FSE

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The lamp's wick was as low as it could be and still be alight. Kesta was trying to conserve oil. She couldn't afford it. She was effectively squatting in this hovel, but finding it had been a miracle, especially now that the weather was getting bad. It was still solid enough shelter, though the frigid rain dripped in through some spots in the ceiling, and the dirt floor was rough, and the chimney needed sweeping, but she could manage it herself. The greased paper windows had holes, but were mostly intact. There was still a weather-warped table in here, and a cot, and a fireplace, and just about every bare necessity a house needed. From here she was able to ply her trade with herbs and brews and forage, which sometimes she managed to take into town and trade.

She sat in a chair, wrapped in blankets. In her arms was a bundle, a young kit, swaddled tightly against the cold. Her own Marigold. A little dark-furred, sleepy critter. She was humming a tune, singing low under her breath, "I have got no coppers, I have got no coppers, I have got no coppers to buy a loaf of bread. I'm a poor lonesome bandit, a poor lonesome bandit, a poor lonesome bandit and a long way from home."

There was a knock at the door. The wind whistled through the holes in the window and through the chimney, humid and chilled. Who would be out here in this? What a fool, a fool with a death wish. Or, maybe, someone that was so sick and desperate? Marigold stirred. She stood up, still wrapped in blankets and went to the door-

But oh, instinct. Something made her hackles stand on end. She stopped. "Just a minute," she called, and considered her son.

She laid him gently on the bed, and then from under the pillow she drew a knife. She used to have a sword, but she'd traded it off for food. Oh, if she'd still had it... But a dagger like this was fine. She knew how to use it. She was a Bandit, after all.

She drew to the door. Her ruddy tail flicked. Her ears were pinned. She held it low, behind her hip, tip pointed down.

She opened the door and the wind whipped at her face, and there was a spray of cold water and perfume and musk and a flash of gold in the low flickering light of her oil lamp and she knew the specter standing there in the doorway. He grinned his awful gold-toothed grin and stepped in, and try as she might to bar his passage she could only relent. He was dripping wet, his green cloak and cowl sodden and his boots muddied, his fur damp, but his awful, awful smile remained, and she could almost feel those teeth seizing around her heart.

"Kesta." His voice was smooth as ever. Slick, like the nuance of his morals. He glanced around. "Marigold?"

"Giltfang. The child's well. I was just putting him to bed." She was white-knuckling the dagger behind her hip. She saw the hilt of his longsword poking out from the gap in his cloak. She recognized the bulk of his jack-of-plates, but knew he wore little other armor unless going directly into battle. Still, he loomed over her, though they were not of much disparate heights. He imposed. His presence here, like the spray that whipped in from the open door, was unwelcome.

He got a look in his eye. A flash of red? She froze. He grabbed her about the waist with his right arm, she yiped and thrust the blade upward, but he knew she had it all along. He grabbed her hand, he shoved it aside. He pulled her against him, against his soaking wet, cold chest, against his cloak, against his rain-dampened perfume, against the wet fox musk. She didn't close her eyes, but he didn't make another move other than to hold her tight and hold her knife hand away and let her thrash.

"I'm glad you're safe."

A shiver ran up her spine. Her fur was already standing on end, but all her fighting stopped. The dagger fell from her hands.

"What do you mean?"

"It's good you left. Things have been getting strange." Giltfang still didn't let go. Though he was soaked through, she started to feel almost comfortable. Still, she pulled briskly away when he did finally let go. Reive Giltfang wasn't the kind of person she liked to be held by.

"There's nothing left there for me anyway." She crossed her arms. Her uninvited guest picked up her dagger, flipped it in the air, and offered it to her by the blade. She took it back. He closed the door.

"You're right." He drew back his hood. He had a satchel with him under the cloak, and he began to unbuckle the strap. "Sunflower ran off, probably to do something foolish and short-sighted. Davy and his brother are dead."

The first bit, she wasn't surprised. That fox was always running off doing foolish things. The latter, though...

"Awful. Dreadful." She moved away from the entrance. Suddenly she felt very tired.

"I brought you some things. Some food, some tea, a little bit of coin." He set the satchel on the table. Whatever was in there, it wasn't as modest as Giltfang was pretending.

"Plunder?"

"You could say that."

She frowned.

"You can't say you don't need it."

She looked away.

"Kesta, I know you're just as stubborn as that child's father but-"

"How dare--!" she jumped up and hissed. Reive laughed and held his hands up.

"Okay, you have me there."

She slumped. "I'll take it."

Reive nodded. A moment passed. He longed to sit inside and dry off. She longed to invite him to. Though there was animosity, he was once her companion. Those doors were closed now, though. Reive's intrusion into Kesta's life was meant to be short lived. He knew he didn't have the mettle to survive this way, in peace. His destiny was elsewhere. Maybe, Kesta thought, Sunflower had some foolish fate of his own to fulfill, even if it left her suffering.

Reive turned away. He lifted the hood of his cloak. He opened the door, and again the mist and rain and chill blasted through it like heat from an open oven. Then Reive stopped a second, and peered back over his shoulder.

"Kesta. Don't come back. Things are strange, right now. Please go anywhere else. Hell, go to Saltar's Port, or even Alderheart, just anywhere."

"What do you care?" she snapped back, though she did understand the gravity of these words. She just didn't understand why, yet. She didn't know any other way to talk to him.

"I guess I don't. Be well, Starcross." He left. The cool, damp bag of supplies stayed on the table.