Chapter Text
Petra saw herself as many things. As a leader, sure. She could scarcely remember a time when she hadn’t been a leader. As a competent fighter, at times, though she was happier when she did not have to fight. But as a savior? That was too much. Things like that were Aloy’s job and even she did not take to it exceedingly willingly.
She preferred the people who did not fall over in gratitude for her replacing Ulvund. Those who had complaints, frivolous though they often were. Some complained about a lack of new workers - something she did not control - while others complained about her being a woman - which she most definitely did not control. But people having complaints, silly or not, was comprehensible. She could handle it.
Worse were those who treated her, well, as a savior. They spoke of how there was more laughter and less drinking at work. How everyone seemed happier, more alive. Some claimed that even the food tasted better. She thought all of that was ridiculous, but she did not correct them.
For now, she was sitting right at the counter of the tavern kitchen, a fresh bowl of stew in front of her that smelled so delicious that all the stress that had accumulated in the past few weeks left her body. Chainscrape was an undeniable step up in terms of workload and responsibility compared to her previous projects and as much as she did not dispute the fact that it was rewarding work, sometimes she missed the simplicity of finishing a day’s work and seeking shelter in a tent after some ale, with a woman in her sheets and nothing more to worry about.
Javad tried his best to support her, at least as far as numbers and the relations to the Carja went, but he had an uncanny ability to always hassle her when she could least use a hassle. He would decide to draft letters at the dinner table or interrupt her at her work bench in order to speak of numbers and receipts and delivery deadlines.
With all these things compounding, the days soon started to blur together in a haze of stress and monotonous organization. Sometimes, she would sit down outside on the porch at night and notice how much the moon had changed since she’d last taken the time to look at it.
But as she ate the first spoonful of the stew, she felt light as a feather. “Oh, this is impeccable, Milduf!”
The chef, however, did not even appear to listen to her. He was stirring more of his stew, but his eyes weren’t even really looking at that. He simply stirred, absentmindedly, with a dopey grin all over his face.
Petra smirked, happy to meddle in some affairs that weren’t her own for a change, raised an eyebrow and asked him outright, “What’s going on with you, huh?”
Milduf tensed up and almost dropped his spoon. His face went red all over. “Oh, well. Uhm. You see…” He shook his head and put his spoon down before coming over to Petra. He leaned closer to her and said quietly, “Javad asked me out.” He became even redder after saying it.
“Javad?” It made enough sense to her. Javad and Milduf were both gentle souls with not a malicious bone in their bodies. The thought of them together sounded like adding sugar on top of cream. It made sense, yes, but she also couldn’t help but cringe a little about just how sweet it would all end up.
“Yes! He even gave me a flower! We’re going stargazing tonight.”
“Well, that’s the most obviously sweet thing I’ve ever heard, good for you.” She had intended to say it with a bit more levity, more sincerely, but it came out with a decidedly bitter undertone.
Milduf looked at her and for a moment she was certain she must have hurt his feelings, but his face was nothing but an understanding smile. “When did you last have someone to go stargazing with?”
She leaned back and crossed her arms. “I see the stars a bunch, Milduf, I come home late.”
“You know what I mean.”
Of course she knew. That didn’t make it any less embarrassing. “I don’t even remember,” she said. Things are always easier on that front when you’re going places, when you’re on the road. And when you have a reasonable amount of free time. Cooped up in Chainscrape, surrounded by mostly men and with most of her time taken up by making sure the town was running… It was difficult.
“What about Aloy? You seemed pretty close with her. And she’s a very nice girl.” He gestured proudly at his still relatively fresh griddle. “Beautiful, too.”
Petra snorted. “We’re friends. You’ve met her, you know how she is. Always on the road, always busy. Most I got her to do was sit down for one drink. I don't even think she’s interested in… Anyone, really.”
Milduf nodded. “And no others?”
“No… There aren’t exactly many women around here. And with so few women there’s even fewer who are interested in women.”
“Well, still,” Milduf insisted, “You should put yourself out there.”
Petra changed the subject to food after that point because frankly, she’d been “out there” the entire time. She certainly wasn’t hiding away or anything. And credit to Milduf, he knew when an argument was lost. So, he simply took her order, and brought her some truly wonderful soup with fresh, still warm bread. No sex or romance in the world could top Milduf’s stew, she thought.
It hit her somewhere part way through her meal. “Wait. If you and Javad are going out tonight, does that mean he’s not going to make me go over letters and numbers all evening?”
Milduf laughed. “I think that means he’s not going to do that tonight, no.”
The amount of work that went into running a whole settlement wasn’t Javad’s fault, obviously. And with the work Petra needed to do throughout the day, the evenings were often the only time for all the boring, administrative work that needed doing. Nonetheless, the prospect of a free evening was more than welcome.
“Well, then. Many thanks for giving me a night off, Milduf.” She finished her meal quickly and headed out of the tavern. She breathed in the fresh air that was slowly beginning to cool down as the sun was heading for the Western horizon and made her way down through the settlement towards her home - the small house she’d taken over from Ulvund. That was still a strange thought to her. As much as Ulvund was gone, he had left his fingerprints all over Chainscrape. He had even slept in the bed which was now hers. She did her best to forget about it.
She slipped into some comfortable clothes, and she went upstairs and took the ladder up to the roof where sat, in silence and solitude, and simply looked at the stars. It was a clear night, the stars shining so bright they looked almost touchable; Milduf and Javad would have a good time stargazing that night. The thought crept into Petra’s mind that maybe Milduf had had a point. Maybe in that moment she would have liked someone to look at the stars with her, if only for a night, if only for a moment.
It wasn’t long until her contemplation was interrupted, however, and rather rudely at that. She could hear the bickering long before she could see who was doing it.
One of the voices belonged to a woman, as far as she could tell. “Let me tell you one thing: If anyone ever makes you feel secondary, you just fucking run. Don’t let anyone do that to you.”
“You still brought him home…” a younger voice said.
“I wanted him dead figuratively, not literally,” the older voice replied bitterly.
Petra snorted. Whenever she caught a glimpse of the drama men and women could get into amongst each other, she was glad it wasn’t something she had to deal with.
When the two strangers finally walked into Chainscrape she could see that they were an odd pair. A Carja woman with a long black ponytail and torn-up armor and a young Utaru girl with smudged body paint and her hair coated in sweat.
“Can I help you guys?” she asked as they came closer to her place.
The Carja woman stepped into the soft candlelight of Petra’s porch, looking up to the roof. “We are… Kind of exhausted, to be honest. Is there anywhere we can stay the night here?” Petra couldn’t help but notice the contrast between her fierce armor with a blade attached to her hip and the softness of her face, the pleading look in her eyes she was clearly trying to hide. She was looking at an undeniably beautiful woman, there were no two ways about it.
“One moment,” she said quickly, “I’ll be right there.” She made her way down from the roof, rushed downstairs and opened the front door. “Come in, we’ll figure something out.”
The younger girl stirred. “What if she wants to murder us?”
Petra snorted. “Don’t worry, I haven’t murdered anyone recently.”
The Carja woman smiled at her. “Good enough for me. Come on, Milu.” The girl - Milu - followed her with a petulant look on her face, but she did not object.
They stepped inside and Petra lit a few lamps. When she turned back to her guests, she found the Carja woman looking at her with furrowed brows. “I feel like I know you.”
Petra shrugged. “I used to get around. Anywhere between here and The Claim, we might have run into each other, shared a drink, gotten in a bar fight…” she smirked to herself, “Hooked up.” She watched as the woman did not turn red but merely raised her eyebrows.
“You were at the Battle of the Alight, weren’t you?”
Petra sighed; a much less pleasant memory, though she still felt vaguely ashamed of failing to recognize an old comrade. “That I was, yes.”
“In that case, nice to see you again. I’m Talanah.” She extended a hand towards Petra and used the other to gesture towards her companion. “And this is Milu, my Thrush.”
Petra could feel her eyes widen, but she could not stop herself. She took Talanah’s hand and shook it. “The Carja Sunhawk with an Utaru Thrush? Curious combination.”
“I’m going to become the greatest hunter of my tribe!” Milu exclaimed.
“Sure you will,” Talanah replied with a soft laugh and messed up her hair, though Petra doubted it could get much more messed up than it already was.
She filled two cups with water and handed them over. “You two seem like you’ve had a rough journey.”
“All the way from Thornmarsh to here in pretty much one go,” Milu said.
“For me, yes, Milu I picked up in Stone’s Echo,” Talanah amended.
Petra looked her up and down skeptically. “You survived going all the way to Thornmarsh and back? That’s a dangerous journey for a Carja.”
“Two Carja!” Milu interjected which earned her an elbow to the side.
Petra did not need to hear more. “Boyfriend?” she asked casually. She’d heard them well enough on their way into town.
Talanah turned her gaze away. “I’d really rather not talk about it. I did my duty, it’s done.” She straightened herself. “Anyway, thanks for the water and all. So, where can we find a place to stay the night?”
Petra nodded and told her the truth of it. “Chainscrape is kind of… under reconstruction right now. We don’t really have a functioning inn at the moment, so I have a guest room if that’s okay with you.”
Talanah nodded slowly. “Sure.”
Petra gave them a quick tour around the house, showing them where to sleep and wash and by the end of it, Talanah gave her a smile so exhausted but so soft that Petra could not look away if she tried. “Thank you, really. We’ll just stay the night, recuperate and then be right on our way to Meridian.”
Petra nodded and wished them goodnight. Something in her stirred when Talanah mentioned being on her way the next day, but Petra ignored it. Obviously she would be on her way the next morning. People did not stay in Chainscrape, unless it was for work.
Chapter Text
Petra was woken up by the first ray of sunlight in the morning. She groaned. She had forgotten to pull in the curtains and the sun felt particularly harsh. She heard some mild commotion next door and figured that it must be Talanah and Milu getting on their way.
She slipped into some clean clothes and went out of her room to check.
“FUCK!” Talanah’s swear came to her ears loud, but more frustrated than truly angry.
Petra wanted to knock and ask what was going on when Talanah flung the door open, dressed only in a simple shirt and underpants, but she was better rested and cleaned-up. She looked beautiful, especially up close, but she also looked decidedly unhappy. “There is a stitcher in town, right?!”
Petra blinked, sleep still fogging her brain. “Yes?”
Talanah exhaled. “Good, good, this should be done soon enough then.” She held up her armor that had already looked rather battered yesterday, but in the daylight it looked downright destroyed.
Petra raised an eyebrow. “Did you fist-fight a Snapmaw?”
“No, it’s just- I just- It doesn’t matter. Can you just take me to the stitcher?”
Petra frowned, but nodded. “Sure, but only if we’re having breakfast after.”
“I haven’t had breakfast in weeks,” Talanah said.
Milu promptly followed, “I don’t even remember breakfast.”
They left shortly after Petra had found some pants for Talanah to put on. There was a hardness about her face the whole time that Petra wasn’t sure she had any right to inquire about. But about half of the way across town, she had enough of the glacial conversation between them. Milu was clearly uncomfortable in an area she’d never seen before and Talanah was so deep in thought that she seemed to take twice as long to understand anything Petra was saying.
“How long have you been traveling?” she asked, and Talanah pressed her lips together.
“Not that long,” she replied curtly, “Ten days, just about.”
“Ten days? From Thornmarsh? By the Forge, did you even sleep?” The journey should have taken her twelve days at the very least, more likely fourteen if she’d stopped to find shelter, eat and sleep.
“I wanted to get it over with,” she said with a shrug which failed to look casual.
Petra was about to ask what she meant by that, but Milu filled her in unprompted. “She had to bring her ex home.”
Talanah laughed bitterly, “Yeah, I felt real honorable when I promised it even though he was being an ass, but after the first day, I wanted to stab him. Or strangle him. Drowning was also on the table in the beginning. Luckily for him, water is plenty but rather shallow around Thornmarsh.”
“Judging by how pissed you still seem about him, I assume you didn’t do it?”
“No, I simply hurried. He’ll remember me by the blisters on his feet. Much more fun that way.” Her face gave no impression of any fun whatsoever.
“Yeah, you seem to be having a great time,” Petra said sarcastically. It would be a lie to say she wasn’t judging. She often ended up judging the relationships women had with men. She’d had a million conversations like this in her lifetime and they always ended like this. She never got why anyone would do this to themselves.
The only thing her little comment earned her, however, was more silence and this time it was even uneasier. Reaching the stitcher - Hadruf - was a relief if she’d ever experienced one.
“This is going to take a while,” he said after thoroughly examining Talanah’s armor, “At least a day if I get to work right away.”
Talanah huffed but eventually grumbled, “Fine, see to it.”
Having bidden their farewells, they walked towards the tavern which was already buzzing in the early hours of the morning. Petra took a look up at the sky and frowned. It was too late for the tavern to be full of workers. They ought to be at their posts already as they usually went for breakfast shortly before sunrise, not significantly after.
Petra pushed past the line that had formed all the way outside the tavern. The chatter was agitated and deafening. Inside, she found the whole place crowded, bodies pressed close to bodies and none of them had a nice word to say. She pushed through still until she found Milduf at his spot, big eyes brimming with tears and shaking all over.
“Milduf!” she called. An elbow hit her in the side. She retaliated quickly and pushed on until she made it to the kitchen counter and directly to Milduf. “What’s going on?!” she called over the noise.
“Petra! Tell them it’s not my fault! I can’t- There’s-!” His voice broke.
Petra scarcely had enough space to breathe, let alone stand, but she fiercely pushed back a few people in the front row. “Would everybody just stand the fuck back for a moment?!” The crowd took a few moments, but followed her order. They did not stop their mumbling, however.
She turned back to Milduf. “Okay, breathe, what’s going on?”
“There’s no food!” he exclaimed suddenly, panicked and pain-ridden, “I-It’s the flour. And the fruit. The meat as well…”
She furrowed her brow. “What? Did it all go bad?” It didn’t seem likely, not when Milduf diligently checked on his supplies every single day.
“No, it’s… It’s metalbite, I think.”
Petra froze. “Metalbite?”
Milduf nodded tiredly. “Yes, someone… I don’t know- I-“ He tried to collect himself. “Someone must have poured metalbite on my supplies.”
Petra’s mind kicked back into action, almost racing away from her. A million questions rushed through her brain. About who might do such a thing, when it could have happened, but most importantly, why ? But she wouldn’t be able to answer the big questions without collecting the facts first.
Behind her the hungry crowd began to stir again and she could well understand why now. Her own stomach would soon begin to growl and like most people here she had grown used to Milduf’s excellent food in the mornings and evenings. She had to act fast.
“The stock is drained!” she called out and the crowd grew angrier. She thought she heard a tankard hit a wall somewhere. “I need ten capable hunters to gather food for the town!”
Hands flew up almost instantly. She selected ten of them, told them to get their weapons and sent them off to hunt for boar and rabbit and whatever else they might find. A good portion of the rest she sent to gather fruit and vegetables wherever they might find them. “Thank you. For the rest of you, work is off until we have means of feeding you. I would kindly ask you to leave and not hassle Milduf, it’s not his doing.”
The crowd dispersed, though none of them seemed any happier. It was understandable, she assured herself, they were hungry and agitated and there was no immediate relief. Milduf seemed to calm now that there was no one yelling at him anymore. “Thank you,” he whispered and sat down at the nearest table, “I tried to explain it to them, but- well, when there’s no food, blame the chef, I suppose.” Petra nodded in understanding and sat down next to him, a comforting hand on his shoulder.
Across the room, Talanah cautiously poked her head into the tavern. “The fuck was that?” she asked, pointing towards the door where pretty much the entire population of Chainscrape had just poured out of.
“We have a problem, and no breakfast,” Petra said and proceeded to fill her in as Talanah and Milu sat down at the table Milduf and Petra had found a seat at - Talanah slid smoothly onto the chair across from Petra, Milu sat awkwardly across from a still majorly distraught Milduf.
Talanah nodded, slowly. “When did you last check on your stock?” She asked, finally.
Milduf chewed his lip and turned ever so slightly pink. “After dinner last night, before Javad picked me up. Usually I check one more time at night, but uhm… Not this time.”
“Is the food usually guarded?” she continued.
Petra shook her head. “No, there has never been a need for it. But, you really don’t have to-“
“Do you have any personal enemies?”
Milduf blinked, dumb-struck. “No! I merely cook the food here, I don’t make enemies.”
Talanah shrugged. “It seems you’ve made at least one.”
Petra huffed. “If you would excuse us,” she said to Milduf and pulled Talanah out of her chair and into the neighboring room. “What are you doing?” she asked, trying to keep her voice even.
“I’m helping you, obviously.”
Petra found that difficult to believe. “Why?”
Talanah looked away for a moment, and then straight at Petra. Her eyes seemed much darker in the dim light of the tavern. “I can’t leave this place without my armor, I’m hungry as all hell and frankly, I’m bored. Plus, I love a mystery.”
Petra nodded slowly. A smirk found its way onto her face. “How do I know you didn’t do it?”
Talanah laughed for the first time. “I was in your house all night and you’ve seen all my things. If you think I’m a suspect, you need my help more than I thought you did.” She was still laughing. It looked more natural on her face than the frown she’d been wearing all morning. “Come on, let me help. Plus, it’s good training for Milu. The girl could stand to learn about using her mind as much as brute force.”
“That’s your expertise then, I’m much better at brute force myself.” Petra flexed her biceps, not thinking much of it. It was meant to be funny more than anything, but she kept her eyes on Talanah as she did and she did not miss the hint of a spark in her eyes, though it fleeted fast.
“Good,” Talanah said, her voice just the slightest bit lower than before, “Then let’s brute force our way to whoever robbed me of my breakfast.”
“Good,” Petra agreed and went back to the kitchen area, Talanah right behind her.
“So, no enemies, huh?” Talanah asked again and Milduf still shook his head. “Well, then maybe we should talk to this Javad fellow.”
Petra raised her eyebrow. “Why?”
Talanah shrugged as though it was obvious. “Because he could have lured Milduf away so he wasn’t there to check on the supplies?”
“They were on a date.”
“Well, it could still have been a ploy. Why else would they go on a date this particular evening? I think this Javad might be cooperating with the perpetrator!”
Petra turned to her very seriously. “Talanah, Javad is pretty much my right hand man.”
Talanah looked her up and down with some skepticism. “To do what?”
“To lead Chainscrape,” Petra said casually. she was
Talanah looked mildly startled. “Oh, so you’re, like, in charge here?” When Petra nodded, she smiled apologetically.
Petra could only shrug. “Don’t worry about it. Anyway, I highly doubt Javad has anything to do with this.”
Talanah scratched her chin. “That might be true, but maybe he’s friends with someone who does. After all, the perpetrator must have known that Milduf wouldn't be there to check on his stock last night. Who knew of their little date?”
Petra couldn’t keep herself from laughing. “Everyone, I suppose? Well, everyone knows that Javad and Milduf have been into each other for a long time. Anyone who saw them out in town together last night could have figured that they were finally doing something about it. It’s a long-running joke.”
Talanah did not look happy to hear it. “So, you’re telling me we have no leads there?”
Petra shrugged. “I guess not. I say we check out the scene of the crime.”
The food was stored in a secluded hut behind the tavern with a small part of it underground to keep the meat and the liquids cool. Normally the outside of it teemed with flies trying to make their way inside, but today all life seemed to have fled its general vicinity. Petra had no trouble understanding why. The whole place smelled foul, like something had died inside.
“Don’t touch anything,” she said, though she suspected a seasoned hunter like Talanah didn’t need to be told how dangerous metalbite was to the touch. Milu trailed behind them and maybe she had needed telling, because she janked her hand behind her back and made a point of not stepping too close to anything.
“Disgusting,” Talanah muttered as they beheld the quiet destruction. The green liquid had been poured over fruit and vegetable, into the flour sacks and even the ale kegs had holes drilled into their tops in order to poison them. When Petra opened the lid to the cellar, it was the same thing with the meat. The metalbite had eaten through it all.
She was almost too shaken by the situation before her to notice how Talanah and Milu slipped outside, but she realized they had left as soon as she heard Milu’s retching. The girl had made it to a dry bit of shrubbery and relieved herself of what little was left in her stomach while Talanah held back her hair.
“Everything alright?” Petra asked and felt stupid as soon she closed her mouth. Milu was shivering all over and had barely stopped vomiting, clearly everything was far from alright. “The smell?” she tried, instead.
Talanah shook her head. “Panic, I think. The Utaru have spent a long time starving, the sight of destroyed food must not be an easy one.”
Milu nodded weakly. “All gone,” she whispered.
Petra nodded in understanding. She had heard of the damage the Blight had done to the Utaru lands. It had been kinder to the Daunt, though she had spent many months afraid it would come for them, too. Though, whatever Aloy had been up to must have worked. More than a few scouts had made reports of the Blight diminishing and Petra did not believe in coincidences.
“Would you like to rest up at my place?” Petra asked.
Milu tried to straighten herself up, but all tension was gone from her body. Her gaze did not fix on anything properly. There was protest in her eyes, but all she could do in the end was nod weakly.
“I can’t leave her alone,” Talanah said gravely.
Petra didn’t object. Milu was young and clearly having a hard time, naturally Talanah would want to look after her. So, she nodded. “You go with her,” she said tightly, “I’m gonna ask around if anyone saw anything.”
Talanah mouthed a quick goodbye and led Milu back towards Petra’s house. Petra stayed behind, hoping to find something at the storage house. A footprint, a trail of metalbite, anything. She didn’t dare hope for anything, the sandy ground was not often willing to keep footprints, and by the way it looked, last night had been a windy one.
She walked around the little hut regardless, looking around and wondering if Aloy would have been able to see anything if she had been here. She always saw things others couldn’t. Alas, she wasn’t there. She was somewhere far west, in lands Petra had never seen.
“PETRA!” Talanah’s shout ripped her out of her thoughts. She sounded shocked, and for a moment Petra was afraid Milu might have fainted.
She ran towards the noise that was growing louder and quickly she realized that there were more voices than just Talanah’s. A crowd was starting to form by the time she arrived at the scene, but this time they spotted her early and let her through easily.
On the ground before her was one of people she had appointed as a hunter not an hour prior. He was a young Oseram, clad in studded leather and his face still juvenile-looking, but now it was distorted into a pained grimace. He did not scream, but kept wincing and drawing in air harshly, all the while clutching his leg. It was covered in blood from thigh to ankle.
Petra was no stranger to blood, she had spilled enough of it in her lifetime, but this young man did not look like he had come back from a fair fight. Talanah and Milu were crouched over him, trying to get him to lie still and let go of his leg, pleading to allow them to try and stop the bleeding. But his grip was tight, unbreakable.
“MEDIC!” Petra barked. She did it again when nobody answered. Again and again until finally a young woman pushed through the crowd - Jenna, the town medic, an Oseram with long light-brown hair tied up in a bun. She did not waste a second except to throw Petra a pointed look as she hastily pushed everyone aside, including Talanah and Milu. She deftly went about her work and ordered several men to help her hold the injured man down as she attempted to stop the bleeding.
There was nothing for Petra to do but watch as the man kept bleeding through bandages. He was still awake, which she figured was both a blessing and a curse. If he fell silent and stopped writhing, then she would fret. But even so, the dread sat deep in her bones, unceasing.
Suddenly, she felt a hand on her arm. It felt like being yanked out of a deep fog. She turned to face Talanah. “We should go,” she said firmly, though not unkindly. Petra wanted to object, duty was binding her here, helplessly and uselessly, but Talanah was right. She didn’t say anything and when Talanah lightly pulled on her arm, she followed.
Chapter Text
Talanah knew blood-shock well. There were times when even a drop of blood would leave her debilitated. Not anymore, not after the years of her life she’d had to spend spilling the blood of cultists and Shadow Carja and now Tenakth Rebels. But the memories were there, she still knew what it felt like and she knew it where she saw it.
So, when she saw Petra Forgewoman, strong as she looked and as lighthearted as she’d presented, stare at a bleeding man, unmoving and silent, she knew what was happening.
By the time they reached Petra’s house, her mind was sharp as a razor and she felt more awake than she had in weeks. She quickly found some water to hand to Milu whose stomach remained firmly upset and put Petra on the couch.
“I need to know what happened to him,” Petra said, her gaze fixed straight ahead on the wall.
Talanah nodded. She knew some portion of what it meant to be responsible for other people, though she doubted Thrushes like Milu or even the entire Hunter’s Lodge were comparable to an entire settlement. “I spoke to the people who brought him back,” she said, uncertain if Petra was ready to hear it.
Brown eyes found hers, strangely empty.
“He was caught in a trap, but the others insisted it wasn’t where the trappers usually set up. They seemed convinced of deliberate sabotage.” She said it quickly and without embellishment.
For a moment, Petra looked as though she hadn’t heard her. But then, she seemed to return to herself. Something lit up in her eyes. Fury. “Ulvund,” she said.
“Ulvund?” Talanah felt like she had heard the name before, but she could not fully place it. Maybe Aloy had mentioned it in passing. Aloy mentioned many people in passing when she felt talkative.
Petra pushed herself up and began pacing the room. “He was the leader here before me. Before, well, Aloy and Javad kicked him out, essentially. A right pain in the ass is what he was, ran everyone ragged day in, day out unless he forced work stoppages to pressure the Carja. Even caused a stampede of bristlebacks.”
“So, sabotage is in his wheelhouse?”
Petra shrugged. “I’m not sure I’d go that far, it was more incompetence and less sabotage that brought the bristlebacks.”
“But he has an interest in bringing the town down?”
“Yes, and I assume he’s not working alone.”
Talanah thought. Something didn’t fit, didn’t sit quite right with her. “If he was the leader here, he should be interested in being that again, right?”
“Not necessarily, he might just want revenge.”
She frowned. “Maybe. But why would he want revenge on the whole of Chainscrape? Surely, attacking you specifically would make more sense? Hell, it would make more sense if he sent a hit squad after Aloy. Not that anyone’s ever had success with that.”
Petra snorted, but then she sighed. “I could really use a drink.”
Talanah knew what she meant. It was hard to overlook how chaos was starting to take hold in Chainscrape. It was not as severe as it had been in Meridian in the past, but in the short amount of time she’d spent tending to the injured hunter, she had heard people talk. Between frantic voices expressing shock and helplessness, she’d heard some sprinkled in between, saying things like, “This didn’t used to happen” in conspiratorial tones.
It had felt familiar. She was no stranger to roaming the streets of Meridian and hearing residents complaining about this or that, arguing that things had been better under Jiran or a different earlier Sun-King. It had been an issue of concern. The line was thin between a more or less innocent person simply complaining in ignorant terms and the people who were genuinely spying for the Shadow Carja, actively sowing dissent.
With how grim things were looking already, Talanah figured it best to tell Petra of that thought process at a later time. “We should spread out and look for traps,” she said instead, “More hunters will get hurt otherwise.”
Petra nodded and for a moment, the blood-shock seemed to take her again, but this time she collected herself. “Yes. And we need to find Ulvund. Quickly. I don’t know what else he has planned and I don’t wish to find out.”
“Okay,” Talanah said, “I’ll help you.” The words came before she could think about them. Duty was calling, she needed no reminding of it, and if she had any sense, she would high-tail it back to Meridian to take care of the problem from there. Avad could surely help. But she saw the glint in Petra’s eyes and she had seen the helplessness seeping into the people of the settlement. She did not retract her offer.
Petra looked her up and down for a moment. “What about Milu?”
Talanah bit her lip and weighed her options. Milu needed to learn, she could use any experience she could get, but… “The stakes are too high, I’ll… I’ll have her stay here.”
“I’ll tell Javad and Milduf to look after her. Come, you’ll need some armor.”
Talanah followed Petra to her closet, unsure if she had anything that would fit her well enough. Petra seemed to read her mind. “I have one that used to belong to Aloy. You’re about similar build, I’d say.”
That made her curious. “Why do you have Aloy’s clothes?”
Petra smirked and wiggled her eyebrows. No way, thought Talanah, but before she could voice her doubt, Petra was already laughing. “Don’t worry, I haven’t outdone the Sun-King. Though, I’m sure he tried harder. No, if you know her well, I’m sure you know she just likes to swap out her armor. Turns up in a new outfit every time you meet her, that girl. She left this one with me in case she ever visits the Claim.”
Talanah nodded, very slowly, and made a mental note to ask Avad how gossip about his choice of queen had spread so fast. “Sure…”
“You’re looking at me like I committed a crime,” Petra laughed as she went through her closet, “Did you outdo the Sun-King?
The heat rose into Talanah’s cheeks suddenly and unbidden. There was nothing she could do to stop it. Unfortunately, her tongue was equally unruly. “No! I didn’t! I’m not-!” She didn't even know what she had been trying to say.
“Not into women?” The doubt in Petra’s eyes as she turned around was damning.
“That’s not! I am- I- Oh, what the fuck.” She took a deep breath. “I am into women. And men. And anything else, really, just- I’m not close with Aloy like that.”
“There it is!” Petra held up an Oseram armor, but smugness was still written all over her face in a fashion that felt almost inappropriate. “I don’t think anyone who’s come across Aloy didn’t end up with a crush on her, don’t worry.”
Talanah sighed. It was a deep sigh, though laced with laughter bubbling out of her throat. “I suppose that’s true. I’ve seen one of her new Tenakth friends. Miraculously, I think he might actually have a chance.”
Petra laughed with her. “I’ll bet you one hundred shards he doesn’t.”
“Have you seen him?”
“Not that I know of.”
Talanah grinned, “Then you’ve lost already. He’s a proper mountain, tall, muscular, tattoos all over.”
“The bet is still on.” Petra put the armor on the ground and stretched out her hand.
“Fine by me,” Talanah said with a shrug and shook it. She shouldn’t have been surprised by the roughness of Petra’s skin, but it still took her aback. Years and years of manual labor had made it calloused and tough, she was sure. She pulled her hand away a second too late, but Petra did not comment. “Alright then, I’ll go get changed.”
“I’ll find Milduf,” Petra replied with a nod and left the room.
-
There was no time for idle chit-chat and casual flirting, so Petra put it out of her mind. She couldn’t help herself, really. She saw a pretty woman, she flirted, that’s just how these things worked for her. Well, at least that’s how they worked for her when she’d still regularly encountered chances of success and wasn’t trying to stop her settlement from falling apart.
She made her way through the streets in search of Milduf. If she found Javad along the way, that would be a bonus. The people were growing skittish, that much was obvious. Uncertain eyes darted around, searching for danger, searching for the next problem. By the rate the morning was going, they were not wrong to do so.
Voices mixed together, a hushed cacophony that Petra couldn’t quite discern, but which already gave her great discomfort. The sight of the hunter bleeding was still clear to her every time she so much as blinked. She suspected it was the same for a lot of them. But then she caught it.
“Ulvund was a useless prick, but at least he didn’t send our hunters into certain death,” a portly Oseram man said to his friend, both of them leaning against an unused workbench.
Petra glared at them and stepped closer. She would not have it. “Would you like to say that again?”
The man simply smirked and stood tall in front of her. He was larger than her, that much was undeniable and his eyes did show signs of bluffing. Petra calculated her chances should push come to shove. She didn’t like the results. “What? Are we not allowed to question our glorious leader? I seem to remember you shitting on Ulvund quite passionately back in the day.”
“‘Back in the day’ was two months ago. But if you want to criticize me, try something I’ve actually done.” She held his gaze, but she was bluffing. She would not win a hand-to-hand fight with his giant man and she would not push her luck.
“That remains to be determined, love,” he said with a laugh and she threw all that caution to the wind.
She punched him. She didn’t hesitate. The second he had called her ‘love’ and doubly so the second he had let his guard down, his fate was sealed. The fate of his nose, at the very least. She hit it well, head on and with pure fury. And when she hit it, she heard it break.
The man tumbled further backwards and held his face as he exclaimed in pain. Petra was prepared for retaliation, but before the second man could step forward, a voice called from behind her.
“What is going on here?!” Javad. Wonderful timing.
“Nothing,” Petra said, putting no effort into lying, “My friend here was just about to apologize, wasn’t he?”
The man gave a dissatisfied grunt and his friend pulled him away.
When they were gone, Javad looked at her like a scolding parent. “That was a trick question, by the way. I saw exactly what happened here. You can’t do that, Petra. You’re the leader here, you can’t punch people who disagree with you.”
She scoffed. “ Disagree with me? He accused me of sabotaging my own hunters!”
“Petra…”
“I need you and Milduf to look after a young girl. She’s unwell and Talanah and I need to find Ulvund,” she said, not truly considering that Javad didn’t understand a word she was saying.
“Talanah? Khane Padish?”
She brushed right past his surprise. “Yes, yes, the Sunhawk, whatever.”
Javad’s eyebrows made fast friends with his hairline. “‘Whatever?’ You can’t just pull the Carja Sunhawk into Chainscrape’s business. What if the Sun-King finds out? What if something happens to her?”
“The Sunhawk is the leader of the Hunter’s Lodge, in case you have forgotten, Javad. I’m sure a mere rat like Ulvund can’t do anything to her that a thunderjaw hasn’t already tried.”
“That’s not-!”
She glared at him. “Would you please just do this for me? Look after the girl, keep her from running away. I need to go fix this.”
She didn’t wait for a reply. She simply walked off back towards her house. She heard more gossip this time around. It was normal, she told herself, expected. Bad things happen and people look to put the blame somewhere, anywhere it will stick. And it made sense to put blame on leaders, she was well aware. But that didn’t make it any more pleasant. That didn’t make it hurt any less to hear them speak about how she could have done this or that to protect their food and to protect the young hunter whose life still hung in balance.
When she arrived back home, she did not think about something so frivolous as flirting anymore. All she thought was, I must fix this. She went to her closet, put on her sturdiest armor and almost stormed out alone.
Almost.
Talanah caught her in the doorway, blocking the way out with her arm. She looked like a proper Oseram wayfarer now, the leather top suited her well and left a bit of her midriff exposed. She looked a touch more protected now, too, with the arm guards and the heavy studded skirt. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” she asked, a playful spark in her eyes.
“We need to leave,” she said, simply. Yes, I was about to storm out on my own, she did not say.
Talanah‘s eyes narrowed. “Right now? Do we even have a clue where we’re going?”
“We’ll find one. Now. We can't waste time.”
Talanah did not move out of her way, her gaze now deadly serious. “Petra,” she said, slowly, almost a threat, “We can’t move without a plan.”
Petra clenched her fist until her nails bored into her hands. She felt restless. She needed to do something before worse happened. Didn’t Talanah understand? Didn’t she want to fix all of this just as quickly? Obviously, she didn’t. This wasn’t her home and she certainly wasn’t the leader of it. Petra was. She was the one with the deadline.
But was Talanah wrong? Petra sighed. “Yeah,” she said quietly, “I guess.” She felt not the least bit more relaxed, but she tried to think. More carefully this time, perhaps a bit more slowly. “There… There’s going to be more traps. We’ll have to be careful of that.”
Talanah nodded and let her arm fall away from the door. “Good. Can you think of a place where someone might hide away?”
Petra had an idea. “There’s an Old World Ruin not too far from here. Might be a place to start.”
Talanah smiled at her warmly. She stepped next to Petra and gave her a hearty pat on the shoulder. “Sounds like a plan.” With that, she left, through the door and straight ahead, though she could not hide the slight hindrance that the heavier armor no doubt was for her.
Petra followed her.
Chapter Text
Talanah Khane Padish was not a woman of a great many regrets, but as she and Petra made their way slowly and methodically away from Chainscrape, she did have a specific one: Saying “Oh, no, don’t worry about it, I have my own mission to tend to, I’m not going to intrude” when offered one of these damn-near magical little devices that Aloy and her allies wore.
Because, by the Sun, she would have liked to have one now. It had been hours and they had not gotten far. They hadn’t found many traps yet, but the ones they had found were very carefully hidden, each one leaving them more careful than the last. She could only imagine how swiftly Aloy might have navigated this situation in their stead.
“It’s a miracle only one of the hunters got hurt,” she commented while throwing another rock at a suspicious dent in the dirt. The small explosion that happened was already the third of its kind, so neither she nor Petra had much of a reaction left to give it.
“Yeah,” Petra agreed grimly, “These traps should end somewhere, though. There’s no way they set them up here all the way to wherever they’re hiding.”
Talanah thought. “That would require a huge team. Did this Ulvund fellow have a lot of friends?”
Petra snorted. “Ulvund had people he paid, people he pressured and people he promised a great deal of money to once the Carja signed his ‘concession decee.’ But I have spoken to zero people in Chainscrape who considered him a friend.”
“I wonder if his friends would be honest with you about it, though.” Talanah thought she didn’t need to explain herself, but Petra looked at her quizzically nonetheless. “Charming men like this Ulvund fellow don’t make friends with women, is my point. And the men they make friends with won’t tell women they’re friends with him. I don’t suspect that this problem is much different between Carja and Oseram, is it?”
“I would still be surprised to learn he had friends. Trust me, I’ve known men who were insufferable to women and Ulvund is a man who was insufferable to everyone.”
Talanah eyed her. She wasn’t sure she believed that. If Ulvund was a bad leader, unsuccessful in his political endeavors and not a great warrior, he must have had some quality that kept his throat from being cut in his sleep at the first inconvenience. “Maybe,” she said simply, and found another trap.
“We should start looking for a spot to make camp,” she said as she finished disarming it, “The sun is going to go down soon.”
Petra’s jaw tightened, but she agreed through gritted teeth.
She had wanted to move faster, of course she had. From what she’d said about the distance between Chainscrape and that Old World Ruin, they should be much farther along the way by now, if not almost there. The buried traps and even the obvious ones had slowed them down substantially, and they would only become harder to see as time went on and the sun slowly dipped behind the horizon.
They found a shelter a bit off the way and made quick work of acquiring some food - a handful of rabbits were roaming the bushes nearby. They made a fire and when Talanah wondered aloud if that was wise, Petra shrugged and said that travelers came through there all the time and used the small shelter to stay the night. In truth, Talanah and Milu had done the same many times on their way there, so she resigned herself to it.
It was a clear night as it had been a clear day, not a cloud in the sky. Talanah looked up and drank in the stars. “It’s strange, I’ve been away from Meridian a long time now and it’s still strange to me how clearly you can see the stars here.”
“I never noticed,” Petra said as she was re-organising some supplies.
“Meridian’s so bright, you know? There are always lights somewhere. Fires, lamps, anything. At all times. I sometimes wonder how Avad sleeps, the palace certainly never goes dark. I don’t know, I just like how everything is a bit clearer out there, I guess?” She sighed. “The last time I really watched the stars was… Nevermind.” She didn’t want to say his name, it still tasted bitter on her tongue and she hated thinking of his face, at least partially because it was not physically available for punching.
“What did he do to you?” Petra asked and Talanah was taken aback by her seriousness.
“What?” she asked, confused.
“You said you wanted ro be rid of him as fast as possible, wanted to drown him, you won’t even speak his name. What did he do, that ex-lover of yours?”
Talanah straightened herself and swallowed the uncomfortable feeling in her throat, though that only served to get it stuck in her chest. “Nothing, I suppose? Not directly, at least.”
Petra got up then and sat next to Talanah. She looked at her directly, serious but sympathetic. “You don’t need to tell me anything, but… It just seems to bother you.”
“He… He was looking for his dead partner. She had fought in the Red Raids and he was hoping to recover her body.”
“Oh, you never want to compete with a dead partner.”
Talanah laughed wryly. “No, you really don’t. But we were kind of already involved by that time and… I don’t know, I wanted to help him get closure, I guess. I didn’t want to compete with a dead woman, but also I wasn’t going to be jealous of one. After all, I'm the one still here. Only… She wasn’t dead. She was captured, became Tenakth and evidently hates his guts. But… He was still hung up on her, more than ever before, so… I ended it. Because I’m not anyone’s second choice, not like that.”
Petra nodded. She took Talanah’s hand easily and squeezed it. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Thanks, but no need to be so serious about it. I made a bad choice and I rectified it.” She laughed softly, “It was ridiculous from the start, really, he was never going to be a good partner, he just… Well, he saved my life at one point.”
Petra joined in her laugh. “Ah, well, that’ll do it!” She leaned back then, her hand still on Talanah’s and looked to the stars. “I know why I don’t consort with men. I mean it’s mostly because I simply don’t feel much of anything about them, but stories like this one are what I keep hearing about them. They think they can save a woman’s life once and never have to be decent to her again.”
“What’s worse is that it works.” Talanah couldn’t deny how her heart still beat faster when she remembered seeing Amadis for the first time. She couldn’t deny that there was a time when she thought that opening her heart to him was a good idea. She pushed the thought away. Instead, she affected a challenging smirk to throw at Petra. “I can’t imagine women being that much better, though.”
“They’re different,” Petra said with a shrug that failed to be fully casual, “Some of them are actually just as forward and unpleasant as men. Most of them are so shy, it’s impossible to even find out they’re interested. Back in the Claim, when I was still pretty young, there was a girl I was friends with and essentially we were in love the whole time, but never told each other.”
“That would never happen with a man, let me tell you.”
“Oh, trust me, I know. I’ve had men offer me ale and a bed for the night while I was one step away from making out with a woman in the back of a tavern.” She gestured with hyperbolic outrage. “I was this close to shoving my tongue down a woman’s throat and this guy just comes up to me like, ‘Are you still in search of a man to warm your sheets tonight?’ I thought I was going to have to commit bloody murder right on the spot.”
Talanah laughed. “That’s an awful line, too.”
“Never heard a man use a good one.”
“What do you usually say to the women you…” she searched for a word but only came out the other side laughing again, “ court? ”
“You’re not very experienced with women, are you?”
Heat made its way into her cheeks unbidden.
Petra went on. “We’ve been hearing terrible opening lines our whole lives, so… What you do with a woman is, you make eye contact, wait until she meets your gaze” - she demonstrated and Talanah did meet her gaze - “and when she does, you smile and you let your eyes travel down her whole body.”
As Petra did just that, Talanah shifted uncomfortably, suddenly aware how awkward and clumsy she felt in this armor that wasn’t hers, swept up in this problem that by all means shouldn’t be hers. She didn’t break eye contact.
For a moment, neither of them said anything. The cooling wind of the evening played around Talanah’s face which still felt hot. Petra’s eyes were beautiful, she realized in that moment and she could not reasonably claim to not feel intrigued by the smirk that played on her lips. But she also thought of Amadis who like a parasite had wormed himself into her brain and for no more than a heartbeat, she saw his eyes and his smirk and she forced herself to laugh; forced herself to affect some levity. She slipped her hand out from under Petra’s.
“And that works?'“ She wanted to pat herself on the back for how easily the words came off her lips.
Petra did not press on, she merely shrugged and kept on smiling. “More often than not. How do you usually get with women, hm?”
Talanah looked at her, still uneasy somewhere in her core but she couldn’t hold back a mischievous grin and said, truthfully, “We just got really, really drunk.”
Chapter Text
Morning found Petra cruelly in that she was woken up long before the sun had risen by a hand viscerally shaking at her shoulder. She was about to complain but just in time her brain kicked in and she realized Talanah was leaning over her, gesturing for her to be silent. Thus, she rose slowly and silently. She followed where Talanah was pointing and saw a handful of silhouettes in the dark. She was unsure if they were speaking, but they were certainly examining the ground.
She lay next to Talanah, flat against the ground. The men weren’t looking in their direction - their campfire had long simmered down. There was little doubt in her mind that these men were at least partially responsible for the traps. They certainly weren’t any of hers, with how brazenly they walked the ground.
“Someone was here,” said one of the men, loud enough for Petra to hear.
“Of course someone was here, you dolt, there was a fire at the shelter.”
Talanah caught her eye as if to say I told you so but Petra ignored her. Travelers did come through her often and she doubted that they had trapped the path from the west.
“They could have just come from the west.” Ha.
“The traps are gone,” the second voice remarked, blatantly irritated.
Petra could feel rage crawling up her spine. The group hadn’t spotted them, they would be easy to ambush. They would be easy to strike down and interrogate about their plans and Ulvund’s location. She found herself reaching for her brass knuckles but she was stopped by a firm hand on her wrist.
Talanah glared at her as though she was a mother about to scold her disobedient child. Petra snatched her hand away, so rapidly that she sent a rock flying that had previously lain innocently on the ground.
Petra had never been religious, most Oseram weren’t. They believed in the heat of a forge and the power of superior craftsmanship, but in this moment she was praying to something that the rock might land softly on a patch of dry grass or perhaps in a pile of sand so that they would remain unnoticed. But it flew. And when it landed, it hit a larger rock and the men’s necks unanimously snapped around to look exactly at her and Talanah.
There was no time to consider her options. The men drew their weapons the second they spotted them and Talanah dashed for her blade. Petra jumped to her feet and slipped on her knuckles, though with at least one bow drawn on her, she felt extraordinarily vulnerable.
“Weapons down!” barked the man holding the bow.
For a moment, nobody moved or said a thing. It was so silent, you could hear foxes rushing through the bushes, likely far away from whatever was about to happen here.
Petra did not dare look at Talanah, her gaze remained fixed on the men in front of her. There were three of them. Not impossible to take on, she doubted Ulvund had particularly accomplished fighters in his employ. She looked at the man with the bow. His arrow was set firmly on her, his gaze intent. Behind her, she heard Talanah bark, “Make me!”
She jumped to the side in an instant, confident that something was about to happen. A knife whirred past her ear that very moment. The archer screamed an instant later, the knife stuck in his upper arm and the bow dropped to the ground. Petra caught herself and the second her feet were sure against the ground, she bolted forward, fist-first and hit him directly in the face.
The other two did not hesitate. One of them took the fight to Talanah; Petra took a punch to the face before she could brace herself. She fell to the ground and hit it hard. She tasted dirt and felt vaguely dizzy, but she could see Talanah charging in and hacking away at the man who had just hit her with a ferocity and speed he could not hope to match. She disarmed him, quickly and efficiently - a predator on the hunt.
With some struggle, Petra made it back to her feet and found the last man attempting to do the same. She punched him in the face. The movement was sloppy and she didn’t stand strongly enough to give it much force but he staggered back to the ground all the same. She walked towards him, less smoothly than she would have liked and with a hand tightly on his jaw she forced him to look at her.
“Now, what is it you little fucks are up to, hm?”
He looked at her, fire in his eyes, but no strength in his body to show for it. “You’re the bitch who stole Chainscrape,” he spat.
She was in no mood to argue. “Where is Ulvund?” she asked.
His lips were sealed.
“Tell me, or…”
“Or what? You’ll add murder to your list of crimes?” The words came out of his mouth heavily.
“My list of crimes?” she asked, almost dumbly. Whatever Ulvund had been telling his henchmen, it must have been a fantastical tale. Petra fashioned herself a great many things, but “criminal” wasn’t one of them.
“You freed the Bristlebacks,” he pressed out through gritted teeth, “You framed Ulvund, slandered him, ah, and you stole Chainscrape from him.”
“Funny world where someone owns a settlement in the first place.” Talanah stepped up next to Petra, rubbing her neck, seemingly more in exasperation than in pain. She pulled forth her blade again and held its edge only a hair’s breadth away from his throat. “Come on, spit it out, where is he? We don’t have all night and I already have plenty of bloodshed on my conscience.”
The man trembed, though - somewhat admirably - he tried not to show it on his face. “He calls it Delver’s Hold. To the south.”
“Good boy,” said Talanah softly and knocked him out. His face slipped from Petra’s grasp and he hit the ground with a thud. She shot Talanah a look. “Oh, no, don’t look at me like that. You got us into this, now tell me one good reason I shouldn’t cut all three of their throats and be done with it.”
One of them was no unconscious and made a displeased noise at the prospect. “This is a delicate political situation,” Petra said, running a nervous hand through her hair, “I can’t be leaving bodies behind or Ulvund will have something true to use against me for a change.”
Talanah looked the picture of fury. “Oh, so now it’s ‘a delicate political situation.’ But when you’re about to pounce three men in the open field, it’s…? What exactly?”
“I wasn’t-“ Petra started but Talanah didn’t let her talk.
“Don’t even try, I saw you. You wanted these fuckers dead the moment you saw them.” Talanah stepped closer to her then, confidently into her personal space and skewered Petra with her eyes. “Get a damn grip.”
With that, she withdrew, spat in the dirt and stomped towards the shelter.
“There’s a lot at stake for me,” Petra said flatly, the emotion suddenly drained from her. “They’re already talking, and I- I cannot afford to lose time and-“
Frustration was all over Talanah’s voice as she said, “I get that! I’m not fucking stupid. But you’re all over the goddamn place. Completely calm one minute, exploding with rage the next… Just- Yeah, get a damn grip. It’s not my fault and frankly,” she gestured towards the Oseram lying in the dirt writhing with pain, “it’s probably not even theirs. Save it for Ulvund.”
Petra deflated. She suddenly felt very tired and words eluded her entirely.
“What do we do with them now?” Talanah asked, voice gone from fiery to ice-cold, “You know, since we can’t kill them and they probably have buddies to tell about us if we let them go.”
The fatigue had settled deep into her bones as she considered this and realized, with a terrible certainty, that there was only one option that left her hands free of blood - personally or by proxy.
She massaged her temples. She paced back and forth as though this would somehow bring her to a different place. There was no other option. She looked at Talanah and at Ulvund’s men, and she said, painfully aware of all it would mean, “We’ll take them back to Chainscrape. As prisoners.”
She expected Talanah to either protest or demand an explanation, but she merely pressed her lips together into a tight line, gave a curt nod and began tying the prisoners’ hands and taking away their weapons.
-
The swiftness of the way back showed them that they had not come very far. Petra thought she had already known that but it felt painfully obvious now that they trudged back into the settlement, three prisoners in tow and no results. The sun had barely begun to go down again.
Talanah excused herself curtly - she had been decidedly curt the entire time - and went to look after Milu.
Petra had business to take care of.
She ordered Sigmund - Chainscrape’s lone formal guard - to take care of the prisoners. All three of them had required muzzling over the course of the journey, to stop them from both the constant babbling they engaged in and the occasional attempt at biting. She had not learned their names, but in the daylight she was able to note how all three of them were of rather slim built and looked all in all rather haggard.
She found Javad in the tavern, leaning forward over the counter, rubbing Milduf’s hand for comfort. “Have we had any luck hunting?” she asked as she approached, the fact that she hadn’t gotten much sleep firmly working its way into her body.
“Yes,” Javad said, mercifully, “The mountain ranges weren’t trapped.”
Milduf gave her a smile. “I’m desperately low on spice and vegetables, but at least I got to feed everyone at all.”
“That’s good,” she commented, not quite there, “What about drink?”
Milduf laughed as though there was no problem at all. “Oh, well, let me tell you! You separate an Oseram from their ale and you never hear the end of it. The water is fine, though, all good.”
Petra nodded. At least there had not been a catastrophe. What she did not ask was what the people were talking about. She didn’t really need to, she was perfectly capable of feeling the looks on her. She had been gone for barely a day and returned with nothing but more mouths to feed and she had nothing more encouraging to tell them. “Make sure to feed the prisoners,” she said mechanically and left the tavern.
She went about the rest of the day mechanically, too. She was tired and a part of her hoped she would not have to spring back into action. Part of her hoped that maybe this bout of trouble was over and that nothing more needed taking care of. But it wasn’t really hope that she felt at all, it was more like dubious delusion. But she held onto it whenever people asked her for updates and she had to explain that they might be able to extract information from the prisoners (which she did not believe) and when Javad came to her and asked her to go over some numbers (which she did not care about, presently) and when she lay down in her bed that night, listening to the soft voices of Talanah and Milu next door.
They had not spoken again. Petra doubted there was more to talk about. Talanah had made her disapproval clear and Petra did not know how to be different. She did not know how to meet the threat to Chainscrape and, frankly, to her own reputation with a level head.
She could not sleep that night. Periodically, she would pass out and be met with dreams of bloodied hunters and screaming prisoners so fast she jolted awake instantly. She had seen battle, she had been part of battle, but despite how well-trained she was for it (If you’re a young woman clamoring for the respect of men, you learn to be good at the things they respect - crafting, drinking and fighting), she was not used to hand-to-hand combat with stakes higher than who paid for the next round of ale.
The third time her own mind forbade her to sleep, she got up and climbed up to the rooftop. The air was chilly that night and the sky was covered in clouds. She stared into the starless sky, wishing it would speak to her, telling her what to do. It remained cruelly silent.
The sky did not speak to her all night and it only cleared up as the sun began to rise.
“Petra?” It was still not the sky speaking to her, but Talanah. She came up behind her with sure steps, still dressed in Oseram garb, though she had not put on the armor pieces yet.
“Talanah.”
“Have you been up here all night?”
She did not see a reason to lie, and nodded.
Talanah sat down next to her and said nothing.
“I’m sorry.” Petra wasn’t entirely sure what for. Maybe everything. Maybe nothing. She decided on something. “I’m sorry you had to be there yesterday. None of this is your business.”
“I don’t have to be anywhere.” Talanah’s jaw was set and she looked straight ahead, as if Petra wasn’t even there. “You need help and I can provide it.”
“What about Milu? She needs you, too. And the Lodge?”
Talanah looked straight ahead. “Do you want me gone?”
“I’m just saying, I have my duties and you have yours and-“
“Did I really hurt your pride that much?” Talanah’s voice had this coldness to it again. It made Petra flinch ever so slightly.
“That’s not-“
“Look, I already have a friend who needs help forced onto her, I’m not looking for another.” Talanah looked at her then, very serious. “So, just let me help you out here. I promise I’ll fuck off to Meridian right after we’re done.”
Petra had nothing to say to that.
Talanah found a smile to give her. “Plus, this won’t even be hard, right? We know where he is now, we can take the western route around the traps… We just go in, bring the asshole to justice and head back out.”
Something inside Petra unwound. A laugh bubbled out of her, out of her control. “You don’t think it’s actually going to be that easy, do you?”
“Well, I can dream. But I’ll be there either way.” She said it as though it was obvious. Petra didn’t understand why. Talanah did not owe her, not really. She had offered her a place to stay, sure, but that was hardly equivalent to what she was offering.
Petra did not ask further questions. Instead, she simply said, “Thanks.”
Talanah got up and patted her shoulder. “You’re welcome. Now, let’s get you some breakfast.”
Chapter Text
“You can’t just keep me sitting around here!” Milu sat up on the bed, her hands gripping the sheets tightly, her eyes teary but unmistakably furious.
Talanah knew at that moment that any problem she thought this mission had - the incomplete information, the considerable risk of bodily harm and Petra’s uncertain temper - were nothing compared to a teenager, desperate to be part of things. Milu had not protested staying back the first time around, sick and hungry as she had been, but now she was stable and fed and did not understand why she had to hang back anyway.
“Milu, I can’t say how dangerous this mission is going to be. And what did I tell you about incalculable risk?”
Milu rolled her eyes and recited, “Incalculable risk is to be treated as mortal risk.”
“Right, good and you know what I would rather not have you be in?”
Milu did not answer. For a moment, Talanah lived in the foolish hope that she might have understood, but then she said, “We killed a Stormbird on the way here.”
Talanah sighed. “That was inevitable. It saw us first. This time, we know what we’re getting into, and I don’t want you to risk your life for no reason.”
Something shifted in Milu’s expression. Terrifyingly, she looked like someone who had just acquired some deep, personal insight which was unequivocally bad news - Talanah remembered well that she’d had plenty of deep, personal insights at Milu’s age and they’d all been drastically wrong. “Do you want Petra as your Thrush instead of me?”
Talanah blinked. Once. Twice. With the third blink she decided she did not want children of her own. “…No,” she said, very slowly.
“Then why won’t you let me come with you? How am I supposed to learn anything if I’m just sitting around here?”
“You’re not gonna learn anything if you’re dead,” Talanah said bluntly, rapidly losing faith in winning the argument.
Milu looked her square in the eye and said, “What am I learning if you’re dead?”
Talanah weighed the options she did not have. Every scenario she imagined, she ended up with a ticking timebomb of a teenager who would inevitable do something stupid. So, she said, every cell of her body struggling against it, “Fine, you can come with us. But do as I say. When I tell you to run, you fucking run, okay?”
Milu could not have agreed more enthusiastically.
-
Petra gave Milu all the credit when it came to being a tracker and absolutely none when it came to being a fighter. The girl had quick eyes and a sharp mind and had found a good amount of traps on the way so far before Petra and Talanah had even caught a glimpse of them. She heard wildlife before them as well.
But now, closer to Redhew Quarry, the nearest settlement on their way west, than to Chainscrape, Milu was crouched to the ground, perfectly frozen when faced with a pack of Clawstriders. They hadn’t been noticed, yet, but sweat was running down Milu’s face nonetheless. She seemed all but locked out of her body. Petra tried not to be mad. Talanah had insisted on bringing Milu, stubborn beyond reason, and Petra had not wanted to upset her more than she’d already had in the brief time they’d (really) known each other.
So, she slid in front of Milu, blocking her line of sight to the machines. There were three of them. She scanned the ground quickly, and found a rock. She threw a look towards Talanah, who nodded. With full force, she flung the rock against a tree opposite of them. Two of the clawstriders cocked their heads up, their mechanical eyes flaring up yellow, and walked towards the noise.
Talanah took the opportunity to slip into tall grass, and dragged Milu behind her. Petra followed them swiftly. If there was one thing she didn’t want to do at this moment, it was engaging three Clawstriders in battle. One would have been bad enough, but this was beyond their capabilities as a party.
What was and wasn’t beyond their capabilities was, however, of no concern to the root that lay hidden in the grass and made Milu trip and stumble with a yelp. She froze again. Talanah’s gaze snapped around towards the machines. Petra stopped breathing.
There was a rustle and a terrible screech and Petra did not need to look at them to know that the Clawstriders’ eyes had gone red. Talanah unsheathed her blade, yelled, “Milu! Bow!” and charged into the Clawstrider closest to her. Petra slipped on her knuckles, though she was starkly aware they were no tools for fighting machines.
Finally, Milu sprang into action as well, but she was shaking, uncertain and she dropped the first arrow she attempted to notch. She flinched and pulled another one out of her quiver. This one she fired successfully, but it hit nothing. She was shaking worse now, every limb a tremble. Petra could plainly see her eyes water.
Meanwhile Talanah was dancing around the battlefield as though she had never done anything else. She was landing precise, deft strikes against the one Clawstrider while evading the other two. It was, to put it simply, hot.
Petra quickly took off her knuckles and rushed towards Milu. She looked more a child now than she had before. She’d always been small but now she seemed profoundly in over her head. Petra stood in front of her, little regard for the deadly weapon she was wielding and placed her hands firmly on Milu’s shoulders. “Hey. Hey! Look at me!”
Milu looked at her, eyes wet, lip trembling.
“Good… You know how to use this, right?” Petra asked, gesturing at the bow in her hand. She was acutely aware of time passing. Talanah would tire eventually and they had to hurry to her aid, but Milu was in no condition to aid anyone at this moment. Priorities.
Milu gave a weak nod.
“Wonderful, so you’re probably better at shooting these guys than I am, right?”
The girl looked utterly helpless. “I don’t know, I can’t stop shaking!” she exclaimed.
Petra did not need this. She could not afford any of this. And neither could Talanah. She had an idea. “Give me that,” she said curtly and took the bow from Milu.
Now, as a person who existed in the world, Petra Forgewoman had obviously held a bow before. She knew of the basic technique and she’d hunted boars and foxes and rabbits before. It wasn’t strictly new to her. But she was also far from a prodigy at it and frankly, she had not wielded one in a long time. That, and she was full of benevolently malicious intent.
So, she took the bow, held it awkwardly and stiffly in the front, did not notch the arrow properly and half-assed the draw harder than she’d ever half-assed anything. The arrow still hit a Clawstrider, though it bounced off its armor plating and thus did less than nothing.
Milu stared at her. Petra stole another arrow from her and did the same thing. Before she could take a third, Milu’s eyes were on fire and her hands had gone still. She said nothing, but simply snatched the bow back out of Petra’s hand and with one fluid motion, shot an arrow precisely into the tail of the Clawstrider which was currently giving Talanah a hard time. The metal sizzled and fell off promptly. The machine screeched and with another strike from Talanah it fell.
The determination was plain on Milu’s face now and Petra wanted to pat herself on the back for a job well done, but the fight was not over yet. One beast had fallen, two to go. With Milu now consistently raining arrows on them and Talanah more freed up to land her strikes, Petra felt confident to charge in herself.
She dashed forward and met an exposed container with a sure first. The machine gave a cry and smacked her square in the side. She grunted in pain but jumped back to her feet quickly and landed another hit. Behind her, the second Clawstrider died, but this one was still giving her trouble.
It attempted another hit with its tail but fast as lightning, Talanah jumped in and met it with her blade. Petra staggered backwards and watched in barely-contained awe as Talanah shifted her weight around to simultaneously dodge the machine’s attempt to snap at her and know a container clean off. “Punching these things is a bold strategy,” she said, a grin on her face.
“True!” Petra called and gave the Clawstrider a sure punch in its horrible face. In the end, it was one of Milu’s arrows that sent it to the ground and a thrust of Talanah’s blade that killed it.
All three of them were panting after the encounter. “We should move on before the Scrappers show up,” Talanah said.
As they made it to the road, the sky above them slowly tinting orange, Talanah stretched her arms and mussed up Milu’s hair, “Good job there, Thrush.” Milu winced ever so slightly, but did not protest.
Then Talanah stepped to Petra’s side and flung an arm around her shoulder. Her skin was flaming hot against Petra’s, and she was still sweaty from the fight, but Petra did not mind. There was little disagreeable about an attractive woman close to her. “And you really ought to be better equipped to fight against machines. Brass knuckles are great fun against people, but machines don’t tend to mind them much.”
Petra should have laughed. But something jolted through her. Panic. Dread. “They should not have been here.”
Talanah stepped to the side and pulled her arm away. “What?”
“The machines. They should not have been there. We’re too close to Redhew Quarry. The hunters should be keeping them at bay.” She was aware she was rambling, but the fear that wormed its way around her heart took control of her tongue. “We need to hurry.”
Talanah understood. “Are you hurt?”
“Nah, nothing like Oseram armor,” Petra said and wished she had the levity she wanted to communicate.
Talanah scrunched up her face. “It’s bulky.”
Petra calmed a bit. “Bulky is good when something big hits you.”
“Light is better for hitting it back.”
Now she managed a laugh. “You’ll get yours back soon enough.”
They smiled at each other fondly, and the rest of the way to Redhew Quarry was spent in amiable silence.
Chapter Text
Redhew Quarry somehow managed to be simultaneously small and imposing. It was a small settlement - there weren’t a lot of people around - but it reached high up into the side of the mountain, a grand structure of wood and iron. Petra seemed giddy just to put her eyes upon it. Talanah had no trouble understanding that. Redhew Quarry had everything Oseram must love.
The place itself was fueled by an anxious energy that hung in the air palpably. People were hustling around the machinery, but nobody talked and everybody was throwing nervous glances around. Talanah fell behind Petra, letting her take the lead as they ventured up one of the slopes, deeper into the settlement.
It didn’t take long until Petra met what could be reasonably assumed was a familiar face. An Oseram man about Petra’s age with a jovial face but tired eyes put down his pickaxe and easily joined Petra in a hug.
“Tuf!” she exclaimed cheerfully, “Long time no see, how’re things?”
The man - Tuf- did not not look like things were going well by any means. “I…” He took a look around, then centered back on Petra. “Let’s go to my place,” he said hastily and started along a narrow path without waiting for an answer.
The place in question was a charming, simply little house that scarcely contained more than a bed and a couch. With the way Tuf hadn’t even said hello, Talanah was wondering if she and Milu were even welcome to be here. When they trailed in behind Petra and then sat down on the couch, he did not object, though.
“Sorry for the kidnapping,” he said, filling some cups with water and putting them down on the table, “It’s just that… Things are rough, the people are antsy and you don’t want to make them more nervous than they already are. Hello, by the way, I’m Tuf.” He turned to Talanah and Milu and smiled, though it did not reach his eyes. He sat down across from them in a chair, slumped, arms aimlessly rested on the table.
“What’s going on?” Petra said, very softly and put her hand on his forearm in a way that oh. Hm. Talanah did not quite know what to do with that.
“The hunters… They’re gone. Overnight.” He took in a shuddering breath. “the machines have been creeping closer ever since. We have a handful of people who know how to make traps, but they’re no hunters. We hardly leave the quarry anymore.”
“Where did they go?” Talanah asked. She had a vague idea, but she hoped it wasn’t true.
Tuf shrugged. An exasperated motion rather than an uncaring one. “I couldn’t tell you. One day they were here, doing their job, the next they were all gone.”
“Gone as in ‘they left’ or gone as in ‘they died’?” Milu asked bluntly.
Tuf smiled at ther. “They left. Took all their things, we found their huts empty. No notes or anything of the sort left behind. Of course I can’t tell you if they’ve died since.”
Petra thought. “Has Ulvund been around?”
“Ulvund?” He scratched his chin in contemplation. “Actually, yes, he came through here a few months ago. Seemed mighty pissed, but I haven’t seen him since.”
“Do you think we could stay the night? We know where he is and we're looking for him, but we need… Rest.” Petra’s fatigue was plainly visible on her face and Talanah realized that she had not slept through a single night since she and Milu had arrived in Chainscrape.
“Yes, yes, of course. We can give you one of the abandoned hunter’s homes. Come on.” Tuf nodded towards the door and shuffled them out.
They walked along the foot of the mountain, greeting workers along the way, all of whom seemed to be profoundly on edge. “I gotta warn you, though, obviously the hunters lived closer to the machines. But you seem…” Tuf took stock of all three of them, “well equipped.”
The hunters’ huts were a good bit away from the other houses. Talanah could see why the people who lived there had been able to leave without anyone noticing. Inside, they were empty of all personal possession, only furniture giving the impression that somebody was supposed to actually live there. But they were spacious enough for the three of them and that everyone was grateful for.
“Can you tell us where we can get food here?” Talanah asks, before her brain could kick in. Petra probably knew already.
Tuf looked at Petra with a genuine smile. His eyes sparkled with something that Talanah didn’t quite understand why it was there. “You know what? We haven’t seen each other in so long, I’ll treat you to something! Just wait here, relax and I’ll bring you something.”
“Thank you, Tuf,” Petra said and smiled at him in turn.
When he was gone, Talanah simply found herself looking at Petra in frankly misplaced disbelief.
Petra raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“What is going on there?” she asked, cautiously, and gestured kind of at Petra, kind of at the door and mostly at nothing.
“What do you-?” Talanah was almost afraid she had overstepped a boundary she hadn’t been aware of but instead there was a flicker of realization in Petra’s gaze and oh, that’s worse. “Do you mean Tuf?”
She almost did not dare say. But she was on this path now and she could not walk backwards. “I suppose? You two seem familiar.”
Petra laughed. “Are you jealous?”
Let the record say that Talanah Khane Padish was not jealous. There was no reason to be jealous. She did not know Petra all that way and she certainly had no claim on her. This was a purely scientific question. “Didn’t you say you only liked women?”
“And how do you think I found that out?”
Talanah felt unfathomably stupid. “You dated Tuf?”
Petra flung an arm around her shoulder as if it simply belonged there and met her eyes. “Yup. Dated for all of two months and realized pretty much instantly that men did about as much for me as women did for him. So, then we just became best friends.”
Talanah grimaced, teasingly. “You still seem awfully touchy.”
“Aww, you are jealous!” Petra laughed heartily and then drew her arm away, pointedly slowly, “I’m touchy will all my friends.”
There was, regrettably, a warmth spreading across her shoulders where Petra touched her and when she looked up just the tiniest bit, she looked into Petra’s deep brown eyes and… She pulled away. She tore her gaze away and shoved the heat down that was rising within her and got up. “I need to check on Milu,” she said, eyes fixed firmly to the floor and left to do just that.
She found Milu in one of the rooms, lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling. “Hey,” Talanah said, gently, “You alright.”
Now, Talanah was prepared for many things. She never left for the road without water to sustain her for several more days than she was planning, she diligently made sure she was always prepared for a machine fight and she was generally ready to deal with people being difficult. What she did not expect was Milu folding in on herself and beginning to weep.
“I’m useless!” she exclaimed between sobs.
Talanah rushed to her side. “What do you mean?”
It took some sobs and unsteady breaths before Milu spoke again. “I froze again!”
Talanah carefully placed a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it. “Milu… I’m sorry, I didn’t even notice. I was just… in the fight, and after a time you were firing arrows like a master, so I assumed you were doing alright.”
“Why are you apologizing? I almost got us all killed!” She sobbed more violently, her whole body rocking beneath the noise.
“But you didn’t,” Talanah tried, “‘almost’ doesn’t count.”
“I know, it’s just… I can’t control it. One day I’m fine to take on anything and the next I can barely move! It’s… I don’t know what to do.”
“The important thing isn’t what you feel in those moments. The important thing is how you overcome it. The important thing is that you learn how to deal with it.”
Milu’s crying grew more calm, though the tears still ran down her face relentlessly. “I didn’t really overcome it,” she mumbled into her pillow.
Talanah had to admit at this point that she did not remember the periphery of the fight very well. She had been pretty busy holding off three clawstriders while the other two… weren’t and she had had little time to focus on much more than her own survival. “Then what did you do?”
And she told her. Between muffled sobs and cleaning her nose, Milu told her about Petra being a terrible shot. Just the worst archer to have ever lived. “It made me so angry! She was doing it all wrong, I couldn’t watch!”
“And then you were fine?” Talanah said, trying her best to stifle a laugh at her story. She did not need to be told that Milu didn’t find the whole thing particularly funny.
Milu was quiet for a moment and her tears stopped running. Suddenly, she looked about ready to be swallowed whole by the earth. “She did it on purpose,” she said, tonelessly.
Talanah gave her a sympathetic snicker. “Yeah. Yeah, I think she did.” Breaking through the panic via frustration… Genius, Talanah had to write that down.
“I’m stupid!” Milu said, laughing too now.
“No, you simply needed someone to show you you were the best person for the job.” She pulled her into a hug then, a tight and comforting one as Milu laughed into her shoulder in that way only someone who had just realized they were afraid of nothing but ghosts could.
-
The food that Tuf brought had been nothing short of divine and Petra was still recovering from how much of it she had eaten when Milu broke the peaceful silence.
“We’re going to help these people, right?” she asked, as if she had just decided the answer to that question was “yes.”
Petra could feel nervousness bubble up in her. She did not plan to lose more time in pursuit of Ulvund and the only reason she even wanted to stay the night at Redhew Quarry was that she knew that if she didn’t finally get a good night’s sleep, she would pass out on the road eventually. “I think we really should get a move on tomorrow morning”
Talanah nodded. “It’s true, we’ve already lost enough time.” The mind-reader.
“They gave us food!” Milu exclaimed.
“I… I know, but we need to focus on the big picture, too. We need to get to the source of their troubles, in this case - Ulvund poaching their hunters.” Petra sighed.
“But they need help! It doesn’t matter if we defeat Ulvund and bring them more hunters if they get run over by machines in the meantime!” Milu looked frustrated and she kept clenching and unclenching her fists.
“That is… Kind of true, but-“ Talanah attempted.
“Look, what if we just… help them build some fences and set some traps in the morning and right after we’re on the way. It’ll only be a couple of hours, okay?” And then Milu unfortunately looked at both Petra and Talanah in turn with big glassy eyes.
Petra sighed. And she sighed again. “Fine,” she said, eventually, “But if we’re not done by noon, I’m out of here.”
Milu squealed in excitement and hugged her tight. Petra threw a glance over her shoulder at Talanah who smiled at her apologetically. Petra took this as good news because considering how she had fled the room earlier, she had been afraid to have overstepped. Luckily, Talanah was not ignoring her.
-
Unfortunately, the small house only had two bedrooms and one was already firmly occupied by Milu, so Talanah and Petra made their way into the other. It was home to two rather small beds, on opposite ends of the room, and a tiny little closet with barely enough room to fit two sets of armor. They made due.
But when they lay down, their conversation beforehand almost impressively benign, Petra found she could still, despite the stresses and related insomnia of the past few days, not sleep. She realized it quickly, the way the buzz inside her head did not calm down and she did not even try tossing and turning. She simply took a deep breath and tried to eliminate the thoughts inside her head.
She pushed away Ulvund. At least him specifically. She was very much not afraid of Ulvund in a physical sense. She could take him in a fight blindfolded. She was afraid of he might have taken with him. Between Tollund who had already been loyal to him, their friend who had left alongside him and the missing hunters from Redhew Quarry, they might well have a problem fighting them. But it was no use thinking about it right now. She could think about that tomorrow when they would all talk strategy.
She also pushed away the issue of time. It was important, they had lost plenty already, but beyond a certain point, time was out of her control. Milu was right, the people here needed help and they would provide it. It was nothing to get stressed about.
Her final concern, though… Her final concern was across the room - though not very far away in truth, the room was not very large - with her back to Petra, breathing slowly and regularly as though perfectly in peace. Her final concern was inarguably beautiful and feisty and restless. Her final concern had just broken up with someone and was likely not looking for anything. She could not push that thought away.
“Talanah?” she asked quietly, hoping not to wake her should she actually be asleep.
“Hm?” Well, she sounded sleepy but awake.
Petra tried to think of something she even wanted to say. “I… I’m sorry.” She wasn’t altogether sure what she was really sorry about. Sorry for thinking you’re pretty hot, was probably accurate but not something she thought was a reasonable thing to say.
“Why are you always apologizing to me?” Talanah mumbled and turned around. She faced Petra with all the enthusiasm of a child asked to help gather medicinal berries.
“I just… I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable earlier. I really meant it when I said I was touchy with all my friends, but if you’d rather I don’t do that with you, that’s fine, just say the word.” The words fell out of her a bit too quickly.
Talanah seemed to wreck her brain in a way that made Petra wonder if maybe she had woken her up. “Are we friends?” was the question she finally came to.
Petra felt an unbearable need to inject some levity back into the situation. “I mean I don’t know you super well yet, but we did technically fight a battle together and you’re helping me on my mission and you’ve already put up with my bullshit, so I think we’re least sort of friends,”
Talanah chuckled. “That’s fair,” she said, and devastatingly, “I like you.”
Petra did not know what to say to that.
Talanah jerked fully awake, sitting up straight in her bed. “I don’t mean as in- I don’t- I mean-“
Petra raised her hand. “Don’t worry, I didn’t think you were confessing your love to me, Talanah.”
Talanah cleared her throat and nodded. “I’m sorry, it’s just… It hasn’t been long since Amadis and sometimes I think you’re flirting with me and I don’t want you to… Put hope in me, I guess.”
Something tore a bit in Petra’s heart, but it did not break. She smiled. “I’m a big girl, don’t worry about me.”
It was dark, profoundly so, but Petra could see Talanah wringing her hands. She asked, nervously, “So, are you? Flirting with me, I mean. I didn’t mean to just assume.”
Petra smiled still. “Yes, I suppose. I flirt with most women I find attractive, at least a little bit. But I can stop with that, too, if you’d like.”
Talanah considered this, still wringing her hands. “I just- Yeah. Maybe that would be a good idea. We… We have a mission to focus on. And after that…” She did not finish the thought.
“Okay,“ Petra said, calmer than she thought she would be, “Not a problem.”
“Thanks,” Talanah said, and lay back down.
“For what?”
“Being respectful, I guess.”
That stung. It stung somewhere deep that had less to do with either of them but with the world itself, something that Petra did not particularly enjoy being reminded of. “Don’t thank me for that,” she said, quietly but firmly, “Respect is given freely.”
Petra didn’t remember falling asleep but at some point the night must have taken her because the next time she opened her eyes, the sun was caressing her face. Talanah had already left and faintly, regrettably, she missed her presence.
Chapter Text
In a cruel twist of fate, the sun had decided to burn the citizens of Redhew Quarry alive that day. Talanah couldn’t claim she wasn’t used to the heat - she had spent most of her life in Meridian - but this day was particularly awful. It felt like the sweat was evaporating from her skin before it had fully formed.
She had woken up that morning after dreaming of deep brown eyes and cocky smirks and with a groan, she decided to dive straight into work. She left the hut before sunrise in a hurry. Such a hurry, in fact, that she forgot her own waterskin. Luckily, one of the men present at the construction site happily gave her his own.
She had long stopped counting the amount of times she had walked back and forth that morning, carrying all kinds of metalwork to the borders of the quarry. Some of it was barrels, some was just crates of discarded tools, anything that would deter machines from coming close. With some uneasiness she had put Milu on trap duty, but that was definitely most suited to her abilities. Talanah had not heard explosions yet, and put that down as a win.
The sun was beginning to cross over into objectively-unbearable territory when Petra appeared, somewhat confused but undoubtedly well-rested and wondered out loud what she was supposed to do. Talanah smiled. Petra looked radiant, full of an energy that had previously been dulled by short nights and difficult situations. She seemed ready to take on the world, even if the sun was burning everything to a crisp.
She strode towards Talanah with an easy grin, “No reason to stare.“ Had Talanah been staring? “Oh, sorry. Didn’t say anything. Do you need help with that?” Petra pressed on, gesturing at the barrel Talanah was holding.
She adjusted her grip on it. “I think I’m good, but uhm… I think they need help stacking it all,” she said and nodded towards the group of workers who had been stacking anything and everything on top of each other in a surprisingly stable construct.
“Sure thing, boss.” Petra gave a playful salute and followed Talanah there.
Talanah, on the other hand, still wondered if she had been staring. Maybe she had been. She hadn’t seen Petra on more than three hours of sleep for days; it warranted noticing. And Petra generally wasn’t bad to look at, quite the opposite actually. But that didn’t mean that Talanah- It didn’t amount to anything.
She tried to shove it down. Last night had made everything worse. Well, not everything. Things broadly were still going the way they had been, but… It shouldn’t change anything. It shouldn’t matter to Talanah that Petra had admitted quite directly to finding her attractive. And it shouldn’t mean anything that she hadn’t found it in her to outright reject her. She was trying to be polite. Plus, they were friends, right? “Sort of” at least.
“Did you sleep okay last night? You look a bit… Stressed.”
Talanah was not sure if it was the sun that made her face burn or the fact that Petra had noticed that her thoughts were anywhere but in the here and now, but she decided, “It’s just the sun, you know.”
“It is quite hot, now that you mention it. Nothing like a proper forgefire, though.” Petra stretched her arms to the sky as though she was trying to challenge the sun itself to burn her.
Talanah didn’t comment further on that, but simply led Petra to the builders. She was greeted with great enthusiasm and got to work without hesitation. Talanah handed her barrel to her, “Here, that’s your problem now.“ And with that, she went to get more materials.
It was the kind of work that tired the body, but didn’t touch the mind, but by noon at least the sun was aggressive enough that Talanah couldn’t think of much else than how badly she needed each sip of water, sometimes just to wash away the salty taste of her own sweat from her lips, and how unpleasantly the sweat clung to every part of her body.
The sun moved mercilessly through the sky, seemingly growing hotter the further along it got. The height of the barricade crept up as time crept towards noon, though Petra showed no signs of slowing down or “being out of there” as noon rolled around. Talanah started to wish for evening to come around quicker than was strictly possible, desperate for the weather to cool down. She wondered, one scandalous moment, why her tribe worshiped the sun, cruel as it was.
It wasn’t just the sun, though, she was used to dealing with that, but it was her refusal to take a break that made the whole day a steadily increasing pain. She should have just taken a break, like most of the others did, but it felt like time itself was chasing her that long, long morning and as much as she wanted to move on to their primary objective, she did not want to leave with the barricade unfinished. So, she pushed through the pain and tried to calm her protesting body with sips of water.
Noon passed, the sun stood as high in the sky as it was ever going to. The sting inside her skull had grown unignorable. As much as Talanah tried to instead focus on the normally pleasant soreness of her muscles, it was swiftly becoming impossible. She needed to readjust her grip on the crate she was carrying so often that the path from the storage area to the barricade seemed double as long as it was.
Her arms seriously protested, it was as though she could not command them to hold onto the crate anymore, but she tried. Maybe she would take a break once she made it to Petra. Her legs walked on their own, almost weightlessly. There was not much feeling at all in them.
She got there, though how she would not quite remember how later. Her brain was nested in a deep fog, unfocused, numbed out, unable to form a cohesive thought. And when she finally arrived, the crate finally slipped from her fingers and - as she only learned later - narrowly missed her feet, and as she lay her eyes on Petra, whose face betrayed a great panic, she passed out.
Chapter Text
Talanah woke back up almost instantly. It wasn’t that big of a deal, she assessed. Despite that, Petra had rushed to her side and was currently holding her face in one hand and one of her hands in the other.
“Shit, are you okay?”
She thought about that for a moment. It felt as though her brain was trying to break out of her skull by knocking against it from the inside and her eyes had trouble focusing on anything in particular, but she was stable otherwise. Considering all this, she said, “Yeah” and “I need shade.”
Petra squeezed her hand tightly and nodded, but still handed Talanah her waterskin before helping her up. She drank tentatively and was surprised how much her body thirsted for it. She had been drinking water, hadn’t she? She was sure. Yet, she found herself drinking eagerly, unable to slow down. She emptied the waterskin, too worn-out to feel sorry about it - perhaps later on she would - and then moved to stand up.
Petra refused to let go of her. Well, Talanah didn’t exactly object, her legs only somewhat following her command, so it wasn’t really a fight. She was held up by calloused hands and strong arms until she stood, more or less elegantly on her own two feet. Petra wrapped an arm around her waist and Talanah put an arm around her shoulder without a second thought.
“I know I said I’d be less touchy, but I’m just going to assume we can make an exception here,” Petra said. It was supposed to be a joke, probably, but she sounded sincerely apologetic. She started walking in the direction of their hut.
Talanah wanted to say something witty to that. She wanted to make a joke or maybe she wanted to be playfully resentful of the fact that she needed to be propped up like this. But all she could manage was, a little dumbly, the truth: “I didn’t say anything about the touching.”
Petra turned to look at her. “What?”
Talanah licked her lips, she could not stop her heart from beating a little faster. In any better condition she would probably not have said what she was about to. “You said you could stop being touchy and you could stop flirting with me. I said yes about the flirting, I didn’t say anything about the touching.”
Nothing moved on Petra’s face, except her eyes. They darted back and forth between Talanah and the horizon and maybe a beetle on the ground. Talanah did not check for the beetle, though, her head was still hurting and turning it downwards would not help with that. In the end, she said absolutely nothing.
In fact, she continued to say absolutely nothing until they made it to the hut, a mercifully cool place that Talanah was more relieved to step into than she strictly liked to admit.
Petra sat her down on her bed, with the stern implication that she should not move and brought her more water. Talanah drank it all, Petra perched closely next to her, but was still not spoken to. As her headache slowly subsided, she started to feel vaguely uneasy about the whole thing.
“What’s going on?” she asked, finally, her thirst quenched for the moment and her brain kicking into gear again.
Petra tensed next to her. For a moment Talanah thought she would only be treated to more silence, but after a shuddery sigh - a sound of distress rather than annoyance - Petra said, “ First of all, you scared me back there. Why didn’t you just take a break?”
“Honestly? I just thought I was fine.” Talanah did not expect to be believed. She certainly agreed that she should not have let herself pass out like that. But… It was unlike her body to give out so easily.
Petra looked at her intently, searching her face for something she did not seem to find. “Okay, second of all…” She hesitated. “Why are you here?”
Talanah looked away. “Petra-”
“No, tell me. You’ve danced around it the whole time. Why are you here? Why are you helping me? Are you truly such a philanthropist? Do you just help people wherever they might need it? Because you sure weren’t about to help the people here.”
Talanah opened her mouth but was interrupted before she could speak.
“Plus, you could have helped by going to Meridian. You could have gotten aid from there. You could have told the Sun-King to send help. You could have done any number of things.”
“I could have, but-” Talanah tried to make herself breathe as her heart was running away from her. “I didn’t… I can’t go back yet.”
“So, is that what this is then? A detour? A distraction?”
“What are you even talking about? It’s not like we-”
“That’s not even remotely what I mean. This is serious to me. This is about my home. I need you to be in this. I need you to have your priorities straight.”
Anger took hold of Talanah then, bafflement in tow. “When have I ever not had my priorities straight?! If I recall correctly, it was you who got so horny for vengeance that you essentially forced us to double back to Chainscrape!”
“Had you just shut down Milu, we could already be on the road to Ulvund’s hideout!”
“Do you regret helping those people?” Talanah did not break eye contact.
“What kind of-”
“You tell me now, do you regret it? Should we not have done that?”
Petra looked dejected. Deflated. “It’s better that we did, but-”
“Then there’s no ‘but.’ We helped. And what’s done is done, I don’t get why you’re all up in arms about this now.”
Petra’s eyes wandered to the ground. Then to the wall. Then she met Talanah’s again. “I just- I don’t understand why you’re helping me. Why you’re pushing yourself hard enough to pass out. For me.”
Talanah took her hand then, she didn’t even think about it. She squeezed it. “Because we’re both winning here. You get to kick Ulvund’s ass again and I get to… Not see Amadis again as quickly as I might have to otherwise.” The confession trickled out of her, and she could not keep eye contact with it. It was a profoundly pathetic thing to admit.
“I don’t know how to tell you this, but there are a million less dangerous things you could be doing to avoid a man. I hear some women take up weaving little model machines,” Petra said and it was as though the tension had fled the room entirely. Talanah found herself laughing.
“Why can’t I be at least a little bit altruistic on my avoidance tour?”
“You’re far over-shooting on altruism.”
Talanah laughed and she realized not for the first time that Petra was beautiful. It felt like a revelation, even though it shouldn’t have. “Also, I meant it when I said it. I like you,” she said, honestly. She did like Petra, it was an easy thing to admit. She was a rough woman, in many respects, but she was amiable and as long as she carried herself with a kind of spiteful optimism that Talanah knew, deep down, she was rare for having witnessed it faltering.
“I like you, too,” Petra said, somewhere between laughter and a strange sadness.
Talanah’s heart was still stumbling in her chest, though not from the stress of an argument anymore. She wanted to will it into stopping. She wanted to stop her eyes from flickering to Petra’s lips. But her resolve had fled the room as well. As little as she wanted to put a name to what it was she was feeling, she could not deny her curiosity much longer.
Petra noticed, of course she did. Talanah had no trouble believing that there had been a long line of young women before her who Petra had caught looking at her lips. But she did not move. She did not comment. She kept to her promise, but she did not pull away, either.
“I’m sorry,” Talanah said, though she, too, did not pull away.
“What for?” Petra asked, voice quiet, and swallowed.
Talanah did not believe she was breathing anymore. “I can’t give you romance.”
A breathless laugh. “I won’t ask for it.”
Talanah licked her lips. She could not stand it anymore. “I can give you a kiss. I can give you my curiosity.”
“I’ll take that happily.”
Talanah closed the gap between them with a relief so fierce, she feared it might shatter her. Petra’s lips were hot on hers, softer than Amadis’, but rougher than those of the Carja women she had known. Any thought of other people was purged from her brain as Petra started moving those lips against hers.
Petra’s hand found the back of her neck, and Talanah welcomed the touch with a soft gasp. She searched for more of Petra, in turn and she found the small of her back to hold onto, anything to pull her closer.
They fell backwards onto Talanah’s bed, Petra on top of her and they broke apart merely to stabilize their positions. Petra found her lips swiftly again, all confidence and strength and Talanah did not want her to stop.
When Petra pulled away again, it was to plant kisses down Talanah’s jawline, until she reached her neck. Talanah could not hold back a moan when Petra kissed her there, and sucked on the skin, gently but firmly and then a little more forcefully.
She craved more, her body screamed for more. But then a thought entered her mind. She had never had much luck with thoughts in situations like this. Maybe this will make me forget him. It was as though she had been suddenly doused in ice water. She froze, became stiff as a board and, in a move she did not expect, Petra pulled away instantly.
“Too much?” she asked.
Talanah sat up. “I’m sorry, I’m just… I don’t… I can’t, it’s-”
Petra put her hand gently over hers, barely a touch. “Hey, you don’t need to apologize. I didn’t mean to push you.”
“You didn’t.” Talanah made herself breathe. “I don’t mean to use you.”
Petra raised an eyebrow. “You’re not using me.”
“I might be, I don’t know… I… I thought of him,” Talanah said, but moved to back-pedal instantly, “Not like that, just-”
Petra smiled, a little crookedly. “Got it. But I sincerely hope my kissing didn’t remind you of him, I would be offended.”
Talanah laughed at that, only a little but she managed. “No, no, you did good. It’s fine, it’s just… Been a while. As far as women are concerned, at least.”
“I never got that, you know? You get to choose and still you choose men? Seems masochistic.”
Talanah gave her a playful punch to the arm. “They’re not all bad,” she said, “And they’re eminently available.”
Petra laughed out loud. “That’s certainly how they present themselves.” She looked at Talanah very seriously then. “I hope you understand that your no-flirting privileges are revoked the moment you make out with me.”
“That lasted long then,” Talanah said with a flirtatious smile, “But alright, it’s my own fault for not being more steadfast.”
“It’s hard to resist me, what can I say?” With that Petra leaned over and was welcomed into another kiss, not quite as desperate, not quite as breathless and only very brief. It was almost platonic which Talanah found fascinating. “But I’ll only do what you’re comfortable with, okay? And as I said: I’m a big girl. Don’t worry about me, I will not expect anything.”
“I can make do with that,” she said with a smile.
“Are you feeling better?”
Somewhere between the impromptu makeout session and the water she had been gulping down as though she’d never had some in her entire life, Talanah was not altogether sure how she was feeling anymore. She tested her legs and could move them without trouble. She tried moving her head and it didn’t hurt anymore. She took this all as a good enough sign. “Yeah,” she said, “And I’m sorry… For scaring you like that. I really don’t know how that could have happened. I was drinking water. Meridian easily gets just as hot…”
Petra looked at her, studied her intently. “Can I see your waterskin?”
Talanah pointed towards it, placed on the bedside table. “It’s not mine, though, some guy gave it to me,” she asked, unsure of how important this information was. It took only moments for Petra to pick it up, try the water and look back at Talanah with a horrified expression. “Salt.”
The first hints of panic surged within Talanah. “How is that… How did I not…”
“It’s very slight and when you’re sweating a lot…” Petra trailed off, then stood with one sudden motion. “We need to check on Milu. And we need to leave. Now. ”
Talanah followed without hesitation. “I put her on trap duty, she should be at one of the entry points.”
Petra nodded and motioned to put their things back in their bags. They slammed the door behind them as they left in a hurry. Talanah could feel the fear trying to take her, but she pushed it down, as far down as it would go. They needed to find Milu.
Chapter Text
They ran. Petra was faintly worried that this wasn’t a particularly healthy thing for Talanah to do, considering she had basically just passed out in the sun, but in the end they were fuelled by urgency and panic first and foremost.
They ran for the spot where Talanah had left Milu to help with the traps. Petra felt the sand’s heat through her shoes the entire way, and there was sweat trickling down her body. It couldn’t have been that far away, almost unnoticeable if walking at a leisurely stroll, but the time for leisure and strolling had passed. When they rounded a corner, dust flew up into the air and stung in Petra’s eyes.
They ran so fast that Petra’s legs began screaming before long. She felt the sting run up her body but she tried not to focus on it. Any pain she felt now didn’t matter. Their mission was in jeopardy and Milu possibly in danger.
She looked at Talanah, who was running slightly faster, and wondered if they’d share a peaceful moment again. There was a real chance that everything was going to go wrong. There were no guarantees. There was no way of knowing.
She got lost in thought and when Talanah abruptly stopped running, standing perfectly still as a pillar, she almost ran into her at full force. Almost. She managed to shift her weight to the side and came to a standstill a few steps ahead of her.
“Milu!” called Talanah, her voice slightly shrill as she was trying to catch her breath.
A good two dozen people were walking around the area, diligently trapping the outskirts of the small settlement, some of them were positioned at workbenches, making more. Petra didn’t see Milu. Neither did Talanah, who called Milu’s name another time.
Petra didn’t join Talanah in this endeavor. Instead, she stepped up to a middle-aged man at. a workbench who was presently putting a trap together and asked him, still somewhat wheezing, “Where’s the girl?”
He didn’t seem to understand this very well.
“She’s about fifteen, pretty small, black hair, about this long?” she tried again.
“Milu!” Talanah called, but this time it sounded more like surprise and less than desperation.
“I think she’s there,” the man said, bored out of his mind and pointed in behind Petra. When she turned around, she saw Talanah run again, though in more of a jog now, and pull Milu into a tight embrace.
Petra said nothing to the man who had turned his attention back to his trap-crafting anyway, and walked briskly over to them.
“What’s going on?” Milu asked irately and wrestled herself free from Talanah, who leaned down to look her sternly in the eyes and whispered, “It’s not safe here.”
“We’re leaving,” Petra said, more loudly which turned some heads. Good. “Thank you all for hosting us, but we really should be on our way.”
They took Milu and headed for the road. It should have been easy to reach. It should have been an easy way out. They should have left the quarry behind with the deeply unsettled feeling they all carried in their stomachs by now. There should not have been a problem.
But before they had even left the trappers, a line of men assembled before them, side-by-side. All of them were tall and strong-looking with each of their faces meaner than the last. “And where do you think you’re going?”
Any other day, Petra might have groaned at the sound of the familiar voice. But that day, with the sprint in bones and already stressed, a cold shiver ran down her spine despite the heat. A man stepped up from behind the rest of them, and she looked into the dumb, square face of Tolland Cleanbroker.
Chapter Text
When Talanah left Amadis at the gates of Barren Light, she felt just about every emotion she was capable of. She was sad, she was angry, she was disappointed. She was stressed and she was tired and she felt so profoundly at a loss for words that she considered if she might get away with saying nothing at all.
When she looked at Amadis then, at the end of their long march back from Thornmarsh and deep in her flurry of feelings, what she felt the most strongly was the void in her chest and a distinct pang of disgust at herself. She almost felt outside of herself, as though she was a ghost watching on. Suddenly, she felt unsure of what it was that she had ever liked about Amadis. She looked into his face and she couldn’t find the face she’d been so infatuated with. She couldn’t even use the word “love” anymore. She used to think quite easily about how she was in love with him. That felt stupid then. It felt like the thoughts of an entirely different person.
She stared at him as he stared at the ground and she was so very aware of Milu who had been along for this agonizing ride ever since they’d passed Stone’s Echo. It was cruel to put her through this, in truth, and Milu had not hidden her feelings on the matter, having spent most of their journey throwing Amadis disapproving looks and jabs so vicious, they could only come from a teenager. She was a smart girl, she did not need to be told that things had not panned out between him and Talanah, she looked between them once and decided quickly to hate Amadis.
“Talanah,” he said, but not more. Her name on his lips was wrong. She did not want it there. She found herself wishing she could somehow take it from him. She wanted to say this to him. She had gone many nights on less sleep than she needed and many days walking faster than was advisable and she stood there now, thinking that maybe, Give me back my name , was a sentence she could speak without sounding insane.
But she kept silent. She wanted to give him nothing. Nothing was what he deserved. Nothing was what, at the end of the day, he had left her with.
“I’m sorry,” he said, limply, as he had approximately a billion times throughout their journey. It didn’t even sound like a real phrase anymore. He never specified what he was sorry about exactly and if he understood what it was he ought to be sorry about, he did not show it.
She should have said something cruel to him, she thought later. She should have said something that cut deep and tore him apart. It’s nice that we got Ritakka out of the prison, but even in there she was better off than with you, was one option she considered. I am seriously considering joining the Tenakth and changing my name to get away from you as well, and Honestly, maybe I should have stayed and got with Ritakka instead of wasting my time trying to get you home in one piece, were others. But none of them came over her lips.
“Have a nice life,” she said, eventually, taken aback by her own coldness but ultimately okay with it. She did not allow him to respond before she took Milu’s hand and vanished through the gates and into the crowd.
She wondered later if yelling at Amadis would have made her happier, if really tearing him down would have left her satisfied. She also wondered if crying about the whole thing in a tent later on made her pathetic or weak, and she alternated wildly between mourning what she had thought they had and looking upon herself in complete bewilderment at how she had ever even found Amadis attractive.
Milu sat through all this, more or less resolutely. “He was a dick,” she would say, more than once, and that made Talanah laugh, the simplicity of it.
Talanah did not say out loud that she was afraid of going straight to Meridian. She did not say how she thought she might actually say all these cruel things to Amadis if she saw him there, or how she might make a scene in the streets if he bumped into her by accident.
Yet, Milu looked at her at some point and said, not quite casually, “Aloy came through Stone’s Echo a few times while you were headed west,” and when Talanah looked at her as if to ask where she was going, added, “There’s a settlement in the Daunt. It’s called Chainscrape, and Aloy said there were always problems there to solve. Maybe we should take a look. It could be an adventure!” She had said most of this very maturely, but towards the end she had not been able to contain a certain childish enthusiasm.
And Talanah had agreed, without knowing of the things to come, that it was a good idea to go on an adventure.
She thought of this moment while she, Milu and Petra were confronted with half a dozen grown men, all of them muscular and rather mean-looking. She thought of how when she and Milu had made for Chainscrape, they had expected to help drive off machines or to find a Strike player’s whittling knife or, if things got really rough, to mediate some personal or even political squabbles around the settlement. The wave of blame hit her hard. The wish that she had simply faced up to her shit and not allowed Milu this indulgence, drowned out her every other thought.
With dread, she recognized the man who had stepped forward to challenge Petra. He had given her the waterskin. Petra regarded him with some familiarity. Was that Ulvund? Was he just one of his men? Talanah could only speculate.
All she could think of was how badly she wanted Milu out of there. She wanted to fling the girl over her shoulder and run. She might have even had a chance to get out, considering that these people’s primary problem was with Petra. But if there was one thing she didn’t want to do, it was leave Petra to her fate.
So, all she could do was stand there, waiting. Eyeing the men in front of them with great suspicion. They didn’t look related, but still remarkably similar. Big, muscular, dressed in Oseram armor and each with a look on their faces that left no doubt as to their intentions.
“What are you doing here, Tolland?” Petra asked, arms crossed, voice ice-cold.
The man in question, big head, dumb face and short light-brown hair, stepped forward. “The Question,” he started, “is what you are doing here, Petra. And where our friends are.”
Petra spat on the ground next to him, not quite hitting his boot. “You mean the ones you sent out to set traps for my hunters? After you poisoned our food?”
“Where are they?”
“They’re in my custody, obviously.” She took one step closer to him too at this moment. They were decidedly to close for comfort. Talanah instinctively reached for her blade, put her hand on its grip, ready to strike as soon as it was necessary.
“Is Ulvund with you?” Petra asked, conversationally, “I don’t see him anywhere. But I guess the little coward was never really one for a fight. Did he send you as vanguard?”
Tolland shot Talanah a look, then turned his gaze back towards Petra. “You should tell your little bodyguard to stay back. I want no trouble.”
“Seems unlike you.”
“Ulvund wants his city back,” Tolland continued, ignoring the comment.
“I was unaware Ulvund ever had a city.”
“Don’t play dumb with me, I may change my mind.”
Petra did not flinch. “Last time I checked, Chainscrape was a settlement and it belonged to nobody.”
“It is unrightful Carja territory.”
Petra sighed theatrically. “I take it he’s still not shutting up about his concession decree?”
“It’s what is owed to us.”
Talanah looked behind her to check on Milu. She was shaking, a tremor running through her body, her eyes pinned on the scene before her in plain fear. I’m going to protect you, she wanted to say, but she was paralyzingly uncertain about how possible this was going to be.
To Talanah’s surprise, however, Milu gathered herself, clenched her fists and said with her voice still in a tremble, “What you are owed… Is retribution for robbing people of their food. For causing people injury. For striking fear in the hearts of innocents.”
“You should continue hiding behind your Carja, child,” Tolland said, looking at Talanah rather than Milu, “Speaking of, how are you standing?”
He didn’t elaborate and he did not need to. The confession of what she had already known was something he merely tossed into the air between them and moved on.
Or, he would have moved on. But he had barely finished his sentence when Petra lunged at him and landed and uppercut into his jaw. There was a devastating crack, Tolland stumbled backwards, was caught by one of his men and for a moment, nothing happened.
Talanah drew her blade. Milu reached for her bow. Petra looked at Tolland as though she wanted to pierce him with her eyes alone. Tolland spat out a chipped tooth. The men beside and behind him stood ready to jump into action.
“It was you,” Petra growled, “She could have fucking died!”
Talanah said nothing, but merely knowing that this was something that Petra had considered and conversely feared made her chest tighten.
“Get them!” Tolland barked.
Petra kicked him in the stomach. She screamed and punched one of the men who were storming at her square in the face. She deflected another’s attempt at hitting her. Talanah charged in, blade drawn, but was met with a mighty ax that was awkward to move past and worse to parry. Milu hit one man in the shoulder with an arrow but another dashed toward her before she could draw another time.
Some of the Quarry workers tried to help, but most of them were builders and miners, not fighters and had scarcely more to throw at the assualtants than half-finished traps. Talanah registered, somewhere in the periphery of her vision, still struggling to land an attack on the man with the ax, that one man got hit with a canister of metalbite.
Talanah attempted to evade combat with the ax for what felt like an eternity after it became clear to her that it was a hopeless endeavor. There were too many and they were determined, pissed and regrettably skilled.
Milu was taken first. She was small and helpless without her bow. It merely took one of the brutes to restrain her, but she went down kicking and screaming and leaving bite marks on the man who held her down as another rushed to tie her up.
Talanah managed to inflict an ugly cut on the chest of the ax-wielder, but she did not break through. Another jumped her from behind unexpectedly and wrestled her to the ground. She, too, was tied up, though the stresses of the day sat in her bones too deeply to scream anymore. She had exerted herself. There was nothing left for her to do.
Petra needed four whole men to take her down. Tolland had left the fight, but she was breaking noses and kneeing crotches where she could. Talanah watched as fury took over her face as though determination alone could take down a group of grown men. In the end, one of them managed to throw her off balance, kicked her in the knee hard and demanded more rope for her than Talanah and Milu had required.
“You’re not getting away with this!” she yelled, wet with sweat, her hair clinging to her forehead, her face distorted into the very picture of wrath. Talanah saw her, in that moment, as the most beautiful person she had ever laid eyes upon. The thought came to her like a delusion, almost intrusive but undeniable.
“Tell Ulvund that directly,” Tolland said, affecting disinterest, but reaching for his jaw as he finished speaking.
They were taken away in the merciless afternoon sun, to the place they had intended to head for. But now they were neither agents of reconciliation or retribution, but captives whose weapons had been taken away and whose intent did not matter anymore. They walked behind each other, step by step, and all Talanah could do was watch as slowly but surely, Petra’s shoulders slumped in defeat.
Chapter Text
Petra could not tell how much time had passed. Periodically, it felt like hours were passing, but when she turned her eyes to the sky, it could not have been longer than a few minutes. Other times, she thought that no time was passing at all, but between two footsteps the sky would turn from day to twilight to night.
She thought about how her feet ought to hurt. There had been times in her life when after a mere half hour, they had felt as though they were going to fall off any moment. She couldn’t feel them at all now as the three of them were being dragged along by a bunch of brutes who could not be bothered to speak a word to them or care about whether or not the journey was taking its toll.
Petra did not turn around to look at Talanah and Milu. She sometimes heard Milu make a pained noise or Talanah curse under her breath and that was enough. It was more than enough. It was entirely sufficient to cement it all as her fault. It was her fault that they were there, it was her fault that they had been ambushed like they had been and whatever it was that awaited them was her fault, too.
There was a break in the middle somewhere that she barely registered. A time when the whole group stopped somewhere, sat down and ate. Tolland and his men had ale and laughed the night away while Petra, Talanah and Milu were seated in plain view of all of them and given only water.
A million things coursed through her mind in those moments, a million possibilities. She thought about how the men might get drunk enough to be useless in a fight if they managed to break free. But they drank a moderate amount of ale and set up watch times. She thought about how they might fall asleep and the three of them might simply sneak away. But they held their watch diligently while fatigue was working its way into her.
And when she had concluded that there would be no way out that night, she thought about a different world where she might have met Talanah not in Chainscrape just when things were falling apart, but on a trip to Meridian. She thought about shamelessly flirting with her, no baggage attached and she thought about having a brief but beautiful fling with a gorgeous woman under the ever-present Meridian sun. She thought about strolls through the city streets and she thought about defiant kisses under the watchful eyes of disapproving priests and she thought about the ridiculously soft silk sheets that every single home in Meridian had and how they might have enjoyed some nights in those. Finally, she thought about how they might have parted, after a few weeks of fun, content with what it was, and she shed a tear.
-
Talanah came to in the darkness. Whether it was day or night outside the cave they’d been dumped in, she could not tell. The walls were solid stone and had no cracks to betray what might be going on beyond them. All she knew was that at least some days had to have passed. Her stomach called for food in desperation, in canon with those of Milu and Petra. They were kept in the same cell, though tied up as far away from each other as the room allowed, and the kind words between them had slowly dried up.
“We’ll find a way out of here,” Talanah had said almost immediately after they had been left in the cell. How much she had believed it, she didn’t entirely remember.
“It’s not your fault,” she had said quite often, and that she did believe, unwaveringly.
“By the Sun, these ropes hurt like a bitch ,” was another thing she had said quite often and that she didn’t need to question.
Petra had replied to none of these things. She hadn’t said anything much at all, since they’d been taken. She was staring alternately at the wall and the ceiling, deep in thought, perhaps mentally somewhere else entirely.
This worried her, but most of her concern went towards Milu who was decidedly too young to be a part of this. There was a lot of time she had spent crying, including most of the way there, but now even she had calmed down, insofar as that was possible.
It was some time after a pissed-off guard threw in some water for them that a voice boomed from outside, “Ulvund will see you now.”
Talanah stirred, acutely aware of the soreness of her limbs, but she was immediately struck down by the guard.
“Her,” the man said, voice flat, and Petra rose. She did not look back before she left.
-
The caverns of Delver’s Hold were dark and dreary and in the hall Petra had been led to, the walls were coated with soot. Scarce light fixtures made from machine parts gave off an eerie blue glow that did not light up the room so much as it doused the silhouettes of everyone in it in unnatural color.
Petra was ready for whatever was about to happen to her. Frankly, she was pleasantly surprised that Ulvund hadn’t immediately taken off to Chainscrape and made one of his lackies kill them off. She was alive and breathing, and so were Talanah and Milu, and that was a miracle.
Once again she scanned the walls and found no cracks, no pathways that could be exploited. It was a cruel joke, to be alive and “well” yet unable to escape. It ripped a whole inside her chest, knowing that there was nothing to be done. It sent her whole body into pins and needles. She was put in the middle of the room, standing up, hands still tied, held in position by one of the tall, gruff men that flooded this place.
“Petra Forgewoman, the great conspirator.” Ulvund’s voice sounded off at the edge of the room, insufferable as ever. It was as though she had never known peace from it at all.
“Ulvund,” she said, neutrally.
He strolled across the room, as incapable of grace as he had ever been, and stood before her, arms crossed. “Nothing to say for yourself?” His voice was laced with mock disappointment.
“What would you have me say?”
Ulvund considered this for a moment and she was immediately aware of her grave mistake. “Well,” he begun in a way that made certain that he would not stop, “I would imagine something along the lines of, ‘I apologize for having lawlessly usurped you, used the influence of the so-called Savior of Meridian to gain control of the great Freehold of Chainscrape, second only to the Claim itself in its importance to the magnificent Oseram people. I should have supported your efforts to gain the independence from the Sundom we deserve. I should have stopped my little friend from putting her nose where it doesn’t belong. And I definitely should not have taken three of your friends prisoner.’ That would seem sufficient.”
If she was to hear another word from him, she would rather be dead. Depending on what his plan was, that could well have been her fate. Her body felt so heavy, tired from the long walk and then the long time sitting around. She tried to wiggle her wrists, just to get some feeling back into them, but the man behind her closed his grip around the rope and her wrists tighter. She winced. “What do you want from me?”
Ulvund shrugged. “My city back.” To him it was the most obvious statement in the world. She wanted to throw up.
“What do you need me for then? You have me here. Frankly, you could’ve long killed me.”
He groaned. “Don’t play the fool, I’m not stupid.” He brought two fingers up to his left temple and rubbed it. “You’re so much more useful alive.”
She wanted to feel exasperated. She wanted to feel angry. She wanted to think about smashing his skull in for merely suggesting he would use her. Fear she would have accepted. But instead, the only thing she felt was this great void in her chest that only seemed to grow. She said nothing.
“What you’re going to do is this: You and your little friends will come back to Chainscrape with me, free of your little inconvenience here,” he twisted his own wrists briefly, suddenly too precious to say the word ties, “and you will admit your wrongdoing publically. You will confess your coup against me and you will officially reinstate me as leader. And then you will leave and never come back.”
At long last, her body did cooperate in expressing something like an emotion. She laughed. She snorted and then started laughing maniacally. She laughed until she was wheezing for air and then she laughed some more before finally she said, “You think that’s gonna work?” And then she laughed a little harder.
Ulvund stared at her. Then he gave a nod towards the man holding her and he abruptly pulled her to the ground until she was kneeling in the dirt. A huff and a cough later, Ulvund stood over her.
“Of course, your Carja friend, the Sunhawk I hear, will make her journey east and tell the Sun-King to sign the concession decree.”
“And you think the people will just accept that?” she asked, struggling to recover from her fit.
He scoffed. “Do they accept you? I hear there have been complaints.”
“What do you know?”
“I know a reality you’re blind to, Petra. They’ll blame whoever is in power for whatever goes wrong with their lives. The difference is what you do with that. Do you assert yourself and simply work on the goals that will improve their conditions regardless? Or will you succumb to your need to be liked? I’m ready to do whatever it takes to get what we deserve. Are you?”
She laughed again, just once this time, hollow. “You overworked your people and dug beyond regulation and what we got out of it was a bristleback stampede.”
“A small hiccup in an otherwise flawless operation.”
She rolled her eyes. “And how do you intend to make us run these little errands for you?”
Ulvund smiled. “Easy. I keep the girl.”
Chapter Text
Talanah was briefly relieved to discover that some emotion had returned to Petra’s face when she was brought back to their cell. She assumed for one naive moment that perhaps Ulvund had merely ruffled her feathers; made her angry in some capacity.
But when the guard left, Petra scooted as closely to her as she could manage and said in a whisper just loud enough for her to hear, “We’re getting her out of here.”
She didn’t react immediately, the information went unprocessed for a while. The sentence merely sat there between them, and Talanah only very slowly came to terms with what it meant. She looked to Milu and then back to Petra and nodded. If there was only one person to get out of this predicament, she would have chosen Milu every single time.
-
Milu had never pretended to be sick before, but she had experienced the feeling authentically more often than she could count. She had been sick very often when she was a small child, hunger does that to you. It always struck her as an odd anomaly in how bodies worked. They could make you feel fantastically hungry but then refuse efforts to feed yourself. Other times she had gotten sick from stress, something she thought was equally stupid but had come to accept.
She remembered all the different times in her life that she had been sick after the meal they got only a few hours after Petra had returned to their cell, suddenly very animated and willing to talk again, and she thought about them so hard she almost legitimately felt the nausea climbing up her gullet. Petra blinked at her twice to signal that she was looking terrible enough and then called the guard for help.
“I’m gonna be sick,” she said, “I need… I don’t want to- in here.”
The guard made a face. He looked at her, and she made herself gag for emphasis. This made him groan and unlock the door, “Come on, I don’t wanna mop this up.”
That got her outside the cavern which wasn’t the real first step, yet. They’d been led there with multiple guards many times to relieve themselves. But this ordeal now was off-schedule, there were no additional guards, only this one man. He was still holding her by her ties as she leaned over a tiny bush in order to throw up.
Her heart fluttered so violently in her chest that she thought for a second that she might actually need to do it. But she managed without.
“How long is this gonna take?” the man asked when still nothing had happened after several minutes.
Milu took a deep breath. You can do this, she told herself the way she knew Talanah would. She needed another deep breath, but then she ripped herself loose from the guard in one harsh motion. He had not expected it and that gave her the time to swirl around and bring her knee to his crotch. He screamed - a problem - but he also fell to the ground. She kicked a serving of sand into his eyes for good measure. He groaned and swore and tried to reach for her but she evaded him.
She began running, stopped when she had gained some distance from the man still moaning in pain, and then folded her legs through her legs so as to have her tied-up hands in front of her rather than behind her. The knot was tight and she would have no luck attempting to undo it with her teeth, but all rope was destructible. She ran another short distance, made sure that nobody was following her and found the remnants of a hunting site - a machine carcass lay on the ground, looted for all it was worth, but the edges where the metal had broken gleamed promisingly in the sun.
She knelt down before the carcass, checking three times that still no one was behind her, and brought the rope to the sharp metal. She moved her wrists back and forth, pressing down fervently until finally the rope came apart. She slid what was left of it from her wrists and threw it in the sand.
And then you’re going to run, Talanah had said, her face a perfect mask that did not betray what she was really thinking or feeling, You’re going to run West, back to Plainsong. You’re going to run home.
Milu was no expert hunter. She was not the strongest or the fastest, she wasn’t even particularly clever, but she was not stupid. She knew that “You’re going home” meant “You’re going home and we aren’t.”
She was free. She was not being followed, not yet, and she had all opportunity to run West. She would have an easy time getting to and staying on the main road. She would have gotten to Barren Light and found a kindly hunter to give her a bow, or she could help someone out on the way in exchange for a few shards and buy one. And then she would have traveled home, to Plainsong, no longer part of the Hunter’s Lodge, but alive, relatively well and still more skilled than she’d been before she’d left.
But she would be without Talanah, who had taught her so much and still had so much more to teach. And she would have left behind Petra who had met her with nothing but compassion, even though she had been nothing but a burden for most of their journey.
Milu was free to go home, she had been told to go home and she took off not west, but north, and she would do everything in her power to make sure that Petra and Talanah would be going home, too.
-
There was the clattering-open of the cell door. There was a punch in the face for each of them. And then there were the violent hands that dragged them to her feet and outside, back into the heat, their eyes unprepared for the brightness. Talanah couldn’t focus on the words that were being spoken, all she heard was an aural soup of commands, insults and swears.
They were tied up more rigidly, too, one long rope fixing their arms to their bodies, wrapped so tightly around them that it hurt. It made walking slightly more awkward as well. No time was wasted explaining what was happening, but after the first two hours of foot march, Talanah was quite certain that they were on the road to Chainscrape.
“You’ve lost, Ulvund,” Petra said mockingly, though there was no levity to it, “Your leverage is gone.”
Ulvund who now donned some honestly impressive Oseram armor, all heavy studded leather and protective metal, did not look at either of them. “You still think I’m stupid.”
Petra had told Talanah all about what Ulvund wanted from her. She had only one opinion on it: She would rather jump into her own blade than play messenger for his lunatic. Getting Milu out was all that she wanted. She would deal with whatever would be thrown her way to whatever extent she was able, but she would never have allowed them to have Milu. No way.
And Milu was free. The guard who slinked back into the Cavern and was promptly giving a beating was evidence enough. Ulvund no longer had any leverage, nothing to make them follow his order.
Sometime on the road north, Talanah and Petra ended up next to each other, a man attached to each of them, holding them tight. She looked at Petra, found her eyes, and she smiled. She wasn’t sure if it looked satisfied or fearful, though she was aiming for reassuring. Petra smiled back, lopsided and unhappy; her hair was a mess of sweat and tangles and her bandana was long gone.
Chapter Text
The march had gone over easily, considering the circumstances, day and night had passed and they made camp by noon the next day, only a few hours out from Chainscrape. Petra was starting to get nervous. They were remarkably close to the town and still alive. Ulvund had no leverage, nothing to make them act in line with what he wanted, yet he was still keeping them alive. She did appreciate not being dead, no doubt, but it was strange. It felt off.
“What’s your plan, Ulvund?” she had asked him outright in the morning, but he had simply laughed and moved on without comment.
The clouds had started coming in early that day and they had only thickened until finally, only half an hour away from Chainscrape, they broke and rain poured down on the lot of them in thick, heavy drops that drenched them at a moment’s notice. Petra almost burst out laughing again, though this time not in mania as much as in the sheer relief of having some of the grime and sweat and sand that had accumulated on her skin for the past days being washed away.
She kept calm, however, merely basked in the feeling for a moment, a brief relief in what felt like her march to the executioner. She was still tied up firmly, could hardly move and did not know what Ulvund had up his sleeve, but she felt clean, and that was something.
They pressed on, through the rain, nobody safe from getting drenched to the bone. Petra went from feeling clean to feeling clammy and cold, but she scarcely had the capacity to really make note of it. Her shoes squelched with each step, and eventually, Chainscrape came into view.
The settlement seemed unaware of her absence, smoke rising from the chimneys like it always had. Outside, a campfire had lost its fight against the rain.
Their group stopped, rather abruptly, and with a nod from Ulvund, one of his men cut the rope that had been wrapped around Petra’s body. It fell to the ground unceremoniously.
Petra didn’t hesitate. She swirled around and punched the man in the face. It wasn’t the brightest idea she’d ever had, her arm was tired and stiff and as soon as her fist hit his face, a terrible pain went from her knuckles all the way to her shoulder.
“Shhh, no need to do anything rash,” Ulvund said, both to her and to his henchmen. He turned toward her. “You know what to do. Give leadership of Chainscrape back to me and we won’t have a problem from here on out.”
“Or what? You’re going to have me killed?”
Ulvund shook his head like a disappointed father. “No. No, certainly not. You’re worth so much more alive. And your dead body would not be of much use to plead my case. No, you will do as I say, or…” He trailed off, and in an instant, the man who had cut her free, took the knife and seized Talanah.
The blade almost got lost in the rain, only a slight shine attesting its presence. Talanah breathed in sharply, but she did not move. She simply tensed, intent on keeping the knife from making contact with her skin.
“I’m sure you know where this is going,” Ulvund said calmly.
Petra eyed him suspiciously. “Why would the body of the Sunhawk look any better for you?”
He sighed, deeply and dramatically. “Because it doesn’t have to be associated with me at all. She’s a hunter, tragic accidents happen. A hunter-killer. A thunderjaw. Maybe she wasn’t in the best condition from long travels.” He shrugged once again. “Or you could simply do as I say and ride off into the sunset together. Join the Tenakth like your annoying fiery-haired friend. Leave this place alone.”
Petra looked at him. And she looked at Talanah. For the first time since Petra met her, she seemed afraid. He kept her body calm, yes, but her eyes were a storm, uncertain and unstable. She met Petra’s and with her lips she simply formed the word “no.”
It wasn’t a question for Petra, there was no real alternative. She had not expected to make it out of this alive at all and now? Now there was a way that she could live and Talanah could not be made to advocate for Ulvund before the Sun-King. “I’ll do it,” she said, “I’ll do it. We leave. And you can go to groveling for your concession decree by yourself.”
Ulvund smiled and looked at his assortment of big, dumb minions. “This time, I have a united front behind me. It won’t take more than that.”
-
The guards had left their posts in the rain, so Petra pushed open the gates herself and walked into Chainscrape, its streets devoid of people, though she spotted a few people watching from their windows. She paid it no mind, simply focused on her goal and made for the tavern, trying to not think about Talanah and the two men who kept her out of view outside Chainscrape.
When she opened the door, Milduf looked up from usual spot and smiled at her brightly, “Petra! You’re back!” But his smile fell as Ulvund and his men trickled in behind her. “What’s going on?”
“Where’s Javad?” she asked, her voice as even as she could muster.
Milduf looked puzzled. “Java- What are you talking about, why is he here? What happened to you? Where were you?”
She took a shuddering breath. “Just tell me where Javad is.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Get out if you can.” Ulvund stood several feet behind her and was unlikely to have heard her, but she still turned around briefly to check for a reaction. She found none.
Milduf nodded quickly and stepped back. “He’s, uhm, he’s in the back, I’ll get him.” With that, he vanished and it was Javad who stepped back out, alone and with a questioning look on his face.
Petra said, mechanically, “I need you to gather the people outside. I’m gonna… Need them to listen.”
Javad stared her down, eyes narrow, eyebrows drawn together in a frown. His gaze flicked over to Ulvund, his frown grew deeper. “Okay,” he said, slowly. He walked out of the door, past the men stationed behind Petra, and never broke eye contact with her. He was thinking, and she prayed he wouldn’t voice any of it.
-
Petra had never been an actress, but that didn’t matter. She spoke Ulvund’s words and she spoke them diligently, with fake remorse behind them that was partially her real remorse over the collateral damage she had caused. She spoke them with a conviction that she might have even bought herself. And she spoke them with a reverence for Ulvund’s person that made her nauseous.
But she spoke them, numb to the reactions of the crowd, numb to the shock on Javad and Milduf’s faces and numb to the disgust she felt towards herself. She wanted only one thing - To get Talanah out of this. Only then would they have any chance to regroup, maybe get in contact with Aloy or with Avad and take Ulvund back on at a later time.
So, as she had done so many times before, she did her duty, and when all was said and done, she was escorted back outside the gates.
Chapter Text
There was nothing Talanah could do except focus on her breathing.
In and out.
In and out.
in and out.
Slowly. Deliberately. Over and over.
The restlessness of having nothing to do had long settled into her bones. It must have been there since they’d been taken away, she figured. She did not think about Petra, alone between these men, forced to do Ulvund’s bidding. She did not think of Milu, alone on her way back to Plainsong. And she did not think of herself, alone between two men - one stranger, the other Tolland Clearbroker whose jaw was still visibly bruised from his initial encounter with Petra. They did not talk to her and only waited for a signal to either cut her loose and send her away or kill her.
So, she focused on her breathing. She focused on the humid air filling her lungs and she focused on releasing it as slowly as possible.
She did not know if hours passed or mere minutes but between breaths she eventually saw commotion on the horizon and she heard voices, though their words were drowned out by the rain. Someone screamed. Then, a whistle ripped through the rain. It was a shrill thing, loud and piercing and Tolland stood to attention.
“Doesn’t sound good for you,” he mused, a smile in his voice.
Talanah didn’t honor him with a reaction.
The whistle sounded again. Tolland seemed to wait for someone more than that. Was there a code to this? Did the whistle communicate something? Did it merely call to order? Talanah wished she could see what was going on inside. She wished she could do more than sit there.
“He did it,” Tolland said.
A handful of Ulvund’s men came walking towards them and in their midst… There was Petra, eyes glued to the ground, held by the arms and dragged back to their outpost. She was thrown to the ground in front of Talanah, like an old rag.
Talanah wrapped her arms around her. She squeezed her tightly and she held her and she could feel as Petra heaved a sob, desperate and defeated. She let her go and held her face in her hand for a moment, and tried to make Petra look at her. “I just… Gave it to him,” she whispered and did not look at Talanah.
“You’re alive,” Talanah said.
“About that…” Tolland said, his back turned to them. “Ulvund might be a coward and a softie, but I’m not so naive. Seize them.”
Two men each pulled them apart and held them in place. Tolland pulled a knife from his belt.
“I will not let you run free. You’re liabilities. Pests who will come back, no matter where you’re exiled to.”
Talanah panicked. She had always prided herself on not generally being prone to panic but right then, she panicked. Her heart ran away from her and she began thrashing in the grip of the men holding her. She screamed. She screamed so loud it hurt her own ears, but she would not let it end like this. Not without a fight. Not without making them see that they were about to sniff out a life.
“DROP THEM!”
Talanah froze. For a moment, she did not dare look up, afraid that her eyes would only confirm what she already feared was true. She fell limb in the grip of the Oseram man and she squeezed her eyes shut, hoping to not hear the same voice again.
But, the voice repeated, “I SAID DROP THEM!”
Talanah looked up and there on a small hill not far from them, she saw Milu and she looked into her face, determined and serious in a way she had rarely seen her, with her bow in hand and an arrow trained on the man holding onto Talanah.
“You’re stupid, girl, you already made it. Well, one more or less shouldn’t matter. Get her, too,” Tolland said calmly.
But Milu was not alone. Talanah watched in awe as people stepped into view behind the girl she had trained. They were men and women, Oseram and Carja. Some of them were holding weapons, bow and blades and the odd hammer, but most of them were armed with makeshift replacements - bricks, metal pipes, wooden poles. Maybe some of them carried knives, but that Talanah could not quite see.
“One last time,” Milu said again, bellowing as loudly as her voice allowed and properly drew back the string of her bow, “DROP THEM!”
Talanah made eye contact with Milu and nodded once. Then, dropped herself, made herself completely limb, as though she was dead, and as the man struggled to hold her upright, Milu released her arrow and hit him right in the chest. As he fell, she rolled out of the way.
“You imbecile!“ Tolland‘s voice ripped through the rain once again, and he drew a knife. “What are you just standing there?! FIGHT.”
All hell broke loose at that. Knives and blades and bows were drawn and Talanah found herself in the middle of it all with nothing but her bare hands. She made it to her feet as the first people clashed, weapon against weapon, and without thinking, she tried to get to Petra. She hadn’t seen if Petra had wrestled herself free and now she could not see her at all.
“HERE!”
Talanah turned quickly and followed the voice; stomped on someone’s foot in the process. She found Petra in the midst of a brawl, alone against two men. Talanah knew what her only option was. She had never been a strong hand-to-hand fighter, but she channeled all of the basics - stand firm, don’t tuck in your thumb - and she charged at one of them. Her fist hit his face hard and with an audible crack agonizing scream, she broke his nose.
“Nice!” called Petra and kicked the other guy rather haphazardly in the knee. She did not wait for him to fall. Instead, Petra ran to her, grabbed her and made for the hill where Milu and two more archers were still positioned.
“You’re crazy, kid!” Petra called as they were almost there.
“Thanks!” Milue replied, proudly. She took down her bow and ran back a few paces. After a moment, she returned, and held out Talanah’s blade in one hand and Petra’s brass knuckles in the other. “They just left those behind in Redhew Quarry, can you imagine?”
Talanah did not care one bit about how much time they had and how desperately she was needed in the fight - at least for one moment. She hugged Milu as tightly as she could, squeezed her entire small frame and said, “I’m proud of you.”
When she stepped back she looked at Milu and she looked and Petra, and she said, “Now, let’s give them hell.”
“You don’t need to tell me twice,” Petra said and slipped on her knuckles.
They joined the fray side by side, knocking over Ulvund’s men along the way. The whistle sounded from Chainscrape and more of them joined, alarmed to what was going on outside the settlement. Talanah paid it no mind. It didn’t matter how many were coming, they would take them one by one and with her blade back in her hand, she finally felt whole again.
“Tuf!” Petra called suddenly. Talanah snapped around and saw the slight man with the messy blond hair in a rather precarious position, barely holding his own against one of Ulvund’s men.
Before Talanah could react, though, Petra had already dashed to his side, and given the man a mighty right hook. Talanah would never not be in awe of how quick Petra was in a fight. She wondered if maybe she wasn’t extremely quick at all, just remarkably decisive.
“Stop staring, honey, there’ll be time for that later!”
Talanah huffed and slashed at one of Ulvund’s men so quickly, he did not seem to realize he was her target before he fell to the ground.
The rain was relentless upon them as they fought their way forward, never ceasing, never stopping. The ground was starting to feel slippery beneath her feet, but she pressed on. She was one with her blade in that moment, singularly focused on fighting her way through to Tolland. She had never taken kindly to big men hiding behind their underlings during a fight.
By the time she got to him, blood and rain had mixed on her skin and in the fabric of her clothes. It stuck to her unpleasantly, she felt every inch of it, unmoving, cold and wet. She sank her blade into the chest of another of Ulvund’s men. She discarded the body and looked upon Tolland. She stared into his squat, dumb face like and she said nothing. She charged at him at once.
Tolland met her blade quickly with the handle of his hammer. He held it strong, pressed against and threw her back with a violent shove. She barely stayed on her feet, the ground below her slick and wet but she gathered herself and blocked his blow in turn.
“We should have put you down when we found you in Chainscrape,” he snarled.
Talanah smiled, feeling somewhat manic. “Must be hard to always be following orders.”
He took a sudden step back - it threw off balance. “No more!” he screamed and he raised his hammer over his head before she could fully stabilize and the brought it down with earth-shattering might.
Talanah did not think, there was no time to think. Instead she allowed herself to slip and threw her entire weight to the left. As she fell, she swung her blade in his direction. it came in low, but the moment she hit the ground and he screamed, she was relieved to have hit him. When she looked up, she saw him kneeling down - the tendon on his heel severed and bleeding - screaming in agony and cursing her to be scorched alive by the sun like the Carja so desired.
She laughed at that, breathlessly but not without humor and she told him, eye to eye, “You’re the most pathetic excuse for a man I have ever laid eyes upon,” and she took his hammer from him and tossed it to the wayside.
“Hey, hey, hey, that’s still good material!” Petra walked towards her, her hands bloodied and bruised, but her face all smiles.
“Is Ulvund still inside?”
Petra shrugged. “I assume. Probably hiding away somewhere, the old coward.”
“What are you gonna do?” Talanah wasn’t sure which kind of answer she even wanted. Maybe none.
Petra’s jaw tightened. “I will ask you to bring him before Avad.”
Chapter 16
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Petra was so wet, she feared she might dissolve. She felt nothing and she felt everything at once. Her hands hurt distinctly, the pain flowing from her knuckles up into her arms and she wished for it to stop, but she knew better. She knew that she would take days if not weeks to recover. She took stock of the rest of her body. Her head hurt from the odd blow to it she had not been able to block and she was pretty sure she had somewhat of a twisted ankle from the way the wet ground was fleeing beneath her feet.
“Will they be alright?” Talanah asked next to her as they approached the gates to Chainscrape. Behind them, a few stragglers of Ulvund’s men were still in fights with the people of Redhew Quarry, though the vast majority of the fighting was already over and had emphatically gone their way.
Petra gave her a smile. It should not have come to her this easily, considering the circumstances. “They can hold their own.”
Talanah looked back with worry on her face, plainly written all over it. Petra followed her line of sight and immediately understood what it was she was looking for. “Over there,” she said and Talanah turned slightly. Milu was still holding up her bow, ready to shoot any target that became safe to shoot. Talanah exhaled. “Good.”
“You can go back to her, you know? Ulvund isn’t really the type of guy to need two people to take down.”
Talanah thought for a moment, then shook her head. “I’ll see this through with you,” she said, gentle and determined. She hesitated a moment before taking Petra’s hand - as well as she could with the brass knuckles in the way - but once she held it, she squeezed it reassuringly and smiled. “Plus, I want this dipshit to know exactly who’s going to drag him all the way back to Meridian.”
Petra had to laugh at that. “I’m sure he’ll be horrified.” She did not want to let go of Talanah’s hand and she was too exhausted to think about what exactly that meant, so she simply kept holding it, awkward though it was, and they walked through the gates into the town.
There was no fighting inside Chainscrape, yet the commotion seemed more intense than of the fighting that had gone on outside. People had gathered under merchant’s tents and canopies, haphazardly shielded from the rain, speaking in anything from hushed tones to wild shouts.
“I won’t do it again!” one woman was saying, “If he’s back, I’m leaving.”
“I don’t care who sits at the helm, I just want to get paid and be left alone,” said a man.
“What’s going on outside the gates anyway?” raised a third.
Talanah untangled her hand from Petra’s and instead put it on her back and pushed her forward. “Where do you figure he’ll be?” she asked.
“Why, in ‘his’ house, of course.” Petra rolled her shoulders, trying to get the tension of the day out of them as they made their way back to her house.
Standing before it felt stranger than she had imagined. It looked the same, but the mere thought that Ulvund was in the process of making himself at home again there made her nauseous. She took a deep breath, and pushed the door open.
“Who’s there?!” he bellowed from her living room and Talanah was ready to unsheath her blade at a moment’s notice.
Petra put up her hand, bidding her to stay back. “Are you getting cozy, Ulvund?”
“What are you still doing here?” There was a shuffle and he stumbled out of the room.
Petra gave him the sweetest smile she could muster. “I just wanted to check how homely you were feeling.”
Ulvund did not indulge her. “You should be well on your way to Barren Light and you know it.”
Fine. She didn’t mind doing things the hard way. She closed the gap between them swiftly, discarded the knuckles of one hand and held his chin a claw harshly. If it had been possible to break it, she would have relished the opportunity. “If it were up to your fucking minion, I’d be on my way six feet under. And I’ll send you there in my stead if you don’t leave my house, and my town immediately.”
The pathetic little man shivered, his whole body a tremor. “You made it mine. In front of everyone.”
“And who do you think believed me? Who do you think is just delighted to have you back? Hm?”
He swallowed. “So, kill me. If you’re not a coward.”
She didn’t really consider his answer. “It’s funny. Tolland actually called you a coward for not ordering our deaths. And I think he’s a pretty daft guy.”
Ulvund looked at her in puzzlement. “What do you want?”
Petra shrugged. “I want nothing from you. I want you gone. To Meridian.”
His eyes widened. “Meridian?”
Talanah continued for her, “I will bring you before Sun-King Avad and you will answer for your crimes, alongside with your co-conspirators and your minions.”
Petra nodded. “May the Forge be merciful, but if I have my way you will never again get your grubby hands into anyone’s business ever again. Talanah, tie him up.”
-
In the evening, Petra collapsed upon her couch which she had missed more dearly than she had realized and she was simultaneously too tired to think a single coherent thought and too wired to sleep. The day sat heavily in her bones and the round-and-round conversations with Javad about who would take Ulvund and his men to Meridian and when and where they should stay until then was running in circles in her head. At least she was dry again.
Talanah came downstairs, silently at first, as though afraid to wake Petra in case she was asleep. She sped up once she saw Petra wide awake.
Petra scooted to the side to make room for her.
“You should go to bed to sleep, this can’t be comfortable.”
Petra laughed weakly. “It’s really not.” She turned to look at her and her chest constricted uncomfortably. “But I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep tonight.”
Talanah nodded. “Me neither. Ditto Milu. I tucked her in anyway. Not that she really needs to be tucked in, but she looked like it might make her feel better.”
The air between them was thick. There were a million words Petra wanted to say but none of them felt sufficient. All of them got stuck in her throat. They’d had quick, pleasant exchanges throughout the day, all the way through the aftermath. Purely functional, though. How many guards do you think you’ll need? and You should greet Avad from me, I haven’t seen him in ages. Nothing more. Nothing deeper. She wasn’t even sure if Talanah would welcome her touch after all that had happened.
“I’m sorry,” she said, in the end, after what felt like an eternity.
Talanah didn’t reply, but she gently placed her hand on top of Petra’s.
“This was all… It’s all… I-”
“Don’t you dare say it’s your fault again,” Talanah interrupted her firmly.
“No, it’s not…” She stopped herself, “Maybe that was what I was going to say. But… But even if none of it was my fault and even if there is nothing I could have done to prevent everything that happened to us… To you… I am still sorry it happened. And I wish I could have protected you.”
Talanah looked her in the eyes and smiled unbearably softly. “I accept your apology.”
Petra was unsure if she was being wholly sincere or if perhaps, just like with tucking in Milu, Talanah had only said this to make her feel better, but she could not deny the weight that had been lifted off her shoulders with those simple words. She thought about kissing her. She thought about it, imagined it, pictured in her head clear as day, but she held back. “Would you like to see the stars?”
“I’d love to,” Talanah said, and without hesitation, Petra stood and pulled her up behind her.
She led her up the stairs, quietly past Milu’s bedroom and up the ladder to the roof. The straw had dried up somewhat in the afternoon and Petra felt intensely grateful that the clouds of the noon had passed and given way to a clear night sky.
Petra sat down and Talanah sat beside her and they looked up at the stars. They were perfect specks of light on a dark canvas, an unmoving picture they’d have all night to admire.
“There are some scholars in the Sundom who spend all their nights looking at the stars and all their days mapping them out and giving names to the pictures they see in them,” Talanah said, half-wistful, half-bemused.
Petra took her hand. She did not think about it this time. “What kind of pictures do they find?”
“Oh, I don’t know many of them, but uhm,” she looked around and pointed out three bright stars who formed a bent line together, “They call this one the ‘snake’ I believe.”
Petra laughed. It felt good to laugh in amusement again after most of her recent laughter had occurred in mania and desperation. “Sounds like an easy job then,” she said, “I can do that, too. See these three over there? I call it ‘the triangle.’”
Talanah laughed. “You can’t do that.”
“Why not? Are there any Carja scholars here that will stop me?” She smiled and leaned a bit closer over to Talanah, “Are the Carja scholars on the roof with us right now?”
Talanah laughed harder. It was a beautiful sound, as beautiful as the first time she had heard it. Talanah met her gaze and said, “It’s beautiful up here..”
At that, Petra could not help but kiss her. She had longed for it ever since they’d done it for the first time, in Redhew Quarry, and had been cruelly prevented from anything further. So, she leaned forward now and pressed her lips to Talanah’s, one hand still on hers and other finding the back of her neck and pulling her gently closer.
Talanah sighed contently and kissed her back with ample eagerness. She moved against her easily, naturally and passionately and for a moment it felt as though they would never stop. For this moment alone, Petra lived in a world where they had all the time in the world to do whatever they wanted, go wherever they wanted. Alas, it was just a moment. And as Talanah pulled away, it faded, though it did not leave behind much bitterness.
“You know I’ll have to leave with the convoy,” Talanah said, slightly breathless.
Petra nodded. “I know,” she said softly, “We have until then. If you’d like. A few days.”
“What happens then?”
“You will go back to Meridian with the convoy. You will make Ulvund answer for his crimes in my name and you will deliver my well wishes to Avad.”
Talanah snorted. “Petra, I don’t need a rundown of the plan, I need… I don’t know. Clarity, I guess. About what this,” she gestured between them, “is supposed to be.”
“I know,” Petra said, suddenly wary, “It’s… I like you. And I would like to spend more time with you. But I have responsibilities here, and you in Meridian. And I would not ask you to neglect them, as I’m sure you wouldn’t ask me to neglect mine.”
“I would like to come visit. When possible. I should check in with the Hunter’s Lodge, but I am still free to take my Thrushes where I see fit. I just… I don’t want to make proclamations and Amadis is, well… Still something I have to deal with. But I would like to see where this leads.”
Petra smiled softly, her heart pounding in her chest more loudly than she wanted to admit. “I’d like that. And I’m sure I will find some reasons to travel to Meridian myself.”
Talanah grinned now, all across her face which had reddened somewhat and she kissed her again. She kissed her playfully and then more passionately.
When they once again parted, Petra said, “One thing, though. I will not ask you to be your only one. We’ll spend a lot of time apart and-”
“I understand,” Talanah said, “I very much prefer it that way as well.”
“Beautiful,” Petra said, a content smile on her face and Talanah’s fingers interlace with hers and an entire sky full of stars above them. Talanah leaned against her, her head on Petra’s shoulders and Petra thought that maybe, at least in some ways, it had all been worth it. Sometimes people did stay in Chainscrape, at least for a little bit.
Notes:
Thanks for going on this ride with me, and thanks to Meliko who is a wonderful artist and was also very pleasant to chat with throughout this process!
This truly needed to be neither half or double its length but I'm glad that I have, for once, finished a multi-chapter fic, so I will still jot that down as an accomplishment.
Please leave a comment if you enjoyed it <3
Serie11 on Chapter 1 Tue 03 Jan 2023 11:54PM UTC
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Serie11 on Chapter 2 Tue 03 Jan 2023 11:59PM UTC
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Serie11 on Chapter 3 Wed 04 Jan 2023 12:04AM UTC
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Serie11 on Chapter 4 Wed 04 Jan 2023 12:08AM UTC
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Serie11 on Chapter 5 Wed 04 Jan 2023 12:13AM UTC
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Serie11 on Chapter 6 Wed 04 Jan 2023 12:24AM UTC
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Serie11 on Chapter 7 Wed 04 Jan 2023 12:29AM UTC
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HorizonJade on Chapter 7 Sat 15 Jun 2024 07:17AM UTC
Last Edited Sat 15 Jun 2024 07:19AM UTC
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pridemoth on Chapter 7 Sat 15 Jun 2024 07:25AM UTC
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Serie11 on Chapter 8 Wed 04 Jan 2023 01:35AM UTC
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Serie11 on Chapter 9 Wed 04 Jan 2023 01:38AM UTC
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Serie11 on Chapter 10 Wed 04 Jan 2023 01:39AM UTC
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Serie11 on Chapter 11 Wed 04 Jan 2023 01:43AM UTC
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Serie11 on Chapter 12 Wed 04 Jan 2023 01:58AM UTC
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Serie11 on Chapter 13 Wed 04 Jan 2023 02:00AM UTC
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Serie11 on Chapter 14 Wed 04 Jan 2023 03:16AM UTC
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Serie11 on Chapter 15 Wed 04 Jan 2023 03:17AM UTC
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maybirdie on Chapter 16 Thu 10 Nov 2022 05:29PM UTC
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pridemoth on Chapter 16 Thu 17 Nov 2022 06:35PM UTC
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Pea (Guest) on Chapter 16 Sat 19 Nov 2022 09:05PM UTC
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pridemoth on Chapter 16 Sun 20 Nov 2022 08:27PM UTC
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Serie11 on Chapter 16 Wed 04 Jan 2023 03:21AM UTC
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Pait_Trevor on Chapter 16 Tue 08 Aug 2023 02:48AM UTC
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pridemoth on Chapter 16 Tue 08 Aug 2023 06:53PM UTC
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