Chapter Text
There is a deep pain in the back of her legs. That is new. She has taken all the healing that she can and still it is deeper than her magic at least can reach. There are others here who are better healers, but it is not the night to ask such things. For them, it is the night to celebrate.
The air is already starting to taste sweeter, the acrid poison of the Shadow Curse is starting to leave this place, and it will not be long until there will be the first leaves on the trees again. She sometimes thinks she is not a very good druid, but sometimes the land likes to remind her who she is. She can feel it, the touch of balance coming back to this land, and it is as sweet as the first honey off the honeycomb. Her mind is alive with all of the promises of a new spring.
She does not know when it happened, when she ceased to be at the head of any party, and instead became a silent observer. In the past she would have been singing with the best of them, her cup drained dry and her voice carrying across the distance. But now it wasn’t her time. Now, it was theirs. She watches as young Ravengard raises a toast to the room, and a good half dozen tieflings practically swoon over him, Karlach chief among them. The room erupts in cheers and applause, but her senses are still strong enough to hear him come up behind her.
“It is a good night for merriment, High Harper.”
She looks up and smiles. “That it is, First druid.”
“Ah, First druid no more, I am afraid. Just Halsin, by the Oakfather’s grace.”
“Ah yes, just so.”
He towers above her. She remembers tales of him all those years ago, the elf the size of an ogre and twice as fierce both in battle and in bed. Was it really so long ago that they fought for these lands and failed? And with just a few nights, and the right hero, it was over. Their failure would be lost to time as a new age took root.
“The land heals. Can you feel it?” He looks down to her with a kind smile, an excited glint in his dark eyes. He is as excitable as a cub, despite everything.
“I do,” she says, the admission sparking in her blood. “And it is wonderful.”
“Isn’t it? What a gift it is, to feel the power of the land fighting to break free of its bonds. To feel the determination of nature to live. It’s thrilling.”
She can see it in him, that deep pool that she remembers. It is in her too, buried beneath thickets of thorns; the deep pulsing recognition of all of nature’s gifts. She has neglected it too long. His eyes are wide with it, he is almost drunk on the feeling of the stirring of the earth beneath them.
“I confess,” she says, pulling herself back to her wine, “Part of me had lost hope.”
“I can confess the same. It is easier for this young blood. They do not know what it is like, to see the years pass and for hope to fade. But hope is here now. Powering through the very ground on which we stand.”
There is a cry of joy from the fireside, as their erstwhile saviour is hoisted on the shoulders by his companions. He is full of wine and laughter, and he deserves every minute of it. She knows that beneath it, there is a great weight in his heart.
“Wyll really is a great hero,” she says, watching as he slides back to the ground, looking up into Karlach’s eyes with admiration. There is something there that sparks a feeling in her, something placed away for safekeeping many years before.
“And a good man,” says Halsin, “Those two things do not always go hand in hand, sadly. We are lucky indeed.”
He learns past her, picks up another bottle from her table and removes the cork with his teeth without a thought. He smiles at her before striding over to the party, handing the bottle to the pretty young Fist by the bar. He does not drink from the cup, she notices, but he is drinking in everything of this young man, his eyes set on his throat as he swallows.
The power of the earth courses through them, but where it makes him strong, it suddenly makes her feel only too weak.
*
It is their time, the time of these new heroes, but still they ask them both to stay. Wyll is adamant; he will have the High Harper and the Great Halsin at his side as he returns home, and she finds it impossible to refuse.
She speaks to Halsin first as she joins their camp with only what she can carry. They will be moving soon, and the city will have plenty of comfort for her, should they make it. What remains of her men stay in a camp further back with the Fist, and part of her feels she needs to be back with her people.
“My heart breaks to leave,” he says. “Seeing Thaniel again made me feel like a boy. It is not something I thought I would hold in my heart again.”
“Time will pass before you know it,” she says, “Wyll will take on the Absolute, and he will win, and then we can choose our lives as we see fit.”
She believes he will prevail. Despite everything, she believes it. She has lived long enough and seen enough men and women take up the mantle of hero, so many cocksure lordlings and educated mages, fierce warriors and quick witted rogues. She knows the depth of character it takes now to be a leader in that way, the selflessness, the courage beyond strength or cunning or skill.
“What will you do,” he asks, “When all this is over?”
“I have my duties,” she says, finding a space nearby and setting down her pack. When she was a young girl, she thought that such things would feel like suffocating vines holding her down, but quickly she had understood the importance to her of strong roots. “They will lead me on, as always, and I do not mind.”
He is different, she thinks. He is full of the spirit of wildness; it is an energy that pours off the very meat of him, in every flex of his arms and every burst of laughter from his chest. She cannot imagine how he stayed in the grove for all of that time, how he could have stood still to let the needs of others weave their way around him.
She looks to him and realises he is looking over her, taking in all of her as she bends down to pull a soft fur bedroll from its bindings.
“Can I do something for you, Halsin?” she asks.
“Forgive me, High Harper. I was simply thinking of life beyond duty. It has been a long time since I have had the freedom to think on such things.”
“Call me Jaheira, if we are to be companions now,” she says. “It is nice to finally be standing together in a fight.”
*
She could always smell the city before she could see it. It has been years and she can never quite get used to it, the intensity of the scent of all of those people living on top of each other, but this is the place that the Harpers need to be, and she needs the Harpers.
“This place,” he says with a growl. “It is putrid. How can you bear it?”
“You learn to bear many things, Halsin, when you have to.”
“I wish I had your fortitude.”
She doesn’t think he would wish such a thing, if he knew what she had to bear to gain it.
“We have not even reached the walls yet. There is worse to come. You must be ready.”
*
She can breathe differently like this. Her body feels powerful again, clothed in night-black fur and pulsing with the need for the hunt. She does not, of course, but she takes the energy that this sleek feline body affords and runs through the woodlands just outside of Rivington, like she has for many, many years since she first called this city her home.
The locals have made a legend of her, the Beast of the Hill, and she has enjoyed chasing some of them tamely through thickets to let her legend grow. There are always young boys, venturing into the woods with excitement on their breath, desperate to prove themselves to their lover or their idle, waiting friends. Sometimes they are armed, but more often they are quaking in their best boots in a way which, she admits to herself sometimes, she might have once inspired simply as a young woman. She allows them a low growl, a pounce that lands just far enough from them to avoid a hidden blade but close enough to make them run, and she roars at them as they stagger back to their little lives in their little town. She will be the legend in their short little existences, and they will each live in her mind too, a scattering of small stars in the constellation of the night hunt.
There is somebody on her tail tonight, she can sense it. He is far enough away that she cannot tell what kind of man he is. This is always the best part of it, the anticipation, the low prowl, the waiting, hidden away, for them to make a mistake, to reveal themselves. Perhaps a sweet slight elf, clutching a poorly made sword and a half-baked dream of being a hero. Perhaps a strapping dwarf, bolstered by the desire to spill the blood of the beast and be a big man. Perhaps a woman this time, desire for the sight of the extraordinary steeling their resolve. She can easily lose any of them, but she has been away from here for so long. She wants to see them. She wants to be caught.
She finds a clearing, one she knows well, where the stars can be seen through the canopy. The moonlight hits the ground and she waits for them to reveal himself. He does, of course, in a tentative step from the darkness into the light.
“I followed you here,” he says, his voice a low hoarse whisper. “Perhaps you knew that? Your senses are keen.”
She growls at him instinctively, letting it thrum through her, standing her ground. She can feel the weight of her paws in the leaves, claws sinking into the earth as she looks up at the shadowed figure of Halsin. He blocks the moonlight, his hand extended towards her with a confidence he has not earned. He makes a move towards her and, with surprise in his eyes, he drops to his knees and begins to transform, the brown of the fur pushing through and expanding him into the beast that dwells inside him.
He stands in front of her, his breath loud and deep, as he inhales a breath and roars.
She turns.
And she runs.
She runs as fast as this body can take her, she runs with all the power she can push through, the branches of the trees scraping at her skin. She can hear the lumbering of the strength of him behind her as he chases, but he will never catch her like this, he can never be lean and swift enough to catch her, but part of her wants to turn and face him, to bare her teeth and to stalk around him.
She runs. She runs until she cannot run anymore, until the dawn starts to leak over the horizon and she collapses on the edges of the woods, the form sinking away and leaving her exhausted and panting on the ground.
*
Their eyes meet over the camp, the flicker of the firelight drawing her to him. There are no words needed, nothing more to be said. The understanding is complicit. They will run in the woods together again. It is done.