GEACOB
   "So you're not cutting my arm off?"
   Alie shot me a look that was half a glare and half a smirk of amusement before going back to her stitching. The wound on my arm was deep, but small --- a stab wound. The lucky bastard who had gotten me was dead now so I couldn't even hold a grudge against him.
    "Any other injuries?" She asked, glancing around so she included everyone in the question but all shook their heads. She had already fixed up everyone else. I was the last, except...
   "You're next." I said to her, motioning toward the wound I knew was there, hiding under her black wool.
   She waved it off. "I'll do it afterwards. I'm starving." She said it casually, but glanced at Ritch who was wincing though he hadn't seen the wound. She didn't want him to see it, I realized, because Ritch already blamed himself. Guilt was written all over his face.
   "It's not your fault, Ritch." I told him as Alie wrapped up my arm from wrist to elbow, as if this wound was a long one. "You couldn't have known that you would freeze up like that."
   "I should have." He said, looking at the floor. "I should have said something."
   Alie was quiet a moment. "Perhaps you should have." She said finally. "But if that is the case, than so should have I." She bit her lip, showing how difficult it was to display what she believed to be a weakness. "I was terrified that I was going to freeze as well. I knew there was a chance but instead risked it."
   Ritch looked at her with accusing eyes. "Don't lie. I hate pity."
   "You didn't freeze up in Leafinton." Loryn reminded her, mentioning what Alie had done for her for the first time. "You didn't hesitate at all. You... save me."
   "I didn't freeze." She agreed. "However..." she took a deep breath, then let it all out in a rush. "I went into shock afterwards. Geacob had to sit up with me in a tree for hours until I stopped shaking."
   Loryn looked shocked. "Really? You?"
   "And still, I have nightmares about it. I wake in the night and think I feel blood on my hands. I can feel the warmth and the stickiness of it. I swear that if I were to put it to my mouth, I would taste it, it is so real. I only understand that it had been a dream when I find Geacob's hand and they do not slip over his fingers with blood, but feel that they are instead dry."
   I reached over and took one of her hands now. I'd felt her wake in the night and take my hand, but hadn't realized why.
   She smiled at me briefly and then continued. "So I thought that I would hesitate. I almost did not go up there, but I did. It just so happens that I did not freeze."
   "But I did." Ritch reminded her but looked slightly relieved. "My mother, she had died of the same sickness a couple years before, so when my aunt asked me to.... I knew how bad she was going to get and I agreed but..." He swallowed visibly, "I hit a rib. She said it would be easy, but it wasn't. I had to stab her over and over again and I just got so... so angry with her. I loved her, but in that moment, I hated her for what she'd asked me to do."
   Loryn started to cry suddenly and I thought she was crying because of Ritch's story, but after a few moments, she burst out: "I hate my mother!"
   She shouted it, as if the words had literally burst from her mouth. Then she broke down.
   For a while, she couldn't speak anymore because her sobs were so wretched. These were not the pathetic sobs that I had heard from her often before; this was the cry of someone is so much pain that it came out in in way of sound.
   When Loryn was finally calm, she blushed a deep scarlet as if she hadn't wished that to come out at all --- that was definitely new. When she said nothing, it was Alie who spoke to her in kind, soft words meant only for her ears, regardless of the company they were in.
   "You don't have to say anything, you know, but I think you'll feel better if you let it out. You've been through so much more than any of us on this frightening adventure we are in, and I believe this is something that we often forget." She glanced briefly at Hark, who now slept, curled in a ball as if the pain haunted even his dreams. "So tell us if you wish Loryn, I will listen, and you should know that I, at least, will not judge you."
   Loryn was quiet a while longer, but then she surprised us all by speaking. Speaking only to Alie.
   "I hated you." She whispered. "I hated you, because you were pretty and kind and useful, and people looked at you like you were someone important. I hated you because you were those things, and I wasn't any of them."
   Alie opened her mouth as if to speak but Venny spoke first, his voice not nearly so kind.
   "Then why didn't you make yourself one of those things instead of pissin' us all off?"
   Everyone but Loryn sent him a glare which he winced at and had the intelligence to slam his lips closed again.
   But Loryn's tone never changed. "Because of my mother." A silent tear went down her cheek and she hastily wiped it away. "My whole life, she had called me ugly and fat and stupid. She told me that I shouldn't speak or make any of my own decisions because one day, my husband would be making them for me and until that day, she would make them."
   "Sounds like she was jealous." Ritch said with a frown.
   Loryn let out a cold laugh. "I listened to her. She would pinch my belly in the mirror and tell me to look at the fat I had because I ate too much, and so I wouldn't eat for days until papa would shove food on my plate and I had to eat or he would get angry at mother."
   "As he should have." Venny said, his tone just as angry as before but no longer directed at Loryn. "You shouldn't have had to ever starve yourself."
   "I know that now, but papa got violent sometimes. Not with me!" She said quickly and vehemently, being sure she was very clear on that. "Never with me. Not ever. He would bring me presents and tell me I was beautiful and that he would find a good husband for me. He used to take me out to the beach and show me the caves there, and said that I could go there whenever mother was being foolish and he wouldn't get angry with me, even if I missed a really important ball with the king himself." She wiped her eyes again. "But he was fat." She said this with a said smile filled with love and memory. "He even got stuck in his chair sometimes. So when mother said he called me skinny and beautiful, it was because I wasn't as ugly and fat as he was."
   He face crumpled and she finally let the tears go free again, silent as they were.
   "But I didn't wanted them to fight so I always did what she said and I never complained, not ever. And I never had any friends to tell me that mother was wrong because she would tie my skirts so tightly, I could barely breathe sometimes, I swear, let alone talk and laugh. I was so stupid." She let out a breath. "I was stupid and I hated her, and I wish that I had killed her myself. Or that papa had, a long time ago."
   "No." Alie said firmly, in that voice that made people listen. "You are not stupid."
   "I was---"
   "You listen to me Loryn Rosel," she said in a firm but oddly gentle tone as she scooted forward indelicately and grasped her hand. "It was my parents who showed me that kindness is the only way to go through life. Kindness and loyalty and love. They are the reason I am who I am. This is not me. This is their daughter who turned into a Me as I grew and learned by watching them. Do you think I would have been this way if my mother had treated me the way your mother treated you?" Her voice gentled even further. "Loryn, your hands are so damaged from climbing rocks and wielding that ax that I'm not sure you'll be able to climb another wall without screaming for weeks. You're covered in blood and sweat from working so hard to help protect Rangers of all people. You killed that man who managed to cross the bridge, and you did so only because you took Ritch's important place in the plans when you knew he needed you to. You screamed help in a much better accent than I ever could have, after being brave enough to run into a group of two dozen armed men. And you did all of this, every single bit of it, after dealing with Archrit for two weeks, where most people would curl in a ball and die where they fell.
   "So Loryn, tell me, is that the woman your mother raised you to be? Would she be proud of you?"
   "N-no."
   "Good." She said and gave a sad smile. "Loryn, that girl that I just described sounds like someone who is kind, and useful, and that girl is most definitely someone I would look to for advice. That girl is most definitely important. You hear me? The girl you were before was the girl your mother created, but you, Loryn, are so much stronger than she ever was because you have somehow managed to become your own person, despite all the horror that she and everyone else put you through." She paused a moment, then sat back again, breaking the spell that she'd had on all of us with her quiet, serious words. "I am the girl my parents raised, but it looks like you're starting to figure out who you are all by yourself."
   Loryn smiled at Alie. "I've just had better role models, that's all." She said, then frowned slightly as a thought came to her, tinted with mild horror. "Now I know I'm a different person, because never had I thought I would say that a servant, a ranger boy, a poor bastard," she nudged Ritch playfully now, "and two shipboys were good role models for a Lady." Then another thought came to her and she swiveled to gape at Venny. "That reminds me; how, pray tell, does a shipboy learn to fight like you did out there?"
   At that, we were all laughing and Hark, who had apparently woken up at some point, started in with the dramatics of the story of Venny leaping down from the stone like a bird and tackling a guard thrice his size with nothing but a rock in his hand. The medicine, having done its work, made his pain less and his eyes bright, so his storytelling lightened the mood considerably and had us all grinning from ear to ear between laughs and added comments.
   I looked around the group of us. Seeing Harks dramatic gestures and Harks bashful face even as he grinned, at Loryn and Ritch leaning against each other as they waited for the parts of the story they did not see themselves, at Alie's silver eyes flickering between Hark and Venny with both amusement and second-hand embarrassment. All of us filthy and bloody and covered in weeks of sweat, all of us having stories of our own and all of them so very, very different.
   I couldn't help but think of one of my uncles phrases.
   "Family ain't blood, boy, family is hard times and shared experiences. Those are the family members that you really can't kill or steal from because, by the Gods that listen, they'd find a way to stay with ya anyway. Aye, now that's real family."
   Aye. I thought, looking around at the odd mix. It was indeed.

ALIE

   I watched Geac slip away quietly and knew he was probably going to wash, so after a moment, I decided to build a small fire with the coal and took a candle from my bag. It was a small nub now, though I felt as if I had barely used it. I doubted it would last more than an hour, but it would do. I picked up my bag in the other hand and followed after Geac.
   I found him standing in a pool of water that was waist deep. He had no shirt on and by the looks of his clothing on the ground, no pants either. I felt myself blushing and went to turn away, but he'd noticed the light and looked over. He smiled when he saw it was me. "A bit more than the small spring Uncle mentioned, isn't it?"
   Not wanting to show that I was embarrassed by his naked form, I nodded. "I thought now would be a good time to fix me up." I said, holding up my bag.
   He wiped his face with water as he nodded. "Come here then, bring the candle."
   I hesitated. "Is that not cold?"
   "Hot actually. Not surprising since the walls are warm as well. Come put your feet in so I don't have to get out and make your cheeks even redder."
   They went redder anyway at that comment, but I went forward, putting down my bag and candle, then slipping off my shoes and rolling my pants up to my knees.
   The water was hot, and felt wonderful on my calves which ached from all the climbing. I let out a sigh and leaned me head back until it pulled at my stitches and I winced.
   "Here." He was suddenly at the edge of the water near my left thigh. While he dug in the bag, I took off my wool completely, leaving me in my undershirt which I pulled down enough to expose the bandage.
   He froze a moment when he looked up, and I felt suddenly self conscious. "What?"
   "Nothing." He said quickly, his voice hoarse and he cleared it. "It bled a bit."
   "I tore a few stitches." I admitted. I could feel them throbbing painfully now that I was sitting still.
   "In the climb or holding the shield?"
   "Both, I believe."
   He gave me an exasperated look but went to work silently instead of scolding me, cleaning the wound again with more whisky before cutting the torn stitches and replacing them calmly. I didn't look much at the wound myself, but knew it wasn't bad. Deep on my collarbone and deeper on my arm, but it had been a clean cut with what I suspected was a new blade and it seemed to have missed any important muscles. I'd felt worse.
   "There's no more cloth." He said when he was done.
   "I left it out there." I remembered. "I hadn't retuned it to the bag after wrapping your arm." I frowned at it. "Which you've gotten wet. I'll have to bandage it again."
   "You can do that after we bathe."
   "W-we?" I stuttered and he raised an eyebrow in amusement.
   "I meant one at a time, but you could join me if you like." He teased and chuckled at my flustered look. "I'm jesting, Alie. Relax." He kissed my bare knee, giving me goosepimples.
   For a moment though, I thought about joining him. But should I? Should I, when I still haven't told him who I really was?
   "What's wrong?"
   There must have been something in my face and I cursed the candle. "Nothing."
   "If it's about that secret of yours, tell me only this: are you married?"
   I spluttered. "W-what?? No!"
   "Then I don't care." He said simply. "I don't care what's in your past, Alie. It's sort of like what you said to Loryn: it's who you are now. You are brave and beautiful and kind and smart and selfless and unique. That's who you are."
   My heart flared and I decided, secrets be damned.
   I stood and he looked up at me in concern. "Where are you going? Did I say something wrong?"
   "No." I said and slipped off my shirt before slipping into the pool with Geacob watching in wide-eyes wonder. "You said something right."

VENNY

   It was quickly becoming almost unbearably hot in my wool, which seemed both a welcome after the cold air of the high mountains and a curse knowing that water would be sparse. Geacob and Ritch had long since stripped to their pants only, and even the girls abandoned all propriety and were in their under shirts with their pants rolled up high enough to make colour blossom on Harks pale cheeks, noticeable even in the torchlight.
   They would though, of course, and why not? Both Ritch and Geac looked like warriors of old they were built so --- Geac from all the training to keep him alive as a Ranger, and Ritch as one who had spent most of his life lifting a heavy axe over his head. The girls were beautiful enough that they were stunning even in their furs. I, on the other hand, had a body that refused to grow any wider no matter how much I ate. Only Hark was thinner then I, and he had the excuse of being deathly ill to account for his twig arms and boney shoulders that stuck out through his undershirt like branches wrapped in delicate silk.
   I wiped more sweat from my face with my already soaked wool and cursed, giving in and hauling the wool over my head and stuffing it in my bag as I walked, embarrassment be damned.
   It didn't help as much as I would have liked. The air was still hot.
   We reached another staircase and instead of passing it, we paused at it and look out our bladders. Alie seemed to find the heat the hardest and sat heavily on the staircase, lifting her hair from her neck and trying to fan the back of it.
   "Here." Loryn said and climbed the steps to sit behind her, taking the leather cord from her own hair. "It might help to keep your hair up. It's thick enough to be an extra coat." She grimaced as she lifted the sweaty strands but began to twist it into a high bun despite her obvious disgust. I smirked at that --- Loryn may be making an effort to be kinder than before, but she was still Loryn.
   "Thank you." Alie said when Loryn was finished. "But will you not be hot?"
   Loryn snorted and shook out her hair so it twisted and curled down her spine. "This is a Florn's winter-noon, Alie."
   "I had forgotten." Alie said with a sigh and stood. "I miss Nascia and my furs."
   "But in Nascia with your furs," began Geacob with a mischievous look on his face, "I couldn't do this." He reached out and pinched her rear.
   Alie yelped and spun around, positively gaping at him. "Do... do not do that in front of them!" She squeaked with absolute indignation.
   He laughed and when she turned again to lead the way down the tunnel, it didn't surprise me when he reached out and did it again, seeing as it was normally very difficult to get any sort of reaction near as such from Alie. She gave him a look this time though and simply took his hand to prevent him from further harassment as he held the torch in the other.
   Hark and I shared an amused look that was slightly embarrassed as it reminded us of what we were able to hear the night before. Clearly they'd been unaware of how far sounds travelled in these tunnels.
   " 'In the glint of silver-white, met the moons unfailing light; like shadows in a stones embrace, raw satin twined with cotton lace.' " Ritch recited.
   "Neil Garbs?" I guessed. "The Averton poet goin' on about the silverwood trees again?"
   "No. Bart Rogen of Dargolyn, speaking of the worth of his most expensive whores, actually." He said with a chuckle. "But it sounded romantic enough for the moment."
   Hark let out a snort of laughter that quickly cut off with a cough as he clutched at his stomach. He wiped his mouth and his hand came away red. He wiped it quickly on his bag and I looked away before he caught me noticing.
   But I wondered how much pain he was in that he hid from the rest of us.
   "Woah." Geacob called as if to horses while he came to an abrupt stop.
   "What's it?" I asked, but even as I voiced the question, I was able to see past and the rocks there, tumbled down from the collapsed ceiling. Even I could see that there was no way though.
   Ritch cursed. "What now?"
   "We can't just go back." Loryn said. "Can't we just... dig through?"
   "That would take days even if it were possible to dig our way out without it collapsing in on us again." Geacob glared at the rocks as if they'd done him a personal insult.
   We were all quiet a moment.
   "Maybe one of the staircases lead around?" Alie wondered. "Perhaps that is the reason of the cave in."
   Geac looked around. "Does anyone remember my uncle saying why we shouldn't take any of the staircases?"
   We all shook our heads, only remembering that he had told us not to do it.
   He grimaced. "I don't think we have much of a choice." He said at last.
   Back at the last staircase, we slowly went up to it as if expecting something to jump down at us. It was long and narrow but opened up into a wide tunnel. Wide enough that it was impossible to see both sides at once with the torch.
   We stayed silent a moment, then headed in the direction of the cave in. "Everyone stay near." Alie whispered.
   "Don't need t'ask me twice." I mumbled and Hark and I, furthest from the torch, gripped each others arms, just in case something tried to pull us from the darkness.
   "Sometimes," Hark whispered, "I really hates the dark. Even the sea holds the darkest of creatures at night. They comes from the deepest depths of the sea, glidin' upward past the bone yard of sunken ships and sails, skeletons of the creatures victims that still ripple in fear at its shadow. Up along, it comes, pas' the sharks and the sea serpents, the eels and the blood whales, an' his eyes follows 'um as they swirls away to the nearest seagod for protections against this darkness. But he doesna persue such lowly sea creatures, nay, he doesn't, for his eyes, dark and they is, goes upward to the shadow of the passing ship that dares wander 'cross his waters. Closer he gets, and close---"
   "Hark!" Alie hissed sharply.
   Hark snickered while I was just about ready to strangle him. "By's, it's only a story---"
   "Look at this." Geacob says.
   "Another cave in?" Loryn asks, her voice a whispered squeaked as we all moved up to see in the light at the stones below.
   "Looks like it's what caused the cave in below." Geac said. "We can get across though, I think. Just have to be careful."
   "Look." Alie whispered, kneeling. It took a moment to see the glint she had in her hands.
   "Is that a... silver wire?" I asked, squinting at the coil.
   She nodded and followed the broken coil to the wall, then up the cieling. Geac raised the torch as high as he could and we could just make out some glint of some odd contraption.
   We all shared looked with each other.
   "This floor, right after the wire, see how cleanly it collapsed?" Geac asked.
   He was right. It was a perfectly straight line as if the stone itself had been cut.
   It all dawned on us. "This had been a trap, and someone set it off." Ritch's voice was grim. "There's a body under there somewhere."
   We were all quiet a moment.
   "We only need to make it to the next staircase." I said, my mouth dry from more that dehydration.
   "If it even leads to a staircase." Alie said but Ritch nodded. "It makes sense that it would. We're clearly on the right path."
  "It's decided then?" Geac asked, looking around. "We go on?"
   "Very carefully." Loryn said with another squeak.
   Geac let out a low breath, then slid down on top of the pile of fallen stone and reached for Alie's hand to help her.
   It was only a few feet of rubble before we crawled back out onto solid ground, this edge as smooth as the previous side.
   "Alright then." Geac said when we were all standing and headed forward. Alie took his hand firmly and they walked side-by-side.
   It was a very slow process. Each step taken with absolute care, searching for wires or loose stones. Even so, all our caution did not prevent us from hearing the sound of a click as Alie's foot stepped down on a stone, which was now suddenly three inches into the floor.
   We all froze.
   "Alie." Ritch said in an exceedingly calm voice. "Do. Not. Move."
   Her gasping was the only reply.
   "I can move her quickly." Geac said, his voice strained. "Just... push her over or something."
   "Don't." Ritch said. Then, "Hand me the torch."
   Geacob did, not letting go of his tight grip of Alie's hand to do so. She was gasping for breath but her face was calm and steady and she didn't move a muscle, not even to watch Ritch carefully walk around in a crouch, searching first the floor, then starting at the sides.
   "There's holes all over here." He said finally, then walked to the other side. "Here too. My guess is arrows. At least two dozen on each side, spreading out three feet ahead and back. The shift of the floor probably notched them into place."
   "And removing the foot will release them." Geac understood, his voice still tight. It was the first time I'd heard a Ranger sound afraid.
   Ritch nodded. "Loryn, come here. Take the torch. I'm going to lift you up to see if there's anything on the ceiling."
   "O-okay." She went to him and took the torch in shaking fingers, then held tight as Ritch lifted her up and held her knees to his chest. "See anything?"
   She raised the torch up and shook her head. "Nothing." She moved the torch around, searching further. "No. Nothing. No cracks even. It's perfectly smooth."
   He let her down. "Alright, everyone back up. Geac, you, too."
   Alie let out a sound that was something akin to a whimper but let go of his hand. "What do I do?"
   "The first arrow is about two feet off the ground. You need to get below that. Get as low and you can without shifting your weight, then drop to the ground on your belly." He paused. "They'll probably release the second your weight shifts, so be careful."
   "Two feet." She repeated.
   "Yes. Two feet. Or three hands, I guess, in Nascia standards." He knelt, out of the range of fire and lifted his hand up flat. "Get below my hand and you'll be fine."
   "Your hand." She echoed. "Your hand. Alright. I can do that." She seemed to calm as her entire focus went onto Ritch's hovering hand. She crouched slowly and put her hands on the stone next to her foot, took a deep breath and pressed her weight on it while carefully moving her foot to the edge of the stone so she was more kneeling than crouching.
   Her face was absolutely still and her eyes never wavered from that hand hovering two feet off the ground. She shifted again and went lower, her arms shaking.
   But she couldn't get any lower.
   "Alright." Ritch said. "Now drop."
   "What if they're tilted?" She asked, a touch of something creeping into her tones. It was the beginnings of panic, I recognized. "What if they cover the whole hall?"
   "They're not." Geac said.
   "But what if they are?" Her voice was coming out in pants and her whole body was beginning to shake.
   "Alie, you'll be fine."
   "You don't know that---"
   Geac moved forward and lay himself down on his belly, right next to her. "They're not." He said firmly. "You're going to be fine." He reached out and touched her shaking hand. "See how confidant I am? Now drop. We'll be fine."
   "I can't." I heard her whisper. "I just can't, Geac. They're tilted, I can feel it already. They'll all hit me. I know it."
   "They're not." He said. "They won't touch you. You'll be fine."
   I stepped forward and lay down on her other side. She gaped at me. "W-what are you doing?"
   "Watching the show." I said with a shrug, as if I didn't have a worry in the world, meanwhile, my heart was pounding.
   Hark whopped. "I have gotta be in this part of the story." He said and then he was laying next to me, crossing his arms under his head as he looked up at the ceiling. His tone went into his storyteller tone. "And so, in a show of great honor and faith, the five lay across the stone, inches b'neath what would be their death if the gods of fate decided it..."
   "No way." Said Loryn. "I'm not going over there. I'll watch from afar and pray."
   "You don't believe there are any Gods." Ritch reminded her.
   "And since I'll pray anyway, it'll show how much I care."
   Alie snorted a pathetic excuse for a laugh. "You've all gone mad." She said. "Oh Mother, protect us all, even though we've all gone mad."
   And with that she let out a scream and dropped to the floor and we all braced for four dozen arrows to shoot above our heads.
   Two shot out, snapping into the other side of the hall hard enough to shatter on impact.
   But no more then those two. There was only silence.
   The strings, I realized. They'd probably been set into the wall long enough for the strings to have broken or rotted away. They weren't going to go off.
   We all stayed there, side-by-side, looking back and forth as if it would be delayed somehow.
   Still nothing.
   "Well." Hark said in the silence, sounding irritated. "That ain't goin' in the story, it was rather anti-climatic, don't ya's think?"
   Alie made a sound that was between a laugh and a sob and then pressed her head into the floor with a groan.