4 – 7

The first impression Agnes had given me was one of enduring strength. She had been stood behind her bar the whole of Market Day, her taproom filled to the walls, and shown not a sign of being ill-affected by it. With her steel-gray eyes, crossed arms, and leathery bellow as her weapons, she had done battle with all the drunks who dared face her and defeated them all. This was a feat she had accomplished before, and would again. Edith had appeared to be this same woman, writ young. That quality is gone from them both, taken by the fire's gluttony.

Nothing remains of the deft way Edith would move between tables, dodging stumbles and grasping hands with dancer's grace. In it's place is a stubborn, flat-footed trod from injured to injured, doing what little she can with what little she has. Often, all she can do is press a filled mug of some drink into their hands before moving on. She's long since tired, but has yet to falter.

Agnes looks worse. Every one of the years easily seen in the gray of her hair has caught her, all at once. They pull half-moon bruises of midnight beneath her weary, steel-gray eyes. Streaks of sweat, ash, and something reddish-brown in color line cross her brow, her cheek, and the backs of her arms. She stumbles on her way over to us. It's just once, and she catches herself quickly, but there is still something wrong about the sight. It feels as though it should not be.

I feel Clarke's sharp gasp through our joined hands. From the corner of my eye I can see how she covers her mouth with her free hand's palm. Her blue eyes are wide and filled with a feeling that is soft, and sourly sad. When she reaches us, Agnes glares up over her crossed arms. To mention any of what we just saw, that look says, would be most unwise. Clarke lowers her hand and her lips move. Oh, Agnes are the words, softly given and poorly recieved.

“What,” Agnes shouts, though she needn't. This piece of her remains as strong as I remember, and well-hoarsened. “in the moonlit hells is the pairs o' ye doin' here?!” She turns her sharp look to Clarke. It's pointed enough to pierce. “Thought I tolds ye to gets gone, Clarkie! Now, not only are ye backs, but ye've brought someones with ye!”

Clarke has to swallow before she can answer. In those blue eyes is still that soft, sourly sad feeling. Pity, perhaps? No. Something kinder than that. She lifts her voice as far above the howling rumble of the fire as she can and answers, “We've come to help!”

Agnes doesn't immediately answer. Not with words. Her expression, moving from confusion to disbelief as she looks us over, speaks volumes. “Have the pairs of ye gone mad?!” There's more than what her face shows in the tone of her voice. Tiredness, yes, in its hoarseness, but also a well-buried vein of fearful worry.

Clarke doesn't see it, and I see her wilt. I find that I've taken a half-step forward and pulled her closer to, and just a touch behind of, me. Venomous words pool on my tongue; at least we came back and I don't see you out there and leave her be, you miserable sow! I press my lips into a thin line and bite down on the poison I'm so very ready to spit out onto someone undeserving. I know she's afraid, tired, and worried. I understand this.

But it's Clarke.

Agnes dismisses what I've done with a short, sharp sigh through her nose. She closes her eyes for a moment. “Gone aways an' safe, ye were,” she says, as quietly as she can and still be heard. “Nows yer neither.” I feel as though I should say something, perhaps apologize. Clarke seems to share the notion, from the look on her face. Before either of us can find the words, Agnes shrugs. “Since yer here, I mights as well puts ye to work. Come along, there's somewheres quiet we can go so's I won't have to shouts as much.”

Her rounded shoulders lead us through the crowded taproom. We pass the bar and the line of smoke-stained figures that sit at it, each of them slumped over their drink and slowly blinking in their exhaustion. A far cry from the sloppy, jovial drunks they were the night before. Instead of going up the stairs we go through the door at the base of them. When it swings shut behind us, the roar of the fire is cut down considerably. It's enough for us to talk without shouting at each other, but it seems Agnes disagrees. She leads us further, and I try to think of a way to describe the manner in which we mean to help without sounding like an absolute bastard. My thoughts, and our progress, come to a halt outside a very familiar door.

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She can't be serious.

She can't be.

She is. Agnes opens the door to the bathroom and jerks her head, gesturing for us to go in. Clarke does so, without a word, and I follow. The room is much the same: still dominated by the wide, wooden tub in the center, its wooden slats held together tightly by bands of iron. There's still the bucket in the corner, the washboard still gleaming faintly in the lamplight. Agnes moves around us and takes a seat on the stool by the tub, picking up the roughspun washcloth and wiping her brow with it.

With a sigh, she says, “There. Now let me tells ye what ye've come backs to.”

- - -

Her hoarse voice paints a worrying picture. Of the waterfront, gone. Of the fishery buildings following not long after. I remember people trying to save them, throwing bucket after slopping bucket onto tongues of flame that licked obscenely at the walls. “From there,” Agnes says, “it started to spreads out, towards people's houses. We're doings what we can, but...” she trails off and shakes her head.

“That's why we're here,” I say, “to help.” But I'm not sure we can, anymore. Even with all the magic that Clarke can bring to bear, it may not be enough. From the corner of my eye, I see her nod at my words. I also see her hesitate before she does.

Agnes snorts. “Ye should've stayed gone. Thats would've helped.”

Her words hurt to hear. They're also probably true. Clarke, who already doubted, seems struck harder by them. She hides her growing doubt well, but I see it. It's in the waver of her breaths and the way she hesitates before she says, “I – we couldn't have done that.”

Agnes smiles, and it's bittersweet. She seems almost proud of Clarke, just for the brief moment of that smile's existence. “Ye could've,” she answers, and it's gently said. “Ye should've. We're losing grounds, girls. We're all's too hurt or too tireds to keep the fire where it is. Like I said, we're doings what we can, but it won't be long now.”

For a moment, there is a moment that is as close to silent as it's possible to get with a gluttonous inferno feasting on everything it can reach. Out there, smoke burns the eyes and throat of the fewer and less who are still strong enough to face it. Out there, ash and ember falls like snow. Out there, the fight is being lost. The ones who fled will lose their homes, their town, their livelihoods. The ones who stayed will lose their lives.

No. no, it can't end like that. I won't let it end like that! “We have to try! It's better than – than to keep doing what isn't working!” I'm shouting by the end of it, hurt and anger mixing with lingering fear and an ever-rising doubt.

Just like in the taproom, it washes over Agnes without effect. “Oh, if only we had thoughts o' that before!” she says, sarcasm thick in her hoarse voice. I feel a rush of hot shame, but hold my ground. “And what woulds we do, eh?!”

“Something!” I answer, “Anything! It can't get any worse than that!” I point away from us, out towards the fire.

Agnes is about to answer me, anger flashing in her steel-gray eyes, when Clarke interrupts her. “Yes, it can,” she says, and there's something small and diminished in the way she talks. It hurts my heart to hear. When she looks up at me, her blue eyes are full of that same feeling. “It could get much, much worse.”

“How?” I ask. I'm not shouting anymore, nor am I angry. Seeing her this way has taken that from me.

She shakes her head, looking away and down to her feet. “Fire is hard to control, even with magic. It's chaotic and – and it...if I do one thing wrong, I could kill Valdenwood. Every building, animal, and person in the town and nearby, gone because of a single mistake.”

It's not diminished. She isn't diminished. She's defeated. So am I. All of this was pointless. “Then why are you here?” I ask. “Why did you come?”

She shakes her head. “It doesn't matter now. We're here, so...” she looks to Agnes. The dwarven woman has watched us fall from whatever height we stood on in silence. Granted, she all but pushed us, but at least she said nothing as we fell. For that, I'm grateful. “How can I help?”

Agnes sighs heavily. “Well,” she says, “There's plenty who needs some healings. Ye could start there. Or's I suppose you could go out to the well and works yer magic there.” She chuckles. “Ye could do aways with the buckets altogether and just magics the water up and out!”

Maybe some ground could be regained if Clarke pulls enough water up. It would be safer than using buckets, at least. “Can you do that?” I ask her, even as something takes root in the back of my mind. “Can you just...pick up the well-water and drop it on the fire?”

Clarke's nose wrinkles as she thinks the question over. Eventually and thoughtfully, she says, “It wouldn't be easy, but it would be easier than affecting the fire directly. Why?”

It's an idea. That thing that took root grew into a foolish, mad notion. It still fills me with a light, lifting excitement that threatens to make me smile. “Drown it.” I say, “Bring up every drop of water down there and let it fall like rain.”

Clarke is shaking her head even as I see the idea spark in her mind. “I don't know if – there might not be enough down there, but–” She cuts herself off and gasps, blue eyes lovely and alight as they meet mine. “The lake!”

I grin. “The lake,” I echo.