"👀"
THE DOOR CREAKS OPEN after a single heavy knock. Alizebeth doesn’t speak a word, doesn’t look up at her uninvited guest. His broad shadow is cast on her worktable, over her shoulder, one she would know anywhere, in a heartbeat - the shadow she grew up in. “Leaving so soon?” Stenvarr asks. She can hear the satisfied smile on his face, faint as it may be. Surprisingly quiet-stepped, he walks up to his once-student, takes inventory of the various supplies she’s organizing; he notes a small assortment of specialty bolts, her satchel of herbs and other medical supplies, oils for her blade and crossbow, a jar of beeswax. “Harpy season,” he adds before picking up a small pile of contracts and reports she’s collected for her trip. It doesn’t take him very long to find the connecting thread. “Ah, sirens.” His expression changes as he keeps leafing through the reports. It appears the flocks are steadily creeping north along the Elandälish coast. Not entirely unusual, if not for the fact that there are so many reports - too many, in fact. It’s near a month from Valgrandt to the eastern coastline. She’s not the type to go on that kind of trip over little more than pests.
Alizebeth leans unto the cluttered worktable and closes her eyes when she hears her mentor pull himself a chair. He knows she won’t say anything if he doesn’t insist, and she knows he will definitely insist. The older hunter clicks his tongue. He doesn’t need to talk to ask for the whole story. “I’m following someone,” she answers his silent query. “I didn’t see any bounties.” “Not a mark. Someone I worked with once.” He pokes at the paperwork. “Looks like you’re covering the whole of the Agaven Coast over them.” No living soul knows her better than the man who raised her in his image. It’s natural he’d latch onto something like this, so far removed from her habits, like a hound would a bone. Any attempts to avoid this conversation would be pointless. Her mentor was always an exceedingly inquisitive man, and the teeth of his curiosity sink deep. Alizebeth takes a deep breath. “Long story.” “Got a few years left before I keel over.”
Her travel pack thumps loudly as she hauls it onto the old wooden table. She nods towards the bundle of reports, telling him he should give them a once-over. “No,” he says, grinning under his thick beard. “You explain.” When she looks up at Stenvarr, he’s exactly as she expects: one hand on the armrest, an elbow resting on his knee, leaned in conspiratorially with that sparkle in his one good eye that shines whenever he feels he has something to learn. “They’re all the same. Strange storms on the coast, endless rain, floods, then the dead. Heard that tale a few times before he found me.” One after the other, vials of various oils and concoctions are slotted into a small bandolier in what is clearly a highly specific arrangement. “Not the usual drowned. Worse than any I’ve seen.” Stenvarr’s excitement quickly fades, his expression growing severe. He’s trained her, yes, but she may well know more about that particular breed of horrors than any other Hawksblood, and he has no qualms with deferring to her authority on the subject. A prideful hunter is a dead hunter. Coming from her, the words have immense weight. “Explain.” “More clever than they should be. Looked like the storms followed them, not the other way around. Didn’t make sense.” She pauses just long enough to recall that evening, the smell of wet leather and moldy wood, the pitter patter of a rain that wouldn’t cease. “Knew there had to be an answer. He had it.”
“Something leads them,” she continues, her answers coming in pieces between careful evaluation and calculating of her rations. “Daughter of the Queen Below, he calls it. It controls them, to some degree. Brings the rains along, keeps them strong.” “Never heard of a melusine bringing corpses around,” Stenvarr comments with some skepticism. “Me neither. Thought it was bullshit,” his student concurs. “Changed my mind quick.” “Don’t get involved with fey.” She’s too busy to notice the older hunter lower his head, run a hand through his beard pensively. It isn’t a question of principles, Saints know the fey bring their share of trouble everywhere, seelie or unseelie, but rather one of concern. He knows how she is when it comes to the dead, how she’s made it her life’s work to eliminate them, no matter the cost. Even her stonelike stoicism isn’t enough to hide the intensity of that wish, not from him. He’s watched her stoke it, year after year, tragedy after tragedy. Where the dead are, Alizebeth goes. Of course she’d want to know the truth. If she were any less careful, any less clever, her fervor in this duty would border on zeal - or it would have, past tense, because if she were any less careful or clever she’d be dead too. Surely, then, she remembered what he taught her - never deal with creatures not of this world. “I taught you better,” Stenvarr says, challenging her silence. “It wasn’t a melusine.” “Said who?” “He did,” Alizebeth states matter-of-factly.
Something’s not right, the old hunter thinks. Clever dead, summoned storms, a sea-witch that isn’t any kind of sea-witch anyone knows - except that man who found her and somehow had all the answers? It would be more than suspicious, if it weren’t near unbelievable. Still, Alizebeth isn’t a woman who lies, and her confidence was always measured, well-earned. If she says the drowned were different, something else, something new, then he’s certain it was. In that at least, he believes her. That stranger’s claims are another story. “You don’t trust that easily.” “Old enemies of his. Biology, weaknesses, origins, warning signs… He was very precise. Grim. Focused,” she says, tapping the lid of that jar of beeswax he’d handed her back then, still quite full. “Told me what he knew. Gave me this to plug my ears and stay safe from the singing. Made sure I was ready for what we went up against. That was the only reason we managed to drive it back.” The jar disappears somewhere in one of the pack’s thousand pockets. “Not forever, though.” Stenvarr suddenly straightens up. “...Did you say ’we’?” She hums. The metallic ringing of bolts being wrapped together leads them both to raise their voices somewhat. “I thought my hearing was on its way out,” he mumbles into his mustache. “You swore you’d never hunt with anyone else again after you lobbed that kid’s arm off.” “This was different.” After such a fantastical tale, this is what truly surprises him. Stenvarr’s good eye tries to peer at her expression as Alizebeth’s movements slow, still entirely. He sees her usual self, genuine and uninhibited, her brow furrowed in thought. The newfound silence, though brief, seems heavy. “...I didn’t have to think about him.”
It’s a simple statement, spoken which such bare honesty, but her hesitation betrayed the weight of the words. To anyone else, they may have been completely inconsequential, but any warrior worth their salt would know better: in the chaos of battle, there are few resources more precious than attention; every sense is stretched to its limit, and any moment’s distraction can spell death. Awareness of one’s allies is just as crucial as that of one’s enemies, and even those who have trained all their lives together can prove unpredictable. To be able to think only of your foe, you must trust with your life that your partner’s instincts, their mind, their body can fall naturally in line with your own. That is an extraordinary gift, rare, intimate in the way few bonds can claim to be. He smiles as he watches his student sling her travel pack over her shoulder and make for the door. Yes, it’s the kind of bond you’d cross half a continent for.
For all her meticulousness, it doesn’t take Alizebeth very long to leave the Order headquarters behind once her preparations are done. Soon enough she’s heading out of the stables with a borrowed steed, the saddlebags heavy with her journey’s supplies. She’s fastening her greatsword at the gelding’s side when Stenvarr comes out of the mess hall, Mara in tow. The wolfhound whines as he ruffles the coarse fur on her head one last time. “What’s the plan?” She doesn’t look back at him as she answers, tugging at the straps and belts holding up her gear to make sure all is well secured. “Find the Daughter. Stop her for good.” Stenvarr shakes his head. She makes it all sound so simple, when there’s very obviously something off about this whole affair, about that stranger. He knows his protégée well, though, too well to think he could ever change her mind. Her tone is determined. She won’t let go of what she feels is her duty. This isn’t just about the drowned dead or the witch, though. “...You’re hoping to find him.” “He’s trying to put an end to it.” One hand at the pommel, Alizebeth places a foot in the stirrup and hauls herself onto the saddle. “I don’t care why. Only that it’s done.”
The lightest pressure of her heel in the steed’s side spurs it forward. Just as it picks up the pace, Alizebeth hears her mentor’s voice call out one last time. “Wait! Your man, what’s his name?” She turns to him, impassive even as she answers.
“I don’t know.”
