Chapter Text
Something tickled her cheek like the wings of a moth. So light a brush it would have been entirely unnoticeable if not for the absolute peace draped over the room.
She opened her eyes. Ash fell in droves, brushing her body in their fluttering forms, grey and weightless as each branch twisting through the hold crumbled away. Brown floorboards coated in fire's dregs, the green flora hanging from the ceiling and moss clinging to the stone walls, all turning dull in the quiet disintegration. She took a step forward with a swish of sound as she disturbed the soft stuff, her feet bare to their fragile forms.
In her mind a sound grew. That of a rope pulled taught, the creaking of a strained branch groaning as evenly as a pendulum.
Revenant stood beneath the arching doorway of the bedroom, one hand resting on the wall as she paused to listen. A glance back confirmed her solitude yet again, the others weren't here, their beds empty, sheets messed as if evacuated in a hurry.
Turning back, colour blossomed. Greys sapped as if drawn away by a sponge and deep browns pushed through. A worn, eaten carpet graced her feet and windows rattled the long hallway, the nearest hanging open, allowing the storm's furiously angled rain to impede inside. The musk of wet dampness overwhelmed her senses.
Revenant winced as its shutter slammed into the wall, reverberating much louder than expected, its velocity flinging droplets in her direction, cold pricks on her face.
Crack.
She jumped as the entire place lit up in a blinding flash, rafters snapped and vases fell from rattling tables. The remaining windows smacked open, some shattering at the force and splinters of wood and hail beat down over her now crouched form.
A hand wretched her wrist pulling it from her head, her eyes were squeezed shut as buckets of water drenched her. So terrible were the sounds of destruction, it was almost as if the walls had been entirely torn free. Forcibly exposed to the riotous typhoon.
She creaked up her head, and something hit her face, like a boulder falling at terminal velocity. Her protective crouch failed as she fell sprawling to the floor, her head hitting with a hard crack.
Her eyes opened to see the shadow of a man hulking over her before the crunching mallet of a tool consumed all, her head violently bludgeoned into the floor once again.
The gale wind blustered her soaking dress, tangling her legs and arms, the carpet lifted and wrapped her confusingly, only to be pulled away by a crimson hand and replaced with another brutal beating. Heat flushed, her mouth twisted and her face cracked.
A wroth forced her shaking hands from her head. She cried out, mouth immediately filled to a gurgle, her eyes wide, legs kicking at nothing as yet again, the terrible weapon plunged.
In a splash its solidity vanished, replaced with a frigid cold dunking of ice water.
Revenant's eyes snapped open and she flung herself up, but rebounding back down as her head immediately collided with a metal something.
With a huff she fell onto her pillow, a previously unseen Executor stumbling back from over her, one hand to his helmet and shaking his head in hurt.
"Oh! Deary!" Recluse's kindly face appeared over her, her brows knit in great worry.
The witch reached a hand to brush some of the wetness from her forehead, before lifting something cold from the crook of Revenant's neck.
"Ice?!" She turned in surprise, addressing someone unseen, "Ironeye, for the sake of thine own integrity, explain!"
Cautiously, Revenant pushed herself up, kicking off her sheets as the discomfort of her drenched bed became apparent. A good number of ice cubes fell from her body as she propped herself against its head. The contrasting heat of a fading warming stone at her back.
"Well," A shifty looking archer wielding a metal bucket stood just beyond Recluse, "I just…" His posture turned defensive, "It worked didn't it?"
Revenant blinked in bleary confusion. The majority of the other Nightfarers surrounded her bed in varying degrees of capacity. Executor, still gaining his senses from their sudden collision, Duchess by her side offering forward a towel, Wylder just behind her, and Guardian by the bedroom's entrance a spoonful of porridge paused halfway to his mouth.
"Revenant," Duchess spoke gently, drawing her attention, "It's alright."
Behind the doll's eyes, a shadow lumbered away. The incessant, heavy pounding of the mallet slowly fading as the passive sounds of the hold replaced them. The soft rustling of leaves, the odd creak of the wooden rafters and distant lapping of waves.
Revenant sat in her puddle-ous bed, her dripping clothes hanging like dead weight from her shoulders, clinging to her body. She pressed one hand into her pillow to better adjust her position, a gross squelch pushing water from it, and a strange discomfort flooding over her as she looked around at her audience.
Duchess exhaled before standing, "Right, shoo." She turned to wave off the onlookers.
Save for a muttered 'sorry' from Ironeye, they made egress without resistance, leaving only the two women and Executor in the room.
Revenant glanced at the swordsman, inscrutable due to his helmet, but quickly avoided him. She hunched her shoulders, a flitter of discomfort sparking. From the corner of her eye she watched Executor take leave. Her lips turned slightly down.
Recluse leaned over her to pick up one of Duchess's abandoned towels, "Here." She patted the edge of the bed.
A movement above caught her eye. Hovering just over her bed, a small cluster of grey moths flitted. Their forms moving erratically individually, but flying around each other in an oddly cohesive dance.
A sudden weight draped over her head as Recluse threw over the towel and began rubbing to dry her hair. Revenant's complaint, muffled by the witch's care.
"Could Ironeye not just think before dumping a bucket of water on someone?" Duchess turned to them, annoyance spawning in her expression, "The ice was not per request."
Revenant's shoulders shook involuntarily. She wrapped her arms quickly about her, trying to hide the chill. "Was it so obvious?" She frowned, her voice quieter than intended.
Duchess glanced at Recluse, her mouth opening to respond.
Swiftly, Revenant reached up and yanked the towel from Recluse's hands, scowling and rubbing her face with it in frustration.
"It's alright," Recluse tried to comfort her, lightly taking a lock of Revenant's damp hair in hand and straightening it with care.
"And, it's only us." Duchess chimed in.
"I don't care." Revenant's voice was muffled beneath the towel, "I don't need help."
Recluse and Duchess went silent. Even without seeing, she knew they were all too obviously sharing another look.
Revenant growled and thrust down the towel, pushing herself from the bed with a clattering of melting icecubes. Her hair lashing behind her as she stormed from the room, leaving the two women watching worriedly after her.
Recluse watched Duchess's shoulders fall, her hands fiddling to absently fold and re-fold a small towel. The witch stood and began scooping the ice from the sheets, pulling over a basket to hold them.
"I don't know," Duchess suddenly spoke, shaking her head and turning to Recluse, "how to help. She likes our care, but is too stubborn to accept any meaningful assistance." She brought one hand up to adjust her visor as she began pacing, "I'm doing something… wrong…"
Recluse lifted the basket, inspecting its already dripping base, "It is no fault of your own." She dragged one finger around the basket's rim, summoning an icy miasma, rejuvenating the coolness and solidifying the water, "The results are identical by my own hands."
"I just- I wish I could…" Duchess paused and exhaled in defeat, apparently giving up on her train of thought. "How's Guardian's wing?"
Recluse tucked in the stool and looked at her hand, a twine of light blue string appeared about her fingers, "Plateau-ing." Her lips turned downward as the everpresent doubt surfaced. "He knows it as well as I."
From her dress pocket, she pulled out her black covered notebook, its once neat pages stained and worn with overuse, leaflets threatening to fall clean from its spine. She flicked it open midway, to the droves of pages filled with notes on the brace meant to support Guardian's bad wing.
"You need a new book." Duchess spoke bluntly as she grimaced at its woeful state.
"Perhaps…" Distractedly, Recluse thumbed through, almost losing a few pages in the process.
"Oh!" Duchess suddenly brightened, a silly grin appearing, "So… about those interesting drawings the other evening."
Recluse, absorbed in her search, only nodded passively, not really listening.
"Guardian… He's sweet. Very protective and all. I can see how that's endearing."
Recluse snapped her book shut and looked up, the words finally registering, "Sorry?"
Duchess's smile was almost contagious, so eager to share with her fellow, as if it were something she'd been long starved of. "You fancy him."
Recluse's eyes widened and, much unlike her usual self, she blushed, "No. Not like that."
"Oh?" Duchess tilted her head, suppressing her smile, "Was it for anatomical research then?"
"Indee-" Recluse paused, "No."
The Priestess's grin came back twice as vibrant.
"No. It is out of the question." She shook her head, hat bobbing, trying to quell her traitorous cheeks. "Such things serve as unwelcome distraction. Attachment strong enough to alter our priorities should be avoided. We have our task, it requires utmost attention, something which rides on us and only us." Recluse shoved away her notebook and crossed her arms, half frozen basket swinging in one hand, "You of us all should know this, Duchess."
Duchess's posture weakened, her smile fading, "Says you," Her voice tinged with hurt, she glanced at the soaked bed between them, "going all soft and cushy on the doll."
Recluse sniffed, her own gaze turning to the bed, "She's… A special case."
In slopping footsteps a heavily dripping Revenant prowled into the kitchen, slinking quickly forward to steal the bowl of porridge from Ironeye's hands, and splash into the nearest seat. The unfortunate Executor beside her copping a faceful of wet hair.
Hungrily shoving down the stuff, Revenant fired daggers at each of her onlookers, Ironeye raising his hands in submission, Wylder hesitating to take seat at the table, and Executor shuffling his chair slightly away from her.
Through the tense silence, a set of heavy footfalls approached.
"Aye!" Raider boomed, "Took all you lubbers long enough to rise!"
Completely missing the room's mood, he screeched out a chair and sat (much to the chair's complaint), unhooking his mug from his belt and popping open a bottle of ale.
Revenant's knives were unable to penetrate his thick skin.
"Oaf." She muttered.
"Aye," He agreed, "One time, my apprentice replaced all the straw in my pillow with cold, hard rocks. Thought it quite a lark I'm certain. But t'was the soundest sleep I ever did have!"
Revenant paused eating to stare at the big man, "What?"
Raider lowered his mug, a mischievous sparkle in his eye, "Been for a dip?"
"No." Through grit teeth, Revenant soured further.
Behind her, Ironeye was gesturing and shaking his head at Raider.
"I would, however," His eyes scrunching in lighthearted jest, "recommend drying off a little before-" Raider's unhelpful tease was cut short as a globule of soggy oats smacked dead center onto his forehead.
"You dullard!" Revenant stood, spoon held threateningly in one fist, "Wipe that-" She frowned, before quickly scooping another spoonful and whipping to launch it straight at Ironeye.
His poorly suppressed chuckles evaporated instantly as it wetly met its mark.
"Please," The Iron Menial's calming voice interrupted, "refrain from the indecent attacks." They looked to Revenant, lower hands clasped as a kitchen towel was offered to Ironeye.
Revenant huffed with dissatisfaction and sat down, going reluctantly back to her breakfast. Beside her, Executor shuffled back in.
"Is your head well?" He asked. His gravelly voice quiet, to avoid attracting attention.
From the corner of her eye, she quickly glanced at him, before hunching forward slightly. "I'm fine."
Executor went quiet again before going back to his bowl. Unreadable as always. Yet his words circled her mind.
With a soft scrape of wood, Wylder pulled out a chair and took seat beside Ironeye. The Iron Menial rounded to offer Raider his own towel, but was declined as the big man just wiped his forehead with his arm and delivered a hearty thumbs up.
"The towel would've worked just as well." Ironeye mused.
"Can't get that kinda luxury on a vessel." Raider explained, taking a pull from his mug, "Best I not get used to it now!"
"It's still gross." Revenant added between mouthfuls.
"Ha! Hardly!" Raider's eyes glazed over as if recalling a distant memory, "Once on a particularly directionless expedition, our supplies were suffering, so from remote isles we had to-"
"I don't want to hear it." The archer interrupted, his mouth full.
Thankfully, Raider obliged with a grin, and threw back his head to take another sip. Beside her, Executor stood to pass his emptied bowl to the Iron Menial, and quietly hopped down into the garden, Revenant's gaze following him to his easel.
"Tell me then," Raider lowered his mug, "Why are you soaked?"
Innocent question though it was, her eyes only hardened.
Wylder looked from her to Raider, "It was my own fault." He admitted.
A clatter sounded from Ironeye's end of the table. "No?" The archer objected, carefully extracting the spoon he'd just dropped into his bowl. "Your suggestion maybe, but my action."
"Ha!" Raider laughed, greatly amused, "Alright, but for what reason?"
Revenant began souring again. Both Wylder and Ironeye refrained from answering: a quick glance at her expression silencing them.
Raider looked between them, perplexed, before his face grew pensive. "Aye." He shuffled, undeterred by the impending temper, "Another fit?"
At the words, Revenant's chair flew back, toppling with a crash. "No!" Her spoon held threateningly in a clenched fist, "Your mind is deluded."
Raiders brows knit in concerned confusion, "There is no shame-"
"I haven't a clue what you're on about." She interrupted, arms thrust down by her sides and fists clenched.
Raider set aside his mug, allowing his attention to be fully on her, "Revenant," His voice was deep, but rolled softly despite his rugged background, "There's only so much ale one keg can hold. There is no weakness in confiding…"
His voice faded off as she wordlessly turned on her heels and stalked from the room.