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The journey was peaceful, a genuine sort of peace as well. The couple spent much of the time in a soft sort of silence, fingers often linked between their mounts. The bustle and press of Fort Ivory did not seem all that much compared to the raucous mania of Lachheim at its peak, but even now Lidia found that the quiet of the wilds spoke to her in ways she'd never experienced — Lady's Teats, when was even the last time she had been outside of the walls before Bart had come along and the whole world had gone to smash? They rode and they slept, making camp at night beneath the stars and often ending in a tangle of bedroll and limbs full of hot kisses and barely-chaste clutches. It was a challenge to maintain her maidenhood with him so close and touchable, but with the curse of her mother's blood arrested as it had been, she found it had gone from maddening to almost enjoyable. The anticipation had ceased being a burning fever in her belly and instead become a game of exploration — she would know every inch of her beloved's body before they were bare to one another, and she delighted in finding every odd scar and divot in his tall frame.

The kisses were also quite nice.

The path they chose wended about the now-familiar grasslands of the Middlelands, but rapidly left the massive, jagged teeth of stone behind and became a more pastoral lowlands, with great seas of grass and low undulating hills replacing the severe dales and cool valleys of the core of the Heartlands. Stretching before the eye was the far eastern edge of Northsea, rising up into the great Eastern Shelf formed by the upthrust mountain range that formed the natural cradle along the continent's upper quarter, ranging as far west as Reikstand and wrapping around east to Darrowmere in the form of sheer cliffs and craggy peaks alive with dense forest. The distant, foggy land of Darrowmere rose up above the land as grassy knolls turned into a vast steppe at the edge of the horizon, and the Black Forest loomed into view — ancient and primordial, it was of a different character than the Sidhewood even at this distance, where The Lady's home was towering trunks and canopy from another age, the Black Forest was a place from myth and legend, dense and tangled, seemingly perpetually cast in twilight, it was not inviolate as the Erlking's lands were, but rather a dangerous temptation. Thick pines stood stark and close together like lines of soldiers, beckoning the viewer to come beneath their boughs, between their trunks and stay. Lidia and her father had lived near the far western edge of it on the Eastern Marches that formed the borderlands between The Heartlands and Darrowmere's wide steppes, it was there he had cut and carved wood by his own hands, and there where her mother had found him.

It was there she was born. It was there that he died.

It was an eerie experience then, to feel pulled further east, a sensation of nostalgia, of impossible recognition as they passed into the Marches, the horizon dotted full of new-growth trees and old stumps, lodges and small hamlets of woodcutters and longhunters visible like tiny islands of industry in a sea of fecundity, the familiar smell of woodsmoke and tallow a whisper on the breeze. Subtly, gently she found herself guiding them… somewhere, to the east. Towards the edge of the woods, the pull of memory and familiarity becoming an incessant itch in her mind.

“Are you sure this is not your mother's doing?" Gram asked her several days into their journey, the little changeling open with her feelings as her heart with the man, she shrugged.

“Ye said Baba Yaga nipped that bit out o' me, an' her kind cannae lie directly, so I'm fit tae say it's somethin' else," she mused, the two sprawled together in the early morning light around the remains of the morning cookfire, one of his too-large shirts draping off her torso, barely keeping her modest breasts covered, indulging his gaze with a long line of bare flesh from nape to navel as she occupied his lap — away from others, she'd taken to wearing his elaborate shirts as over-sized comfort pieces, and even with her mother's nature sealed away, the scent of the man was tantalizing to her preternaturally sensitive senses. Something she indulged wantonly and without shame as they enjoyed their solitude together.

“Very well Little Redcap, we will continue to follow this instinct of yours, we make good time with good weather, I said I would live this summer for it's every shining moment, and that was not bravado for the sake of the boastful," he said, shifting her in his lap as his quill scratched along on the small tablet cradled between them. Lidia's progress with her letters was rapid, Naima had spent much of their quiet hours during the siege in some way instructing her in the nuances of literacy and alchemy alike, she'd gone from being able to scratch out her name and the letters in sequence to some basic but rapidly-growing form writing, and she could read almost anything put in front of her save for the more… flowery texts Gram and the scribes favored. Absent her teacher, the tall Darrowmite had taken to her tutelage in her stead, and this lazy morning was one such lesson, with Gram's neat, flowing hand writing out script with a quill for her to copy, learning the deft art of penmanship.

“Aye, loverboy. I'll pack as many giddy memories as I can into our wee adventure," she said, taking the quill from him as she set about jerkily copying the sentence he had just written, still smudging the wet ink a bit here, or over-pressing and blotting it there — still improvement was had, and her hands gained surety of motion as she practiced. Just like picking a lock.

“Good, we'll have you writing letters to Father in clear hand before you know it," he praised her as he waved the loose slip of parchment to dry the ink faster, peering at her work with a critical eye, the little changeling twisted in his lap a bit to look up at him questioningly.

“Speakin' o' th' man — is it really bully fer us tae jus' show up at his door like wee scunners playin' hooky?" she asked worriedly, brow furrowing as she met his gaze; “I'm hardly what ye call good noble stock, an' we dinnae even wait fer his return letter before settin' off," she asked worriedly, brushing her hair back behind one ear — still growing, it was eternally messy and wild, a reflection of herself in a way. Gram raised an eyebrow as he looked over her writing.

“It is my home, however long I have been absent of it. I fear not reactions of my family, in fact," he looked up from her work with a twinkle of mischief in his eyes, “I rather am looking forward to the surprise on Father's face, it has been some years since I have been home."

Lidia grinned back up at that, maybe she'd rubbed off on him as much as he had her.

The days passed like that, and for as much as Lidia enjoyed having all of her girlhood fantasies packed into a tall, dark, and handsome hero to fawn over — she also for once, had genuine interests to pursue. The writing and reading helped her pour over the books Naima had left her, small, leather-bound little treaties on the basics of Alchemy. She would never be as capable as Naima — without the mantle she lacked Naima's ability to infuse her own spirit into her mixtures — however, that did not preclude her from much of the art itself. It was the 'science of the unscientific', as the little Southerner had called it, and there was plenty she could learn and do without any more magic to her than a common stone.

Her favorite? Bombs.

She loved them. Loved the idea, the concepts, the careful measurements, facts and figures — the latter was her gift with them, it was all just maths, and she'd always had a good head for numbers. She'd been able to count her steps out to a thousand since she was eight, and could eyeball weights and measures at considerable accuracy and distance — all traits good for the packing, mixing and use of explosives. She'd already learned how to control fuse-burn lengths to get the little powder bombs Naima favored to explode whenever she wanted, even midair. They gave her strength she could control, a way to level the playing field against monsters and men alike. She could move mountains with enough black powder.

All just numbers, she had always been good with numbers. Kull had used to bounce his own ledger figures off her to check if they balanced… in the times that they had been a family still. Times past now. Time enough for that later. Regardless of past and current hurts, she had been gifted a small kit of alchemical tools and reagents, made in the forges of Fort Ivory under Naima's careful and obstinate tutelage, and she'd carefully set about learning to use them. In a year's time, she'd present her learning to Naima under the promise that she'd teach her more. She dearly wished for that.

In between the hours of soft kisses, studious writing — and the occasional test of her new pyrotechnic toys on small stumps and stones, much to Bayard's disapproval at the smell and sound of the sulfurous devices — they found themselves wending and winding closer and closer to the forest's edge, until the tall, sparse trunks of the great black pines loomed above them, almost as imposing as the impossibly massive trees of the Northern Sidhewood, but more… unsettling. They were familiar, not the alien, primeval boughs of ancient trees long grown — but massive exemplars of the common sort of wood. Tempting in their bounty, urging one to walk further in, come inside and see…

“This is not far from my own lands," Gram mused as he trailed slightly behind her on Bayard, Mist's casual canter weaving through the sparse, unpaved trail they followed — pounded flat by decades of woodsmen and locals rather than paved in stone and blood like the Kingsroad had been. It followed the lay of the lands in a soft snaking pattern through the most level and smooth spots through the wide grassy plains that in the distance flattened further into the Steppelands of Darrowmere. Gram pointed further ahead over the horizon to that golden transition from hill and dale to grasslands, “That ridge in the far distance, that marks the very edge of our common lands and the Darrowmite Border."

“No foolin?" Lidia asked incredulously as she reined Mist up short to peer into the far distance, several more days ride — further than she'd ever been east truth be told — but she could barely see it even with her sharper sidheborn eyes peeking above the horizon. Far away… yet tantalizingly close, “Tae think, so close…" she murmured to herself, Gram catching up after a few moments, Bayard's massive chest puffing up as he also reined in to a stop.

“Indeed… fate is a strange creature, my home and yours, so close as to be unknowing neighbors of a sort," he mused to her, and she broke out in a grin.

“Ye fell in love wit' th' girl next door," she teased him, and he smiled.

“I suppose so."

Further eastward they drifted, eventually leaving even the thin path onto the rolling grasslands, a sense of nostalgia washed over Lidia after a point, her feline eyes wide as she came upon a familiar hacked-off stump, littered with old, weathered strokes of an axe — now overgrown with decades of moss and lichen. She stopped cold, pulling on Mist's reins with an almost violent yank that caused the even-tempered mare to snort as she stared, eyes like saucers.

“Beloved?" Gram said in concern, kicking Bayard to a canter to catch up to her, all pretense of his usual pet-names dropped as he hauled the massive warhorse in step with aplomb, free hand on his saber, Lidia could only sort of hear him, echoing as if he were far away… as she was lost in long-buried memories.

Papa, papa! Is this a good piece? It dinnae 'ave the not-wholes in it!

Aye, a solid piece. Up onto th' splittin' block it goes then.

Voices from buried memories, voices she knew. Voices she'd forgotten, driven down into the deep dark with the pain. Her eyes scanned rapidly around the overgrown stump, the grasses now tall and reedy, but she then saw more: a familiar ring of stones, a fire frequently set. Two fallen logs, now fallen to moldering and damp, worn smooth by years of sitting and toil.

Aye lass, now blow soft-like, let it breathe. Fire is a livin' thing, it needs tae eat, needs tae breathe and needs space tae grow. Here, stack th' limbs like so…

Her hands began to shake, her whole body trembling as the nostalgia turned to white-faced shock. She… she had been here before. She knew this place. She all but fell from the saddle in a scramble of limbs, landing in a heap, heedless of the scuffs on her hands and knees as she clawed her way to the overgrown firepit.

“Beloved?!" Gram reiterated, hurdling from the saddle with practiced agility, coming to her side as she sat there staring.

“I've… I've been here 'afore," she breathed to him as he laid a hand on her shoulder; “This… this is where Papa and I would sit and he'd split wood fer th' hearth, pickin' out the good bits fer carvin'," she shook as she blinked away tears and looked up, and suddenly… it leapt out at her.

Further afield a few hundred paces, now nestled back in the treeline, was the silhouette of a cabin. Small and cozy, her breath caught in a soft 'Ah!' of shock and realization, choking on words she could not put into speech. It was a small place, perhaps no bigger than two of the rooms they occupied at Fort Ivory placed alongside one another, built out of cut, shaved, and stacked logs and covered with a peat-and-sod roof — now overgrown with grasses, plants and even of all things a few small trees having bored their roots down into the loamy structure. The treeline had advanced in twenty-odd summers, and the Black Forest had reached back out to claim what had been taken from it.

“It's Papa's cabin. Where I was born."

She stood, Gram's eyes wide as she found her feet and walked like a thing possessed, the sudden wash of locked-away memories hitting her like a flood of ghosts of her own making. The overgrown yard and walk flickered in her mind's eye between the now and the far away then — seeing herself running and playing, too small in too-large clothing. Images of her father, his hands and arms mostly… she could not seem to remember his face. Why couldn't she remember his face? Bleakly she walked into the trees, tears brimmed in her wide, shocked eyes as the phantom thoughts painted over the wood with the familiar sound of chisel, hammer, and saw. The crackle of fire, and the clatter of crockery. She heard laughter, and deep basso song in her mind. She saw his strong hands, thick arms, the red carpet of hair across the back of them.

Yet she couldn't remember his face. Why couldn't she remember his face.

The doorframe was hand-carved, with dozens of little inlays. Owls, squirrels, sparrows and all manner of creatures dotted its exterior — a labor of a lifetime of love for the craft and the place itself. She ghosted her fingers across the familiar carving of a little mouse, almost too small to be noticed, tucked in a little cubby at what had once been eye-height for a little girl.

Papa, th' mouse needs cheese!

Aye, what is a mouse without cheese? Tae each creature as they need, nae reason not tae. Tis our world, we can make o' it as we wish.

There it was. She brushed away fallen leaves and dust, a little wedge of cheese made of wood, augured with holes, rested there by the little mouse carving. Her throat tightened, and a sob escaped her for a moment before she stifled it with a hand, not letting the tears through — not yet. The cool shade of the trees was a welcome balm to the hot burn of angst in her chest, her fingers brushed over the walls, feeling the wood and it's smoothness — smoother still with the passage of years — her mind produced more unbidden memories as she walked past the woodpile, long overgrown and rotted, her Father's broad back carrying a load to the fire, and her tagging along behind with but a single wedge of wood in tiny hands. A thousand, thousand frozen moments banished to the darkness by her pain, clawing free, cracking her apart. She saw her first steps in new boots, the withered and twisted branch of a great tree he had hung a swing from for her. In her mind's eye, they were fresh and new, unblemished by the passage of time, unblemished by the reality of the world. Yet, that faded as she raised her eyes to the tiny cabin, to its lichen-covered logs, the trees growing too-close, even atop it. The layer of sod sprouting grasses and mushrooms in the damp, flowers filling and overgrowing the hand-laid stone path up to the door. Nature had taken back what it had given, covering the corpse of her childhood in a blanket of green life like a verdant mortuary shroud.

She reached for the door, and found it stuck fast by swelling and warp. It had always stuck a bit when it was damp, and with instincts long forgotten, she lifted up and twisted hard — and the door popped open with a blast of dust, spores, and history. Inside was dim, but not dark — light streamed into the enclosed space through the old windows in lazy bars through the thick air, pollen and motes of dust wafting about, the smell of flowers blasting her in the face as she crossed the threshold. It was small, cozy, intimate. She remembered it as such, a tiny stone heart sat in a layer of twenty-year-old dust, the cookpot askew on long-desiccated coals, to one side sat a workbench layered in cobwebs and neglect, her father's tools rusted and corroded where they had landed — untouched by all but time. An unfinished block of carving having rotted away to mold beneath a chisel that was little more than dust and memory. Next to that stood the remains of a hand-carved table, sturdy even in its neglect, atop it lying the moldering remains of bowls and cups she remembered keenly now. The smell of flowers, wild and sweet, was overwhelming now… and when she turned her head to where their beds had been… she knew why.

“Oh… Oh God…"

In the bed, long decayed yet intact… was him. Exactly where she'd left him twenty odd summers before. Her father. Lying in repose. Surrounded, engulfed even, by a bed of wild white roses, their thorny branches having consumed the whole bed and nook into a great, brambly bier. His body had decayed to naught but clean bones, and his clothing had slowly turned to dust and echoes of it's former glory, in his ribs, where his heart should be — blossomed the largest of all the blooms, great and mighty as his own had been, bright, almost bloody red in the sea of white petals. He had never left, and with the cabin — the forest had taken him back as well.

The sound she made as she dropped to her knees was one of quiet, child-like pain. A whimper of a scuffed knee, a torn pantleg, a hurt heart. The tears flowed now, falling in great, fat drops of wet sorrow onto the spongy floorboards. The ghosts of the past surrounded her, laughing and crying in equal amounts. Memories of every moment she had forgotten in her flight from her Father's cold form upon the bed, buried inside and tamped over with fear and regret. She'd been barely seven summers old, if even that, and she'd been left alone. All alone.

“He… h-he was like this, wh-when I found 'em," She said softly without looking away, Gram had entered behind her, silent and respectful. She'd known he was there, felt him. “Cold an' still, wit' a wee little smile on his face… why cannae remember his face?" she asked… and the empty bones offered her no reprieve, no solace. This was not the man who had held her tiny body during thunderstorms in his great big arms, not the man who had bounced her on his shoulders and carried her to the low-branches of too-tall trees. This was just an empty husk. A memory of a memory. Tears fell, streamed unceasing down her cheeks as she drew in a breath in a ragged sob.

“I… I think I killed him, Gram. I loved me Papa, I loved him s-so, so much…" she said and her voice broke along with the damn inside of her, crumpling her in half with a breathless gasp of agony.

“I think I ate him… like ye, bit by bit, until nae was left an' he just… j-just…" the words failed her as Gram's strong hands came to her shoulders, pulling her back against his chest. She could not turn away from the sight, but she choked out a new sob and laid her face into his shoulder, those slender, strong hands stroking her face as he pressed his own into her hair.

“You were a child, beloved. None could ask you to know, if anything the blame lies with your mother, for placing you as you were with one so rare as he. Love should not be regretted, it is too rare. Too precious," he murmured against her red locks, pointedly taking her ever-present red hood and pulling it closer around her face like a scarf — a gift from her father, bought on a venture into Lachheim long ago.

Papa, I cannae get it tae fit! It's too big!

Oh aye, but ye'll grow into it proper. What good is a hood ye only wear fer a season?

“I grew into it, Papa," she said in a ghost of a whisper, “I grew big, an' strong, an' I have so many friends… God, ye'd love 'em. Bart an' ye'd talk fer hours, an' God's Blood — ye'd 'ave sung ballads with Nazir til ye both were hoarse…" she fell silent in another soft, wracking sob, Gram's strong arms held her tight, and he said nothing. He was present, he was strong, he loved her — and that is what she needed. He held her tight, held her together as she fell to simple sobbing, childlike and plain — she wept the tears she had been too young to understand, the pain she had buried in the crush of survival on the streets of Lachheim. She wept it all out over the gentle repose of the one man who until very recently — had asked of her nothing but a smile and a laugh, she wept for the loss of things. She wept for the childhood stolen from her, for the happiness taken.

She wept for herself, at long last. She wept for the girl that died with the great, gentle man in that bed of roses.

It took time. The sun slowly easing behind the far horizon, casting the warm light of dusk through the open doors and long-ruined windows. Gram never left her, never strayed from their place on the floor in that long-forgotten place. He stayed with her, he held her up as the throes of anguish wrung themselves dry… and in the end, he dried her tears as she rose from that place on the floor, leaving Gram's steadying embrace behind — she drew her knife. Without a word, she drew out a bit of her long, bright red hair — the surest sign of her father's blood upon her — and she braided it tight and neat to her scalp with quick, deft motions.

Then, with a quick slice, she cut it away. No more than a finger of her bright coppery mane, it fell into her hands, she knotted it tight and walked to the bleached bones of the man whom had loved her first, and best.

“I'm… gonna be ok, Papa. I miss ye… but we'll be together again someday, ye?" she said, leaning down over the bed of thorns and petals, and carefully tucking that lock of her hair beneath the folded bones of his hands. “I promise… I'll remember it all someday… iffin' nothin' else, I'll make sure o' that."

She drew back, folding her hands over her heart, a shuddering breath was all she could manage before she turned back to Gram, eyes large and luminous in the fading light.

“Take me away, Gram… I cannae be here anymore, I dinnae care how long we ride I jus'…" she sniffled again and wrapped her arms around him with a sudden, crippling weight piling upon her.

Gram said nothing, his arms were strong as he lifted her up and kissed her eyelids one after another, tucking her into his arms as they left the house again, the door closing with a quiet sort of finality.

They rode into the night, the moons looking down upon their solemn journey into the dark. The Twin Maidens bathing their path in their light, sympathy in the silvery shadows.

~ ~ ~

Lidia slept, and for once she did not dream. It was a pleasant oblivion of sensation and emotion, cradled in Gram's arms within Bayard's saddle as he carried them far from the cabin and all it's too-real memories and hurts. She remembered only the parts of it where he held her, hushing her back to sleep as she stirred again, exhausted emotionally and physically by the ordeal of having the very core of her being bared anew. She felt naught but the warmth of Gram's arms, and it was a salve onto her freshly-broken heart.

They rode until the Twin Maidens were at their peak, Gram finding at last a suitable site to camp at. He laid her down in soft grasses within their now-shared bedroll, and she drifted on the darkness of being until the sun rose bright in the sky the next day. She awoke as she had fallen to slumber, in Gram's arms. A fire had been built and smoldered in one corner, and as she stirred, he kissed her hair and drew her closer without a word.

“Thank you, loverboy…" she murmured softly, turning her face to his, her hand touching his cheek, drawing him in for a soft, proper kiss. He said nothing, he didn't have to. He had cared for her without words, without need to ask. He had known what to do, because his heart had spoken where his lips were silent.

“We'll make my lands in a day or two at your leisure, beloved," Gram said over their breakfast late in the morning, the little changeling having had remained more or less silent the entire time.

“It's passin' strange," she said apropos of nothing as he presented her with a bowl of savory oats and bacon from the fire, the woman barely seeming to notice the piping hot bowl as she continued to stare through the flames into the middle distance, “Tae find him like that, jus' as I left him as a wee, scared little lass," she reflected, huddling around the warmth of the bowl as a brisk wind pulled through the lowlands they had descended into, dancing through her hair and chilling her fingers and cheeks. Gram raised an eyebrow around a spoonful of porridge and crunched into his own rasher of bacon thoughtfully as she began to slowly pick at her meal.

“It was assuredly an unnatural tableaux," Gram agreed, one long swallow later, his leg propped up at a jaunty angle against a stone, the casual looseness of his poise seemingly like a switch, with his command went much of his taciturn stiffness, his eyes tracked back to hers; “You are thinking your mother claimed him in the end." he said to her, it was not a question. She nodded slowly, turning her spoon extra long in her lips in deep thought.

“It must be… she said she loved him, papa said same iffin' ye asked, an' when th' two o' them were together, nae could come between…" she said in agreement, her mind hazy on memories of her mother's flashing eyes and vague notions of a possessive, all-consuming attentiveness she paid the man… but much like the memories of his face — that too seemed unnaturally hazy and unsure. Like something had snatched it from her. But Baba Yaga had only taken the working her mother had laid on her… unless.

“I cannae remember my Papa's face," she said bleakly, letting her head hang as if the weight of leaving it unsaid was a burden she had sloughed to the ground, “I know, I know I use tae remember it, but it's… all gone now, a mess o' mist and cobwebs, along wit' most o' my strong remembrance o' me mother."

“You think her responsible for this as well." Gram added, seeming to be following her mind beat for beat, she spared him a smile with as much warmth as she could gather: there was much to be said for smart men.

“Aye," she agreed, nursing another mouthful of oats and bacon, “Ah'm thinkin'… she put 'em in there, as part o' the spell tae make me come home an' be her wee poppet on strings."

“And when Baba Yaga snipped that working out of you…" Gram began, eyes meeting her cat-eyed gaze as her eyebrows raised pointedly.

“She snipped out th' pretty, pretty memories she'd made tae lure me in wit' as well."

“Well… that only explains half of it, the way you say it you have incomplete memories now, perhaps…" he ventured, stroking his mustache as Lidia ate more readily, the conversation serving to lubricate her emotions and hunger well enough. He drummed his fingers on his jawline.

“Then perhaps she stole them, there are many stories of this Lenansidhe throughout Darrowmere's history, the Bloody Muse, Lady of Red Hands, there's a colloquial bit near the Black Forest where they refer to the fervent, obsessive madness as 'The Lenansidhe's Kiss'." He explained, feeling out the idea to her, “She and her sisters are well-established in our legends as the stealers of love, souls, and ideas — identities even," he said and Lidia leaned forward.

“She could o' taken them… an' left those shinin' pretty memories in place so nae matter how awful life got, she'd 'ave hooks in me tae come home to th' good ol' days…" she said with a little hiss of displeasure. Gram made a face.

“Ghastly, and thoroughly sidhe."

“How can ye lie in bed with me knowin' I'm half monster?" Lidia hissed in exasperation, “Th' more I learn o' the fair folk I hail from, the more awful it seems tae get."

“Half-Monsters deserve love too," Gram said succinctly from his place across the fire at her, and his eyes smoldered in a way that had nothing to do with the mellowing coals between them. Her smile waned but did not vanish as she slid her foot out to brush one toe against his calf,

“Yer too good fer me, loverboy, ye know that, right?" she said in a soft voice full of earnest belief, Gram rocked with silent laughter at the suggestion.

“I will hear none of tha-"

“Nae ye gonna," Lidia cut him off with surprising vigor, her turn to stare intensely across the fire. “Yer too good fer me, an' I dinnae want ye to ever think I dinnae know meself," she stated plainly, her cat-eyed stare haunted, “Jus' bein' wit' me has nearly killed ye by sheer touch, an' all sides o' me life sully ye accomplishments and pretty name with th' darker parts o' th' world. I'm nae even a proper peasant girl, I'm gutter trash from th' streets o' th' city — only so lucky tae not be some whore by the sharpness o' me teeth," she all but snarled, her ferocious sidheborn fangs bared with the final words. Gram listened to the whole tirade soberly, finishing his bowl of porridge quietly before he raised his eyebrows at her, his mustached face inquiring.

“Are you finished?"

She stared a moment and closed her mouth with a little nod, he was so damnably polite. The tall man took a moment, and stood — walking to where she sat, and crouching down in a tight squat in front of her, bringing him eye-level with the tiny changeling. His pale eyes were clear as icicles hanging off the church eaves.

“I do not care. Of these things, they are matters of physical substance but not quality," he said in a level tone, his eyes unblinking as he held her gaze as surely as if he'd grasped her by the skull, “Of these things, I am just as guilty. I care not about matters of nature nor birth, I live in defiance of my own — I dare not be so proud as to claim to be the only who can."

Lidia did not know what to say to that, this earnest, direct, honest man sitting here and telling her precisely what she wanted, craved to hear to her face with no guile or subterfuge. Gram was a wonderful man despite whatever may be broken and cold inside of him — he saved every ounce of that warmth for her and his friends. Doled it out like rare spirits, enough to get drunk on. She truly didn't deserve him — and he really didn't care.

“Are we done with this?" He asked with that one raised eyebrow, “I have sparred with swords as well as tongues with far more stubborn men than one irascible little Redcap on this topic, I shall not be swayed to the bleeding, nor cold blankets and solitary sleep if need be," he said crisply, and her wide-eyed gaze turned up at the edges a bit with an outraged smile.

“… Ye'd withhold yer attentions if I kept on about this?" she asked with giddy incredulity — the tall man nodded with absolute seriousness.

“I would take to my bedroll alone until you saw reason if need be."

“Oh yer right about one thing," she answered with a toothy smirk; “Yer definitely jus' as fookin' devious and wicked as I am," she said and then added in a tone of playful pique; “Prick."

His face only then smiled in response. She loved the man, prick or not, and he knew it.

“Someday I'll win one o' these little contests wit' ye," she said as she tugged him forwards, feeling the grim pall of the events, the realizations fading off her under the cool, refreshing wash of his words.

“Someday." He agreed, leaning in for the kiss she demanded in return.

Someday.

~ ~ ~

The darkness of their discovery fell behind them like the leagues did, and Lidia found herself oddly renewed. Like after a good cry, something about finally feeling the truth of her sadness, defining what was missing, had washed something clean from her soul.

The journey carried on in the fashion it had before, and in a matter of days they found themselves crossing the border of Darrowmere proper, leaving the last roll of the hill country behind as they passed down into the deep lowland steppes. They lay together, ate together, wrote and read together as the great, golden grasslands spread before them, the curve of The Black Forest retreating to the northeast, following the line of the mountainous shelf that overhung the far seas. Even from here, Lidia could see the edges of spires and towers of distant cities further up the heavily forested mountains and hills that rose up like a bowl all across the eastern horizon.

“My homelands," Gram said after a few days riding towards the southeast, crossing the great rolling fields of grasses and scrubby trees, they came to a rocky ridgeline in the distance. The stony ridge was the first true outcropping of the growing swell of the massive mountain range that dominated much of Darrowmere, and even here it was a subtle monolith, the ridge itself seeming gentle at first from a glance, but as they approached the illusion of its mass was revealed. The seeming soft swell of the earth was in fact an impassable wall after a fashion, the tops of the bluffs becoming sheer, rocky cliffs with few easy routes through — one of which caught her eye with the natural slope of the land, and drew her to where her beloved had gestured.

“Is that… a castle?"

The stolid ridge had few passes, and the most obvious was nestled in between two dueling peaks of the short, stubby range, the pair of crags split in the middle and offering a fairly steep but walkable ramp up and over into the next shelf of steppes and Darrowmere territory proper. Perched on the northern side, peeking out of what at this distance appeared to be the very stone itself, was a stout, stocky little fortification, bright white limestone walls gleaming even at this far distance.

“Baudelaire Keep, or as we called it fondly — the Navel," Gram confirmed as they spurred into a canter.

“Why th' Navel? I dinnae see no belly fer a button," she said and Gram chortled at her, pointing.

“You will see it better up close, but that is not but the stone it is built into, but a great, deep limestone cavern, like the navel of the Tor-Dragon sleeping beneath it," he said, and it was her turn to chuckle a little.

“Yer a poet in all things, ye missed yer callin' with all the fightin'," she teased him and he grinned.

“The pen may be mightier than the sword, but a spear is a different matter," he said with a too-serious face and a deeply un-serious wink.

“A cave? Ye built a whole castle into a cave?" She pressed afterwards, eyes wide, “Lady's Teats, every time I go thinkin' I've seen tae end o' ways ye military sorts will tell people tae fook off ye doorstep, I find a new an' interestin' way o' sayin' it with stone."

“We are a standoffish sort. Good walls make good neighbors, and keep poor ones in their place." He agreed with a little sniff of pride. Lidia giggled at him and reined Mist a little closer. Bayard's usual gruff temperament softening around the gentle little palfrey, he and Gram truly were a matched set.

“Looks a wee ways off still, ye said this is your land?" She asked from their new, more intimate proximity and the tall man nodded, shielding his eyes against the glare with a hand as he cast his gaze across them.

“From the southern crag to the northern treeline, there stands the Baudelaire Barony and all good souls within it as its charge," he said, gesturing down the ridge for some leagues in either direction, making the stout little cave-built castle quite an insurmountable edifice — no reasonable way around for at least three days ride in any direction, and if you went too far north you ran into the Black Forest. Lidia had grown up there, and she knew its dangers well.

Truly, so did others, as scattered along the foothills of that wide steppe ridge both above and below were the visible plumes of smoke and haze from small hamlets and yeoman villages, Lidia even had spied more than a few semi-nomadic herders walking the far ridges with their strange painted and decorated cattle. The Barony clearly provided security and protection on both sides of the border, living in the shadow of the small but mighty edifice came with many boons.

“Really did 'ave all me girlish fantasies come true at once," she mused quietly as they spurred forwards across the plains, the eagerness in their hearts following down to their horses' hooves, quickening their pace with the freedom of the open field and its sweet, spirited wind in their hair.

The approach truly sold the impressive mass of the far ridge, the distances playing tricks on the mind after the tighter, busy places Lidia had grown in, even after her time traveling the Middlelands and living and working among the goodly folk of Fort Ivory — itself an edifice of mythical scale — she was ill-equipped to truly gauge the gargantuan scale of such things. What looked like a simple bump in the far distance rapidly grew as they cut across golden grasses and windswept meadows of brilliant purple wildflowers — Gram riding ahead of her, and sweeping a great bundle of them up in his arms, before presenting them to her joyous, giggling approval. By the time they had found themselves truly beneath the shadow of the ridgeline and it's craggy half-peaks, Lidia wore a crown of purple flowers in her hair and a fresh smile upon her lips. The shadows still lurked in her wounded heart, but the dawn had — and would — come again, she drew strength from that as her companions had taught her so well. It was not until days further, that she would find a new need for that strength — Gram coming up short as they crested the foot of the slope up into the craggy, forested hills.

“What's th' matter, loverboy?" She asked, she knew that look, the steel in his spine and the twitch of his mustaches — Gram was on alert, not usual wariness, but the kind of alertness he showed in the hours before battle. Even Bayard sensed it, his posture upright and attentive, muscles twitching with springy readiness as he felt the tension in the air.

“We should have met outrider patrols by now, even in the quietest times Baudelaire men-at-arms kept these woods and the foothills safe, there's no way we were missed by lookouts from the walls, least of all with Mist's bright white coat." he said, and loosened his saber in it's scabbard, his polearm still lashed to his saddle and out of reach. Lidia felt it too, then. The woods were quiet, there was no birdsong, no crunch of animals in the underbrush. A stillness had taken over like when a great predator had moved through and all fell quiet in its passing. Her hackles raising, she similarly followed suit, loosening her messer with a faint jiggle as well.

They passed through the woods on alert, Gram riding slightly ahead and to the side of her, his eyes alight and sharp. Lidia as well, had cast aside her crown of flowers so her nose could sort out the scents around them, she sniffed the air.

“Men, an' Horses," she said, Gram casting his gaze back to her a moment in acknowledgment, “Enough o' 'em that I can still smell th' stink o' sweaty armor an' saddletack."

“Too many to be a patrol then," he said grimly, and Lidia nodded with a little swallow.

“Aye, a whole lot o' bodies moved through here nae too long ago," she said, and gram leaned down in his saddle with a squint.

“Indeed, and carefully — look," he said, and pointed to the road — they were following the main thoroughfare, a heavily trod road up into the ridgeline and it's loose, wild copses of trees that only just qualified as woodland by a hair, her eyes followed his direction and she noticed it at once: hoof prints, a large amount of them, and deep.

“Whoever it was, they rode in tight file, to conceal their approach and numbers. This does not bode well," the tall man said in a clinical voice.

Lidia nodded again and looked around; “Could nae be a neighbor, or mayhaps church soldiers?" she inquired, and Gram shrugged, drawing himself back up and cantering back forward.

“It is possible, but I know my lands, even long-absent. I grew up in these hills, these trees, this air — and it all feels wrong."

Lidia couldn't argue with that, she knew the feeling. Back when it had stood strong and tall — Lachheim had been that place to her, she knew it upside down and backwards, the cobblestones her friends, the tall walls her allies. She trusted the man's intuition the same as she would her own.

The certainty arrived as they came within view of the castle itself. It was a tremendous sight, at a distance it had been small, and closer the trees and crags covered it, but as it emerged from the tangle of pines and scrubby crag-dwelling shrubs — Lidia could not contain an audible gasp of wonder. It was a modest enough design, simple, square walls of bleached limestone with little care for aesthetics or style, it was a squat, squared-off redoubt that was entirely business, more like the Order Citadel in Lachheim than anything else. Simple. Effective.

The grand part of it was it's location.

Up a severe slope that already set the path they followed at an uncomfortable grade, overlooking a sheer cliff face on it's opposite side, the keep was ensconced in a little cul-de-sac of crags, the slope moving beyond the grounds into the pass proper across the vast killing field before it's gates atop that same brutal incline. In that crescent of stone, the castle itself sat back deep in a massive, yawning cave, several parts of it carved directly out of the stone itself, the bricks clearly sourced locally from the very edifice it was built into. The cave itself looming over the whole grounds like the yawning maw of a sleepy Tor Dragon peeking from above the soil, it's great mouth full of massive inverted spires of stone like gleaming yellowed teeth — it was not so dour however, the shade it cast down across the valley was cool and pleasant, and it made the otherwise stocky, imposing fortification seem to simply grow up from the stones like the will of God had put it there. Gram however, halted immediately as they came out of the trees, eyes hard as agates.

“Loverboy?" she asked, and she saw something on his face that she had nearly never seen before.

Hatred.

“Those are not my family's colors."

Lidia blinked, turning her gaze to the walls. The pennants and banners that flapped were visible now, and carried on them a brilliant field of white and gold, centered on a snarling red wolf wolf heraldry — its jaws clamped tight around a saber and scepter jutting from either side of it's stylized muzzle. Gram spurred his horse forwards anew, that mask of cold disdain not moving an inch from his face as the little changeling was forced to put her heels to Mist's flanks to catch up with the near-gallop Bayard had broken into. Something was wrong, more than wrong colors — that heraldry meant something to Gram, she had spent enough times staring into his eyes together to know recognition when it passed across them.

By the time she caught up to him, they were mostly up the grueling slope, coming to a heavily walled and fortified bridge built right into the side of the cliff that supported the whole castle, itself much as the base of the redoubt simply carved directly from the living stone — no drawbridge or moat needed, the sheer walls and heavy gates were enough that any opposing force to get up the green was already at a terrible disadvantage. Even Lidia's layman's eyes could identify killing fields and angles of fire for siege weapons and archers, the castle was a deathtrap for any foolish enough to besiege it.

“Gram, GRAM! What is it, what's th' matter?!" she called as he pulled up short before the bridge, finding it manned by soldiers in those same colored coats, hauberk and fierce close-fitting helms with wide brings and imposing noseguards — hard-eyed men of dark hair and pale eyes, all with the same drooping mustaches and fierce features as Gram, and his same loose-fitting breeches, sashes and sabers. Their gaze looked to her with open, casual disdain and she reined Mist in hard, the gentle palfrey snorting her displeasure at the rough treatment as she came to a stop just behind Bayard's withers, Gram snarled something in a language she didn't understand, and the guards themselves sneered at him and barked a clearly perfunctory response and seemed set to ignore him.

“Damnation," He growled at nobody in particular, wheeling Bayard back from the bridge slightly, eyes not leaving the far gates nor the walls festooned with those colors that chagrined him so, the gates opened after a moment and his teeth set, his eyes finally tearing away from the keep to meet Lidia's worried gaze, “Lidia… I am sorry," was all he said, and the gates swung open, at the far end of the bridge, an honor guard forming up around a pair of figures. Gram's gaze once more hardened, and his teeth set so hard she saw his jaw bulge subtly with the tension, but there was a resignation to the rest of his posture, an acceptance — whatever this pain and fury was, it was old. He had felt it before.

The guards marched the length of the bridge, forming up between Gram, Lidia and their charges, before separating and revealing two tall men — whom could not be more opposite.

To the left, was a tall man with pale hair and eyes the dark hue of fresh coffee, his long-limbed build was willowy and slender, with an almost fae-like poise and grace that reminded her of the Sidhe that had fought at The Siege of Fort Ivory. Thin glasses perched on his nose, and a well-trimmed beard sat upon his chin in contrast to his otherwise neatly clean-shaven features. His face was angular and sharp, the features of the 'High Darrowmite' stock of the mountains and cities, full lips, high cheekbones and sharply angled eyebrows lent an inquisitive cast to his face regardless of expression. His long hair was tied back at the nape of his neck in a lengthy braid, and his eyes while intense — were kind, warm, and carried with them the gaze of longing she had seen on Gram's face many times before.

“My dearest son," the blond man began, his voice a soft and buttery tenor that pleased the ears, his tone remorseful, and his expression worried “You truly should have awaited my response before you came."

“So it seems, Father," Gram agreed in a dire tone, but the warmth returned to his visage as he laid eyes on the slender man, Lidia's own widening as it clicked — His father, the Baron Baudelaire.

“It would not satisfy his nature, he is as always — headstrong and direct, as it should be," the opposing man cut in, and his voice even was the opposite of the slender Baron Baudelaire, a deep baritone cut with gravel and grit, resonant like a war-horn.

He was equal in height to the blonde man's willowy build, but easily twice his mass, a huge, rangy weapon of a man, she didn't need to see his embellished breastplate or hanging saber to know he was a warrior — the sheer presence of the man spoke of it, like Rashid, Bart or indeed, Gram himself — he simply radiated the coiled, well-controlled capacity for violence that was the mark of a dangerous man. His hair was short, and cut close to his scalp on the sides, falling across one side of his face in a combed-over forelock of sorts. His face was hard, angular and sharp — and in it she saw the planes and angles of Gram's own features, dark hair, pale eyes the color of winter skies, and full, expressive lips perched beneath a severe, angular nose and above a jawline like an anvil. His beard was cropped close and his mustache thick and well-maintained — the former sporting gray streaks along his jaw and temples, his eyes sunken and intense, almost animalistic in their attentive gaze. Around his thick neck hung a heavy gold chain and pendant with the same sigil as the flag, and over his shoulders was a massive, fierce-looking pelt of a red-brown furred wolf, it's preserved head glaring with polished fangs and artificial gemstone eyes from one shoulder, the rest falling in line with his heavy red greatcoat like a duelist's cape.

“You as usual, know much and yet little of my nature, your Lordship," Gram said politely, but there was acid dripping off his tone. The brawny man smiled and his shoulders rocked in a far, far too-familiar silent laugh, and a creeping horror sunk into Lidia's guts.

“Gram, who is that?" she hissed to him quietly, clearly not quiet enough as the dark-haired man drew himself up with a lazy sort of smile.

“Ah, introductions, how gauche of us," he said and raised his heavy, calloused hand to the blonde man; “My compatriot, The Baron Richart Baudelaire," he said by introduction, Baron Richart inclining his head tersely, clearly uncomfortable but managing, “And I myself?" he said, spreading his arms slightly.

“Baron Matevi Karnov, the Red Wolf of the Steppes."

Gram's jaw clenched as he inclined his head, and Lidia did the same… as she realized who she was looking at.

Oh dear God. He was Gram's father. His blood father.

“Who is this then, your maidservant?” Karnov asked in a dismissively conversational tone, lowering his arms and tucking his thumbs into his belt, and Richart’s mouth twitched at it’s edges before Gram’s stony visage nearly mimicked the motion, some mannerisms were learned.

“This is Lidia Shaw,” Gram answered, pointedly reaching out to take her hand between their horses, Bayard moving towards her little palfrey, Mist, in a similarly protective manner, “My betrothed.”

The statement raised a few eyebrows, Matevi and Richart both — but only the former in surprise. The pale-haired erudite’s expression was more inquiring than confused, his coffee-colored gaze settling over the little changeling with a curious gleam, chin raising slightly with his soft smile, as if she were a welcome reprieve from the awkwardness of the exchange. Karnov however, had an ugly flash of anger that rippled across his face for only the merest moment that had she blinked, she would have missed. He seemed off-guard for a fleeting instant, off-step… Richart had kept her a secret. Matevi had been expecting Gram, she realized… but not her.

“Ah, a blessing then. It has been some time since this humble holdfast has had a bride beneath it’s eaves,” Richart said with a genuine smile, folding his hands together before his heart, Matevi recovered smoothly

“Indeed! The unexpected blessing is the most celebrated, but come, come — let us adjourn to more comfortable lodgings,” Baron Karnov said — and behind the pair, the sentries had formed up pointedly, making it clear such things were not a suggestion.

“’Tis a pleasure tae be here, yer Lordships,” Lidia said in a dry tone. Richart’s sad-eyed gaze spoke volumes in return.