The gift of a feather

An Arvian lore tale

By Isiat Squire Carcer

Feathers are a simple thing. By definition, they are any of the light, horny, epidermal outgrowths that form the external covering of the body of a bird; A piece of light, hollow bone, and hairs grown in such a way as to create a flat surface to deflect wind or water.

But to an Arvian, a feather has significance. Their hackle feathers, especially, as these take time to grow back in fully, are almost synonymous with an Arvian themselves. No two Arvians' are exactly alike. Long, arching feathers upon the back of an Arvian's head and shoulders, ranging in length and width from the size of daggers to the size of a short sword, these feathers are typically exempt from grooming and preening.

Arvian feathers do not fall idly, and the hackle feathers, especially, do not naturally on account of their size. 

Among Arvians, a gifted hackle feather is no small thing. It is a sign of respect, of trust and friendship. It is a feather's original owner's pledge that they will vouch for this person and the quality of their character. Should they visit bearing such a feather, the giver will take responsibility for the actions of their esteemed guest. 

It is a not-so-subtle gesture among the tribes' warriors that they will stand by each other, both in times of peace and in times of conflict. They will cherish and protect each other and treat them with the same dignity, respect, and care that would be afforded to them in their home tribe.

A feather may be a simple thing, but to an Arvian, the gift of a feather is no small gesture. It's an expression of knowing another, of trusting them wholly, of standing beside them, even when the world is against them. Even the spirits were known to respect the status of a feather bearer, despite what their personal standing might have been. Some worthy task had been done to earn it, and that was worth taking note of.

No, indeed, the gift of a feather has a far deeper meaning than the simplicity of the gift itself implies. 

When they are given, it is a sign one should take note of.

Arvian feathers do not fall idly.

-----------------

Yarsa looked at the long hackle on the bar before her with a scowl on her beak.

Why the fuck had she taken it? Loresingers were all trouble in her books. Not once had any job she'd ever taken for one been so simple as "Fetch a book. Beat up this guy. Steal this thing."

No, it was always fucking complicated! Babysit some fledges. Help rescue them from an evil cult. Oh, and by the way, can you help stop the end of the world while you're at it? You'll most likely be excommunicated from your entire tribe if you do! Here’s a feather for your troubles!

"...if your contacts fall through and the wolves are on your heels…" She heard the Loresinger's words again and scowled.

She'd made good on her promise. Everything she'd earned and the little extra she'd pocketed had gone to-

No, don't think about her right now. She will be fine now that she has some more solid coin, at least for a while.

Yarsa picked up the glass on the bar between her talons and knocked the fiery liquor back with a hiss. The sensation burned all through her throat and nares like a lashing of fire.

At least word didn't seem to have circulated this far out yet, but however deep that spirits-damned priest's connections went, it was significant.

Like the feather? Her brain childed her for her stubborn refusal to accept help when she needed it, obviously.

No. Stop that. You do not need help, and certainly not from the fucking moon club!

It had been nearly a month since the fight in the shadow of the Suntouched Temple. Her pelt around her ankle that had been twisted still hadn't grown back in quite fully, and the wound still pained her in the early morning chill. She'd had to keep moving from town to town.

Even if she went to the temple, who would believe her? Twisted, misshapen Arvian berserkers? Corrupted dreampals? The end of the world?! It sounded fucking insane even as she sat and thought about it. It was insane.

All of it was also fucking real, and she had fought through the insanity talon and beak to make it this far. She'd lost her damn sword fighting the insanity, the same sword she'd carried since she became War Chief, and been forced from the glorious position unceremoniously years later thanks to cloak and dagger bullshit.

Perhaps that was the worst part. The monsters chasing Yarsa were real, and right now, all she could fucking do was keep moving until they stopped or she died, which wasn't going to happen.

Mhmmm, an illustrious end to the mighty Yarsa. Run to the ground, fleeing from the stories used to frighten fledges.

She hissed, rapping her talons against the bar hard enough to leave a divot on the wooden countertop. The unchanged human behind the bar looked at her with disapproval. Still, he poured another drink regardless and kept his mouth shut, as was the smart thing to do when confronted by an Arvian with apparent troubles following her.

Knocking the second shot back, she grimaced as fire raced down her throat and her nares, the Arvian warrior's hackles trembling as she hissed like an angry cat. It wasn't as bad as straight sunfire, but it also wasn't as good as straight sunfire either.

A body pressed in beside her.

"So, what are we toasting to today? I was thinking ambition."

Yarsa's hand whipped down to her side, tightening around the handle of the fighting knife tucked under her cloak. A taloned hand and a vice-like grip closed around her wrist while another pushed on her shoulder, shoving her back down onto the stool.

"Nuh-uh-uh. Not here. Not now. Hello Yarsa." The male Arvian growled lowly and quietly so as not to draw attention to their struggle. "You look old."

Yarsa jerked around, twisting and digging her talons into the male's forearm. She snatched the handle of the knife again as his grip loosened before he tightened it once more. She managed to get the knife free, only for him to force it downwards, burying the razor-sharp tip of the blade an inch into the seat of her barstool beside her thigh. She rattled the knife ineffectually, but it wasn't going anywhere. She lunged at him with her beak instead, only for him to shoulder-check her back into the seat.

"You still look like a fucking, backstabbing asshole. Some things never change. How's the beak, Arrow?" Yarsa snarled, mocking the black-pelted Arvian. 

He didn't rise to the obvious bait, keeping his steely, golden eyes locked right on the once War Chief's. Yarsa positively fucking bristled with fury. Ar-ruhh's beak twisted in a facsimile of a smile. Yarsa had shattered it herself a long, long time ago. He'd painstakingly had it repaired, with molten steel coated in gold welding the fragments back together, making his entire beak look like a repaired porcelain vase from the spiderwebs of precious metal holding his beak together. Almost as if to mock his injury, his dreampal had changed one of his hackles from inky black to a brilliant gold that even glinted in the light as if coated with the precious metal.

"How's exile life treating you? Can you imagine my surprise when news of a white-crested Arvian with a temper like the Sun itself, who destroyed a Suntouched temple, no less, started reaching me?" He mocked her with his snide tone, a long, feline tail as black as his heart lashing behind him as he settled onto the stool beside her.

"Shame you weren't there; I'd have fixed your face for you again." She made another lunge that he easily avoided. A cold, sharp point jabbed up under her trapped armpit, pushing between the plates of her armour. Yarsa's eyes locked on the male with a fierce glare that could have rooted a fledgling to the spot. She clacked her beak with another hiss, but with the knife at her side, she knew better than to struggle.

Ar-ruhh chuffed smugly once, grinning a twisted grin of delight and malice with his broken, gold-fixed beak. He had a sneer on his face that was half mocking, half scorn.

"A shame indeed. I've been looking forward to a rematch since you were cast down. From War Chief to a simple sellsword, and now a traitor to your tribe. You keep finding new lows to sink to."

Yarsa cursed his name again, a string of creative and eloquently strung words of native Arvian that called into question his honour, appearance, and paternal relations of a wildly inappropriate variety. It sounded like an angry hawk screeching.

"Now, now, there's no need for such uncivilized words here, Yarsa. You might want to tuck your friend's feather away before any others see it, though. Your time here is quickly closing, so I'll be direct." The male's beak's veins of gold glinted in the light.

"Are you ever anything else? You've always been a to-the-point prick, Arrow." She glared at him. Once she sat still, he was quick to resheath his blade.

"Mrhm, funny. There's a troop of Arvians and unchanged mustering to investigate a reported sighting of a traitor in this tavern. I need two things from you. One. Disappear. It serves neither of our goals for you to wind up dead or captured or in a confrontation here."

"Since when were you the local fucking lord? Weren't you so eager to be War Chief once?" Yarsa growled.

"Since I became the region's governing power beneath the Sun council. The War Chief is below me now. I have grander ambitions, just as you do. This and four other tribes and their settlements come under my purview. I'd appreciate it if you would not cause more problems. Tic-tic Yarsa. Let me finish now, and don't interrupt with your sharp tongue, or I'll send someone to cut the tongue out of your little unchanged friend you've been harbouring all this time."

Yarsa growled, eyeing him with the fury of a thousand desert suns, but held her tongue for now. How the fuck did the slime black vulture know?! In the back of her mind, she reached out, extending a tendril of thoughts out to the spirits, before she called for her dreampal like the peel of an angry bell through the spirit realm. Smasher was nearby, watching, waiting for her command to draw on the dreampal's strength and turn the smug asshole into a stain of ash.

Maybe he was bluffing, but in all the years that Yarsa had known and loathed Ar-ruhh, he had always been a shady and underhanded political animal, always trying to further himself and damn whomever he had to burn to get there. He had been a large part of why she had lost her position as War Chief among their tribe. She had won too much on the battlefield, whereas Ar-ruhh had won in the political field. Regrettably, politicians tended to control the fighters despite doing little of it themselves.

The problem with politicians, though, was that they only ever lied when they spoke, but she knew him better than to think he would come to her in broad daylight to bluff.

For the first time ever, Yarsa had to be the one to cool her dreampal's temper.

Ar-ruhh tapped two fingers on the bar, and the barkeep, seeing who it was, bowed deferentially. He poured two glasses of sunfire from a twisted-necked bottle from a locked counter and quickly made himself scarce. Yarsa took her drink without prompting and poured it down her gullet.

The burn this time was true and proper, how it ought to have been. This was the real stuff, not the cheap shit she had been drinking before.

Ar-ruhh took his sweet time with his glass, inhaling the aroma of the liquor with his nares and swirling it a few times. He forced her to wait as the seconds ticked by before he finally downed it, playing his little delaying games to let her know exactly who was in charge of this exchange.

"Ahh. That's the good stuff. Very well. Your friends, the Loresingers-" 

Yarsa scoffed at the very suggestion that they were friends. Convenient acquaintances at best. She snarled frustratedly and shoved the red hackle feather back under her cloak.

Ar-ruhh cleared his throat and continued. 

"-your friends have been poking their noses around, and it is upsetting some at the council who would not like to be upset by such matters. I, however, have different goals. I've had eyes on you since the Sun Council denounced you. I know about the incident. I know about the priest. I know about your little friend you pay to keep out of trouble, and I know that whatever those Loresingers are after, it is far bigger than a regional squabble, and that would mean trouble for everyone."

He rocked his shot glass beneath one talon for a few moments before knocking it down sideways on the bar top.

"Yarsa. I have no love lost for our Lunatic kindred, and there are murmurings of a new War Chief being chosen to put the Moon Kissed back in their place, firmly on their side of their territory. If I can do this thing without needing to raise entire villages and scratch entire tribes from our history, it would be better for all concerned, but especially myself. It is cleaner. More expedient. People love a happy ending, and my men watching your little friend won't need to do anything more than watch her." The threat was as cold as it was calculated. He could read the conflict in Yarsa's features, her eyes going between him and the exit.

He chuckled, a low, menacing note. He was enjoying this.

"So, the second thing I need of you, Yarsa. Go to Cereth's Sight, kill the meddling Loresingers, and I'll see to it that your name, honour, and title are returned to you. You can even keep your little adopted unchanged. Fail me in this, and you'll be fishing her body from the North Sea. Tic-tic-tic Yarsa." The scumbag rose, releasing and turning his back to her as he walked away, tail swishing under his cloak.

It took everything Yarsa had not to yank the knife free and stab him in the back with it.

Smasher materialized from the air in front of her, the golden honey badger dreampal hissing towards him, looking every bit as pissed off as his chosen form was notorious for.

The sound of a group in heavy armour marching through the street outside stole her partner's attention away, though, and the dreampal chittered angrily at Yarsa before taking two bounds across the bar and vanishing again.

His warning was clear enough. Yarsa swore. Snatching up her bag from the floor, she moved as quick as she thought she could get away with, pulling the hood of her cloak up and over the tops of her ears to hide her face.

"H-hey! You going to pay for that?" The barkeeper called as she ducked out through the back of the tavern. She pushed her way out, ducking through the kitchen in the back, before forcing her way out into the street.

"There! You! Hold it!"

Yarsa didn't even bother checking, dashing into the alleyway at a sprint, terrifyingly quick by unchanged standards, like watching a beast with the mass of a charging bull and the agility of a cheetah come storming towards you. There was very little that would stop that short of another Arvian or a very solid wall. The guards were neither.

She crashed through the pair of them before they even had a chance to draw steel and threaten her, barreling right through them with a crash like a boulder slamming aside saplings in its path. The clatter of their armour and the commotion were bound to draw attention, and Yarsa wasn't about to hang around to find out.

Her things were in an inn a short distance away, and she wasn't about to leave town without them. With feline grace, she leapt up a full eight feet, grappling with the edge of the flat-roofed home, and swung her legs up and onto it. With a short dash and a drop onto the other side, she took up a more casual pace down the street, trying not to draw any more attention to herself than she needed.

It felt profoundly wrong to Yarsa. Sneaking about like this, subterfuge and subtly were tricks of the fucking moon club. She'd never once run from a good fight where there was one to be had, but the last month…

Something felt broken in Yarsa. Off, like a thorn in her side that she couldn't relieve, no matter how much she tried. It had been that way since the fight in the temple, since that berserker, twisted Arvian thing her kin had made, since fleeing to the woods like those who had once fled before her.

She was on edge more, ever looking over her shoulder for shadows chasing her in the dark. She slept lightly when she did and hid her face more than she ever had in the past. Even working as a sellsword, she'd never once had to resort to sneaking about and avoiding people. If there was a problem she couldn't solve with her beak or her sword, she had learned to just burn it all.

And now…

Fuck it all.

She hissed as she barged into the inn and right up to the room she had entered, not stopping to address any of the curious glances that came her way. She grabbed her pack, the snapped handle of her broken sword, and the thick leather trench coat from beside the too-small bed. She was off without another word, leaving through the window and dropping into the alleyway below.

"Smasher." She growled, but quietly. Even that much felt fundamentally wrong, like she was smothering everything she had built herself up to be.

Her dreampal appeared a moment later, the golden glowing badger grumbling and growling as it trundled across the air like it was walking on an invisible platform at her eye level. And he wasn't alone.

The glowing blue furdrake dreampal prancing on the air beside Smasher was nothing but trouble, and it was for that he'd been named RaruRaru. 

"No." She snapped sharply. "Absolutely not. You, fuck off." She pointed at Raru, eyes furious. "Is he here? I swear I will kill him if he is!" She snapped her beak at the Moonkissed dreampal.

Her blow went clean through the ethereal being of his body, but he still recoiled, chittering at Yarsa as if insulted.

Smasher grumbled and huffed at his bonded, and she whirled on the ethereal badger with her eyebrows raised. Unbidden, a barrage of thoughts entered her mind, all of them related to a journey, travelling, to go, past travels made with Smasher, and the places and glory they had led to. But behind them all was the image of Cereth, the angry red Moon ever visible.

Cereth's sight. Isiat, the Moonkissed Loresinger's village. She spat, hissing at the pair of spirits accosting her.

"Don't you take his side in this! No! Loresingers are why we are IN THIS MESS in the first place! They are NOT the solution! They are the problem! Shoo!" She hissed once more at Raru. Unsurprisingly, and with an equally unimpressed look at the former War Chief, the little blue furdrake sat on his haunches, stubbornly unmoving, as if challenging her to make him.

"Smasher! Get rid of the moon club pet!" She growled at her own dreampal, once again seeing the flashes of Cereth at full Moon in the sky in her mind.

She snarled, glaring daggers at the pair of them.

"I am not going grovelling to the fucking moon club. No! End of discussion."

—————————————————

Yarsa went to the fucking moon club. 

Mind, it was in her own fucking time, and she was not fucking happy about it. But realistically, what other options were open?

Three weeks had passed since her flight from the last settlement, and she'd not had a proper drink since. Sobriety and a high-tensed state of alert for so long took its toll on even the most disciplined minds. And Yarsa hated discipline to begin with. Patience was not her forte. Neither was inaction. But all of this sneaking and hiding was driving her insane!

Insane enough to glance at the Loresingers damn feather when she hid under the base of a tree to sleep. Insane enough to hear Ar-ruhh mocking offer through the woods. Insane enough to drive her south, across the great dividing river, and into the heartlands of Moonkissed territory.

The woodlands were vastly different from the grassy plains and farmlands that dotted the Suntouched territory. Here, roads were muddy trails worn into the earth by wagon tracks, with side trails that disappeared into the trees at random, leading who knew where.

She knew she was going in the right direction, at least. Cereth hung low on the horizon, looming and ominous, glowing with the fire of ancient volcanos that dotted its surface and with the rusty red of its coppery surface. Esyon, Cereth's blue twin, was high in the sky above.

Since when was anything good ever associated with red anyway? Yarsa's thoughts scoffed at the idea, but she was on the right track. From the great bridge that crossed the divide, if you kept going towards Cereth's lowest point, there you would find Cereth's sight.

She hadn't actually crossed the bridge, though. Both tribes watched their respective sides, and travellers were scrutinized heavily. She swam the river about two miles downstream, and dripping and cold, she trekked through the thick woodland, keeping away from the established paths as much as she could.

It wasn't her first time in these lands by any means. But this time felt different. Something had changed since however long it had been.

The dark Arvian crouched low in the scrub, unable to shake the instinct that she was being watched. She'd kept her hands close to her knife since she'd crossed the river. Spears were not her style, and bows were entirely out of the question. Even if Yarsa had one, she wouldn't use it unless it was to strangle her foes with the string.

Smasher had been remarkably quiet the entire journey, probably on account of the thorough scolding she'd given her dreampal companion the moment they had escaped the first town. She could have been nicer about it, but Yarsa hated feeling played, and right now, she was being played by everyone. 

She was being played by Ar-ruhh and his cult of absolute fuckwit personality into whatever ends he had planned.

She was being played by Isiat, who had obviously fucking known that she would have no choice but to go to him after the fucking hornet's nest he'd gone and kicked.

And she was being played by even her own damn dreampal and the spirits themselves to whatever designs they had in mind for her. She hated absolutely every part of this arrangement.

Her brilliant white hackles bristled with barely checked fury at the mere fucking thought! She ripped a sapling from the ground on her way past and threw it against the trunk of the tree with a hiss. She would have screamed her frustration, but the sound would have carried for miles in all directions.

So instead, she seethed and coped with the reality that her situation sucked, and there was nothing to do but embrace it. She didn't have to like it, but standing still wouldn't get her anywhere either.

She pulled herself up an embankment, moving at a fast, low crouch across a game trail and back into the cover that the woods provided, but even hidden, that feeling of eyes being upon her never left.

The further she went into the Moonkissed territory, the more the signs of her once foes became apparent. Some tracks appeared bearing boots and footprints that could have only been left by Arvians. Little moon carvings dotted the trunks of trees seemingly every so often, perhaps scout markers or some sort of cant she didn't understand.

And the spirits themselves…

Yes, they, too, were undoubtedly watching. She saw trace flickers of light between the trees that were cast by no torch or reflection that Yarsa knew of, but every time she turned to look, they were gone.

She almost tripped when she stumbled into the clearing ahead. One moment, the forest had seemed to get thicker by the step, and then the next-

"Ahh, there you are!" someone spoke from up ahead. Yarsa didn't even hesitate. Didn't think, couldn't think, refused to. She had to do this.

She charged across the clearing and collided with the other Arvian in a shoulder charge before he could even bring his hands up to protect himself from the blow. But then the fight was on.

Flashes of white, red and black were all she saw, her talons and her opponents. They met with a hawk-like screech of fury and one of equal surprise as she laid into her foe. She went for her knife, but a twisted kick caught her wrist as soon as she drew the silvery blade, sending it skittering across the ground and into the grass. She countered with an elbow to the Arvian's face, forcing him back a step with a growl of pain.

Talons and fists flew, trading blow for blow with terrifying speed and strength. Blows that would have killed an unchanged were deflected off of leather and steel, timed with the precision of experts in their respective fields. But she was a fighter, a dedicated practitioner of the martial ways. He was only a Loresinger and learned enough to train others if needed. In the long run, she would have the upper hand, and even in the short term, she had it.

She was a War chief. She was a soldier. She was likely the best swordswoman that Arvian kind and the spirits' gifts had or ever would produce in her lifetime. She wasn't going to go and get beaten by a fucking moonclub book nerd.

She lunged in with her beak and caught something- Bit hard. Tasted blood- Yarsa flew to the side as she was tossed away, her opponent falling backwards and tucking his legs before the other Arvian violently kicked her off of his body entirely. She landed with a surprising grace and was back on her downed opponent before he could get up, scooping up the blade from the ground.

She pressed it to the Arvian's throat, and at once, the male went limp, beak ajar as he huffed, already exhausted from the sudden intensity of their fight. 

He had a fresh set of claw marks across his face and a darkened ring of flesh beneath his left eye where Yarsa had punched him.

She glared at the Loresinger, pressing the blade in until it met flesh.

"Yarsa..." Isiat quietly asked, keeping his hands down by his sides.

"I have to." Yarsa hissed, clenching her talons around the dagger's handle until her fingers shook with the crushing exertion.

Isiat just nodded once. He didn't ask why. He didn't ask anything. He simply accepted that whatever reason she had was enough and tilted his head back slightly, exposing his throat in a final act of acceptance of his fate. 

He didn't even try to talk her out of it or ask her not to do what she had to.

He trusted Yarsa and didn't question her even for a moment, even with a knife at his throat. He exhaled, relaxed, and shut his eyes.

"Do as you must then."

Yarsa hesitated. She willed her arm to move, to draw the blade across his throat and be half done with her grizzly task.

Isiat looked almost tranquil, simply having accepted and given up. Yarsa snarled.

"That's it?! After everything, after all the hell you sent me through, all the prophecy and doom and gloom, you just roll over and fucking die because I said you needed to?!" Yarsa's tone was shaking as much as her hand was. 

She hated it. She hated all of it. Hated Arruhh. Hated Isiat. Hated the spirits.

She'd won their fight, and still, it felt like she'd lost. She could all but hear Arruhh's smug laughter mocking her.

"That's how it works, Yarsa. You can either kill me, or you can let me up. If the spirits have a plan, I trust in it, and I trust you." He called her bluff, but he hadn't even opened his eyes. He knew she wouldn't do it.

Smasher and Raru appeared on the ground beside the pair, chittering and growling in equal parts alarm and frustration. Yarsa's eyes went from Isiat's throat to her dreampal, who was chittering and growling at her like she was being an unreasonable shit (She was), to the mental image of Arruhh's smug grin.

Yarsa wanted to scream.

“Fuuuuuuckkkkking Moonclub!” 

She threw the dagger aside, burying it to the hilt in the grass beside her, and fell backwards off the Loresinger, panting.

"That bad, huh?" Isiat muttered as he slowly sat up. He didn't bother straightening his leathers at all, rolling his head on his shoulders. One of his paws went to his face as RaruRaru's shimmering blue visage bounded over to his bonded. A muttered spell later, and his eye was less swollen.

"That bad? That bad?! Have you even been keeping tabs on the world of shit you created? Some of the Suntouched are all but baying for blood. Entire tribes are being called up, and you owe me one hell of a fucking debt if you want to help make this right." Yarsa whirled her fury around on him, her tone just as sharp as the knife, the same knife she had taken from Isiat, had been.

She couldn't kill him as much as she might have wanted to. As much as she loathed the Loresinger, it wouldn't have sat right, mainly because she had been told to do it by that smug, broken-beaked asshole.

At least punching him felt good.

She punched the ground, her head whipping around to hiss at Isiat as he went to rise. He sat himself in the dirt instead and sighed, rubbing his massive paw over his beak as if to check it was still intact.

"How did you know I wouldn't just slit your throat?"

"Too easy for you. You're honourable, Yarsa, despite appearances and all else." He nodded, seeming awfully confident in his answer. She scowled at him, giving another hiss of frustration.

"Plus, I wasn't alone."

From the brushes at the edge of the small clearing, a shadow peeled itself from the treeline. The distinctly small Arvian figure, for it was far too large for an unchanged, stopped a few yards away, war bow raised and still aimed at Yarsa. A hoot from the treeline drew Yarsa's attention, and her head whipped around to spot the glowing figure of a Dreampal in the form of a large barn owl not far away in the trees. Yarsa hated bows, but even she knew when she was dead to rights. 

Isiat waved the other Arvian down. "She is a guest Shadi. She just needed to remember herself."

"This is her? The Warchief Raru warned you about?"

"He wasn't warning me love. He was letting me know she was on her way. I've been expecting her for a moon."

"Love? Your Nest-mate? Seriously? You settled for that?" Yarsa looked almost shocked. Isiat would have been insulted, except the question wasn't directed at him.

Shadi lowered the bow gently, relaxing the tension on the string. Her mismatched eyes seemed to appraise Yarsa for a long moment before the short Arvian matron shrugged and nodded.

"He looked better when he was younger." The chocolate pelted female commented with a playful snark.

"Really? She kicks my ass, and you take her side?" Isiat grumbled as he finally pulled himself to his feet, brushing the dust off of his leathers.

"Well, maybe you shouldn't have lost. At least I wouldn't have missed." Shadi chirped in a far too chipper tone and slung her bow, offering Yarsa a hand up.

The white-hackled female hissed, but at Isiat's stern look and mouthing of guest, she begrudgingly accepted. She marched over and collected her knife. "I'm keeping this as part of what you owe me," she grumbled, sliding it into her sheath.

"As you will. Come on, though. I let one of the Elders know you were coming, but the others may not be so happy to have another Suntouched show up on our door so soon."

———————————————————

"You said another Suntouched Isiat, not "I am bringing one of their War Chiefs here." And that is not even beginning to mention the fact that you want to grant her sanctuary!"

Yarsa scoffed at the Elder, pacing back and forth across the edge of the living space in Isiat's home. Shadi had set a tray of tea out and was sitting quietly by the Loresinger as he pondered their next move, largely brushing off Elder Kleng's frustration.

The Hazelnut-pelted Arvian had been waiting for them, Raru having gone ahead to let him know of their guest. He was not happy to see any of them.

"Trust me, Moon Club, this wasn't my idea. I came here to kill him and the other Loresinger, too." Yarsa said with a grumble. Her claws tapped impatiently on the floorboards with each step she took around the Loresinger home, resisting the urge to immolate any of the shelves of books, papers and tomes that seemed arranged at random wherever on the walls there was room to shove them.

"Ha! It might have been easier for us if you had done just that!" Kleng glared back at the white-hackled warrior, hissing his displeasure through his clenched beak. 

"And what madness inspired such a well-thought-out plan, hmm? For someone who walks around with an entire scroll's worth of titles to their name, Yarsa Sun's Fury, White Flame, Fireborn, War Chief of the Suntouched Tribes, Beakbreaker-"

Yarsa's glare silenced Kleng’s recital. 

"That fucking last one brought me here out of desperation, Alright? Are you happy, Elder?" She spat the title like a mocking curse before she pulled Isiat's hackle from her belt and slammed the dark and crimson-tipped feather down on the table.

"I invoke guest rights."

"They are not given-" Kleng hissed right back at her.

"It's not your house to give them Kleng. It's my feather; she is my guest and my responsibility, same as Bravjen." Isiat, unlike Kleng, didn't need to raise his voice, but the sharp tone the Loresinger took with his mentor was as clear as a fledge being yelled at for stepping out of line.

Kleng looked momentarily taken aback to be rebuked in such a way by his once fledge and apprentice. His golden eyes locked on Isiat's icy blue ones. The Loresinger was resolute in this and didn't so much as flicker in the slightest. This was important. Perhaps more so than all of them even, and Kleng knew that look well enough to concede the point.

The Hazelnut pelted Arvian, sighed, and tossed his hands up, hackles raised at his frustration. 

"Fine! I will vouch for your guest. But this is the last time. It's bad enough that we have one of their Loresinger in our camp, and now this snow-hackled outcast. You are entirely too friendly with the enemy, Isiat." Kleng warned pointedly.

"They are not my enemy, Elder. They are not our enemy. And Yarsa's skills will be needed in the days ahead. You've seen the signs as much as I have. Something very wrong is afoot in the world. I fear we are the only group who know enough and have put enough pieces together to do anything about it." Isiat made his rebuttal. He wasn't forceful or rude about it, but the way he said it was like a cold statement of fact.

The Sun rose and fell each day. The Stars were beyond counting. The oceans are vast.

Some ill fate was coming.

Despite her resilience and attempts to ignore everything she had seen and done these last few months, Yarsa had to fight the urge to stop a chill along her spine from raising her hackles, and she hated it. The mysticism, the prophecies, all of these problems that she couldn't solve at the sharp end of her blade.

Fucking loresingers would be the death of them all. She snarled, and it did nothing to temper her frustrations in even the slightest. Even among all of that, though, she knew that somewhere, undoubtedly, Arruhh would have already planned his next move.

"I need..." She bit her tongue between the halves of her beak with a hiss as she forced the words from herself. "...your help. And you OWE me that much." She spat the words as if her vehement demand would distract the Loresinger from the fact that she had willingly asked him for aid.

Isiat looked honestly surprised. He didn't question it, though. He sat quietly by his nest mate and nodded.

"That I do. Very well. What can I help with Yarsa?"

The white hackled warrior hesitated a moment. She'd almost expected more pushback. Her fingers intertwined and flexed, an irritated huff escaping her. Across from her, Isiat just nodded at the feather on the table.

"I don't give those out lightly, Yarsa." He said as if it explained everything. "You've saved my tail on more than one occasion. It is the least that I owe to repay that debt. So what exactly happened to you after the temple?"

Yarsa snorted, clacking her beak. Her hackles bristled, and quietly, she began to recount her tale, from their parting in the woods after the battle with the Suntouched berserker beast to her slinking from town to town, trying to remain as incognito as possible. She detailed her encounter with Ar-ruhh, tail lashing furiously as she went over his demands of her.

That part made Kleng and Isiat both frown concernedly, and Shadi's hackles raised at the audacity of anyone trying to attack her nest mate.

"If this Ar-ruhh is aware of the suspicions of the goings-on in the world, where does he stand to gain by stopping us from halting it?" Kleng asked as the Elder's tail swished in thought.

"Knowing him? Probably so that he can make a show of saving the world on his own and finally get the hero worship he so desperately wants." Yarsa said with a derisive snort. 

"Or let it burn and save the parts he wants to save. He's always been an ambitious prick. He wants the Suntouched at war, and he's already started preparing for it, too." She hissed, clenching her fists.

"It's what I'd have done if I were in his place, and the first step would be getting rid of people in the way of that goal. Me, you, Loresingers, anyone that interferes or disagrees with him... It's what he did to get me stripped of my old title."

Isiat frowned, his beak clicking a few times in contemplation.

"And your 'Friend' in the north. What of her?" Isiat asked. She'd skimmed over that detail in her story, but the Loresinger knew. Or he could tell. Yarsa had tried not to let her worry tint her expression, but maintaining a poker face wasn't in her repertoire of skills. Yarsa didn't do subtly in any aspect of her life. 

The white hackled Arvian hissed, and she wheeled on Isiat as if even mentioning that was taboo, but the cat was out of the bag now. It didn't suppress the strong urge she had to hit the Loresinger again, though.

"I'm..." She paused, glaring daggers at him. "I'm working on that. But there's an obvious solution for all our problems that doesn't need your Moon club sneaking about."

"So then what would you propose, War Chief?"

Everyone in the room looked at Yarsa for guidance. There had only ever been one real solution to all of their problems that would resolve the issues.

"We go north and kill Ar-ruhh."