‟Hey? Hey? What are you doing here?”

Morgan could hear the kids ask curiously as she approached the border of the lizardkin's campsite. The rain had stopped and night had fallen. The ground beneath her feet was muddied and squelched at her steps.

‟I'm waiting for my love,” the lizard that knelt at the border told the children. ‟She isss currently being treated by your doctor.”

The youngest girl of the group asked, ‟Are you talking about Miss Lethel?”

‟Yesss,” Wolf Bane's eyes gleamed over at Morgan as she approached. ‟She'sss very important to me.”

‟I'm so sorry. I didn't know you knew her,” the oldest kid said. Morgan recognised him as the same kid who threw a mud ball at another lizardkin earlier in the day. ‟I hope she gets better soon.”

A sad-toothed smile edged the corner of Wolf Bane's lips. ‟I hope ssso too.”

Then, one of the kids turned to find Morgan behind them and gave a childish scream. ‟Ahhh! It's the monster knight! Run!”

The other children quickly caught on and scattered, laughing and yelling as they disappeared into the night, leaving Morgan behind with Wolf Bane.

She asked the kneeling lizard, ‟You seem to be getting well with them.”

‟They are children. Their hatred will calm with time and connection.” He did not raise his head to meet her, and Morgan wondered if the reason he was able to speak with the children so casually was because they were at his height.

So she knelt down. ‟How are you doing?”

His eyes locked with hers, his sharp iris bloodshot. ‟I am angry, Knight Morgan. Sssomeone took a blade to my heart.”

Solemnly, she tried to console him. ‟She'll be fine. Lethel is strong, and she has two doctors working on her.”

‟I'm not even allowed in to sssee her.”

Morgan could feel it. Something in her wanted to break, but she was not sure what. It felt cruel and unusual to deny a loved one from seeing their other half while in crisis. But she was clear of the situation, that bringing Wolf Bane into the town proper would cause even more unrest, especially after a lizardkin-like individual had just attacked one of the town's own.

How was she supposed to help him? She barely knew how to help anyone in general. Her only source of reference was Art, who picked her up as a child and taught her to fight. She was pretty sure that did not work for most people.

‟Are you a good fighter, Wolf Bane?” she unexpectedly asked.

‟What?” He looked back, stunned.

‟I want to catch the person that did this to Lethel and all the other victims, but I need your help with that, if you're willing to provide.”

He nodded uncertainly. ‟Anything you need. I'm trained in the waysss of my tribe, but I can't imagine how that will help your invessstigation.”

Morgan stood to her feet and Wolf Bane lifted his head up to follow her movement. She reached her hand out to him, and after a moment of hesitation, he took it, and she pulled him to his feet.

‟Come with me,” she commanded simply.

She lead him through the lizardkin camp, where the mood was noticeably sullen, even without the post-rain mist. The tribesmen still greet her, though with far less enthusiasm. It seemed they had genuinely accepted Lethel as one of their own, and the pain of her attempted murder had wounded them the same. Still, when she asked to be lent a source of, they gladly handed over one of their rushlight on a holder, fire burning faintly on the wick, a small flame of hope burning their their eyes as they passed her the light.

Eventually, they came to a small sandy 'pit' to the back of the encampment. Morgan told Wolf Bane to take a stand at one end of the makeshift arena while she went to the other, counting her distance all the while.

‟Now,” she began her instruction, setting the rush light on the ground. ‟I'll be turned away from you, and I want you to attack me like you're trying to kill me with you bare hands.”

‟I-I don't underssstand?” Wolf Bane hissed softly.

‟I'm trying to understand something about our attacker, and to do that, I need to understand you.”

Wolf Bane continued to look confused for a moment longer, but his expression soon gave way to determination as he took an attacking stance. ‟Okay.” He does not seem to fully understand what's happening yet, but was willing to help.

‟Very well. Come at me when you're ready.” Morgan turned around and waited.

A second of silence passed, then, without a waiting for a beat, she heard the mud squelch as Wolf Bane charged. She turned quickly at the sound. At the short distance between them, there was only enough reaction time thay they were nearly face-to-face by the second she had spun around. Still, she managed to meet her attacker's claws and stopped it by palming his hand in hers, halting Wolf Bane in his tracks. They faced each other, eye-to-eye, and Morgan was surprised the lack of bloodlust in his eyes that she had often seen from beasts and monsters. Of course there would be none. Why did she expect there to be?

‟You went for the head,” she questioned. ‟Why?”

The lizardkin took a breath to recoil from the exhilaration. ‟It'sss how we were taught. Go for the throat, quiet the prey.”

She released her grasp of his hands and they stepped back. ‟How do you do so?”

‟Like thisss.” Wolf Bane raised the claws of his fingers, sans thumbs, across his throat and gave a pulling motion, slashing the air as if cutting the windpipe.

‟It's a cut?”

‟That'sss right.”

‟You don't thrust your claws in?”

‟They aren't shaped for that.” He raised his hand to show his claws.

While a couple of inches long, they were curved slightly like talons. Not enough to cut into the palm, but enough to not have the structure for a piercing attack.

But the attacker had tried to pierce her. Even if the claws were metal, why did they not forge one that was closer to their kin's claws if they were indeed lizardkins?

Morgan raised her callused arm and crackled her fingers, imagining that there were claws attached to the edge of each of them. She then reached out as if trying to grab a heart, and the motion was the same as the one she had received. Whoever attacked them had either human or elven hands.

‟By your look, I guessss you have figured out what you were looking for.”

‟You guessed correctly. You're pretty impressive in your deduction. Would you like to be my Watson on this?”

‟I do not know what that meansss.”

A cold wind blew through the field and Morgan held her hair back from being picked up by the breeze. But the wind was still strong enough that the rush light snuffed out, throwing them into an exterior darkness lit only by the stars in the sky and the distant ambient light of the lizardkin camp.

‟Crap,” Morgan berated, annoyed.

Wolf Bane added, ‟I have a flint sssomewhere.” She could hear him ruffling his pouch in the dark to find the tool.

‟Here,” Morgan held out her left hand and charged a short spell.

A small blue 'flame' rose out of her palm, giving off enough ambient light to encapsulate Wolf Bane's person. The 'fire' looked odd, unlike the orange flames most people knew from heat. Appearing more like a blob of gas that glowed, it tinged of blue waving in and out. Certain blades of leaf beneath their feet shone unnatural in response to the black light, and the dew blinked in luminescent.

‟Be quick. I can't hold this for long.”

‟Dark fire. That isss a rare magic.” His motion slowed, no longer fumbling, but with sighted precision. With vision, he managed to pull out a chip of flint and a salvaged strip of steel. ‟I have never met anyone who could use it.”

‟There are little practical uses for it, to be honest,” Morgan explained as she guided him to the rush light. ‟It's mostly used for combat.”

‟That isss a unexxxpected thing to hear. I would think it be more versssatile.”

At the rushlight, Wolf Bane squatted down and began striking sparks. At that point, Morgan snuffed out her light and let the fragment of flashes did its thing. The humidity in the dewy air seemed to be hindering the lighting process, however, as the sparks failed to catch into embers.

‟Dark fire doesn't actually generate heat, but manipulates plasma,” Morgan explained between flashes of sparks and chirps of bugs. ‟Because of that, it has far more varied temperature levels than fire, but also requires more energy and doesn't generate the same type of light, which can seem weird. It's mainly used in combat, since to generate anything bright enough to illuminate a room would require a lot of power to get only a very short period of...”

Her words trailed of. With one final strike of the flint, the rush light burnt into a soft orange glow that illuminated their immediate surroundings.

‟What'sss wrong, Knight Morgan?” Wolf Bane asked as he got to his feet with the light and he noticed her quiet.

‟I think I can find the killer,” she stated suddenly. ‟Let's head back. I need to find Sherl.”