Chapter Text
A sketch of these 2 just to get them out of my brain, Averus is probably even a little smaller than that, idk. I'll make better art of them later :)
OK STORY TIME!
The rain had stopped an hour ago, but the road still held the memory of it. Wagon wheels had chewed the mud into long grooves; and Vale’s big boots pressed their own stories into it. He walked the middle where it was firmer, cloak unfastened so it didn’t cling, one hand resting near the hilt of his sword out of habit rather than threat.
The town was the kind that tried not to look poor and failed anyway, but it had two things Vale looked for when his purse got light: a notice board and a tavern.
It sat in a shallow valley where the road dipped and collected people the way a gutter collected rain- travelers stopping because the next stretch was long, wagons creaking in because the horses needed water, hunters drifting in with mud on their boots and a look that said they’d rather be anywhere else. An in-between town.
The buildings were low and stubborn, more timber than stone, their roofs patched with mismatched shingles that turned the whole place into a quilt of greys and browns.
“Could be worse,” Vale muttered, half to himself.
A small presence shifted at his collar- weightless, compared to everything else Vale carried. Averus hid inside the fold of Vale’s cloak with the easy grace of someone who had done it a thousand times without being asked.
A year of traveling together did that. Turned a stranger into a constant.
“Your idea of ‘worse’ is always suspiciously flexible,” Averus said.
Vale laughed under his breath, and tilted his head just enough that the inside edge of his jaw brushed the warm spot where the fairy tucked himself away. From the outside it looked like nothing- just a man in a worn coat, collar turned up against the dust. Inside, it was a pocket of shadow and warmth where Averus could ride without being jostled, protected from casual eyes and the worst of the wind.
Most of the time, Vale didn’t see him at all; he just felt the presence- an awareness of another life pressed close.
“What I mean,” Vale said, “is that at least we’re not sleeping under a cart tonight.”
“Are we calling that an achievement now?” Averus’s tone was dry, but there was no bite in it.
Vale pushed through the thin crowd drifting around the well. A woman with a basket of onions glanced up at him, then down to his sword, then quickly away. Vale kept his expression neutral. Being noticed was rarely worth the trouble.
The last job had paid decently, on paper. Escort a merchant with a small chest of “personal valuables” from one town to another. No monsters, no bandits brave enough to take a swing at a man with a sword and a reputation, just dust and time.
The trouble had been the man himself.
He’d talked as if the air were something he had to fill to prove it belonged to him. He’d complained about the road, the weather, his own feet, his horse’s temperament, the “sorry state” of every inn they stayed at. He’d asked Vale questions with the assumption that Vale existed purely for his entertainment between meal breaks.
By the end of it, Vale’s patience had worn so thin he’d been able to see daylight through it.
Averus had been the one to stitch it back together in the quiet moments. Not with spells. With presence. With the simple refusal to let Vale retreat into the kind of hard silence that made him reckless.
They’d split the money, as they always did. Not because Averus asked. Because Vale had decided early on that a “life debt” did not make someone property.
They moved through the village street, past a sagging fence and a dog asleep on a porch so deep in its nap that Vale could have stepped over it without waking it. Chickens scratched in wet dirt. Somewhere, a child’s laugh rang out, bright and sharp like a bell.
Averus tracked it with his eyes.
“You’re staring,” Vale said.
“I’m listening,” Averus answered, too quickly. Then, after a heartbeat: “Humans are loud.”
“Everything’s loud to you.”
Averus did not deny it. He gripped the edge of Vale’s collar for balance as Vale stepped around a puddle that would have gone up to his ankle.
A puddle that would have gone up to Averus’s head.
They angled towards the notice board, and Vale paused long enough to skim the postings.
He needed something quiet, this time. Something without a person attached, if the world would cooperate for once. Something that asked for muscle or steel and then let him go on his way.
Most of it was the usual: Missing livestock. A missing ring. A request for help bringing in a stubborn boar. One wanted poster for a thief with a scar across his cheek and a reward too small to be worth the trouble. A farmer wanting hands for harvest at insultingly low pay. A half-torn advertisement for a traveling troupe that had already moved on.
“Nothing…” Vale murmured.
Averus shifted slightly, the fabric of Vale’s collar tightening for a moment as the fairy adjusted, squinting at the crowded board of papers. Vale kept himself still while Averus leaned to peek out from the fold, his tiny fingers braced against the inside seam. Anyone watching would have seen nothing, but Vale could feel the way Averus went alert, like a cat pricking its ears.
“There, that one says ‘artifact,’” Averus whispered, and a moment later Vale felt a gentle tap against the skin at the base of his neck, like a tiny knuckle knocking on a door.
Vale followed the direction of that tap and found a page pinned higher than most, secured with two neat brass tacks that didn’t match the rusty nails around them.
The handwriting was… nice. Not the scratchy scrawl of farmers and desperate men. It was careful, well-spaced, the letters curled just enough to show a practiced hand.
ARTIFACT RETRIEVAL, it read, in bold strokes.
Below it, smaller:
Discretion required. Compensation generous for swift completion. Inquire within at the Hearth & Hound.
Vale’s eyebrows lifted. “Well, would you look at that.”
“It doesn’t say what the artifact is,” Averus pointed out.
“That’s the discretion part,” Vale said. He peeled the poster back just enough to see if there were any telltale marks underneath- guild seals, church stamps, anything that screamed trouble. There was nothing, just the grain of the wood and a smear of old glue.
“Discretion usually means someone wants to steal something,” Averus said, voice low near Vale’s ear.
“Or it means someone doesn’t want the whole village knowing they’re paying for a job.” Vale said. “Could be a family heirloom. Could be some rich fool’s regret.”
Averus did not look convinced.
Vale’s eyes flicked over the note again. Artifact retrieval. No mention of what. No mention of where. No mention of danger level. That was either a red flag or a sign of someone who didn’t know how these things worked.
Compensation generous, though.
He rubbed a thumb over the edge of his coin purse, feeling the shape of the few coins within. Enough for a bed and a meal. Not enough to be choosy for long.
“We can ask,” Vale said. “Asking doesn’t cost anything.”
Averus made a tiny sound that could have been a sigh. “It often costs more than you think.”
~
The tavern sat just down the street, as if someone had built it intentionally for the convenience of men like Vale. It was a squat building with a wide door and windows smeared with fingerprints. A painted sign swung above the entrance on a chain that squeaked in the damp wind.
Vale paused at the threshold long enough to make sure Averus was properly hidden. He reached up as if adjusting his collar and, with that motion, gave the inside fold a brief press- an unspoken question.
All right?
Averus’s answer was a light squeeze against his skin.
Ready.
Vale pushed the door open. He was greeted with a wall of warm air and noise: voices layered over each other, the clatter of mugs, the scrape of chairs.
He stepped inside and let the heat hit him. It smelled like smoke, bread, and cheap ale. He scanned the room the way he always did: exits, corners, who was watching, who wasn’t. Habit had kept him alive longer than skill in most places.
A group of farmers near the hearth laughed over dice. A pair of merchants argued quietly in a corner, their voices tight with money. A trio of travelers sat near the bar with mud on their boots and weariness in their shoulders.
Averus stayed quiet, but Vale felt him stiffen. It wasn’t fear exactly– Averus didn’t spook easily around humans anymore, not after a year riding Vale’s collar and sleeping in the crook of his bedroll. It was alertness. The faint prickling of magic in the air, perhaps, or simply that instinct that told a fairy when he was surrounded by too many big bodies.
The Hearth & Hound had a bar along the left wall, the wood polished by years of elbows. Behind it, a woman with her hair in a tight braid poured ale with the efficient motions of someone who had done it a thousand times. She looked up when Vale approached, eyes flicking over him in a way that took inventory: sword, boots, travel stains, posture.
“Room?” she asked, blunt as a hammer.
“Maybe,” Vale said. “Depends what I find first. ‘There a fancy somebody in here who’s fond of writing pretty notices?”
At that, her eyebrows lifted just slightly.
“Over there,” she said, and jerked her chin toward the back of the room.
Vale turned. The woman busied herself with another customer.
A figure sat in a booth partially screened by a hanging curtain of beads. His clothes were finer than anyone else’s in the tavern; He wore a dark green coat with brass buttons polished to mirror shine. His hair was neatly combed, oiled, and tied back. Rings glittered on his fingers as he turned a coin over and over– gold, Vale noted, not copper, not silver.
But he was not alone. A woman lingered near the booth like a casual shadow that didn’t fool anyone. A bodyguard, or at least someone trying very hard to look like one.
“Hired muscle,” Vale said under his breath, a warning into his collar.
“And you’re going to talk to them,” Averus whispered, as if it were an accusation.
“It’s a job,” Vale said. “Might be a stupid job, but it’s still coin.”
“Discretion required,” Averus reminded him, and Vale could practically see him frowning in the dark fold of cloth. “That is rarely a harmless phrase.”
Vale’s snarkiness wanted to rise, easy and familiar– You’re just jumpy because it says ‘artifact’ and you’re a fairy, aren’t you?– but he bit his tongue. Averus wasn’t jumpy. Averus had instincts Vale had learned to respect, even when he didn’t understand them.
Still.
Vale had grown up learning that discomfort didn’t keep you alive. Coin did. Coin bought food, shelter, time.
“We listen,” Vale said quietly. “If it smells wrong, we walk. All right?”
There was a pause. Then a small, resigned exhale. “All right.”
Vale moved toward the booth.
As he crossed the room, a few heads turned. Not alarmed, not hostile– just the natural attention a man with a sword drew in a place where most people carried knives at best. Vale ignored them.
The woman guarding the booth straightened as Vale approached, hands drifting subtly toward the hilt at her belt. Vale slowed his pace, keeping his posture open, his hands away from his own weapon.
“Can I help you?” She asked.
Vale stopped a few paces away, just outside arm’s reach. Close enough to talk without raising his voice, far enough that he wasn’t in striking distance if things went sour.
“I saw a notice,” Vale said. “Artifact retrieval. Discretion required.”
In the fold of his collar, Averus went very still.
Vale didn’t look down at him. He kept his gaze level, aimed toward the shadowed figure in the booth beyond the guard.
“I’m told I should inquire within,” Vale added, tone casual as he could make it. “So. I’m inquiring.”
The rich man shifted. A gloved hand lifted, palm facing down in a gentle, controlling gesture. The guard hesitated, then stepped aside just enough to allow Vale passage, though her eyes stayed sharp.
The man sat with his hands folded atop the table as if he’d been waiting for this moment to arrive on schedule. His eyes were watchful in the way of someone who collected more than objects– someone who collected people’s reactions, too.
His gaze flicked over Vale in that same assessing manner the tavern keeper had used, but it lingered longer on the sword and the road-worn edges of Vale’s clothes.
“Sit,” the man said, and it wasn’t quite a command, but it wasn’t quite an invitation either.
Vale didn’t like being told what to do by people who hid behind other people’s weapons. Still, he slid onto the bench opposite with a measured ease, placing himself where the table wasn’t pinning him in too tightly and where he could still see the room beyond the beads if he needed to. He kept his shoulders relaxed, one forearm resting on the table, the other hanging loosely at his side.
The man's eyes darted to Vale’s collar.
Averus, tucked inside, remained hidden– but not invisible to a trained gaze. The fairy had a way of making the air feel… different, when he was close. Not to everyone. Some folk could travel their whole lives through magic and never recognize it until it bit them.
Others, especially those who sought out strange things, noticed the wrongness in the same way they noticed a draft in a closed room.
The man’s mouth twitched. “You’re not alone.”
Vale lifted one brow, as if the idea amused him. “No,” he said easily. “I work with an assistant.”
The word assistant had a nice ring to it. It didn’t invite further questions. It didn’t sound like fae, didn’t sound like trouble.
The man studied him for a heartbeat longer, then– interestingly– let it go.
“You are…?” the man began.
“Vale,” Vale said simply. “Sellsword. I go where people pay me to go.”
“Mm.” The man’s gaze shifted– approval, faint relief. Perhaps he had heard of Vale’s name, of the stories he had carved for himself. Perhaps not.
“And you?” Vale asked, casually.
The man considered him.
“I am a collector,” he said after a moment, and his tone took on a faint pride– as if collector was a more respectable word than hoarder. “I’ve acquired a number of… uncommon pieces over the years. Some are purely decorative, of course, but there are certain objects that…” He paused, as if searching for the right way to phrase it without sounding foolish. “…that do not belong in common hands. It is better they be secured with someone who understands their value.”
“Value,” Vale echoed, unimpressed. “Or their price.”
The man’s gaze sharpened, then smoothed again. “You can call it what you like. I call it stewardship.”
Vale almost laughed. He didn’t. He’d learned that mocking men like this could be entertaining, but entertainment didn’t buy winter supplies.
“What are you looking for?” he asked instead, blunt.
The collector’s gloved fingers tapped the table once, a quiet beat that drew attention to what he chose to say next. “There is an old ruin,” he said, and when Vale waited for more– where, what kind, how guarded– he offered none of it immediately. “It is… little visited. Most do not even know it exists.”
“There is a mirror within,” the man continued. “Small. Decorative. Valuable. I require it retrieved intact.”
Vale blinked. Of all the things to risk a ruin for– gold, weapons, books of spellwork– he hadn’t expected a mirror. Something about it prickled at the back of his mind. Not fear. Interest.
“A mirror,” Vale repeated, letting the word settle. “Why?”
The man’s fingers tightened around his coin, then relaxed. “It is… an object of artistry. A collector’s piece. Its frame is said to be crafted from living wood.”
Vale’s eyes narrowed. Even if he didn’t know much about fae craft, he knew enough to recognize that phrase as trouble.
“Living wood,” Vale echoed, and felt the faintest shift at his collar– Averus. Listening.
Vale didn’t glance down. He kept his attention where the client could see it, on the client’s face and hands.
“And you want discretion,” Vale said, “because?”
“Because it is mine,” the man said sharply, then smoothed his tone back into something more polite. “Because if word spreads that I seek such things, others will rush to take it first. Do you understand how… competitive collectors can be?”
Vale thought of thieves, of rival mercenaries, of men who smiled right before they stuck a knife between ribs. “I understand competition,” he said.
Vale leaned back slightly. “How do you know it’s there?”
The collector’s gaze slid away for the briefest moment, then returned. “I have… sources.”
“Mm.” Vale didn’t hide his doubt. “And why is it still there if you’ve got sources? Why not hire someone closer? Or go yourself, if it’s just a small mirror.”
Because it’s not just a mirror, Vale thought. Because the ruin might be dangerous. Or cursed. Or warded in a way that doesn’t care how fancy your gloves are.
The man's fingers stilled. “I do not… travel well,” he said, which was a polite way of saying he didn’t know how to swing a sword and didn’t intend to learn. “I require someone capable, and have yet to find an appropriate candidate. I am… selective.”
Vale couldn’t imagine many people would approach for this job, but he could imagine them being unsavoury enough to be turned away.
“You will be paid upon delivery.” The man continued. “Fifty gold. Ten upfront for expenses.”
Averus made a tiny sound, and Vale felt it vibrate against his throat.
That is too much, the fairy’s words remained unspoken. He is paying you to take something that does not want to be taken.
Hearing the pay made Vale’s eyebrows lift despite himself. Fifty gold was enough to buy a small house in some places. Enough to keep them fed through winter, to replace gear, to stop worrying every time Vale’s boots wore thin.
It was also enough that Vale instantly distrusted it.
“You’re offering a lot for a mirror,” Vale said slowly. “There are easier places to buy pretty things.”
The man’s smile tightened. “I am not interested in pretty things. I am interested in rare things.”
Vale thought about it. Ten gold pieces right now would mean he could walk out of this tavern with enough coin to pay for a room, a meal, new boots if he found a cobbler, and still have plenty left to stash away. It would mean a cushion. It would mean, for once, not counting every copper twice before spending it.
It would also mean agreeing to something with a fae smell on it, something that made Averus tense in his hiding place.
“Discretion,” the collector said again, with emphasis. “I do not wish this acquisition to be discussed in town. I do not want questions. I do not want… attention.”
In other words: don’t tell anyone what you took, don’t tell anyone for whom, and don’t go asking too loudly about fae-made objects.
Vale exhaled through his nose. He’d taken jobs that were questionable before. Mercenary work was rarely clean. But there was a difference between escorting a man you disliked and walking into a ruin that might haunt you forever.
He met the man’s eyes. “The location of the ruin?”
The man’s hand slid into his coat and withdrew a folded scrap of parchment. He placed it on the table between them.
Vale did not touch it immediately.
“Here,” he said, tapping it with a gloved fingertip. “Two days’ travel east, off the main road. You’ll see a line of stones– old markers. The ruin is beyond.”
It was vague. But it was something.
“And if it is occupied?” Vale asked. “Bandits. Beasts. Anything that wants a mirror as badly as you do.”
The man’s rings clicked softly as he drummed his fingers once on the table. “You are a sellsword. You handle difficulties. That is why I am paying you.”
Vale almost laughed at that, because it was such a clean, simple worldview. Pay coin, receive solution. As if monsters had price tags.
He glanced at the parchment, then at the man again. “Deadline?”
“Ten days,” he said quickly, like he’d already decided that was reasonable. “I will remain in town until then.”
Vale considered. Two days there, two days back, that left six days to search, fight, and make mistakes. Six days could be plenty. Or it could be nothing, depending on the ruin.
“Twelve,” Vale said.
The man blinked, a flicker of surprise. “Ten is–”
“Twelve,” Vale repeated, calm and immovable. “If I’m hauling myself through collapsed stone and whatever else you aren’t telling me, I’m not doing it on a leash. You want discretion? You’ll get it. But you don’t get to rush me into a grave.”
The man's jaw worked slightly, irritation controlled. Then he leaned back and gave a small, elegant nod. “Twelve, then.”
Vale held his gaze for a moment longer, then reached for the parchment. He unfolded it, committing the rough directions to memory.
The man's eyes flicked once more to Vale’s collar.
“What is your assistant’s name?” He asked lightly, as if it were casual.
Averus’s body went utterly rigid.
Vale didn’t even hesitate. “Not relevant,” he said.
The collector’s eyes narrowed, then softened again into that same thin smile. “As you wish.”
He reached into a pouch at his belt– finer leather, stitched tight– and withdrew a small stack of coins wrapped in cloth. He set it on the table with deliberate care.
The weight of it made a dull, satisfying thud against the wood.
The man slid it toward him. “A token of trust,” he said.
Something about the way he said trust made Vale's skin crawl. He didn't like crossing men with this kind of wealth, with this kind of energy. If he simply took the money and ran, he doubted that would be the end of it.
Vale let his hand rest on the cloth bundle for a heartbeat before pulling it toward himself. The coins clinked softly inside, heavy and real. He fought the instinctive urge to count them immediately; doing so would make him look like a desperate man. Instead, he tucked the bundle into his inside pocket with a practiced motion.
Averus’s voice was a thread of tension. “Vale…”
“Twelve days,” Vale said, sealing it in words. “If I can retrieve your mirror, you’ll have it by then. If there are… complications, you’ll have discretion and nothing else.”
Complications, meaning: if I die.
The collector didn’t look pleased, but he didn’t look bothered. His expression remained neutral, like this was simply a necessary transaction.
“We’ll see what the ruin gives me,” Vale said. “And what it takes.”
“It will take nothing. It is only a ruin.” The man said.
Vale stood and adjusted his cloak. “Then you’ve never been in one.”
He turned away before the man could respond.
At the bar, the woman watched him with the bored curiosity of someone who’d seen shadier deals struck before. He didn’t meet her eyes as he pushed through the crowd toward the door. He didn’t want to give her any reason to remember him too clearly.
As he stepped outside, his fingers brushed the coin bundle in his pocket.
Heavy. Promising. Dangerous.