Terira pulled the petulant little girl up the stairs, Fey following close behind.

"But I no wanna go!"

Sanisa was, as always, strongly opposed to going to bed. Dragging her up to her room tended to be the most painful part of the day, but Terira loved her nevertheless. Sanisa has always had a love for animals and garden, and typically enjoyed walking the field with Terrira, feeding rabbits and harvesting herbs. Though the gate was restricting.

"We've got to go anyhow, otherwise we'd get no sleep, " said Fey softly. He didn't look up from the steps he climbed, and said the words so softly they could've been to himself. "Then we may not be able to play on the harvest, or play in the fields should we make Sariya mad."

Kuxalo leaving had hit Fey worse than anything Terira had ever seen. Even when he first arrived at the orphanage with a dead rabbit in his arms, he was there with a sad grin, but a grin no less. Now there was not even an attempted facade, and Terira found herself sad and confused. It seemed that but three people in this house knew why Kuxalo had disappeared- Calkolh, Sariya, and Feyion. No one else truly understood what had happened the night of the burning, beyond that it was nothing good. When the three guards and three Grims arrived, escorting Calkolh and Fey home, Sariya ran forward with tears and open arms. After having seen them home safely, the guards exchanged small words and left. The Grims remained. And Sariya saw their faces, saw but two of her children, and sharply asked, "Where is he?". Fey kept his eyes downcast, looking nowhere, but for the first since he had come home Calkolh looked up, into Sariya's tearing eyes. "Where is my son?"

When the Grims asked for a word in private, she complied. They walked into the dining room and closed the door. And when they finally left, Calkolh following with dark eyes, Sariya sent Fey to bed with Terira. And she cried. Alone in her room and lost, she cried. All the siblings had asked Fey what had happened, but it seemed that both Sariya and Calkolh had taken a vow of silence, and the only question Fey would answer is if he was dead. And Fey would say no. And that would be the end of it.

Now as Terira walked Fey and Sanisa up to their rooms, she could not help but notice the downcast that this had put on the family. Tensions in the family strained, and yet everybody seemed to pull to each other, needing each other. Slowly they came to understand that he had not simply run away- this had something to do with the bear and beast in the forest, this was more than just the whispers and unrest, more than just Calkolh. It was him. He was gone. It was him. They just didn't know why.

"But I'm not even tired yet," whined Sanisa once more, "see?", and she proceeded to jump up and down, failing her arms in an exaggerated manner. She looked the fool. Terira smiled softly, her thoughts leaking their way to her heart. She crouched down to her heels, gently reached her hand behind Sanisa's head, and pulled her in for a quick kiss.

"And yet, " she murmured softly against her forehead as the little girls arms wrapped about her neck , "I'll come back within the half hour to find you asleep, eyes closed and breathing so softly we'll think you died."

Sanisa made a soft sound in her throat, and Terira gently pulled their hug tighter. "I know, I know." She laid her lips gently against the side of Sanisa's face as she felt tears drip onto her shoulder. "I know."

---

Terira pulled on her night shift as she sat down on her bed. The day had been a long one. Sariya had gone out to buy cloth and food with Deerea, and as Terira lay in the room she shared with her, she could only wish she had gone as well. But with Calkolh gone most daylight hours, she had become the oldest in the house, and the responsibility had fallen upon her to take care of the children. And she did. She saw them all from wherever they happened to be that morning, stayed with them all day, and told them stories of the Heroes of Crone’s Winter. She cooked for them, fed them, tended to them. She had seen to the needs of Sariya and Deerea as well, and sh was now ready to fall fast asleep.

But she couldn't. She stared at the wall for what felt an eternity, but no sleep came. She tried to find the source of unrest but it eluded her. She turned to her side, but that did nothing. At last, with a sigh and a groan, she pushed herself upright. She stood and stretched, and then as quietly as possible walked from the room, down stairs and into the dining room. There was still a bit of stale bread on the table, and she was quite hungry, she grabbed the bread, pulled out a chair, and sat. She put the stale bread in her mouth, chewed on the toughness thoughtfully, and sat in the silence that perpetuated the house for the first time that day. The hearth had grown colder, but she found that she didn't truly mind. The toughness of the bread forced her to chew slowly and ration out each bite. And she sat thinking. With each thoughtful chew she seemed to run through her life- the first time she had met Calkolh and Kuxalo when they came as stragglers to the orphanage, the first time she met Sanisa and her sister Deerea, and her own comings- on this she found she knew too little. She was raised here, almost from birth- she had come still a toddling. But twenty-six Crystal Moon cycles old, not far done with her second year. She was simply handed to Sariya, exchanged for nothing. Sariya said she was simply left on the doorstep, and Johan had told the both of them that he woke groggily to a noise outside, and swore he saw a person swathed in white robes. He said even the face was wrapped, and quickly went to Sariya to tell her what he had seen. But when she walked outside, all she found was a bundled baby swathed in brown and dark green, stuffed in a large woven basket for fruits, and possessing only a brooch- or perhaps a pin, she had never found reason to be sure. The pin, able to fit within the center of her palm, was a beautiful purple-crystal butterfly. Enameled, it shown even in the dim light. And in the middle, ringed by dark silver, it bore the device of a squatting gargoyle, mouth open and wings reared. Terira once again marveled at such detail on such a small figure, as if they had taken a dwarfed gargoyle, breathed into life so that they could stuff its brilliance into a pin. She had always found this to be too much for a bastard child, and she was no idiot- this could sell for enough coin to pay for our bread for a year, prehaps two were they frugal. Though she was ready to do so, nothing would sway Sariya on her decision to keep that pendant with whom it came. It was hers, and hers alone she would say. She had tried to sell it times many a number when she was younger, and it came to the point where Sariya would forbid her from taking it from the house. However, she was now older, and on a day that she awoke and needed comfort, she would take her violet butterfly pin and place it into a pocket, in which she would slide her hand in a slow moment in the day. Something about it stayed in her mind. It had found its way into her pocket for the last four days. But there were times, as in now, when she thought too deeply that it scared her. She was an orphan, no name, no title, no power. A nobody.

Yet this was her- for a princess, a Queen. Or at least a very rich man, but with this came the obvious question; why was she left? She had a hard time believing that she could indeed be Royal, but even so, what Royalty would leave their blood behind- blood preserved their line, which in turn preserved their power. No one could afford to simply make a daughter disappear, unless she was a very poor noble indeed, and they needed a son to preserve their line. But if this was for truth the case, how was she still drawing breath? She expected that the father would have simply just put her to death, and if not given her away to another noble to raise. And yet another question still came. No matter how she had been left, this pendant should have never been left with her. This was a symbol of a past removed, and something that was- or should have been- too much of a risk to leave. This was knowledge that could have connected her back to whoever left her- a risk left better not taken. In any case, her origins were lost to more than just her.

The sound of crunching leaves and pebbles from outside the front door drew her attention away. Terira was the only one awake, and stood slipping the pendant into her pocket, and walked out to the front door calmly. She felt that she knew who it was before she even got to the door.

Terira walked out into the cool night air and pulled her robe closer about herself. SHe quietly closed the door behind her, bare feet shifting uncomfortably on the cold small pebbles left in the dirt. She said nothing and just stared at him in silence, waiting. A gentle breeze picked up on the still night air. She shivered some.

Calkolh stood motionless, long Grim cloak and tall Grim boots strangely unmoved by the wind. "I can't stay long, so leave the others in the house."

"Then why come?"asked Terira, a little miffed that he had made her come out in the chill for only a declaration of desolation. It wasn't as if he couldn't have visited in silence; he could have pulled out the sound, or whatever it was that he did. But she could not help but feel some morbid interest- he had yet to come home in four days, and left with the Grims the night Kuxalo had left him. And whether or not he admitted to it, they were brothers. She knew that it was his own blood that left him that day.

"I don't know. My training with them has slowed, and their questions have exhausted themselves. They took me back to the city, told us to see what happens when... sister, what I have seen." He had yet to look at her once, just stared straight ahead facing so that she was facing her back. "I have stilled my cloak. Few others of my group could say the same."

"Why did you come?", Terira asked once again. She pulled her arms tighter about herself, the chill biting into her.

"This is home. I had to see it again before I left. " He for the first time shifted, his thick hide boots turning in the dirt. "They feel it's time for true training. Taken with them to spend time with more intense directions."

"And what of us? What of your family?"

"I have nothing left here. ", he said starkly, and his voice was empty.

"We are here. You still have a family here Calkolh, we are still here."

"And you will still be here,", he said that just as cuttingly as he had before, "I will come to visit- I will not forget you while I am with them there."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"And what of here?"

He stayed silent. Terira moved in closer to him, an arms length away from his back. He said nothing. She stood just behind his shoulder, looking at the large Dusk Moon on the horizon, fat and a hazy brown sitting squat upon the horizon. It always glowed that hazy brown, and was the largest of the five moons. It would proceed to move lazily across the sky for the next seven and a half Gray Moon Cycles. She was reminded that her own cycle would end tomorrow. She looked up at the Crystal Moon high in the sky, like a ball of glass with multicolored facets on its edge.

"Here is empty, " he said at last. "there is only blood and pain here."

"Since he left-"

"No." He shifted again but this time turned to look at her. "No. This is not about him."

"This is only about him. That is all that this is. Not long before, you would have never thought to leave your family."

He stood stoic. "He's gone. He was my blood, and he is..." , she could feel him tense, and sensed it was not because of the night chill. It wasn't visible in the least however. She looked at him and found his eyes looking back into hers. His eyes were such a deep brown that they were easily distinguishable, standing out starkly from his tanned skin and jet black hair. She knew many a maiden that had fallen for his look. His didn't last long, tearing his eyes from hers to look once again at the distant dust moon. "He's gone. Sister, he's gone."

Terira had no greater desire than to want to ask why, but she withheld. "Yes he's gone. But we are still here. And just as he left us, we need you more now."

"He left us, " said Calkolh with grim amusement. "Left us. Would he have stayed?" Terira watched his musings in silence. Calkolh slowly looked from the moon and turned to face the house. "What did you have for supper? Mutton?"

Terira smirked. "No, and I doubt you truly care."

"Ah but I do. If it was meat it should have been mine." He looked at the house quietly. Terira couldn't hear him breathing. He was always practicing. "How are the little ones?"

"Sad, " Terira said quietly. "all of them restless, crying, wondering when he's going to come back. They always ask us. We never answer." She stopped now and looked up at Calkolh. He didn't seem to see her. "Brother, he's not coming back home is he?"

He said nothing. He opened his mouth as if to speak but promptly shut it closed. He did so again, appeared to think, and once more said nothing. At last he answered, "No sister, I don't think so."

Terira simply nodded. Her emotions were lost to her, swirling and crazy, but beyond all was loss. One of her brothers was gone, and they had built their bond on something more than blood, but their lack of it. It lets them grow together. And as she knew she lost one, she felt the family would lose itself as well. But she also knew that whether he said so or not, his brother's loss was still hurting Calkolh, and so she had to hold in her own emotions. So she just nodded.

"How is our Mother?"

Terira felt something inside. "She cries, hard and often. She does little in her grief. She misses her sons." She looked up at Calkolh and turned his head to hers. "Come home brother."

Calkolh looked back at her, eyes still. They stood still and quiet, said not a word. Terira could feel him conflicting. He slowly lifted his hand, and slowly took hers from his chin. "I love them. Do they still want me?"

"We never left you."

He nodded slowly. For the first time, she saw an emotion. Pain. "I can't go back in that room. I can't stay there. What I feel every time..."

"Calkolh, I w-"

"Terira." His voice was so soft it almost wasn't there. He looked at the house. The breeze came again, and for the first time she noticed. She didn't have a mind to care. Calkolh looked back at her then back to the door again, his cloak around him, hiding his arms and body within. She waited as she had when she first came outside, stood still and said nothing.

"I'm coming home."

---

The dirt, stone, and wood pit made the sounds of swords clashing echo into a ever-present cacophony. Shouts and sweat filled the air, as both wood and steel blades clacked and clanged, Grims shouting calls at Shadows. One advanced on a wild assault, sword swinging and flailing, while the other backed frantically away, sword moving with just as little grace. The Shadow on assault gave a blurred jab at the defenders gut, and the defender moved to swipe it away. Suddenly a light between them flared, and the defender was blinded, the light turning the two combatants to silhouettes. When the light faded, the attacking Shadow was swinging his wooden sword with both hands down upon his opponents head. As quick as he saw it, it landed, and this was no illusion. The kid crumpled to the ground. The attacker swayed to shouts and cheers of his other Grims in training, but when the next contestant walked in the ring, he fell, exhausted.

Calkolh watched this all absent minded from his periphery, twirling a knife between his fingers, staring at a silver orb on the bench in front of him. He was leaned back against one of the odd walls that jutted from the pit itself, the floor to his left thirty paces below him. Everything in this star forsaken place was brown, from the floor to the benches to the walls to the swords. Flat stone plates also sat unevenly embedded just as randomly in the floor, the walls of the pit, and even the pit floor where the Shadows practiced now. Whoever decided to use this pit had neglected to place the benches in rows, just placed randomly throughout the pit, with an even more sparse stump put in the ground. Calkolh used both now, reclined on the bench with a stump to its side, and focused on the orb sitting there while making sure he kept his blade twirling. He focused on the force within him, the force that radiated out from him constantly, and focused on increasing its power, its pull, from within him, the nexus. He pushed away the sound of Shadows practicing from the floor; the air around him muted, until the sound rolled back on itself like parchment. It became a insignificant mutter. He had passed their ranks moon cycles ago. He focused again on the pull within himself, and slowly strengthened it, careful to use no more power than need be. And there it came. The connection between the power and the orb- he felt it. Just as he felt the metal of his blade and the metal of his brooch. His power and the orb. Now his orb. He focused on the orb and his current, the power that ebbed from him like a tide, the current that flowed now through the orb, sustained in it if he chose. He did. He focused on holding the power that flowed into the orb, keeping it contained as more flowed in. The current was still ebbing from him, still moving, and now moved into the orb. He pulled the power within his orb up, along his radiating current, his tide. The power stuffed within the orb responded, moving up along the unseen ripples that came from him through the air. They moved as one.

The orb lifted from the stump, slowly rotating, flowing along the current as it pushed within. Calkolh strengthened his ebb, and slowly pulled more from it. It floated another foot higher, and closer to him. He felt a soft satisfaction. And then, in his pocket of influence and quiet, he heard someone. Once again, he pushed his current but this time into his blade, forcing it to stay contained. Then he pulled the blade along his tides, flowing it around them while keeping the pull tight across his body.

The knife shot across his body from his fingers, and stopped a mere half foot from his friend, seeking to stalk to him unnoticed. Calkolh had sensed his metal before, but had paid it no mind. This time however, he had pushed Calkolh's dampening away from his body, and this Calkolh noticed. Calkolh felt a brief tugging at the knife, his friends own pull. and then felt it let go. Instead of simply throwing it across his body with complete disregard, he pulled it as quickly as he could across his ebbing, and then simply stopped his pull. He heard footsteps softly walk around his dagger.

"Must you truly always be so serious?", asked Gven Steelsmith. With short cut tanned brown hair the only reached halfway done to his brow, thick arms and pocked burn marks up and down his arms, it was quickly apparent that he came from a smithy family. His face was round, as his gut once was before training. Not it was as flat and dull as his appearance. He didn't stand out, didn't try and grab attention. Calkolh liked that. "You've been training I see, but then again, I suppose you always do." He sighed tiredly and leaned against the pit wall facing the training Shadows and stoic Grims on the floor.

Calkolh slowly pulled his blade back to his hand, and resumed twirling it while he made the ball move in circles. Splitting his focus while still executing task well were essential qualities to being a Grim. He was told that he was performing well. "Practice makes well, Gven."

"Yes, so I hear. I'll be sure to keep that in mind next time I don't do it." Gven allowed his cloak to relax from his body, pulling his hood down from his head without lifting a hand. Calkolh focused, and found that he could sense the presence of iron shavings sewn into to cloak, the way one Grim managed to sense another. Gven watched as another flash of light emitted from the training floor, shouts and jeers swelling. "Light sparring. Heh, I remember how many of us faced you in those pits. You could go nine flashes without tiring, at first. Now it's what, thirty?"

"I don't know. It had nothing to do with strength at first, just using your wits. Of which, many of you seemed to have none of." He allowed the orb the pick up pace, pushing it faster along his ebb.

"Right, of course. Shut your modest mouth, we all know that you have taken to the arts better than most. And you keep getting better, damn you." Suddenly Gven grinned. "I'm happy our days as Shadows are over. Teaching me to contain light was like teaching a swine to starve I'm sure." Gven lifted his hands, flexing his fingers into something like a claw. Light slowly began to emit from his hand, uneven and raw, swimming through the air. It didn't glow past his fingers. He coughed. "Can you make some..."

Calkolh have an exaggerated sigh, held up his hand, and flexed his fingers. Light flared, just as raw and unnatural, but his much brighter and rose higher than his hand at least a foot. As it swam, Gven pulled a bag from the ground that Calkolh hadn't noticed him bring. He opened it and moved closer to Calkolh's light, showing a silvery ingot with bronze streaks. "Reaper wants us to to go after a band of Reavers who are steel this ore from a supply caravan. Apparently he finds it in irony that stealing from the mines would get them there eventually."

Calkolh nodded and looked away from the bag, once again refocusing on his orb. "I'm guessing when is whenever he calls us?" Gven nodded his assent. "Probably late today then. What's the team?"

"Just the two of us and him. Maybe one or two other people." Calkolh was mildly surprised. They usually had a set sortie for any task, it was never randomly assigned. "He also wanted to see us after the practice on the pit floor."

Calkolh looked down to the floor and found the Reaper watching a match, ironsilver cloak surrounding him. The links of the chain shone in the light, the entire cloak made from ironsilver chains, thrice layered, even the hood of three layered ironsilver chains. He moved smoothly across the floor. "What for?"

"I can't say I know." Calkolh turned away to face Gven. He shrugged. "All he told me was to tell you to see him after today's training and be prepared for our task. He only gives us what we need to know, this is something you know as well as I."

Calkolh turned back to the pit floor to find the Reapers eyes meeting his own. He had gotten that name from the story, the legend of a man who turned to death with only a Scythe in hand and murdered him in cold blood. The man became death, and was named Grimm, for this is the fate he brings to all people. Reaper killed a sortie of reavers that attacked four of his companions, armed with only a scythe. He was rarely looked down upon, and to many his real name was long forgotten.

"No. He only tells us what he wants us to know."

He turned back to his orb and closed his hand to a fist, light smothered. His orb continued to revolve through the air, and Calkolh slowly began making more complex movements, moving it's path in on itself. "I'll need more knives."