“Sorry.”

Anne sighed, sitting across from Thomas, in the chair vacated earlier by Norris, who had gone to talk to her. She studied him. “What are you sorry for?”

“I shouldn't have pried. If I wanted to know, I should have asked you. It was inconsiderate.”

Her eyes moves over his face for a few more seconds, then she shrugged, and looked out over the city. “I didn't start this job when I moved here. I've been doing this since I was, I don't know, maybe your age.” Thomas blinked at the statement, but remained silent. It seemed appropriate. She frowned, a hand moving up to her hat, tugging it down against wind that didn't threaten to pull it away. “I found a team, joined. They taught me the ropes.

“The work wasn't much different from what you've seen. More dangerous, but the profession was more established, and we looked out for each other. We saved people sometimes.” A slight smile, and she gave another tug on her hat. “We went into a mine after a luciphagos infestation. Didn't expect survivors; there were survivors. We got split up in the fighting while escorting the miners out. I spent the night in the mine with a young miner, fighting phagii together. His name was Tros.

“Then once we got out, we spent the next few nights together. I left for the next job. Found myself thinking about him.” Anne smile deepened, then sank again. She sank backwards, and picked up Norris' empty cup, examining it, her tone flattening out. “We married. I stopped adventuring, opened a supply store. We made two beautiful little girls, Mira and Primme. Things were nice.

“But things kept turning up in the mine. Kept getting worse. Tros took a job in town after a crevog nearly caught him. The mine was shut down not long after. I took up my bow again; I thought maybe I could do something, make things better. I was out on a hunt when the evacuation order came in. I got out. They didn't.” Anne set the cup back down, then filled it from the pot. She took a sip, then shook her head. “Cold.”

“I'm sorry.” What else could he say? Anne's attention returned to him, her gaze steady, as she took another sip of the tea.

“I spent the next four years hunting down every surviving member of the cult and killing them.” He … was feeling increasingly uncertain about this conversation. “Pest control, I like that phrase. We kill monsters. Sometimes we destroy dungeons. But sometimes, sometimes it's a person, or group of people. Don't buy into the glory; I did. I thought I could make things better for my family.” She gently swirled the dregs around in her cup, frowning down into the tea. “I couldn't have helped them. The only reason I got out was I was near Anchor. A different Anchor, the Anchor of home. Less built up than this Anchor, more … natural. I got the news, and I knew they wouldn't make it. There just wasn't time. I couldn't have even made it back to them in time if I wanted to.

“I wish I could have held my daughter's hands as the end came. That's what I wanted to do. But I knew I wouldn't make it. So instead, I killed those responsible. You know, for that first year, I was full of righteous fury. By the end of the fourth, it was just a chore, like chopping … ” The cup was placed back on the table. “You chop wood to burn; it's better to have more surface area, and it also makes the pieces more manageable.” It took Thomas a moment to realize that the explanation was intended to actually explain that to him; it probably wasn't something people here did. “Anyways. That's the story. The short version. I'd need something stronger than tea if you want the long version.”

“I'm sorry you … I'm sorry it was like that, Anne.” She scowled up at him, at that, started to say something, then her expression softened.

“It's not really like that. I'm grateful for my time with my Tros, with little Mira and Primme. I wish I had had more time with them, but what I am, more than anything else, is grateful. It's something maybe you will understand when you have seen more, lived more, lost more.” She dug around in one of her pouches, and came up with a flask; she filled his glass, and hers, with an amber fluid. “To loved ones lost.” He raised his cup with her, and took the contents down in a single swallow. And had to work very hard not to cough it all back up.

“Norris' wife survived, you know.” They were on Anne's second flask, now, and Thomas doubted he could stand; Anne seemed slightly uneven, but mostly alright. He looked at her with one eye, and then the other; they didn't work quite right together at the moment.

“So wheresh … ee?”

“Somewhere upstream, in the mountains, probably with a litter of a half dozen by now. He was traveling with me at the time; I was showing him the ropes, the new kid. When we arrived at Anchor, there she was, with another man, a friend of theirs I guess she'd been seeing whenever he was away. She thought he was off somewhere else and wouldn't make it, so decided to make her side business official. I didn't see the fight, I was … looking. Knew I wouldn't find them, had to look anyways. Where I met Kaffen. Oh, he's a bounty hunter. Helped me … helped me look, then. Later, he helped me look for the cultists. He also lost people. Died a couple years ago in the mountains. Or maybe he'll turn up again. He's like that.” She snorted, then. Thomas, nodding along to the cadence of her voice, kept nodding for a second or two more, before it dawned on him she was silent again.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

After a few more minutes, Anne sighed, head turning to give Thomas a sidelong look. “Norris told me, by the way.”

It took Thomas' addled mind a moment to catch up with that. “He told you?”

“Well, I did ask.” She snorted quietly, and refilled her cup, then Thomas'. His cup didn't need it, and he carefully sipped at it to lower the surface level. “To be honest, I already knew. Cenpre confessed the story to me the morning we left.” Thomas jerked, staring at her.

“Shh-shh-so … ” He muddled through that thought for a second, without a lot of success.

“Not going to tell you what to do or how to live your life, Thomas.” A pause. “Well, not about this, at least, not now. Okay, no, actually, I will.” She snorted again, in a manner that was almost in good humor but not quite, and took another drink. “You liked her.”

“I … I did.” He looked down again. Oh. There was still whiskey. Or something like whiskey, at least. He sipped at it. It burned.

“It makes things easier, and it makes things harder. You've made this complicated, though, and it's simple. It didn't work out, and that's okay. You can still be happy with someone else.” Thomas frowned at her. She looked at him for several seconds before turning an exaggerated frown back at him. Then her expression cleared, and her eyes held his. “You have some odd attitudes about sex, but can it really be worse than a crossbow bolt through your ribs, Thomas? I know which I'd prefer.”

He hesitated to reply, eyeing her. This wasn't how this conversation was supposed to go at all, was it? He was pretty sure that was a trick question somehow, even if he couldn't quite think straight enough to figure out how.

“She shouldn't have done that, and that's it's own thing,” Anne continued, shaking her head at him, “but when I met you, well.” Her eyes twinkled, and it took him a moment to remember. Oh. Yeah. “Since you left Grimhaven, you haven't shown the slightest interest in anything sexual. I don't think you even gave Arias a second glance when she was bathing in the river, and she's nearly as pretty as I was, at her age. Or Norris, if that's where your interests lay.”

“That'ch not fair, it'sh rude to sh-stare.”

“Thomas.” Anne reached over and took his cup, emptying it in a single swallow. He blinked, belatedly reaching for it, and missing. She looked back out into the lights, increasingly bright – no, the ambient light was just fading. The colors seemed to grow brighter for it. The sun was setting? Or had set. “Thomas. How much did the fight with the silver fawn hurt?”

It had been excruciating, and he'd been incoherent with pain afterward; his memories weren't clear, so much as a sea of pain, with little isolated pockets of clarity scattered throughout the entire experience. He opened his mouth to explain this. “Lots.” Close enough.

“And then you went right back out to hunt bandits, on your own. And came back in pieces.” She studiously looked over his face, humor gone. “Trenton said something cut a chunk off of your penis.” Thomas shuddered at the memory of discovering that. The memory had confusing bits about goats, which were somehow worse. “And then you went back out again. And again. You keep getting up and going back out, when it means getting hurt, having your body violated. You get hurt once in a relationship, feel violated once, and that's it? Why is it easier for you to hurt, than to be happy?”

“Not the shame. Shame. S-same.” Thomas looked away, eyes watering again.

“Why didn't you tell anyone else in Grimhaven what Cenpre had done?” Thomas reached out for his cup. It was empty. He set it back down, looking anywhere but at Anne.

“Later. Not … thinking well. Hard to exshplain. Explain.”

“Did you want her to be punished?” He frowned. But that was easy enough to answer.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“She w … trying to help.”

“So why does what happened bother you so much?” He struggled for a second with words, and finally just growled at her. This wasn't a fair conversation. Anne sighed, then, and moved – it wasn't fast, but he had trouble keeping track of her motion, and it took a half second after she was hugging him, for him to realize she was hugging him. “It's not your fault, Thomas.”

“Is.” He found he was crying. When had he started crying?

“It isn't. We want someone to blame. You can't blame her, so you blame yourself. It's not your fault.”

“Is. Picked it.”

“It isn't.”

“Picked it, she tried to help.”

“It doesn't have to be anyone's fault.”

“Tss mine.”

“Okay. So what if it is?”

“Hurt people.” Anne was quiet, at that. Thomas slowly pulled away from her, rubbing at his eyes and face with some of the cloth of his oversized shirt. She took some time before she spoke again.

“That's their choice to make.” He … didn't have a response to that. Her voice, though calm, nearly broke as she continued. “We open ourselves up to other people knowing it might hurt us. Knowing we might hurt them. Because it's worth hurting, to be happy. Happiness, love; they're worth the pain.” Thomas turned away.

“No.”

She spoke more firmly, somewhat colder. “Thomas. What upset you more, what happened to you, or telling her afterwards?” He didn't reply; he didn't trust his voice, and wasn't actually sure what the answer was, anyways.

After some time in which neither of them spoke, Anne moved the cups to the tray they had come out onto the balcony on, and then the pot joined them. She looked to him once more, then went back into the tea shop with the tray. Thomas looked back into the billowing glowing light; the vertical lines of the towers almost invisible, now.

Being – being raped, or telling his rapist that it had been rape. What had hurt more? Why was that even a question? His fingers moved to the place on his ribs that had been pierced by the first crossbow bolt; he remembered that one most clearly. The skin was smooth under his fingertips; there was no evidence that he'd ever been struck.