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The Watcher was in a foul mood by the time they left Hadret House, and it was always best to keep a healthy distance when she got that way. Lately, though, she seemed to realize when she didn't make for pleasant company and had taken to excusing herself, disappearing until she came back with her usual stony-faced disposition intact.
This time, she lasted as long as a trip back to The Goose and Fox. Aloth paid for their rooms while Hakona picked up a letter that had been delivered for her a few days prior, and somehow, her scowl deepened even further as she read it. The edges of the parchment started to singe, but with obvious effort, she stopped the flames from creeping through the cracks in her hands and rolled the letter back up, shoving it into a belt pouch.
Then she left, without even a paltry attempt at excuse. The milling crowd scattered under the advance of a Bleak Walker with angry flames streaming off of her gray stone skin, and her unceremonious exit was unhindered and swift.
Edér watched the inn's door swing shut behind her and wasn't proud of his cowardly temptation to leave it be. Hakona hadn't so much as glanced at him since they'd departed from Hadret House, and he couldn't help but wonder if it was because he'd wasted her time so thoroughly.
He supposed he ought to be angry too, with something -- with himself for wasting his own time chasing useless leads, or with his brother for leaving him with no answers in the end, or with the ciphers of Hadret House for being no help, or with Eothas for too many reasons to count, or with Hakona for making him worry about her when by all rights he should be wallowing in his own problems for a while -- but a numbness had settled instead.
And it was pretty tempting, the desire to settle with it, to sit down with a pipe or a drink and forget for a while.
Edér sighed and turned to Sagani. "I'm gonna go after our Watcher," he said with a jerk of his thumb, a little hopefully.
Sagani leveled a look at him that told him she knew exactly what he wasn't asking. "Good luck," she said, and when Edér gave her a rather pathetic grimace, she huffed. "Nope. It's between you and her."
Edér sighed again. "Yeah, I know."
Sagani reached up to pat his arm. "You good?" she asked, and he appreciated how she could sound sympathetic without straying into pity. "She'll be back soon enough. Probably best to let her cool off first, and you look like you could use a drink."
"Nah," Edér said, carefully paying no mind to the part of him that wanted to indulge in just that. He turned resolutely towards the door. "Best to deal with it now, before I lose my nerve."
"Brave man," Sagani said, and she waved him off with a crooked smirk. "I'll manage this lot until you drag her back."
Things had devolved so rapidly that Edér wasn't even sure how they'd gotten here, only that they'd come to Clîaban Rilag for a twofold purpose and instead found looters who had a bone to pick with Eothasians. "Make your cracks now," the taller man -- Paeg, apparently -- said, with no appreciation for the way that Edér had channeled the angry roaring in his ears into some good old-fashioned humor, as if that could somehow diffuse the situation. "Got no god or homeland to avenge you. By Magran, this'll be short work."
Edér's hand was on the hilt of his sword, and he spent a moment wondering if some touch of lunacy had led to the Purges after all, because surely two kith weren't actually stupid enough to take on six opponents, right? But he didn't need to bother with his sword after all, and neither did they need six members of their party to handle the situation, because a gauntleted arm came around Edér's chest and shoved him back.
The Watcher strode forward in front of him. "Keep her name out of your wretched mouth," Hakona snarled, and she pushed Edér towards the others as her flames began to crackle and blaze.
The heat washed over Edér as orange flared into blue. There was no getting any closer to Hakona now, not without running the risk of serious burns, and Edér wasn't stupid enough to insist that this was his fight now that she was riled. Surely these two weren't so stupid as to take on a pissed-off Bleak Walker who was literally on fire.
But a look that was ugly and hateful indeed settled on Paeg's face. "You're protecting him?"
"Just gonna spit in our god's face like that, eh?" the other one said, hefting his saber like he meant to use it.
It wasn't that Hakona moved exceptionally fast. It was that there was no warning before she threw herself forward all at once. Usually you could get a sense of what your opponent was about to do from a twitching of muscle here or a glance of the eyes there. But it was hard to get a read on skin that looked like stone, especially when it was buried under black armor, and Hakona had no visible pupils to follow.
Blue flames blurred in the space of a breath, and Paeg's neck was suddenly without a head as one of the Watcher's battle axes completed a vicious arc. The other looter stumbled away in abrupt panic and couldn't backpedal fast enough, or get his saber or shield up in time, and the second axe lodged in his forehead with an almighty crunch as Paeg's body collapsed to the ground next to his head.
And like that, it was over.
Hakona yanked her axe out of the other looter's head and kicked the body away. The twin axes drooped in tandem with the body's fall as Hakona took a breath and let blue fade back into orange-red. Blood slid off of the steel edges of the axes slowly, as if only just noticing that it had been evicted from veins, and Sagani let out a whistle.
"They were right," Edér said, because he didn't know what else to say to an angry Magranite who had just slaughtered two poor fools on his behalf. He would have assumed that such an engagement wasn't worth her time and would do little for her reputation as a Walker, one way or another. But his ears were still ringing too much to really care about the gruesome sight of a head resting near its own feet. Maybe they should have put some thought into it before provoking a Bleak Walker. "That was short work."
Hakona was still angled away from him, but he could have sworn that he saw something flit across her face that might have been an approximation of mirth. Now wasn't the time to claim another victory at drawing out her sadly resistant sense of humor, however, and as the party fanned out to investigate the area, Edér sidled up to Hakona.
"For what it's worth," he said, pitching his voice low lest Durance get the notion to interject, though it seemed that even the ornery priest was wise enough not to test the Watcher's patience right now, "I don't think any of it was Magran's will." Hakona's blazing orange-red gaze left the axe that she was cleaning and landed on him, and Edér shrugged. "Think it was just folks looking for any excuse they could find."
Hakona looked away, her mouth set in a thin line, and Edér wondered if he'd said the wrong thing, as he was often wont to do. But a sigh rolled through Hakona's shoulders, knocking her usual poise and scowl down into something a little more melancholy.
"I don't know anymore," she muttered.
Edér knew the feeling, and so knew that nothing he could say would actually help, but his mind fumbled through a few variations on meaningless comforts nonetheless, before he decided against it. "Thanks anyway," was what he said instead. "You didn't, uh... have to do that." Maybe it was an odd thing to say about axes cleaving through flesh, but still. He really hadn't expected that. For all that she was brutal at times, Hakona didn't engage in fights unless she had a damn good reason and often preferred to try intimidation first, at which she was very effective.
Hakona shouldered her axe once more and shook out the cloth that she'd been using to wipe it down. Her eyes found the nearby water, as if looking for a reason to move on from the conversation, but when she spoke, her voice was oddly soft. "Yes, I did."
Edér wasn't entirely sure what to say to that, either, but Hakona had clearly had enough of clumsy attempts at heart-to-heart already, scanning the river reeds with a hunter's eye, and Edér decided that he would follow suit.
By now, Edér had a sense of where Hakona would storm off to when all that steam needed to go somewhere, and he found himself wandering across Aedelwan Bridge. The wilds of the Dyrwood loomed just off the far end, but he didn't have to go far to find the Watcher. He wasn't the tracker that she was, but a distant thumping echoed through the trees, and he followed the noise, making sure to step on every twig and leaf in his path so that he didn't spook her.
She'd found a small clearing in which to take out her frustrations, and one of trees that stood at its edge had suffered the brunt of it, already littered with gouges by the time Edér arrived. He stopped a good distance away and watched a throwing hatchet spin through the air, embedding itself into the bark with deadly precision. Hakona was winding up for another throw with a second hatchet, and she had to be aware of Edér's presence by now, but she didn't glance over.
Edér's eyes found the singed piece of parchment that lay near her feet. "Bad news?" he asked, wandering a little closer.
"It's from my mother," Hakona said flatly, lining up her aim with a practiced eye.
Edér's insides swooped with a sudden dread. "Did something happen?"
The hatchet went flying, whistling through the air and lodging above the first one. "Nothing happened," Hakona said, staring at the evidence of her impeccable aim with a deep dissatisfaction, and Edér relaxed by an increment, though he circled back around to wondering if she was upset with him after all. "They're fine."
"Oh," Edér said, and he made the brave decision to come to a stop near her, in a patch of cool shadow. She didn't appear bothered by it. "That's... that's good, right?"
Hakona crossed the clearing, placed hands around hatchet hilt and boot against bark, and yanked. The hatchet came loose, and she tossed it aside. "I have to write back," she said, "and explain all of... this," she gestured distastefully, as if the Watcher business could be found out among the wild, "and try to convince my mother that Caed Nua would be a better place to live than the Land. And if she remains as stubborn as ever, as she has every other time I've asked her to leave, then I will have no way of knowing if something ever does happen. Our home could... could sink into the sea on a whim of the Beast of Winter, and I would never know, because no one would care enough about an isolated trading post to document it."
Edér could only stare. He was pretty sure that he'd never heard quite so many words leave her mouth in one uninterrupted stream before, nor could he remember hearing such a degree of helpless frustration from her. An angrier frustration, sure, but now she sounded downright despondent.
Hakona yanked the other hatchet out with a vengeance. "So I am sorry," she said, and she scooped up the first hatchet too, scowling down at the ground as she did so. "I told you we would find answers, and we did not."
Understanding began to take root in Edér's mind. She hadn't looked at him for nearly an hour now because she was... ashamed? The notion seemed like an ill fit for her, but that was as close as Edér could figure it, and he tried to make sense of her in light of it. She was... commiserating, too. Okay. He could work with that. "Wasn't your fault," he said. "You went out of your way, really. Sorry if I seemed ungrateful back there."
Hakona made her way back across the clearing and took up position again. Then she hesitated and turned slightly, holding out a hatchet to him.
In Watcher-speak, Edér figured, it was some kind of peace offering. What for, he wasn't sure, but he wasn't going to turn it down. "I'm no good at this sort of thing," he said as he took the weapon.
"You can learn," Hakona said, because she didn't seem to consider failure as an acceptable option, and upon reflection, that was probably why she was so very dour today.
She lined up her throw first, and Edér did his level best to observe. "You've got the one sister, right?"
The hatchet in Hakona's hands faltered for one brief moment, before she tightened her grip and steadied her arm. "Yes." She hurled the hatchet, and it landed neatly among the many scars that marred the tree. There was no way in Hel that Edér could hope to match that kind of skill, as he was more of a close range, center of gravity type, but he obligingly stepped forward as Hakona stepped aside.
"Hometowns will kill us if we're not careful," he said, shifting the hatchet in his hands a few times, trying to get comfortable with its heft. "Least you knew when to get out. Don't think I would have, if you hadn't shown up." He took up position and immediately felt like a fool, his hold flagging as he glanced over at Hakona. "So don't you start acting like you've done me wrong. And tell your mom that Brighthollow's got eight whole bedrooms with silk sheets."
Hakona watched him expectantly, armed folded, and said nothing.
Edér sighed, returning his gaze to the tree that served as target and lifting the hatchet once more. He launched it with all of his might, and it went sailing past the tree, hitting something beyond with a thump.
"That's quite the distance," Hakona commented, which was just about the most obliging thing that Edér had ever heard her say.
"Thanks," he said. He made as if to head out and retrieve his throw, but Hakona's hand shot out and blocked the way.
It was rare to see her without gauntlets or gloves. The cracks that webbed under her eyes and intersected her antler-shaped horns covered the rest of her too, and small ones littered her forearms and hands, glowing fissures in stone that wasn't stone. "I am... sorry," Hakona said, her arm drifting back down to her side, "for being so..." she frowned. "For the way I... reacted. I am used to my company, not..."
"Not regular people?" Edér guessed. He could only imagine how a Walker company went about its day.
Hakona nodded, some of her scowl returning in the furrow between her eyes, though it wasn't directed at him.
Edér shrugged. "Don't worry about it." He took half a step forward, then stopped and rotated back around to face her. "I was trying to tell you that I owe you, by the way." For a few things now. He might just have to write up a list. "You got me closer to answers than anything. But I should have known better than to expect some." He paused and frowned out at the surrounding trees, at the dying light of day that flared through them. "You're, uh... you're really not sure about Magran, huh?"
The flames that made up Hakona's hair maintained a ceaseless dance, but the sudden dip in the flickering was too steep to be a part of that pattern. "No," she said, low and uncertain, and her strange burning eyes fixed on him. "And you aren't sure about Eothas."
It wasn't a question, and Edér found that he couldn't meet her gaze. He kept his eyes on the trees. "Might've turned my back on him when he needed me," he said, his throat thick with the words. "That's all I'll ever know."
"You did what you had to," Hakona said, quick and certain, and it drew Edér's eyes back to her. "No matter who Waidwen was. You defended your home, and it's given you a poor thanks." She seemed, as always, oddly angry about that, though Edér wasn't inclined to complain about someone taking his side. "And for what it's worth, I am glad that I dragged you out of your sorry excuse for a hometown."
Edér tried not to look astonished, even though today was just one unusual thing out of her mouth after another. He cleared his throat. "Me too," he said, proud of how he kept his voice steady. "You know, whatever she did or didn't want, I figure if anyone's got the right idea about your god, it's you." Questionable profession aside, he knew that Hakona, at least, kept strictly to her own standards of conduct -- and had broken them back at Clîaban Rilag, for his sake.
Hakona stared at him for a long moment, her burning eyes intense and unreadable, and then she gave him a push. "Go get my hatchets," she said abruptly, and that was Edér's cue that she'd had enough talk for the day.
Still, there was something lighter in his step as he went to retrieve the hatchets and found his half-buried in a tree stump, and lighter still, when Hakona graciously let him claim it as a victory.