The thoughts of what it meant to be a killer and reconciling that with her own identity made Priscilla’s mood poor. The countryside was idyllic and beautiful in the daytime but it only served to make Priscilla worry more because she pictured it ravaged and burning. This part of the continent wouldn’t have the fighting reach it for a few years, but everywhere would feel the Church of the Violet Moon’s wrath as the world was bathed in hungry shadows.

If Priscilla wanted to give this world a chance, she was going to have to kill others many, many times even if the mere thought made her vaguely sick to her stomach.

“I’m sorry,” Sulaiman said without prompting, cutting through Priscilla’s dark thoughts. She looked towards him, surprised that those were his first words, as Sulaiman was a prideful person who rarely liked to admit he was wrong. He was looking toward Priscilla, though he didn’t quite meet her gaze, his eyes hovering somewhere around chin level. Sincerity was written across his face and in his voice.

“I shouldn’t have fought with you on burning the toad’s corpse and the poison,” Sulaiman said. “You were right that it would have endangered other travelers and messed up the ecosystem, and I… I was acting like a fool, especially when I set the corpse aflame with you standing so near it. For all of that and for letting my pride blind me, I’m sorry.”

Priscilla blinked once, absorbing the apology in its entirety. But Sulaiman wasn’t done quite yet as he visibly steeled himself and looked her in the eyes.

“And for what it's worth,” he said quietly, “I don’t hate you. We’ve had our differences, but… I don’t hate you.”

Priscilla gave him a crooked smile that had the tension loosening in Sulaiman’s shoulders.

“I don’t hate you either,” Priscilla said and wondered why that was what made Sulaiman finally smile at her, the small expression lighting up his entire face, “and I didn’t act great yesterday either. I had a real bitch of a headache and that made me a bigger bitch than usual. I’m sorry for shoving you into the wall and threatening to rip your balls off, that was really uncalled for now that I think about it.”

Priscilla scratched the back of her head sheepishly, her ponytail swaying in the wind.

“It certainly got the point across,” Sulaiman said dryly, his smile turning into something more of a smirk. “Though maybe next time we can go without the threats of bodily harm.”

Priscilla risked a teasing smile of her own, saying, “Well, I’ll tone back on the threats if you promise to try and avoid sticky situations like that by listening when I tell you something the first time.”

Sulaiman snorted, making Priscilla utterly delighted she drew that reaction out of him.

“I suppose I can listen when you speak,” Sulaiman said, saying the words like it was an arduous thing to do but the twinkle of humor in his eyes betrayed otherwise. “Sometimes you do make good points.”

“Sometimes?” Priscilla gasped in mock outrage. “I’ll have you know that I make great points every time I speak.”

Sulaiman gave her a flat look.

“Okay, fine, I make great points most of the time when I speak.”

That earned her an eye roll of exasperation at her antics but Priscilla could only smile because they were actually speaking to each other, not just trading barbed words and barely tolerating each other’s existence.

Sulaiman’s light expression fell a little as he watched her.

“I know that you won’t tell me where we’re going,” Sulaiman began, watching her, “but could I know why we are on this trip? You said that the Thornewoods wanted you gone but I doubt you chose your destination on a whim, you seem too determined for that. I don’t need to know where, but if you can share why, I… I would appreciate knowing what to expect.”

Priscilla considered his request carefully and the way he went to great lengths to not be as combative as yesterday, the way he was already speaking as if he expected her to turn down his relatively simple request. If she could, Priscilla would have been sorely tempted to rope him in on the battle plans now that they seemed to be on the path to a better relationship.

But she couldn’t, so Priscilla thought about how she could tell him anything without coughing up blood that may convince Sulaiman they needed to stop for a healer at Grazda.

“We are on this trip to do good,” Priscilla said, knowing that the words were paltry and offered very little.

Sulaiman’s eyebrows furrowed as he considered that answer. He glanced at her armor and back to her face.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Do you expect us to encounter resistance while we try to ‘do good?’” Sulaiman asked.

Priscilla took a deep breath in, trying to think of a way to answer him. She opened her mouth to mouth the word bandits and felt the telltale tickle in her throat that preceded coughing up blood and closed her mouth.

Instead, Priscilla went with a question that needed no fancy foreknowledge to ask.

“Have you ever killed someone before?”

The last of the levity left Sulaiman as he stared at her, mouth parted before he overcame his surprise and schooled his expression.

“I have,” Sulaiman said after he swallowed. His gaze was distant, as if reliving the memory. “When I was young, there had been a man who thought I would make a good slave, and I… objected and made sure he couldn’t change his mind.”

Priscilla had asked the question mainly as a way to hint at the danger to come and expected him to not have an answer because the plot hadn’t truly begun yet. Priscilla knew that Sulaiman had a rough childhood before he started living at the orphanage at age seven, but he didn’t like to talk about it, even with Illnyea, so this revelation was news to her even.

She was quiet, absorbing the information. This was one time that not even her curiosity could get Priscilla to ask questions about details because she didn’t actually think she deserved to know, not when she could see how just giving the barebones retelling made Sulaiman tense.

“Do you think you could kill again?” Priscilla asked softly.

Sulaiman seemed to break out of his stupor at that and gave her a long, assessing look.

“I could, given good reason,” Sulaiman said, “but could you?”

Priscilla ran her tongue over her teeth and decided even if she coughed up blood, she had to return sincerity with sincerity.

“I think I will have to,” she said and Sulaiman’s gaze grew sharper.

“Why would you need to kill them?” he asked, no judgment in his tone that made answering his question all the much easier.

“To save someone else.”

Sulaiman studied her more, eyes lingering on her armor and then the dagger at her side.

“Is that person worth truly killing for?”

“Yes,” Priscilla said firmly. Kavil’s friends and family had done nothing to earn their cruel fate and her resolve finally felt sturdy enough she could say, “And I don’t think I’d regret it either – I’d regret doing nothing, though, so I suppose that’s an answer in and of itself.”

Sulaiman was quiet for a moment, considering the answers she had given him.

“Are we going an assassination mission?” Sulaiman asked in that same carefully non-judgmental tone.

Priscilla choked on nothing as she burst into surprised laughter.

“No, no,” Priscilla said as she brought herself back under control, “no, we’re going on a trip to do good, remember? There’s just a few… problems preventing us from doing good.”

Sulaiman frowned.

“How many problems are we talking about?” he asked, giving Priscilla a flat look. “You do recall that we’re just two people, right?”

Answering that would be tricky. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, trying to find different ways to tackle the problem, Sulaiman watching the whole time with a narrowing gaze the longer she stayed silent.

“Five?”

Wait, was he –

“Ten?”

Oh god, he totally was.

“Twenty?”

Wait, she could work with this.

“Thirty? Fou–”

“I can’t tell you specifics,” Priscilla cut him off neatly.

Sulaiman closed his mouth, studying her before slowly nodding.

“Many problems await us,” Sulaiman said neutrally. “Are you sure we can ‘solve’ them with just the two of us?”

“We have to try,” Priscilla said. But when she opened her mouth to say that darkness of night and surprise might help them, the telltale tickle in her throat had her closing it again. Talking around the topic was growing more and more difficult and she was going to slip up if they kept going.

“You still have questions,” Priscilla said slowly, keeping eye contact with Sulaiman, “but I’m not discussing this anymore.”

His eyes narrowed before widening in realization, which she could only hope he made the right realization. Sulaiman gave her another long, contemplative look before nodding sharply.

He returned his gaze to the road.

Priscilla thought they might lapse into silence once more when Sulaiman said, “Do you know any other song other than that filth you tried to sing two days ago?”

“No,” Priscilla laughed, “but I can give you an encore if you’d like.”

Sulaiman gave her a flat look of disgust.

“No thank you,” he said curtly.

Then Sulaiman sighed. “I’ll teach you some of the traveling songs Illnyea insisted I learn. They aren’t good for much more than passing the time, but it seems we have plenty of that, so…”

“I am your eager and willing student!” Priscilla said. “Please teach me well, Mr. Halsteed!”

Sulaiman rolled his eyes but began his instruction.

“You’ve already proven you can keep time well, so let’s focus on the actual words and rhythm. The Dread Dragon Drachma is easy to learn, as it’s very repetitive, and…”

The day did pass by quicker as Sulaiman taught her three songs in total, one of which could be sung endlessly if the singer was creative and persistent enough to keep coming up with new places for the hum-drum bard Halloway to visit. Sulaiman had a nice voice to listen to, deep and stable in pitch, though he was more interested in teaching her than actually trying to sing well himself. Priscilla wouldn’t count singing as one of her preferred pastimes, but there was something nice about following Sulaiman’s lead and matching her voice with his as they sang about dread dragon Drachma stealing all the livestock in the world.