed up to shoot the griffin out of the air, suddenly veered to the side. Ott had no doubt he paled as he tore his gaze down--down to the open gate to the camp, where Wanily stood, brow furrowed in concentration and hand stretched out in front of her. She’d pulled the arrows from their course to protect Eko.

But who was going to protect her?

Ott saw the exact moment that one of the other bandits spotted her. The bandit pointed at her, shouting something though Ott couldn’t make out what from his distance, before drawing the sword at his hip and advancing. Wanily yelped and darted forward, toward Ott and the werewolves and every other bloody thing that was trying to kill them. The bandits on the ground surged after her, drawing their weapons and giving a battle cry.

Ott glanced up, where the dragon had begun to dive. He looked ahead of him, where Hush still slowly approached. Then, he darted to the side, where Esseli remained. She must have heard him rushing toward her because she raised her blade in his direction, but without being able to see him, it was all too easy for Ott to smack the sword from her hand with his mace. She cried out, kicking out her legs as she scrambled back--not that she should’ve bothered. Esseli wasn’t his target here.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Her enchanted blade skidded to a stop against the packed dirt. Ott brought his mace up over his head and down onto the blade, shattering it.

The force of his strike reverberated up his arms and made him grit his teeth against the pain in his shoulder from where Shush bit him. Somewhere behind him, one of the werewolves howled. Ott whirled around in time to see Shush barreling toward him. It was still fighting for Esseli!? Why?

Ott braced himself, but before Shush could reach him, Hush lunged at his fellow werewolf. The two bowled over, past Esseli, and began to wrestle on the ground in a flurry of bites and slashes.

Hush had saved him. Shush might have still been loyal to Esseli, but Hush was fighting for Ott.

“Ott!” Wanily cried from behind him, breaking Ott from his reverie. He turned in time to get an armful of teenager as Wanily rammed straight into him, fastening her arms around his middle and making him stagger back. “You’re still alive! By the time I convinced Eko to come back, I wasn’t sure you would be.”

Ott, despite everything happening around them and the pain he was in, cracked a smile. Still, one of them had to keep their wits about them. “Wanily, maybe this isn’t the time--”

The dragon alighted on the ground in front of him. When it looked at them, Ott became concerned for a moment that it was still loyal to Esseli, too, but it only nodded to him and turned to face the bandits. The bandits, who had been furiously chasing after Wanily, stopped and uncertainly regarded the new threat.

The dragon let out another of its booming laughs before lashing out at the closest bandit, chomping the man clean in half with its great jaws. That made the other bandits let out a war cry and advance on the dragon, swinging their weapons wildly at it or shooting at it from the wall walk.

Wanily drew away from him. She raked her gaze up and down him, lingering on his bloody shoulder and the dripping stubs on his hand, but she didn’t comment on them. Finally, she said, “We need to get out of here.”

“Not yet,” Ott said, gripping his mace with both hands. The bottom of the shaft was slick with his blood. “First, I need to--”

Finish Esseli, had been the end of that statement, but when Ott turned back toward her, she was gone. So was the hilt of her sword and whatever amount of blade remained attached to it.

The other pieces of the sword didn’t glow any longer. Ott didn’t know much about enchantments other than they were things that other people could do and they served their functions for a while before ultimately reverting to a normal item, but he would bet anything that the part Esseli grabbed still worked as intended. But Hush and the dragon were out of her control, so the power of the enchantment had to have weakened, at least. Was she even able to see yet? What was her plan?

Ott frantically glanced around the courtyard. Hush and Shush continued to snap at each other and try to score the other with their claws while Eko struck Shush at every opportunity. If the sword still worked, Esseli obviously wasn’t trying to use it on Hush.

Ott whirled around just in time to see Esseli staggering toward the back of the dragon’s head. In one hand, she gripped her broken sword, a jagged piece of the blade still protruding from the hilt.

Wanily spotted Esseli the moment after Ott did. Esseli felt along the dragon’s neck before she brought up the blade to plunge it between its scales. Wanily thrust out her hand with a cry of, “No!”

She obviously tried to change the trajectory of Esseli’s swing with her old magic, but even Ott could tell her that wouldn’t work. Old magic and new magic didn’t mix well, and as the blade was enchanted with new magic, it would be hard for Wanily’s old magic to grip it.

The blade might have slowed in the air for the briefest moment, but if it did, that was all that Wanily accomplished. Esseli jabbed the broken sword between the dragon’s scales. The dragon let out a roar but did not retaliate against her. That told Ott all that he needed to know.

Esseli struggled to climb up onto the dragon’s back. “Vio,” she said once she had, loud enough that it reached Ott’s ears. “Get me out of here.”

The dragon shook its head. For a moment, it didn’t move, and Ott thought the sword’s enchantment might be weak enough for it to resist. The dragon let out another roar and flew into the air, slithering through the sky with Esseli clinging to the spines on its back.

“No!” Ott shouted. He glanced at the ground, searching for a bow, but there was none nearby, not that he knew how to use one. “Eko!” he cried, imploring the griffin. Eko chirped in affirmation and took off after the dragon, but it became clear after just a few moments that the dragon could fly much faster than him. He was still just a fledging griffin.

Ott watched the dragon move east, growing smaller in the distance. Eventually, Eko must have seen the futility in his chase and turned back, gliding toward him and Wanily. “No,” Ott said again, much softer.

Behind him came a high-pitched cry. Ott only had eyes for Esseli disappearing over the horizon, but Wanily whirled around. The alarm on her face morphed to relief, so Ott had to assume that Hush had prevailed over its fellow. Not that Shush would’ve had anything left to fight for now that Esseli had left it.

Eko landed next to Wanily and let out a warning squawk in Hush’s direction. When Ott couldn’t see the dragon anymore, he turned. Hush was crouched next to Shush’s crumpled form, head bowed and eyes closed. He was bleeding from multiple wounds along his body, both bite marks and cuts, but for all that, he was still alive.

But what did it matter? Esseli got away. Ott had been willing to die to kill her, and she’d turned tail and ran. What did it matter if he or her werewolf survived?

At least Wanily and the other prisoners were okay, he supposed. Speaking of which--

“Why did you come back?” Ott demanded. “You should have ran with the others. You could have died.”

Wanily crossed her arms and glared up at him. “A ‘thank you’ would be nice. Eko saved your life.”

Ott sighed. “Thanks,” he deadpanned.

She huffed. She opened her mouth, stopped, glanced down, and finally said, “Do you know if the bandits kept any healing potions?”

“What for?” Ott said dully. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

Wanily glared harder. “You lost two fingers. And are bleeding out of your shoulder.”

“So?” Ott said. When Wanily’s ire didn’t waver, he sighed. “I don’t know of a healing potion strong enough that can make a person’s limbs grow back.”

Wanily’s eyes widened. “So you--you’ve just lost two fingers?”

“Yes,” Ott said. He felt--and probably sounded--listless. He’d failed to get all the prisoners out. He’d failed to kill Esseli. He may have blinded her, but then, her sight might return, too. Ultimately, all he accomplished here was getting a small group of prisoners out and the bandits guarding them killed.

Wanily bit her lip. She looked more than a little alarmed, which Ott thought might be uncalled for. “So what do we do now?”

Ott almost laughed at her. “What do you mean?”

She gave him an oddly discerning look. It felt like she was peering into his thoughts, his very soul. “You’re not dead, Ott,” she said slowly. “We came out of the fire. You came out of the fire. You may be burned, but...”

Burned but alive. Burned but moving forward. It was Ott’s own words turned on him, and he couldn’t say he appreciated it. In the end, though, Wanily was right. Esseli had gotten away and Ott had come out far from unscathed, but he was still here. As long as that was true, there was more work to be done.

He glanced at the piles of bodies. “We should bury them,” he said. “We couldn’t save them, so they deserve that much.”

Wanily nodded, obviously relieved. “Okay.”

----------------------------------------

It almost took the rest of the day to dig a hole big enough to act as a mass grave. A good thing that the sun was still up when they finished as Ott wasn’t sure how passive Hush would be once it was night. Hush remained at Shush’s side the whole time, staring down at its body with something like remorse.

They took some shovels from the mining gear in the building and got to work. Eko’s paws were not very big and his claws not suited for digging, but he still helped them as much as he could. It fell to Ott, though, to drag the bodies to the grave, since they were too unwieldy for Eko to carry and too heavy for Wanily.

By the time Ott had piled the last body into the grave, the sun hung low on the horizon. Wanily had taken to sitting on the ground with her legs crossed under her, Eko laying on the ground beside her with his head resting on his front paws. She watched him with a pinched expression, worried like she expected him to drop over dead any moment. Sure, his shoulder and his stumps hurt something fierce, but he’d wrapped his hands in some rags and his shoulder had stopped bleeding so it was fine.

Ott glanced at Hush, who still hadn’t moved. He sighed, dusted off his hands, and moved to stand in front of him, just on the other side of Shush’s body. Hush slowly dragged his gaze up to stare at Ott. He still somewhat doubted exactly how intelligent Hush was--maybe the same as a young child?--but there was definitely something tormented in those red eyes.

How long had Hush and Shush been companions under Esseli? At least since the war ended, right? Logic dictated that it had to be for some time before then, too. Hush may not have broken during all that time, but Shush’s will had broken under Esseli’s own. To Ott, Shush’s death was nothing more than putting down a rabid beast. The same couldn’t be said for Hush.

“You’re free now,” Ott said slowly, part of him still afraid that Hush would suddenly grow tired of him and attack. “Go on, Hush. There’s nothing left for you here.”

Hush let out a low whine. He tore his gaze back down to Shush. Slowly, he reached forward, gripping Shush’s legs, and stood. He shambled over to the open grave, Shush’s body in tow, until he stood at the edge of the pit. After another long moment of simply standing there, Hush threw Shush’s body right on top of those of the prisoners and tossed his head back, letting out a howl.

Ott watched silently as Hush finally stopped, turned, stared at Ott for another few, ragged breaths, before finally shaking his head and heading toward the open gate out of camp. Ott let out a small breath of relief when Hush disappeared into the treeline. At least now he wouldn’t be liable to attack Ott or Wanily when the sun did finally set. And he was free. Those thoughts probably should have been in the opposite order, but, well, Ott never claimed to be an avatar of love. Only a messenger of it.

Wanily stood once Hush was gone, climbing to her feet and prompting Eko to do the same. She opened her mouth--presumably to say something--but closed it again, a deep furrow forming between her brow. Ott glanced over his shoulder where her gaze was trained, but it wasn’t until several moments later that he was able to make out the small, flapping forms of the pixies flying toward them in the dying light.

Ott felt his own brow raise in surprise. “Oh,” Wanily said behind him, sounding relieved, “It’s the pixies.”

“You saw them first,” Ott pointed out. “You didn’t realize what they were?”

“No,” Wanily said, crossing her arms. “They’re small. How could I have been able to tell what they were?”

Something about that didn’t add up, but Ott let it slide since the pixies had stopped above the both of them, flapping their wings furiously to remain in place.

“Nice of you to show up,” he drawled. “Could have used your help about, oh, several hours ago.”

“Help!” the one farthest to the right chirped. “Help! Help!” they all began to chant, far too cheerful for Ott’s taste.

One of them, lower than the others, smiled and dove toward the open doorway into the building. Ott felt his brow continue to rise higher, until his eyebrows were probably up into his hair as the pixie re-emerged, a small, pale object held between its feet as it flew back to Ott. It grinned even wider at him, giggling, and dropped the item, forcing Ott to nearly dive to catch it.

A quick glance confirmed it--the pixie had brought him the force crystal, almost certainly from the elevator. Fat good it did him now. Still, the pixies had come back, and they had fulfilled their part of the plan after all. Ott grunted, looking back up at the small group of them.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Weeeelcooome,” one of them enunciated slowly, grating against Ott’s ears. The others mimicked it, creating a horrible chorus of sound.

“Okay, okay,” Ott said, shooing them away. They began to giggle, all of them, and Ott wished those annoying voices could just go quiet. “Off you go.”

The pixies, whether they understood his words or not, seemed to at least understand they were no longer needed and took off into the rapidly approaching night. Ott watched them go, the force crystal cool against the palm of his good hand. He rolled it between his fingers, considering.

“I need to go get my stuff,” Wanily piped up. “I think Esseli took most of it.”

“Then it’ll be in her room, I imagine.” Ott motioned for Wanily to head into the tower. “Might as well get whatever else we can before we set out, hm?”

Wanily nodded and marched ahead of him. She went up to Esseli’s room while Ott stuck to the first floor with Eko and picked through what few things the bandits had left behind. Cups, plates, some furs, and things to pass the time like cards and dice. Nothing especially useful to Ott.

Eko remained in the doorway, watching him. Ott, after pocketing exactly one of the wooden dice just so he felt like this wouldn’t be a huge waste of time, arched a brow at him. “Got something to say?”

Eko snorted, a whistling sound through the nostrils of his beak. He flicked an ear and settled down so that his paws were tucked under his body and his wings bunched against his back. If Ott still had a death wish, he would have called Eko cute. Alas, the only thing he was willing to die for was the death of the exact person who’d gotten away.

Before he could go spiraling down that path of thinking, though, Wanily came clomping back down the stairs, a large pack on her back. She grinned when she caught Ott’s gaze. “Almost everything right where it should be! Missing some of my brewing ingredients and some of the food’s gone bad, but the important stuff is here.” She reached behind her and patted the side of the pack.

“Delightful,” Ott said, trying--and failing--to sound sincere. “Wouldn’t happen to have something to make camp?” he asked.

Wanily nodded. “Let’s get out of here first,” she said softly. “I think we’ve spent more than enough time in this place.”

Ott couldn’t agree more. Eko climbed to his feet and led the way out of the bandit encampment and out into the forest. There was no telling where, exactly, Hush had gone, and Ott would really like to avoid encountering a werewolf at night. Some things couldn’t be helped, though. Ott had been lucky enough to make it through everything alive--he would just have to hope that luck held and Hush didn’t make a reappearance.

Wanily swept her gaze around the forest as they picked their way through the underbrush. “Which way is the road?”

“I have no idea,” Ott admitted. “Hey, birdbrain, don’t suppose you could go find where the road is?”

Eko stopped to shoot a glare back at Ott before shaking out his wings. He bounded forward, and then with a powerful flap of his wings, took off, veering between the trees as he gained altitude. When he disappeared from view, Ott leaned against the nearest trunk to wait.

Wanily’s head continually swiveled around, though what she hoped to see in the darkness, Ott had no idea. He sighed. “Red.”

Wanily paused only briefly to give him a strange look before continuing her inspection of their surroundings. “What?”

Ott pointed to his head. “My hair color.”

“Oh.” He had expected Wanily to be impressed or at least mildly surprised, but she just nodded. “I can see magic.”

Ott blinked. He opened his mouth, closed it, then asked, “Specialty mage?”

“Yep.”

That could explain why she was looking around so intently. If she could see magic, she could probably see any threats before they appeared. Except if there was a bear or something. But Ott considered those chances low enough not to worry about.

“Cool,” he said, trying to muster the same flippance she had. He wasn’t sure he managed it. Not everyday you met a specialty mage after all, and one that he had never heard of before? Wanily continued to surprise him, it seemed.

Wanily, Wanily, Wanily, he thought. It had a nice ring to it. A certain rhythm. It felt like it was missing something though, something that would make it truly great. But well, she had plenty of time to find it now, didn’t she?

“So you’re an old magic mage,” he mused aloud. She nodded. “Have you ever been to Fris?”

“The country in the southeast?”

Ott nodded. “That’s the one. I hail from there, you know. It’s just about the last place on earth where it’s fairly common to practice old magic.”

Visibility was getting low, but Ott was fairly certain Wanily perked up at that. “Really?”

“Sure is. So if you want to learn old magic, you could do a lot worse than visiting the country and trying to find someone to teach you.”

Wanily let her pack fall to the ground with a thump. She crouched down and rummaged through it for a moment before pulling out a short, makeshift torch. She hesitated, hand still deep in her pack, before she turned to him. “Can you light this?”

Ott could have scoffed. Fire was barely more difficult to conjure than light. “You can’t?”

Wanily huffed. “I don’t know the science behind fire. I know the science behind movement--at least a little.” She held the torch up toward him. “So?”

Shrugging, Ott reached forward. “Let warmth fill the air and chase away the dark. Focus my power, and let the fire start.”

A lick of flame sprouted from his fingertip, and he touched it to the torch until the fabric wrapped around the wood caught fire. He leaned away as Wanily straightened. “Fris, huh?” she murmured. “A place I could finally learn some magic. Maybe even get a teacher...”

“Wish I could point you in a better direction than a whole blasted country,” Ott said, “but I wasn’t very popular back home on account of the bard-ness and the new magic. Do you happen to worship Amera?”

Wanily snorted. “I don’t worship any of the gods.”

Ott shrugged. He would worship Amera until his dying breath, but he didn’t expect everyone else to do so, much unlike most of the other members of the church. “Well, good. Frisians don’t very much like the church or the new gods or anything to do with the empire, really, so just keep your head down and focus on magic and you’ll be fine.”

Wanily beamed up at him. “Sounds great! We’ll go to Fris, then.”

Oh, poor girl. Ott shook his head. “I won’t be going with you.”

Wanily’s smile vanished, morphing into a pout. “Why not?”

He could say it was because he was a bard and Fris hated bards. He could say it was because he was a new magic mage and they hated those, too. But he’d grown up there, had learned much of what he knew now from foreigners in the country but who had been in the country. He didn’t fear the land of Fris.

“I failed them,” Ott said softly. “My country and my people. I can’t go home. Not yet.”

Not until he’d killed Esseli, he did not say.

Wanily stared at him under the light of her torch and he thought she heard it anyway. “We’ll go to Fris, then,” she murmured. “Me and Eko. I’ll go and learn enough old magic that I can become the Archmage. And you... you go and become the greatest bard in the world, alright?” She smiles then, more than a bit sly. “And work on writing some better songs.”

Ott chuckled. He wouldn’t be able to play those songs, not really, not with two fingers on one hand instead of four. But he did not tell Wanily that. He had been burned, but he came out of the fire. That was what mattered. “I’ll get right on that,” he drawled, not unkindly.

She held out the torch to him, then, and he frowned at her. “I’ll just make another,” she insisted. “You don’t have anything with you.”

That much was true. He took the offered torch with a smile. “You’re a kind soul, Wanily.”

She grinned back at him. “Duh.”

He hesitated, but, well, Ott had only one thing of value with him. He took the force crystal out of his pocket and proffered it with a small bow of his head. “Here. Stop getting into trouble now, alright?”

Wanily briefly looked surprised, but she quickly smiled. She took the force crystal and tucked it into one of the side pouches of her pack. “I can’t promise anything,” she proclaimed. “But I’ll try.”

Before they could say anything else, Eko returned with much less grace than when he left. The snapping of branches and rustling of leaves heralded his arrival as he struggled to navigate through the treetops. When he alighted on the ground beside them, it was with no small helping of foliage and dust caught in his fur and feathers. He looked between Ott and Wanily haughtily, as if daring them to say something.

Ott was going to give an appropriately witty remark, but Wanily simply asked, “Find the road?”

Eko nodded, giving a soft chirp.

“Great! Lead the way.”

Ott sighed, the opportunity passing, and simply fell into step behind Wanily as they followed Eko through the woods. It wasn’t twenty minutes later that they found themselves at the edge of the tree line, right on the cusp of a dirt path cutting through the forest.

Wanily marched right out into the open without the slightest break in stride. Ott followed with a little more caution, but there didn’t seem to anyone or anything around. If the other prisoners had come this way, they were already gone.

“I guess this is where we part ways,” Wanily said, smiling. It was the smile of someone that was all too familiar with goodbye, Ott thought, the way it was so bittersweet. Her voice betrayed none of her melancholy, though. “I’ll see you when you’re the greatest bard, Ott!”

“And I you when you’re the Archmage,” he replied, reaching out and tousling her hair. She ducked away from him, laughing.

Eko chirped at her from farther up the road, tail lashing behind him. Wanily glanced back at him, her smile never wavering. “This way to Fris, right?” she asked, pointing toward where Eko stood.

Ott nodded. “Goodbye.”

“Bye, Ott.” Wanily said, her joy dampening once again. They stood there, staring at each other for a moment, but eventually, Wanily nodded and turned on her heel. When she reached Eko, she looked back at Ott. He nodded to them again. Wanily and Eko nodded back, and then they were off, heading toward the home Ott couldn’t bear to go back to. Not yet.

He turned to face the north, more toward the heart of Dryan. He needed more supplies and some money--a torch would only get him so far. He also needed someone to properly treat his injuries before they got infected. He had confidence he could reach a village or town before it came to that, though.

Wanily, Wanily, Wanily, he thought again. It definitely had a good ring to it. He’d told her, just a few days before, that maybe all he needed was the right muse for him to write a good ballad. Wanily... she was missing something right now, but maybe down the road, she’d find it. And then, maybe, he would finally write a great song. Like the bards of old.

Ott watched the sky as he walked. No dragons crossed his vision, but it wouldn’t be long. He would find Esseli. He would become the greatest bard. And, when the time was right, he would write a song about the Archmage, Wanily.

It was a lovely night to be alive, Ott thought.