“Do you know who Benjamin Franklin is?” Tyr asked Lina. His lips smacked together crudely, but he'd never been much for manners as long as she'd known him. Which had been a fair bit of time now, it was the longest relationship with a man she'd had besides Willis. Beyond acquaintance or serving with them in a unit, she rarely spoke to males and the Blue Rose employed very few of them to begin with. She found them...

Well, Tyr was a male like any other – he was just a lot more honest in his behavior. Intentionally crass, but through their dynamic she'd learned much about the real world. Men and women were different in their ways but one was not pure and the other vile as she'd been taught by the priests. Everyone had lusts, even Tyr, except for her – it would seem. She didn't lust romantically for anyone at all, despite knowing that he was an attractive man... There was just nothing there, nor when looking at anyone else.

This had startled her for a moment, realizing she was in her mid-20's and had never had a romantic relationship. It made Lina uncomfortable, but Tyr had declared her an 'asexual' and decided that this was completely normal – a sexuality common in many races throughout the world. Like kijin males, he'd say, who were used more like stud horses than husbands. That made her feel a bit better after the realization came, if nothing else.

“Nope.” She smiled, watching him was a source of pleasure for her at times – he was like a little brother that liked to act in the capacity of older sibling out of childish pride. But there were rare moments of lighthearted banter when his hands weren't twitching over the sound of a cracked twig in the forest. His eyes weren't glaring watchfully into the hedges, waiting, perhaps wishing for a threat to make itself known. Something about the open road seemed to open up something inside him as well, he was enjoying himself even if he whined and complained the entire way. It was his decision to take horses rather than a much faster ship, or implements for flying – Tyr, apparently, was afraid of heights and deep water both. “But I bet you're going to tell me who that is, right?”

Tyr frowned. “I don't know who he is. But for some reason I know that he was a man that once said beer is proof that God loves us and wants to be happy. It's a bit odd – alcohol being a poison, and yet I feel better when I drink the right stuff. I'm stuck in a cycle of abusing substances to try to balance out my mind, which is probably not the best way to handle it...”

“Which god, though?” Lina asked, shaking her head as 'brother Mikhail' offered her a long necked bottle, stoppered with a cork, of the aforementioned beverage. No alcohol for her, though, not after that night. 'Brother', Tyr called them all by the honorific, even Lina. No 'sister' for her, only 'brother'. She'd protested this briefly but he'd ignored her objective bereft requests as he often did.

“He was a man of a people that only believed in one. They called their divine God and nothing else, he had a son or some such that served as some kind of... Proxy divine? It's confusing, there were conclaves of similar yet different religions that killed one another over the distinction. They all believed in this son, and at some point there was a schism where people decided to revere and idolize him as the face of this one true God. Something the other side of the religion didn't care for, I think. They divided themselves into differing 'isms' along the texts of a man named Abraham, and still engaged in war despite the fact that they all worshiped the same celestial all-powerful creator deity.” Tyr mused off into the distance, glazed in the eye.

Not from drunkenness, he remained alert on the road ahead. Watching over the crackling campfire and never sleeping. Lina would rise in the night at times and observe him staring off, playing a low tune on his lute that was 'not a lute, Lina' or stroking Okami's thick fur with a gentle hand. Feeding and speaking to the horses as if they were people. He was a strange person, but a preference for animals wasn't exactly a bad thing.

“Are you making this up?” She snorted. “That's ridiculous. Nyx is the daughter of Veles yet his wave speakers would never attack one of my order.”

“It sure is. As are cities of steel and glass with clockwork carriages as far as the eye can see. Whole forests rolled over and replaced with liquid stone that hardens once it's poured. But it's not concrete, it's all black tar.” Tyr said, his eyes sad at this bizarre daydream of his.

“There is no such place on this world. Nothing to worry about.” Lina patted him reassuringly on the shoulder.

“I think that's one of the only things worth worrying about.” Tyr replied. “Progress for the sake of progress begets degeneracy. And not in the good way.”

“There is no good degeneracy, Tyr.” Lina chuckled warmly. Water paladins weren't fanatic puritans, but they were of purity. Not chasteness, but expected to behave in a certain way, to obey the code like all church affiliates were. “Degeneracy is degeneracy.”

“We'll see if you can say the same when you've had a finger in the bum.” Tyr said simply. “Everyone wants to think they know what degeneracy is, seeking to define it. Force their own code and morals on others, but that which is impure is less gray than that. To me, at least. I don't know, but burning forests just to make space for a structure is wrong in the black and white sense of things. It's not even an opinion, to me, it's just fact.”

“Wait, wait.” Lina cleared her throat. “What was that about a finger in the bum?”

“Brother Tyr...” Mikhail's face screwed up as he stared at his 'captain' from across the low fire. He and Mikhail were roasting wide capped mushrooms spitted on sticks. Just looking at those things made Lina uncomfortable, but she'd had as much vengeance as she was going to get on the man who was responsible for it according to her father. They'd never spoken of it, though, and she wasn't as wroth as she thought she'd be... “You've had a finger in the bum, you? Our little prince the sexual deviant after two decades of abstinence? And who said people don't really change?”

“Of course I haven't.” Tyr spat into the fire, relishing the crackling sizzle as it vaporized against a cherry red log. He liked fire. Didn't used to, but now it was a symbol. He'd forgiven that element the same way Lina had forgiven him. Feeling what it, or he, was capable of – knowing that it wasn't an enemy even if it might not be a friend. Just another force of nature he could call to his fingertips and commune with so intimately. “Far be it from me to be a dainty lad, but that's just vile.”

“...Yeah.” Mikhail chuckled awkwardly. “T-totally.”

“...Brother Mikhail?”

“Huh?”

“Have you...? Never mind. I really do not want to know, and I was well aware for your sickness of mind whatever the case may be.”

Lina lounged back on the saddle pulled from her horse and laid across a log to serve as their outdoor furniture. These men all slept under the stars, there were no tents for them. Tyr had some, staying prepared, but she had declined as the others had. As had Rafael... He claimed roughing it was the way of the 'chivalrous man'. It was a wonder he managed to keep his hair so smooth, straight, and perfect despite that. Youthful and handsome despite his age, nearing his thirties if not beyond after their time in the astral space – it's not like they'd kept a calendar. “What's with this 'brother' this, 'brother' that? Is this a Harani custom?”

It was Tiber who would answer. “Yes, actually. I'm sure you were asking the prince, but I can't stand to hear him 'back in Haran we have a'... Get me?”

Lina smiled brightly. It was nice to see even that taciturn old man change in character, perhaps a sign he was among friends. No need for pomp, his back bending for the first time since she'd known him, not so straight laced as before. Even a bit disrespectful at times, in a chiding sort of way – like a father or an uncle. He reminded her of Willis a bit, just... Significantly meaner. “I get you.”

“Let's not embarrass the little brother in front of his new girlfriend.” Samson rumbled, winking at Lina. He was working an oilcloth over his equipment again. His most prized possessions and beloved treasures. He was an intimidating, soft spoken man, kind, gentle, and always respectful. Lina wondered how Tyr had attracted such a fine man into his service, clearly he was not of Haran or under any born obligation to follow. Tiber was the picture of what a good knight actually was, from a real world perspective, but Samson was the ideal. The man who helped Stella with her schoolwork and taught her figures patiently while her father was away. He didn't look like it, but Lina had learned from him that he loved song and dance more than anything in this world. Made him feel more alive, he'd said.

“While I am more than ready to call him friend, I have no attraction in the least to our brother Tyr. I like them tall, dark, and handsome. Thick in the arms and rear.” She said, winking at Samson, a man with skin too dark to blush and yet it was apparent that she'd made him uncomfortable. Much to the joy of Fennic and Mikhail, until they received that uplifted eyebrow so characteristic of the massive man. “It's too bad you're married, brother Samson.” She laughed along with them.

This was a group of killers and black hearted men, at times. Or at least that's how she would have seen them in the past, but they were just men. Men with a duty and calling. Men with choices, as Tyr so often liked to repeat. It was hard to connect the Fennic, that had so efficiently carved a bandits throat out thirty kilometers from Karth with a filet knife, to the man she'd seen assist the elderly with crossing the street back in Leygein.

A man who would kill without a moments notice, levy justice where he should not, and in the next action stop at a local farm to work in an old woman's stead for the day. It made their trip slow-going, but they had time – and it made her feel good. Even more surprising was that Tyr followed his lead, one of the few times he wasn't whining or glaring at everything. Bending his back and working the dirt with a rare smile on his lips.

“The dawnguard is the name the protectors of the empress in the empire.” Tyr said, unfazed by the banter. “In a knightly order, all men except those in a command capacity are equals – at least that's how it's supposed to work. I am still a junior knight in the dawnguard, and since there is no real use for the order – there is no commander. Therefore, we are all equals. We serve together, eat together, die together – and everyone gets a voice. And there is no dawnguard at all, technically, hence why we call it the black, I didn't think night or dusk guard sounded very exciting at the time. It's symbolic in more ways than one.”

“Are you not their captain?” She was perplexed, Lina was a knight. Even if she'd been booted from the Blue Rose, they could not strip her of her titles. Only her authority, and more than a bit of her prestige. This was not the way things were done in any nation she was familiar with. “You command them, do you not? As their prince?”

“They can choose to disobey and I would not strip them of their shield. Their heraldry, title, whatever you want to call it.” Tyr shrugged. “Everyone gets a voice. I am their prince, but the captain that Mikhail calls me at times is mostly sarcasm. The dawnguard was disbanded upon the death of my mother. Now, the protection of the empress Charlotte falls on her own knights, the Teutons.”

“That's out of character.” Lina laughed. “First, you take my fathers request and agree when I was sure that you wouldn't. Now you're rigid about custom? Can a prince not found his own knightly order?”

“I did.” Tyr said. “The blackguard, that is what we are now and Tiber is the erstwhile 'captain'. I have no interest in controlling these men. They are free to do as they please, even leave at any time if they wish to, as many have. So long as they remain lawful, I wish only for their happiness.”

“Wow, that's...” Lina cleared her throat. It was gallant, is what she wanted to say. Maybe not gallant, but equitable in a way she had not expected. She was aware that all of these men save Tiberius were commoners, to rise them up and give them a voice like that was a good sign of character. “Dawnguard to blackguard? Really?”

“I was a very edgy child, and I thought it sounded dangerous. Though, notably, I did not name them, we were named by the Harani court for the black cloaks we wear.” Tyr shrugged. “There's not much else to say. In any event, we have few rules in the order. Tiber, what are those rules again?”

“One, we are all equals. Two, never harm your fellow guard. Three, for so long as I am a member of the guard I shall not rape, steal from, or slay the innocent. Four...?”

'Slay the innocent...' Lina mulled that over in her head, lips as flat as could be as she considered how easily Tyr could hunt and kill a total stranger. He didn't seem to obey these rules of his, though she was certain he'd swear he lived in concert with them at all times.

“Find brother Tyr an elven maiden with nice fat tits and a waist fit for bearing children. With soft lips and hair as golden as the sunrise.” Mikhail nodded in satisfaction.

“Defend the weak and safeguard the innocent.” Fennic said with a firmness in his countenance that Lina had not seen before, an almost fanatical conviction to do that mentioned thing.

“Tolerate no slaver or shackle bearer.” Samson added.

“Allow Tyr the freedom to become his own man.” Tiber offered.

Ajax shrugged. “All of them sound fine to me. I too would like to break bread an elven maiden.”

“Ah.” Mikhail nodded in satisfaction, there was suddenly a long stalk of wheat in his mouth with the head still on it. Leaving Lina wondering where he'd found such a thing in the late summer season... “A fellow man of culture, I see.”

“I have heard their women are powerful warriors.” Ajax said. “It would be a great honor to be crushed between the thighs of a daughter of Aelas.”

“...To each their own.” Mikhail squinted at the hulking beastkin currently busying himself with whittling a small face in the femur remaining of their evening meal. “That works...”

“I don't get it.” Lina furrowed her brows and tossed a stick into the fire. “If it's some kind of inside joke, I'm definitely on the outside.”

“The fourth and final rule of the blackguard is that you follow that which is most important to your heart. It can be anything as long as it doesn't violate the first three.” Tiber said, holding up three fingers to accentuate the point. When Lina had met him, he had begun to show his age. Nowadays, he had a youthful vigor to him, his hair has less gray and he spoke clearer. Perhaps the mild climes of Leygein had rejuvenated him, but the effect was miraculous. “We all have a voice. Tyr is our commander in a fight but any of us can refuse his orders without punishment, or put forth our own suggestions. The final decision is mine, but only in the face of a rank that we do not pull very often.”

“Finding an elven maiden is your strongest conviction?” She asked Mikhail with a furrowed brow.

The man shrugged. “If he can do it, I'm certain there's one in it for me. Pass it forward, you know? Surely brother Tyr would ensure that I am well served in the process. Equity, remember?”

Tyr snorted. “You have my word, brother Mikhail. One day I shall find you an elven maiden finer than any other.”

“Like you fixed my tongue?” Fennic said. Clucking it several times as if to communicate to them that he had one again. Lina was not aware of this joke, only that they'd been together a long time. Rafael looked on with an amused expression. He had been there, when Daito had summoned this man and cured him of both the ugly scar on his cheek and the lost tongue. For whatever reason, he still remained of a single eye – though. Daito had said it was 'important' that he not cure Fennic's partial blindness.

“You're right.” Tyr nodded, serious in the face. “There's not a chance I'll let Mikhail get his way, I'll be taking the lot for myself. What's a few thousand more wives compared to those I already have?”

They laughed, all of them. It was a merry night on the road to Amistad.