The Festival

“This is where you two will be staying for the next two days.” The male Onesian waves his hand towards the bare room that the group had just scaled a two-story tree for. To say Tanitha is disappointed in their interior designing capabilities is an understatement. There’s nothing in here aside from a row of hanging clothes on the opposite wall, and a door. There isn’t even a window.

Their hesitant escort crosses his arms as he says, “All you have to do is hook the other side of whichever hammock you choose to that wall, and you’re set. We have dinner at six. Just listen for the bells and the sound of growling stomachs.” He waits for their understanding nods before he continues. “I’ll show you to our Lilian so she can get you set with something to do.”

Tanitha rolls her eyes. She still doesn’t think this is a fair trade, but if this was any other group of people, the pair would likely be in nets swinging from the tops of trees, so she supposes she shouldn’t complain. They climb back down, Vahkul audibly gasping for air, and walk back into the chaos. Tanitha notices a few eyes straying to her as they do. All of them are noticeably cautious of her. “Lilian!” The man greets, his arms spread out as he waits for the woman to acknowledge him.

Their hug is sweet, and loving, and the happiness that lights up this Lilian’s face when she sees him is pure. Tanitha almost gags. “Daffy! How’s partrol duty going?” As they pull apart, Tanitha sees a tinge of pink dotting the woman’s nose and cheeks. She’s the embodiment of adorable, and Tanitha doesn’t know how to feel about it.

The woman’s eyes are wide, far set, and colored a brown so clear that she can see through them. And what she does see as she swims in their swarthy ripples makes her heart clench. She stumbles back a step and hopes that no one notices her eyes water. Tanitha knows that she’s never met a truly good person before, but this girl has no ghosts.

She has no daemons and no secrets beyond her school girl’s crush on this Daffy fellow. Her hands and her soul bare no stains of red and black, and because of this, she can look at her and feel no pain. She feels nothing but waves of potent life flowing through the woman. Lilian is... blank.

This can’t be right.

Tanitha jumps as she feels something touch her back. Looking around, she sees that Daffy, Vahkul, and the woman are all staring at her. She shrugs the man’s hand off. “What?” He looks at her strangely, but Tanitha’s eyes are pulled back to the woman. She, in turn, watches her.

Not knowing what else to do, she leans across the counter and offers the woman a hand. Tanitha pulls down her hood and her mask with her other hand. “Tanitha,” She says. Then she shakes her head. “I mean- You can call me Tanitha.” She licks her lips, anticipation filling her for the first time in years.

After the woman places her dainty hand in Tanitha’s own and shakes it, she pulls back, acutely aware of just how grimy her gloves are when compared to the woman’s smooth and clean palms. She smiles at her, and Tanitha’s heart almost stops. Then in the cutest possible way, Lilian clasps her hands, tilts her head, and greets Tanitha with a soft, “You can call me Lilian.”

Everything about her screams feminine, from the length of her neck to the point of her chin. She embodies everything that Tanitha, at times, wished she was. Even the soft snapping of her carnivorous teeth is womanly and graceful. “Uh, I’m Vahkul.” He waves from beside her, but Tanitha pays him no attention.

“Alright!” Lilian claps her hands. “Daffy here tells me that you two will be helping us prepare for the Naisil festival, so here are your working cards.” Tanitha normally hates the sound of people’s voices when they speak the mainland’s common tongue, but Lilian’s sounds like beautiful sun rays peering through the flaps of a tent. The woman reaches behind the counter and pops back up with two pressed paper cards. Her smile is so infectious, that Tanitha can feel the corners of her mouth jumping up to mimic hers.

Seeming to notice this, Lilian’s own grows. The twinkle in the depths of her brown eyes causes butterflies to flutter in the amono's chest. “Tanitha, you can work with me doing background management. How does that sound?” She nods.

“Sounds great.” Her voice sounds breathless even to her own ears, but she doesn’t care. Tanitha can feel the eyes burning into the sides of her head, but all of her focus is on Lilian. After the woman finishes stamping their cards with their duties, the pair pockets them and get to work.

Lilian and Tanitha spend what’s left of the sky’s light rushing to and fro. She seems to have her hand in every pie around here. The scurrying woman has Tanitha carrying the recipes to be cooked, the silks to be embroidered, the celebratory torches that need to be coated in sulfur, and the book of songs to be played. They deposit the packages in their respective departments, and Lilian leaves both words of encouragement and instruction. And though most try not to, Tanitha feels their hesitant eyes trailing her throughout the ordeal.

Lilian is a flurry of frizzy hair and authority.

By the time the bell that signifies dinner rings, Tanitha’s feet are sore and her heart is filled with something that she thought she would never experience again. Lilian laughs as the exhausted guest falls to the ground, happy to finally be getting a break. She leans against the counter of her place of business and watches Tanitha splayed out on her floor. “Do you want me to bring you back something to eat? You look like you won’t be moving for a while.”

Tanitha grunts, and Lilian understands.

With a shake of her head, the Oneasian woman turns and leaves. An exhausted sigh follows her out.

Despite its beginning, Tanitha can admit that today has been a good day. A thought pops into her head of the days to come, and for the first time in a while, she doesn’t bury it down. A sense, warm and smooth, fills her. “What are you smiling about?” Her eyes fly open and the sight of Daffy’s large frame greets her. Her eyes zone in on the two plates in his hand. He notices. “Lily asked me to bring this to you, she was called in for help. You mind?”

Tanitha shakes her head and sits up. Her mouth waters at the sight of the plate. Everything looks amazing, from the bright salad to the meat and back down to the seasoned bread and cheese. Thank the Gods she’s actually hungry for relatively normal foods.

He hands her the plate as she places her back against the wall. “So, Daffy,” She starts.

The man groans. “It’s Dafiel, actually.” Her eyes roll.

“So Daffy, are you really not at all bothered by the fact that you’re stuck behind this wall, unable to leave without permission?” Tanitha eats a piece of her bread. Maybe that was a heavy question for her to start with, but color her curious. Her movements were never restricted in her own home.

He looks like he’s actually giving her question thought. “I mean, what is out there that I so desperately need to see?” Disease, war, betrayal, death... maybe he has a point. She picks at the salad, now a little less hungry.

He fills the silence though, “What is that?” Dafiel loosely points to something, then clarifies, “That on your arm. What is it? I’ve never seen anything like it.” Tanitha had forgotten that she had never put her arm band back on after her bath in the river. The heat had been so blistering for a moment that she had lost all reason and removed her cloak as well. She had come close to stripping entirely while working.

She takes a bite of the meat. It’s good. Tender and juicy. Dafiel waits as she chews. “It’s a rune. Thiwai.” She swallows as he inspects the raised and darkened skin. The rune had been tattooed into her arm, the black ink mixing with the golden bands that circle her bicep. Then it was branded over so that she might never cover the ink.

Her memory of the event seems to have left her, but she still gets phantom bursts of heat on her arm every now and then. She shifts to keep him from seeing the less obvious marking only a few inches higher on her body. The Gods had whispered in her ear. Their words warned of what was to come to those that gazed upon the mark they had left on her back. “Where is Vahkul?” She asks, wanting to move on. She hasn’t seen the druid all day.

Daffy pulls back. “Last I heard, the man had bullied his way into the medical building. I’m sure he’s out there eating now.” That sounds like him. With all of that druids are for life not death crap, it makes sense that he would prefer to spend his time helping disgusting dying people. Tanitha shrugs, then continues eating.

The pair sit in moderate silence, occasionally pointing at things and starting random conversations, but it’s all surface level. Until it isn’t.

“You know, we’ve all been trying to figure this out.” Tanitha knows what’s coming before he starts to form his question. “What is an amono woman, a Zintonian no less, doing traveling with a foreigner?” She should jump into action. She should silence the man that seems to know too much about her. The fact that this man doesn’t even have free rein over where he can travel, yet was still able to detect the tribe that Tanitha hails from is something she doesn’t sneeze at.

But is there even a reason to bother silencing him. She’s to leave with Vahkul soon anyway.

She sucks at her teeth, standing. She doesn’t bother asking how he figured it out because it must be written all over her features, which she had stupidly revealed to the entire village. It’s also in the way she holds herself, in her clothes, and in her Talagrek dialect.

She peers out of the little shop. If he knows, other know, and that means it’s only a matter of time before word reaches home. She raises her mask back up. “I have nothing left to say to you.” Tanitha turns and leaves, heading straight for the house they had been assigned.

She won’t be coming out until the elders show themselves.

The two days pass fast. Tanitha sees very little of Vahkul, as he’s decided to devote the rest of his life to any child that coughs within a two-mile radius of himself. She’s swinging on her hammock, arms dangling out of the side, singing a jaunty little tune when someone bursts through the door of her place. She can sense who it is before she can see him.

Dafiel leans over her, his hands going to his knees. He gives her a feral smile. “It looks like your wishes have been recieved. The elders have arrived and have requested the presence of you and your friend.” Her nose scrunches at the thought of people assuming Vahkul is her friend.

Still, she sits up and climbs out of her resting spot. “Lead the way.” She gestures, and he does. Tanitha follows closely behind the man, her eyes mostly stuck to his hair. The style is familiar to her. The braids are long and tight and interwoven with some loose blond curls. They fall past his shoulder blades, sweeping delicately against the skin of his uncovered back.

They form intricate patterns that she can’t seem to find the beginning of. It suits him well; the long hair. Men of her tribe would never keep their hair this length, as it could be grabbed and wrapped around their necks in a fight, but Onesians aren’t usually ones for close quartered combat anyway.

They veer off from the well-worn path and travel further into the forest. Dafiel uses a staff that she hadn’t noticed to push the hanging vines out of the way. “Just go right through there, and they should be waiting for you.” He turns to leave, just like that.

Tanitha looks after him, not sure if she really wants to travel further into their woods by herself. Then she remembers who she is, and she scoffs. Turning, she continues on the way and finds herself in a clearing soon after.

Dead in the middle stand three people, none of whom look a day over thirty. “Elders my ass,” She doesn’t know why she was expecting old wrinkly men in robes leaning on gnarled wooden canes. People don’t live to that age here. The elders all stand perfectly still, their loose brown garbs doing little to keep Tanitha from thinking that they themselves could just be trees with faces.

The middle figure, a woman in a dark brown dress with hair the color of the sky, beckons her forward. Tanitha follows reluctantly. She points to a spot on the ground in front of her. Vahkul is already kneeling there, his head tilted forward in a deep bow. This is when Tanitha’s eyes narrow.

These aren’t her elders. Why should she kneel for them?

Tanitha walks to the spot and stares at the air around the elders. There’s something inherently dark about leaders. The cost of decisions that end lives are everpresent in their souls. But the aura of this group of leaders is still lighter than some that she’s come across in the past. She nods her head, the only sign that she’s willing to give them.

The middle woman clasps her hand before speaking, “Can you, Tanitha of Zintonias, explain the events that led up to you crossing through our veil?” She speaks in the mainland’s common tongue for Vahkul’s sake. Tanitha sucks her teeth at the sound of her tribe’s name, but nevertheless, prepares to tell her version of what happened.

“Well, we were traveling through a nearby clearing when the druid stumbled across a hurt little girl.” She watches their faces, but can see nothing out of the ordinary. “Vahkul healed her while I proteced them from a particularly vile tralenger. Once she was healed, she led us to your home. It was only once we crossed the veil that I realized what had happened. I’m sure you know the rest.”

The three stare at Tanitha before uniformly turning to stare down Vahkul. All three of their mouths move in unison, “There was no mention of a child.”

He looks to Tanitha, his brows crinkled, then he turns back to the elders. “That’s because there was no child.” Tanitha chokes, her attention now fully on the lying sack of diseases kneeling to her left.

“Liar!” She yells, her finger flying to point at him. “You’re the one that saw her!” The elders snap their teeth and someone from the lineup behind them walks forward. “Who is that?” Tanitha asks.

“Is this the woman you healed in the clearing?” Vahkul nods as Tanitha shakes her head. No- This woman is in her later thirties. Her hair is straight and graying at the roots and her body is fully formed. There’s no way that...

But he looks so certain.

And now everyone is staring at Tanitha as if she’s some kind of pathological liar. “But... I saw her. You saw her.”

“There was a lot going on. Your eyes may have just tricked you, Tanitha.” But... she saw her. Her eyes don’t fail her. Her eyes see far beyond the average person’s. She rubs them.

“Well, because you have saved one of our people and have been the embodiment of polite guests, you are free to leave when you please.” They turn, but Tanitha’s watching the woman standing fifteen feet away. She’s staring at Vahkul with such admiration in her eyes. “Please, come see us should your plans change.” They uniformly exit the clearing.

When Vahkul actually takes the time to look at Tanitha, he realizes that she’s beautiful. She’s beautiful in a way that he’s never seen before too. Back home, the majority of women are dainty and small and cute. They wear the palest of dresses with stockings the color of midnight and lace veils that sheild their faces from men that are not theirs. Their hair remains pined up whilst they’re in public, only to be seen loose and wild by their families and closest of friends.

They walk around slowly in their high heels and tint their lips until they’re the color of pomegranate. And those women are gorgeous, there’s no denying it. There’s something about the softness of their skin and the curve of their exposed necks that drives their admirers mad.

But when he looks to Tanitha, whose name he’s only just discovered, he sees something he rarely sees in the women back home. Tanitha is not soft, nor is she dainty. She stands tall for a woman even though there’s no heel to her boots. Her pants fit her like a second skin, the loosely stitched seams parting to show flashes of her flesh. Her skin is the color of coconuts, which only brings to mind the fact that she is indeed an exotic rarity to him. Her lips are thick and dark pink, and her chin has the tiniest of points.

But Vahkul thinks he speaks for most when he says that her eyes are what really set her apart. They tilt up at the corners and are mono-lidded. They narrow in a way that’s so salacious that just the thought of them can turn him red. They’re a gray so light, that they almost look white at certain angles. Vahkul thought he knew the definition of what a woman should be, but then Tanitha will lower her hood and her mask, and his definition turns to mush.

He turns to mush.

Just like he is right now. He’s staring at her like he might never see her again, as she stares at the woman he healed like she’s seeing a ghost. He doesn’t know how she could ever mistake the woman for a child, but he does think that in her mind, she was so sure that she was right. He touches her hand to pull her out of her trance, and she flinches.

As he stands, she swallows and rubs her cloak covered arm. “It’s time to go,” She whispers as she turns away. Vahkul is trying to figure out how to say what he wants to say when Dafiel falls from between the bordering trees and places his hand on her shoulder.

Vahkul blinks as he watches the man. One would think that Dafiel was going to attempt to court Tanitha, with the way he’s gazing at her. “You should stay for the Naisil festival. It’s getting dark anyway. It wouldn’t be smart to travel right now.” She looks like she’s about to say something in her usual snarly way, but she just shrugs and gives Dafiel a rueful smile.

“Why not.” They start walking, and Vahkul’s eyes narrow.

“Hey, anyone want to explain what Naisil is?” He jogs up behind the pair. Tanitha’s eyes briefly flick towards him before she begins to search their surroundings.

“You going to go spilling our traditions all over your continent?” She casually throws out. Vahkul stops walking. He never really stopped to think about what he would do with all of the knowledge he was gaining. His empress would definitely pay well to know about the weird snake creatures and the hidden villages, but he doesn’t think that he would ever actually stoop to selling their secrets.

So before he can think, he’s saying, “Never.” This time Tanitha stops, considering him. Then she sighs again.

“Naisil is a celebration held on the second full moon of summer. It’s about strength, renewal, and the releaseing of secrets once forgotten. It’s a cleansing of the soul. My own people don’t really celebrate it, but then again we aren’t really folk of the land. It’s big in communities that worship the twins, Celbar and Uagi, like this one.” He nods along. Everything here is so different.

Magic runs rampant, vegetation isn’t mutated, and people are a part of well knit communities with culture and actual life. He had met a few healers while working in their small hospital. He couldn’t help but feel some kind of connection with them.

Back home, he’s a monster.

Anyone with white hair and magical abilities is an abomination outside of the Empire of Velshlind. They never asked to be what they are, yet they’re still feared and shunned like animals. Some territories won’t even let them past their borders. That’s why he joined the army. After being exiled from his coven, he was accepted nowhere.

But here, everyone can be exactly who they are, and there’s no apologizing for it.

He wonders what kind of magic Tanitha has. It has to be more than showing him his own worst fears, right? He’s seen the way that people look at her. He’s seen them whispering as she passes, when she comes to get dinner. What do they know that he doesn’t?

Fingers snap. “Are you coming?” Blinking, Vahkul nods. Yes, he’s coming. And he’s planning on soaking up this experience. Dafiel dumps his arm across Tanitha’s shoulders as they turn to leave again. Vahkul almost says something he shouldn’t, but then he remembers who he is and where he is.

With a shake of his head, he follows after them.

Drums beat rhythmically and the fire bursting from the pit and torches almost seem to jump in response. Around the flames, people dance. Their bodies sway to and fro, bending, twisting, and digging into the soil beneath their feet. Before Vahkul’s eyes, he sees bodies transform into great trees, their branches swaying as their arms once did, then the fire flickers, and they return to flesh and bone.

His eyes drink in his surroundings. His ears drown in the noise. People laugh and drink and fall into each others arms. This is what life looks like. A chant sails into the air as he begins to search for Tanitha. He takes a sip of his drink, which is unexpectedly sweet. She left about half an hour ago. She was dragged away by Lilian, though she didn’t seem to mind a great deal.

He just wants to sit with someone that he knows.

Feeling a tap on his shoulder, he turns. Before him stands a woman no more than five feet tall. Vahkul’s eyes had almost passed right over her. She smiles in a way that he thinks was meant to be a shy grin, but her teeth make her look wild. “Care to dance, foriegner?” Her accent is so thick that he almost doesn’t understand. Vahkul goes to shake his head, but she’s snatching his cup out of his hand and tossing it before he has a chance to open his mouth.

The woman latches onto his arm and pulls him closer to the fire. Sweat begins to form on his forehead. The woman laughs, and in that moment, he can’t help but laugh as well. It’s freeing. Sliding her hand down to fit into his own, she moves him in a circle around her.

The Onesian woman drops low, her hips traveling the length of Vahkul’s body. Had he been home, Vahkul would have thought to woman mad. When she pulls back up, her braids flick him so hard in the chest that he thinks he’s stopped breathing for a moment. But the woman’s laugh is so joyous that he doesn’t dare complain.

He realizes, as the beat of the drums draw closer and the chants rise in volume, that he’s enjoying himself. Everything is going quite well.

Then he finally sees Tanitha.

His feet can no longer move as his eyes instead dance over her. Now he sees why Lilian had snatched her away. Tonight, Tanitha had donned what looks to be traditional Onesian garbs. Nothing but her breasts are covered in her upper half. Vines, almost thin enough to see through, curve around the peaks of her chest and upper arms, the plant coming together at the base of her neck.

On her bottom is a skirt made from the skin of another animal that he has yet to see. It’s cut so low that most of her thighs are showing. Her hair has been adorned with plaits and leaves, then tied up with another one of those thin vines. She has lost her mask and instead wears a paste of some kind smeared across the right side of her face.

Vahkul watches her dance.

With the ever-increasing tempo, Tanitha’s own speed escalates. He watches as she dips low, her hips carving out a language in the air that he has no knowledge of. Her dancing figure is the only thing he can see anymore.

Vahkul’s eyes widen as Tanitha bends backwards, her body forming a painful arc with the ground. He watches as her gloved fingers and bare toes dig into the soil. He watches as her eyes flicker with the flames. She rises, dirt still clenched between her fingers.

Someone thuds on the drum.

She tosses the soil, her tongue savagely flying out along with the chant.

Someone thuds on the drum.

She runs her hands up the length of her exposed legs, hair flying forward in an attempt to cover just an inch of her skin.

Someone thuds on the drum.

Her eyes roll to the back of her head as she takes a step forward.

The sound of another thud of the drum seems to vibrate through her body as her arms spread wide.

She takes two more steps forward, her mouth opening and her lips forming shapes around words that he can’t hear.

Pound!

Another step.

Pound!

And another.

Pound!

Then she bursts into flames.

And the world comes back into focus.

Pound!

Her screams take over the singing at the camp. It’s guttural and filled with such pain that Vahkul falls to his knees, hands clasping around his ears as agony fills his chest. He gurgles as his eyes fill with something wet and warm.

Try as he might, the longer her screaming continues, the harder it becomes to keep his eyes open. And before he knows it, he no longer has control over his eyelids.

When Tanitha wakes, the sky is filled with light again. Her head pounds as she cracks her eyes open, the light momentarily blinding her. Her nose scrunches and prickles. Her lips and the inside of her nostrils are crusted. “Finally, was beginning to think you were dead. Wouldn’t have surprised me though.” It’s Daffy. His voice is oddly chipper.

“She’s awake?!” Just as Tanitha was beginning to wonder where the little-big menace was, he pops up. His white hair tickles her face as he pushes himself right into her personal bubble. His snowy brows crinkle as he exams her. “You’ve healed remarkably well.” There’s a hint of confusion and astonishment in his voice.

Given time, an amono can heal from nearly anything. Pair that with his own abilities, and she’s not sure why he’s confused. Tanitha rolls her eyes and is quickly rewarded with a flash of searing pain. “Yeah,” She starts, rubbing the heel of her hands against her eyes. “You’re good at what you do. What happened last night? Last thing I remember is dancing, then I woke up wherever this is.” She looks around cautiously. Just moving her eyes around in their sockets leads to a dull agony, so she turns her head slowly.

There are rows of hammocks, and every single one of them is occupied by a miserable body. They must have celebrated a little too intensely. “Um... You don’t remember anything?” She doesn’t bother shaking her head. Instead, she gives Vahkul a dead look.

His eyes fall down, so Tanitha turns to Daffy. “Well? Can you tell me what’s going on?” His arms cross, and he too refuses to look directly at her. Dafiel looks haggard. His skin is red, like he just scrubbed himself raw, or was recently burned. His intricately braided hair is matted and frizzy. Tanitha refuses to look at his eyes. She stares at the other people resting.

They look the same as him.

She has to know what they’re keeping from her. Something happened, and it’s obviously her fault. Tanitha flies out of her hammock and is upon Vahkul before he can get a word out. “Tell me what happened!” Her hands are wrapped around his arms, her nails digging into his skin. It’s only when she feels the prickling that accompanies an invasion of the mind, that she realizes she’s no longer wearing her gloves.

But it’s too late.

She can’t stop herself from seeing everything that he’s trying to hide. “ Fire. She dances with fire, she flirts with fire, she becomes fire. Flames swallow her whole, devouring her soul with one sweep of its willowy arms. Snatched. She’s been snatched... But... ” Her arms shake as her nails dig deeper. Images bright and burning shove their way into her head.

Blood begins to drip from his ten tiny wounds. Vahkul gasps, his own hands going to wrap around her arms. They lock. “Death becomes her. She rises, a phoenix from the ashes, the souls of those lost in her arms. Snatched... She snatched their souls. One by one, they drop. Dead. Dead. Dead! They die! Then they rise. She dies! Then she rises!” Tanitha sucks air into her deflated lungs, her fingers finally able to release the druid.

Her knees hit the floor, her mouth widening in what would be a scream, had she had anything left to say. “I saw it. I saw it all.” She saw what his soul saw, even though he remained unconscious. Lost in the music and wrapped in the elemental magic that everyone was throwing around, she had touched something no mortal should ever put their hands on. She had taken every single soul right out of their bodies, danced with them like they were dolls, then tossed them all back.

That is why this hospital is filled to capacity.

She had killed them all.

They can’t know. They can never know. So she laughs. She laughs so hard that she can’t breathe. “That was quite the night.” She forces a smile to her lips. “My magic can sometimes get the better of me, but at least we had fun, right? And no one was truly hurt.” Vahkul, whose arms have already healed, steps away from the woman. She can tell that he knows something is wrong.

Dafiel shrugs. “I don’t know what you did, but don’t do it again.” And that’s it. That’s the end of the conversation. Daffy helps her up and tells her that it’s probably time for them to go now. Tanitha looks to Vahkul again, waiting for him to exit first.

He surprises her when he admits, “Actually... I think I’d like to stay.”

“What?” Why would he want to stay here? What could he possibly gain from staying? “No, we had a deal, druid. I get you to Velshlind, and you get me my gold.” She needs it now more than ever. After what happened last night, she needs answers. The only one that can give them to her, is herself. She needs that drakoen. “So gather your things, and lets go.” She shoos him.

But as she steps towards the man, he backs away again. With a shake of his head, he responds, “I’m staying, so long as the elders allow it.” His feet plant solidly on the wood floor. He intends to truly break their deal.

“No. No you aren’t,” She grits out. She hasn’t gone through all of this just to have him knock off his side of the bargain. “Lets. Go.” He stands his ground. “I’m not leaving without you.” This can definitely be taken many different way, but she thinks he understands her meaning. If he won’t come with her alive, then she’ll have to take him to the train. Likely dead and in pieces. Tanitha plans to get something for her efforts.

Her eyes dart around, and she spots a dagger sheathed at Dafiel’s hip. Faster than he or Vahkul can comprehend, she snatches it, immediately going on the defense. She points the knife at the druid. “We made a deal. I know your people know nothing of honor, but that’s okay. I’ll teach you. So start backing up. We’re going.” He swallows, hands raised.

She’ll gut him right here if he so much as thinks about doing anything stupid.

“Tanitha?” She doesn’t turn. “Tanitha, what’s going on?” Now really isn’t the time for Lilian to be trying to stick her button nose into Tanitha’s business. She motions the dagger, urging Vahkul to get moving. He finally does. She keeps her eyes on Dafiel as well, knowing he could swipe out a hand and ruin everything in just a few seconds.

She doesn’t think he will though, seeing as he seems entirely uninterested. Good. “Mind yours, Lilian. We’re just on our way out.” They keep walking.

“Tanitha, can you look at me, just for a moment?” She shakes her head.

“Tans, look at me.” No. She needs to go. “Tans, please. ” She wants to look. She wants so badly to look, but she has to focus on Vahkul. “He won’t go anywhere Tans. Just look at me, and everything will be alright.”

He’ll be fine, if she turns for just one moment, surely. So Tanitha looks to Lilian, and then everything is alright.