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Lord Beric Dondarrion did not return from the battle at the Mummer's Ford so much as he was dragged back. Edric Dayne came crashing back into their camp, guiding his horse with only his knees, one hand holding his own sword while the other clutched the reins of Beric's mount. Their commander was slumped over in the saddle, head resting against the horse's neck, from which blood dripped down onto the ground. 

"Thoros, you have to help Lord Beric! You have to!" He cried. "We got him out, but The Mountain's lance, it went straight through him!"

At the sound of the boy's voice, Thoros jerked his head up from where he had been helping a man-at-arms bandage his wounds, guilt slamming into him as he saw Beric. 

Edric slid from the saddle, purple eyes huge and tearful, and Thoros ran over to catch him before he fell. On instinct, he turned to Beric next, even though the logical part of his mind told him to leave it. He's dead. He's probably been dead since the lance broke his breastplate. Go help someone who needs it. That was the right thing to do, what ever-honorable Beric would have told him to do if this were someone else, but Thoros had never been a selfless man. He had to be sure.

One of the other squires had come to relieve Edric, and together they pulled Beric from his horse, the squire with a grip under his shoulders and Thoros holding his legs. Off of the mount, which Edric had enough sense to lead away, he could see the full extent of their commander's injury. Grizzly ends of snapped wood protruded from Beric's chest through a rent in what had once been the shining dark metal of his chestplate, and blood was smeared everywhere, completely obscuring the purple lightning bolt wrought across the chestplate after the Dondarrion house sigil. 

Thoros closed his eyes briefly, fighting back a wave of emotion. Logically, he knew nothing he could have done would have stopped Gregor Clegane from doing this, but the fact that he hadn't been there when it happened still hurt. When the Mountain's force had crashed into theirs from the back, Thoros had martialed what wounded he could and backed off, knowing his skills as a healer were more valuable out in the middle of this wilderness with no maester or sept nearby than whoever he might kill in the battle that was fast becoming a slaughter. It was pragmatism, not cowardice; Thoros had seen at Pyke what good it did to fight to the last man when victory was clearly lost, and he never wanted to again. 

The squire made to turn Beric toward where the few other dead that did not lay where they had fallen were arranged in preparation for burial, but Thoros shook his head. Beric deserved better than lying in a mass grave with near strangers. It might be what he would have wanted, but he deserved more. So much more for the beautiful young lord with fire in his eyes. 

"Over into that ash grove," He said, jerking his head to the side to indicate. Together, they navigated through the outer ring of trees and into the small clearing Thoros had hobbled his horse in the previous night. It wasn't much, but it was at least a place of his own, somewhere that, someday when this was all over, Thoros could come to pay respects. Carefully, Beric's body was lowered down into the grass, but the boy was not as strong as he might have been, and Beric's head hit the ground somewhat hard. Impossibly, he moaned low in his throat.

Instantly, Thoros scrambled forward, grabbing one of Beric's limp hands, pulling the gauntlet free, and pressing two fingers to the inside of his wrist. He caught his breath when he felt a pulse, weak, but pulsing under his skin nonetheless. His friend's fingers twitched at the sensation, and Thoros had to fight the urge to grab his hand and hold it as he begged Beric to get well. That was Alyrria Dayne's job. It was Thoros's job to try to keep him alive with only the meager skills he possessed. 

"Ser," Edric Dayne's small voice drew his eyes up again. The boy was standing across from him, face white, legs shaking, clutching the hilt of his sword like it was a lifeline. "Is Lord Dondarrion going to be ok?"

The honest answer, the one that made Thoros want to curse the Red God, was no. Nobody survived a lance through the chest. He couldn't bring himself to tell that to this tiny squire however, especially not one who already looked about to pass out from battle shock. He had seen Beric with Edric, on the road and at king's landing, and he was as much father as knight master to the boy. 

"I have to do a closer inspection," Is what he said finally. "Why don't you go get some water."

Edric nodded, and hurried off, leaving Thoros alone with Beric. Just on the other side of the ash grove, men were bleeding and  dying and stitching up their own wounds, so it shouldn't have been quiet, but somehow it was, and Thoros felt as though his own heartbeat was too loud as he removed Beric's helm with fingers that shook. When it came free to reveal the young man underneath, he felt tears sting his eyes. 

The first time he'd seen Beric was two years ago, at a tourney for Myrcella's name day. The herald had announced the lord Dondarrion, and Thoros had leaned forward in his place beside King Robert to see the new knight come to prove his skill. He was clad all in black plate that shone in the sun, with a purple plume on his simple helm, a purple lightning bolt cut into his breastplate, and a cape speckled with tiny stars. He had drawn a bad slot, tilting against Balon Swann, and the man unhorsed him in the second pass, Dondarrion hitting the ground in a clatter of plate armour.

Robert was clapping and cheering, but Thoros waited to see how the knight would react. Some thought themselves the next Jaime Lannister, and did not behave well after losing. This one, however, accepted the hand Swann offered him. On his feet, he swept off his helmet, and the young ladies in the crowd all seemed to oooh as one. He had a handsome face, and a jaunty smile when he turned toward some of the young women sitting close to the king, but it was his hair that captured Thoros’s eyes. It was the red-gold of the tips of a night-fire flame and blazed in the sun. He remembered the few acolytes in Myr with red hair, and how the priests had always treated them specially, seeing it as a visual marker that they were made to be servants of R’hllor.

"If I'd had some of your favors, I might have won!” Beric called to the women, and several scrambled over to the railing to offer him scarves.

“Good man!” Robert said to Thoros. “That’s how you turn around a loss for yourself, Thoros.”

Thoros found the idea of him trying to charm women into favors laughable, but he knew better than to say it. Instead, he replied. “Hair like that, he doesn’t have to try very hard.”

The king laughed again and slapped him on the back slightly harder than was necessary. “Isn’t that right! Catelyn Tully had more men looking for her hand than any woman I’ve known. Ned’s a lucky bastard for ending up with her, though I do wonder how she’s doing up there in the North.

Thoros had never met Catelyn, only her sister Lysa, but from the way people who had talked about her, he wondered how she’d seemingly found happiness with a quiet, sad eyed man like Ned Stark. She seemed to have made a powerful impression on everyone who knew her, while the Lord of Winterfell himself had spent the entire Greyjoy Rebellion looking out at the water like he had half a mind to throw himself in and giving Robert counsel in the most severe tones.

“Have you heard about what the wildlings do, Thoros?” He loved Robert, but Lord that man never stopped talking.

“No?” He replied, the answer half a question in itself. He had spent time with Northmen on Pyke, and they had certainly talked about wildlings, but the whole thing was such a blur Thoros wasn’t sure he knew what Robert was getting at. 

“Ned told me, when we were squires together,” the king explained. “Beyond the Wall, they have this belief that people with red hair are good luck, so any time they go out raiding, they look for women with red hair to steal back beyond the Wall and breed lucky sons for them,” Thoros highly doubted Ned Stark had used the word breed, but that was neither here nor there. 

“Do you know what they call it,” He continued. “Kissed by fire.”

Kissed by fire, Thoros mused. That seemed accurate, at least where Lord Dondarrion was concerned. Not enough fire for the deep rust-toned hair Lysa Tully had, but just enough to make him blaze gloriously “If I was a better priest, that would be my signal to go beyond the Wall,” He replied. “I don’t think anyone’s done that before.”

“Why would you ever want to?” Robert slung an arm around his shoulders. “It’s so much more fun here!”

Wading into the melee with his flaming sword in hand, Thoros had to admit that was true. He never had quite so much fun as when his sword met someone else’s with a satisfying clang.  Robert was beside him, swinging his huge warhammer like he was back on the Trident with a wild look in his eyes. Fighting beside a king, he thought every time he did this. If only the elders in Myr could see me now, nevermind that they’d still call me a failure because he doesn’t worship the Lord of Light. 

Thoros kept half an eye on Dondarrion as they fought, noting the the several scarves tied around his arm and the hilt of his sword. Everything about him, from his perfectly polished black plate to his clearly very expensive longsword screamed that he was young and overconfident, and far too often knights like that stepped out of the way of his sword so fast they went tumbling to the ground and took themselves out of the competition.

Dondarrion was actually the first to strike at him, a clean cut that Thoros barely turned in time to block. When he stepped forward for the attack, Donarrion moved smoothly back, and soon they were dancing about each other. Dondarrion’s spurs might be newly minted, but he was good, and Thoros found his arms starting to ache, when without warning he heard the ping of metal that meant his sword had extinguished itself. The marcher lord’s next downswing snapped the blade like a toothpick, and slammed against Thoros’s own breastplate.

The impact knocked the wind from him and he stumbled, toppling backward into the dirt before he knew what was happening. Looking up at the blue sky, he sighed. Thoros loved his flaming sword, because it was beautiful and flashy and made him nearly untouchable when it burned, but that was also its greatest flaw. He could only win when the thing was good for the distance.

Whatever fight there was left didn’t take long, because by the time Thoros had rolled over and was getting to his feet to get out of the way, the crowd was already cheering Robert’s name.

“Well-fought,” Thoros turned to find Dondarrion behind him, a mark across his chestplate where Robert’s warhammer had connected. “I’ve never seen the flaming sword trick before. That’s got to be something to see in a real battle."

Thoros remembered the horrified faces of the Ironborne when he’d hauled himself over the rubble and through the walls of Castle Pyke and smiled grimly. “It has an effect, yes.”

Dondarrion pulled off his helmet again, and the effect up close made Thoros catch his breath. His hair was messed up in a way that somehow still managed to look charming, his smile was as bright as Jaime Lannister’s up close, and freckles splattered across his nose and cheeks, which probably should have made him look spotty but instead came out making him look sunkissed, as if the ball of fire itself had breathed life into him. 

Beric's hair was darker now, damp and slick with sweat, and his skin had gone from pale to white, with the freckles Thoros had once admired now standing out starkly against his skin. He still looked young, only two-and-twenty if Thoros remembered correctly, but now it stabbed at his heart. Beric should have lived long enough to marry his lady and go home to his keep and raise sons of his own, not end his life bleeding out into the grass with only a squire and a red priest who felt too much and prayed too little at his side. Thoros reached out and ever so gently brushed a stray lock of hair off of his forehead, and for a moment, Beric's eyes flickered open, their wonderful pale blue fixing on him. His lips parted and formed something that he thought might have been Thoros before Beric's eyes rolled back again. 

R'hllor, if you can work miracles, now is the time for one, Thoros thought to his god as he reached for the straps of Beric's breastplate. When they were free, he gently lifted it away to reveal the wound was as bad as it had looked, the shattered piece of lance lodged on the right side of Beric's chest, just under his collarbone. It had either punched all the way through his body or close enough to make no difference. 

Why, Beric! There was a part of Thoros that wanted to scream and shake his shoulders. Why would you take on The Mountain in lance combat? Beric might be one of the strongest swordsmen he had seen, with only a favored few like the Kingslayer and Knight of Flowers able to best him, but he did not share the same skill with the lance. Thoros, who had not touched the weapon until after he arrived in Westeros, routinely bested him with it (though Beric would say the difference in their ages meant Thoros actually had a year or two of practice with it on him). Not only that, but the mountain was known for his skill with the lance, wielding the weapon with a ferocity no one could match, and he was huge. Beric was on the taller side, but he was slight, and all of that combined with the fact that he had likely never experienced a battlefield lance charge, where there are no chivalry rules and even lists to seal his fate. You had no chance, Thoros thought with fury and grief, and you should have known that. 

Even as Thoros thought it, though, he knew there was no other way this could have gone. Beric always had to be the hero, and he was not one of those leaders content to sit back and let his men fight his battles for him. The moment he had seen Gregor Clegane's banner, his mind would have already been made up: kill the Mountain as Ned Stark had ordered or die trying. It was one of his favorite things about his friend, and quite possibly also one of his fatal flaws. 

Thoros wasn't there when the fight happened happened, instead he stumbled into Beric in the aftermath, making his way back to his rooms after one of Robert's banquets. He had almost tripped over the other man leaning against the wall in an alcove, and when he caught himself, it took his eyes a minute to focus. There was the young knight that had taken him out of the melee several weeks ago, pressing a bloody handkerchief to his lip, a dark bruise already blooming around one eye. When he saw Thoros, he pulled it away and gave a halfhearted smile that somehow managed to be roguish. "You alright?" he asked. 

"Me?" Thoros blinked at him. "You're the one bleeding."

"I'll recover," Beric shrugged. "Take a good look at Oswald Kettleblack tomorrow.

Thoros raised an eyebrow at him. "What did you do?"

Beric sighed. "I was seated near him at the feast. He said some things about the Dornish, and how Princess Elia deserved what she got. I told him he'd best stop talking like, and he didn't listen."

That really took Thoros aback. He had arrived in King’s Landing just after Robert took the throne, just in time to see the bodies of Aegon and Rhaenys laid out in the audience hall like some ghoulish trophy. He had never been the most faithful of Red Priests–there was a reason they sent him to preach in Westeros of all places–but seeing that he remembered wondering how R’hllor could let things like this happen, how the deaths of two children could possibly be necessary to win the fight against The Great Other. "I wouldn't have taken you for a Targareyn loyalist," he said finally, unsure that was what he was getting at.

That made the young lord wince. "I'm not. My father died fighting for Robert. It's just that...my betrothed is Dornish," He briefly got a faraway look in his eyes as he spoke of her, then focused them on Thoros with a hard look. "I won't sit silently and listen to someone say she would deserve to be raped because no one is insisting she come to my bed a maid, or because her family backed the wrong monarch half a generation ago," There was fire in his eyes as he said that, burning for all their blueness, and Thoros found himself thinking passion was a very good look on Beric Dondarrion. 

They had talked about knights like him in Myr, who took their vows to the Seven seriously and tried with their every breath to set the world to rights, but he had honestly ceased to believe they existed. Robert’s righteous cost of rebellion had been the deaths of so manny innocents, and everyone but Ned Stark, who would never take holy vows, had stood by and let it happen. That was just how the world worked, he had believed, and yet here was Beric, young and starry eyed saying he would not stand for these injustices. 

Thoros took the lance fragment out. He knew it would make the bleeding worse, but he couldn't exactly leave it in either. He had to fight hard not to gag at the mess of gore it left behind. The gouge was deep, with too much blood welling in it for Thoros to see if Beric had been run through or not. There were also glistening shards of bone and a concerning bubbling that probably meant a splinter had nicked Beric's lung. Until then, Thoros had been holding out some slim amount of hope that he would find some way to fix Beric up, but now he knew with certainty there was nothing to be done but wait for his best friend to die. It was a horrific thought, and Thoros hoped R'hllor consigned Gregor Clegane to his hottest fires in the afterlife for what he'd done. Thoros had never liked the idea of burning people alive, but he supposed he could make an exception. 

Beric gave a rattling cough, and a thin line of blood rolled out of the corner of his mouth, bright red against his skin. His own chest contracting with the effort of holding back a sob, Thoros leaned over and swiped it away, a tiny part of him marveling at the softness of Beric's skin. 

"Ser," Thoros knew that wobbly voice, and there was only one person here who called him ser. Thoros had been offered a knighthood by Robert for being the first man over Pyke's walls, but he had declined. His faith in R'hllor might be nearly non-existent, but knighthood was a ceremony of the Seven, and he was not ready yet to completely forsake his god. He looked up to meet Edric Dayne's tearful blue-violet eyes. He clutched a pitcher of water in his hands, which were still shaking, even if his legs were now steady. "I brought water like you asked."

Thoros had intended to have the squire go and get water for himself, partially as a way to spare Edric the horror of Beric's death, not have him bring it back, but now that simple act of kindness twisted the knife in his heart. If anyone deserved what was happening to them less than Beric, it just might be Edric. If not for a marriage pact he had nothing to do with, he would be safe in his castle on the coast of Dorne, having never seen a battle. 

"Lord Beric doesn't need water just now," Thoros told him, trying to keep his voice steady. "Go find someone who does."

Biting a trembling lip, Edric hurried off again, leaving Thoros alone with Beric and the sound of the wind in the ash trees. For a moment, he considered cutting his throat, ending his suffering now rather than letting him drown in his own blood, but R'hllor condemned all acts of murder that weren't done by fire. Only in battle could you slay someone with a blade, and those bodies were to be burned after. Instead, he pulled Beric's head into his lap and tried to find the words for a prayer. 

Thoros did not go to the practice courts often, in fact he had been on his way back from a misspent night on the Street of Silk when he'd passed by them and caught sight of a flash of red. He paused at the fence, watching as Beric Dondarrion sparred with Lord Bryce Carron. They could have been brothers, both tall and sunkissed, but Beric's hair was all flame where Bryce's was darker and duller. He had also chosen a horrible yellow doublet and cloak that made him look sickly, while the black of Beric's outfit set him off well. His cloak was also embroidered with  hundreds of tiny stars, an odd choice, for they did not feature on the Dondarrion sigil.  Both men were strong with the sword, as Thoros had learned when Beric bested him in the melee at Myrcella's name day tourney, and their fight was smooth, but it was not long before Beric locked his sword with Bryce's, twisting it out of his hand in a neat motion, then holding it up to his throat. 

"I yield, cousin," Bryce admitted ruefully, and Beric smiled, sheathing his sword. He must have caught sight of Thoros then, for he came over. His lip was nearly healed now, the swelling gone and only a dark mark showed where it had been split by Oswald Kettleblack's fist, and his black eye was now only a dark shadow. 

"You know," Beric said with a crooked grin that did things to Thoros he would rather not think about. "I usually find women lined up along the fence to watch me."

"Just checking out the competition, my lord," he replied evenly. "I think we could have had a real match if my sword didn't snap."

"Come practice with me some time," Beric jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the courts. "Bryce is good, but we've been sparring since we were boys. I know every one of his moves. A red priest would be...an interesting change of pace."

Thoros replied "I just might take you up on that," trying to ignore the way his fingers itched to reach up and brush back the stray lock of hair that had fallen over Beric's forehead. Really, he chided himself internally. It should take more than a handsome face, a good heart, and skill with a sword to get you thinking about sinning. "Why the stars on your cloak?" He said instead of thinking any more about it. "House Dondarrion's sigil is the lightning bolt."

Beric smiled again, sweeter this time. "My betrothed is the lady Allyria Dayne of Starfall. Their sigil is the falling star. I already have a lightning bolt on my breastplate, and I thought stars looked nicer. Do you like them?"

There weren't very many men in the Seven Kingdoms who would take part of their wife's sigil, not unless they were of a much higher house. Beric was marrying up, considering Lady Allyria was Regent of Starfall, but not enough to warrant a nod to her in his heraldry. They must really be in love.

Thankfully, Thoros was saved from having to actually answer by the boy who climbed up onto the fence next to him. He was small, with white-blonde hair and blue eyes Thoros thought looked almost purple. "Lord Beric," He chirped, holding out a scroll of parchment. "A message for you from the Hand."

Thoros squinted at the boy, trying to figure out who he was. He looked the right age to be Robin Arryn, but he had seen the boy once or twice at court, and he had his mother's hair.

"Thank you Edric," Beric replied, taking the scroll from him, then, noticing Thoros looking, gestured to the boy. "This is Edric Dayne, Lord of Starfall and my page."

Courtly manners technically dictated that he should bow to this boy, who couldn't be more than ten, and Thoros was considering doing it when the boy stuck out his hand. 

"You're Ser Thoros of Myr, right? The Red Priest with the flaming sword! Can you teach me how to light my sword on fire? My family has a cool sword, but I don't get to have it until I'm older."

Thoros laughed and told him it was a secret, and Beric smiled at the boy with such affection that Thoros understood why he had the stars on his cloak. 

Thoros sat with Beric into the evening, as his breathing stuttered and his blood soaked into the ground and his pulse grew fainter, running his hands through his hair over and over as if that would bring him back. It would have been intimate if it wasn't heartbreaking. Edric came to sit with him for a time, holding one of Beric's hands in his and leaning up against Thoros's shoulder. He wanted to offer the boy some words of comfort, but Thoros didn't even know what to tell himself, so he let Edric bury his face in his robes and wondered if it would be his job to take him back to Dorne now that Beric was gone. What would he tell the Lady Allyria? That her betrothed had had fire in his eyes on the even of battle, and when he spoke of how they would bring justice to the realm and march back to King's landing with Gregor Clegane's head on a spike, Thoros had felt for the first time since he was sixteen that what he was doing meant something and it had been beautiful. That when they saw the Lannister army and Beric had raised his sword over his head and yelled "Dondarrion! Dondarrion and King Robert!" his heart had stirred more at those words than any prayer he'd given to the Lord of Light in years and years. That the people north of the ice wall she would never see would have said her husband was kissed by fire because of his red hair, and Thoros would have agreed because of the fire that had burned in his heart since Ned Stark had set him this task, a fire that had burned so hot it had killed him. All of it was true, but none of it was fit for a grieving near-widow. 

Then Edric was dragged away by some older lads ostensibly to help prepare dinner, and Thoros was left alone for the death of his best friend. That Beric had held on this long at all was a testament to his strength, but he could not hold on forever, and when the western horizon was pink, he gave a final, bloody cough, and went still. Hesitantly, praying for it not to be true, Thoros pressed two fingers against Beric's neck, and at last felt nothing. A part of him wanted to stay there and sob over Beric's body like a maiden whose knight had died for her, but that was not the way of the red priests. Yes, Beric had been a devotee of the Warrior until his dying day, but he had always been open minded about Thoros's worship, and all the Warrior had ever gotten him was a few melee wreaths and a lance through his body. 

It wasn't hard to get a stick to light from one of the torches of the men guarding their small camp, and he carried a flask of oil on him for just such an occasion as this, though a follower of R'hllor dying in Westeros was a very rare occurrence. The taste of the oil was bitter in his mouth, but he barely registered it as he knelt over Beric, straddling his hips, one hand on the uninjured side of his chest, and the other holding Beric's head still. His cheek was still warm, and when Thoros hooked a thumb into his mouth to hold it open, his stomach turned. How often in the last weeks had he thought about just this, but with a living, wanting Beric under him. 

Pushing away that thought, he lifted the tiny flame from the ash stick to his mouth, feeling the sting as the fire caught. Quickly, he leaned down and sealed his mouth to Beric's, breathing out the fire into his lungs. For a moment all he could register was the coppery taste of Beric's blood and the terrible awful pain that this was the only kiss they were ever going to have, and then he felt Beric's body shudder. 

At first Thoros thought it was nothing, just some effect of death on the body that the Lord had sent to mock him. Then, as he pulled back from Beric's Last Kiss, he saw his friend's eyes flutter open. Thoros froze, watching as on Beric's chest, the terrible wound burned with a heat he could feel without touching it as the flesh blackened as if it was cauterizing itself. 

As if in a dream, Thoros disentangled himself from Beric and stood, watching as the young lord raised one of his hands, touching first the wound in his chest then holding up in front of his own face. Slowly, his blue eyes fixed on Thoros. 

"Is this real?" he asked, voice rough.

Thoros didn't know how to respond because it shouldn't be. "Yes," he finally managed, hardly able to believe it himself. 

"How did you-" Beric started, trying to sit up as he asked, but only succeeded at rolling onto his side

"I did nothing," Awe washed over Thoros as it dawned on him. "The Lord of Light has brought you back. I simply performed your last rites in the way of the red priests." Why me? He wondered. Why Beric? He was not the Lord's most faithful servant, and Beric had never attended a service in his life. What was a young, doomed marcher lord in the war against the Great Other?

Beric didn't respond to that, just looked up at Thoros with eyes that were so blue and so very unbelievably alive. Thoros held out a hand, and he took it. Beric's flesh was almost overwarm, he noted as he pulled the younger man to his feet, then hooked an arm under his shoulders to keep him from falling.

"Shall we go see your men?" Thoros asked, not knowing what else they could or should do. 

"I suppose we should," Beric replied. "But first, bring me my breastplate."

Thoros got Beric over to an ash tree that he could cling to while he went to retrieve the rest of his armor. The padding on the breastplate was dark and sticky with blood, and the metal was now useless due to the hole, but Beric held out his hands for it anyway, and Thoros helped him buckle on the front and back pieces. He offered helm and gauntlets, but Beric shook his head. "I am not going into battle. I just thought it would be better like this."

Thoros raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. This time, when Beric reached for him, he only needed to grip Thoros's arm, and his steps were steadier. They pushed through the grove of trees together into the rest of their camp. It was a somber place, the surviving men sitting around a single fire. Thoros counted maybe twenty men, of the force of one hundred they had set out with. Curse the Lannisters, every one. He hoped they burned. 

At the sound of their steps, heads raised, wearing faces lit by the crackling fire and the quickly dying light. Most were slow to process their lord's miraculous recovery, but one blonde head popped up immediately. Edric ran across the space between them to wrap his arms around Beric's waist in a tight hug. 

Beric smiled a bloody smile and ruffled Edric's hair. "It's alright, Ned," He said, reaching down to gently pry his squire off. "I'm alright."

"You saved him!" Edric released Beric to turn to Thoros. "I knew you could! Did you use magic?"

"I have no magic," Thoros was keenly aware of the other men watching. Some of them, at least, had seen Beric fall to Gregor Clegane, and they would know that people did not survive those wounds, much less be walking around by the end of the day. "R'hllor, The Lord of Light has blessed our cause. He has healed Lord Beric so we might keep fighting.

One of the Winterfell men was the first to stand. "Fight who? There aren't enough of us left for a household guard."

"The Lannisters," Beric's voice was hard, and he released Thoros's arm to reach for the sword at his belt, drawing it and sticking the point into the earth so he could lean on it and still look regal. "And anyone else who thinks they can go around burning fields and raping women and destroying lives like it means nothing. There might not be enough of us to take Gregor Clegane, but we can still fight. Strike from the shadows and flee as the Kingswood Brotherhood once did in these very woods, or the Dornish once did in my home. The smallfolk will join us. No one hates this false war more. We may not be able to do as King Robert commanded us, but we can fight for his people all the same."

"We lost our banners at the ford," said one of Beric's own men. "The stag and the wolf and all the rest."

"Then we will fight without banners!" Beric declared, his eyes blazing as if the fire had filled him from the inside. "This is the only banner I need to do what is right," He tapped his chestplate, and Thoros wasn't sure if he was referring to the purple lightning bolt of Dondarrion etched there or something else that could not be so easily seen.

The boy that had been Lothar Mallery's squire jumped to his feet then, his flask raised high over his head. "To the brotherhood without banners!" He called, and like the services Thoros had once attended in R'hllor's temple in Myr, the others followed, getting to their feet. 

"To the brotherhood without banners!" They shouted, ragged voices rising into the night. Someone added "And Dondarrion, our Lightning Lord!" Which sparked a fresh round of chanting.

Thoros looked to Beric, expecting to see joy shining on his face as the men celebrated him. Instead, he was only met with worried eyes. 

"Is this what I'm meant for?" he asked lowly, biting a lip. "Is this what Ned Stark sent us out to do? What the Lord of Light brought me back for?"

Thoros only wished he had an answer. 

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For the first time in years, Thoros forced himself to wake at dawn for morning prayer. Their camp was in a valley, not far from the Red Fork, and so it was only a matter of climbing a small hill to get to a good spot to see the sunrise, nodding a silent hello to the sentry who watched him pass. Thoros had just begun, lighting a small fire in the metal bowl he kept with him for this purpose and murmuring the words of the prayer under his breath as he watched the flaming disk emerge from the horizon, when a soft call of his name caused him to turn.

Beric stood there, watching him with a look of some apprehension. "May I join you?" He asked quietly, eyes not quite meeting Thoros's.

"Of course!" Thoros exclaimed, almost beckoning Beric to sit on the grass next to him before he remembered this was not like going to the Red Temple in Myr. Here, he was the priest, and Beric was asking to be guided. It made sense, anyone might change faiths after being brought back to life. "Do you know the words?" He asked. Beric shook his head.

There were several books of worship for R'hillor, as the Seven Pointed Star served for its adherents, but Thoros had none of them with him. This had not been a religious mission, and all of his books and impliments were in his rooms in the Red Keep. He couldn't do this as it should be done, as the miracle that was Beric deserved. Why me? He wondered again. I cannot teach him as he should be taught. "This is the morning prayer," He said rather than any of those things. "Normally, the priest will begin the prayer, and the followers will respond, but since you are still new to R'hllor's worship, I will do both parts with you."

His friend nodded understanding, and as Thoros got to his feet to lead the prayer, Beric dropped to one knee, interlacing his fingers and dropping his head. He almost told him that followers of R'hllor generally performed morning and evening prayer standing, but decided it didn't matter. This was what Beric knew, and Thoros had no doubt that R'hllor would hear him however he prayed. 

"Lord of Light," He began. "Lead us from this darkness, and into the warmth of the sun. Fill our hearts with fire, so we may walk your shining path," The prayer continued from there, and Thoros found himself staring not at the fire between them, but at Beric before him. As the sun rose, it cast his face in a golden glow, his red hair a flame in itself. He was beautiful like that, more holy than any of the priests Thoros had seen at his temple in Myr, hands raised before raging bonfires. 

Kissed by fire, he thought again. That was what had happened to Beric Dondarrion when Thoros had performed his last rights, though maybe there had always been fire in his heart. It would take that to face Gregor Clegane with a lance, to rally your men after a slaughter like that, to think only of how he could help others with his second chance rather than going home to his castle and his betrothed and trying to stay alive. Perhaps that was why R'hllor chose him-if the war for the dawn came while they still walked the earth no one would be more dedicated. 

When their prayer ended, Beric rose to his feet again, no more slowly than he had twenty four hours before, when there was no dark pockmark in his chest. He looked at Thoros for a long moment, something very sad and strange in his eyes, then asked. "Am I supposed to be able to sleep?"

It took Thoros a moment to find the words. He'd seen Beric fight in many tourneys, but when he thought about it, he realized the Mummer's Ford was probably the first time he had seen battle. Robert's Rebellion did not reach to the Dornish Marches, and he would have been only a squire for the siege of Pyke, presumably to some lord who had not taken part. "Nightmares are not...uncommon," he said finally. "They will get better with time-"

"No," Beric broke in. "I mean, am I supposed to be able to sleep? I tried, last night, but I couldn't seem to fall asleep. I eventually got up and waited for morning. Ned had nightmares, so I sat with him for a while, and then I saw you getting up. I don't even feel tired either. Is that normal for...for being brought back to life." He tripped over the last words, seemingly still hardly able to believe them himself.

"I have no idea. I don't remember the teachings," That was the only answer Thoros could give. He had never seen a red priest raise the dead, even the elders of his temple in Myr who were the most powerful in the city. He hadn't believed that power was real until he had felt Beric's heart restart. 

His friend regarded him, running a hand through his hair. "Then why did you do it?"

Thoros searched for accusation in those blue eyes, any feeling that he wanted to stay dead, but found none, only honest confusion. His feelings were the same. The truth was, Thoros didn't know. Was it just a desire to give Beric a worthy sendoff, as he had told himself, some terrible selfish urge to kiss him just once, or something else? "The God called me to do it," was his eventual answer, because it seemed to be the only thing that made sense. He had not heard R'hllor's voice, nor seen Beric's resurrection in a vision, but surely he could influence people in other ways. 

Beric accepted that answer without comment, and the silence stretched between them for a long moment, brown eyes locked on blue, considering the strange, unbreakable bond of a Red Priest and the man he had given life. 

"I need a sword," Beric spoke up, and the turn was so unexpected it took Thoros a moment to understand how they had gotten there. What's more, Beric did have a sword, a fine longsword with an amethyst pommel and a hilt wrapped in black leather. Before he could even ask, the other man was continuing. "One like yours, that burns. I fight with R'hllor's fire now, and all who stand against us should know that."

Thoros's face burned with embarrassment. He had talked a big game about his sword at court, but the truth was, there was no magic in it. He had coated the blade in wildfyre, which destroyed it after every battle or tournament. The mythical flaming sword of Azor Ahai or the glowing ones wielded by the Red Priests strong enough to channel fire into a blade were far beyond his reach. Thoros's only power, until yesterday, had been seeing things in the flames, and even that was rare and hazy enough that he had hardly believed it was anything at all. He had been sent to Westeros because he knew how to preach the gospel of R'hllor, not because he knew how to perform his miracles. 

Beric, however, just reached out a hand to rest on his shoulder. It was startlingly warm. "I know your sword was a party trick, I broke one the first time we met for Gods’ sake. I know you can make me a real one though. Call it a vision of my own," his mouth quirked up in a small smile, a shadow of the bright, infectious grin he had once used on court ladies, and Thoros couldn't help but return it.

He has so much faith in me, he marveled, when it is I who should have faith in him. Yesterday at this time, his faith in R'hllor had been hanging by a thread, now Thoros was the most sure he had ever been in his life that the Lord of Light was out there. By all rights, he should have been on his knees before Beric, praying and swearing fealty until the end of his days. He might be pledged to the Lord of Light, but he believed in the Lightning Lord. 

"Come," Beric said after a pause, and his hand slid down ever so casually to wrap around Thoros's wrist and lead him back down the rise toward their camp. "We have to break camp and get on the move before the Mountain comes back to check if anyone has survived. I'd rather not let him kill me a second time."

Thoros let himself be led, not sure if his wrist was burning because Beric was so overwarm or because they were nearly holding hands. It would take Beric almost no effort to twine their fingers together if he wanted. Thoros might have even taken the risk and done it, if they had been alone. With men already up and moving among the tents though, he tried to ignore the thought. 

"Where were you two off to so early?" Anguy, one of Beric's smallfolk, who had survived the Mummer's Ford unscathed due to his protected position as an archer, asked. The way he wiggled his eyebrows said he had some thoughts already, and Thoros flushed again, wondering if it was Beric's wrist grab or some way Thoros had looked at or treated Beric in the past that had given him that impression, or if it was just one of those soldier's jests. 

"Prayer," Beric replied evenly, though he did drop Thoros's wrist. "You're welcome to join us."

This time, his eyebrows went up in surprise. "Begging your pardon, m'lord, but since when did you pray to the Lord of Light?"

"Since he healed Lord Beric, you dolt!" A Stark man called from where he was seated by the fire pit, cooking a sausage on a stick. "The Old Gods have never done that. I'd have come with you if I'd known."

"You are all welcome at evening prayer," Thoros said, trying to channel the seventeen year old who had arrived to King's Landing full of hope for starting a congregation for R'hllor to rival those of Essos. "The Lord of Light invites us all to walk his path."

It did not take their tiny band to break camp, and when they set off deeper into the Riverlands, Thoros could almost see how this was not going to be a total disaster. The rest of them might be ragged commonborn men and a red priest who barely deserved the title, but the single knight at the head of the column made up for it all. Beric's dark plate armor glinted brightly in the sun, and the wind stirred his cloak, midnight black and speckled with tiny stars, like a standard. Above it all, his hair blazed like a halo and firebrand all at once. No, Thoros decided. Beric had not been kissed by fire, nor was it in his eyes, hair, or heart. Maybe that was all it had been at birth, but now there was fire down to his very soul.