As the wind whistled ominously the three hobbled around the field, mud dripping down their faces, blood on their legs, haphazardly trying to retrieve all their wayward possessions from where they had been flung. Plim, still crying, trotted along, landing in each and every puddle as she tried to fly and was left resolutely grounded.
The storm, an unfeeling brute, refused to let up even when the last jar of honey was found, Hara's sword sheathed and Plim's tiny breastplate discovered hiding atop a hillock; indeed, it continued even as the three trod on, their clothes growing heavier with each step, the sky growing darker and thunder rumbling in the distance.
'Well...' Hara mused, sliding her little boots off and hoping the rain would wash a little of the mud clean. 'This is lovely.' She looked up at the waterlogged sky and her face broke into a smile, rain splashing on her forehead relentlessly; catching sight of Plim and Marigold, who both looked incredibly grim, she started laughing. 'It could be worse!' she trilled, breathing in the electric air and feeling the grass, mud and rocks beneath her feet. 'There could be leeches!' She looked down at her feet and noticed a leech clinging to her toe; surreptitiously she wiped it off. 'Or... we could be about to be attacked by a-'
'Maybe don't,' Marigold broke in, wincing as thunder rumbled. She had seen the leech.
Plim quietly wept.
'Plimmy, it's ok,' Hara said, bending down to look at the sniffling bird. 'You don't need to feel sad.'
'But it's my fault,' Plim whispered, tears and rain cascading down her delicate face, her blue eyes sparkling. 'I wasn't enough.'
'You have always been enough.' She scooped up the bird in her muddy hands, giving her a kiss on the head. 'Whats wrong?'
'If I had been better at questing-' she stifled a sob '-you wouldn't be going home,' she wailed. 'If I was strong enough to stop Trif then-' she burst into fresh tears and there was a plonk as Marigold toppled into a rather large puddle. Reluctantly she let Hara help her up, but with her torn skirt, soggy and lopsided hat and otherwise damp countenance, she was practically unrecognisable. A large tear trickled down her face and she sniffed.
'Oh, don't you cry, too!' Hara begged, the sky filling with sudden flickering as lightning speared across it, crackling and majestic.
'My feet,' Marigold whispered, voice trembling, 'are so sore.' Her mouth wobbled and with a final tremulous sob from Plim she broke down entirely and Hara, horrified, gazed at her companions in complete mystification. It's not that she was heartless, for a lot of the time she was really very sweet, but this was a lot. The whole day had been a lot and for a moment she considered joining her friends in their tears... but she was too tired, too confused, and the rain wasn't letting up. So, without a word, she tucked Plim into her pocket and hoisted Marigold onto her back and began to trudge along, completely unaware of what direction they should be going and doing the only she could think of: singing.
'There is something in this wood, I think it's after us! Is it a troll or an ogre or a pixie or a blunderbuss,' she trilled, voice growing louder (or more petulant) as the thunder attempted to drown it out. 'Who even knows? Not you or me or us! Don't be a twit, don't second guess, run and keep your distanceeeeeee!'
'Hara!' Plim wailed. 'No!'
'I said "I think it'll be ok,"' she sang, nodding her head this way and that as she got more into it. 'It really wasn't ok! Who'd have guessed?! Not-' she tilted back her head and screamed '-YOU OR ME OR USSSS!'
'Stop! That's not how it goes!' Plim said, struggling to get out of Hara's wet pocket.
'Can't we just be miserable?' Marigold asked, frowning, but Hara ignored them both.
'And oh heck, now it's raining and— I THINK I STEPPED ON A FROG ABORT OH LORDS PLIM IT'S MOVING DO SOMETHING!'
Needless to say the rest of their afternoon was more merry, Hara unintentionally bringing such lightness to the stormy day that her companions could almost imagine they weren't cold and miserable. Hara took a little longer to calm down, replacing her shoes and walking on with the utmost care, circumventing all the puddles she could and regularly wincing as the memory of the slimy thing between her toes flashed through her mind.
The rain hadn't let up a jot when a little cottage appeared on the horizon, abandoned and with only half a roof but a cottage! They ran to it with glee, Marigold helping Hara when she got her boot stuck in the mud and Plim screeching for them to catch up. Finally they did, the three crashing through the doorway, barely pausing to ask if any ghosts would allow them time to rest, and within seconds they were lying on the floor, moaning.
Hara, half asleep, got onto her knees and managed to start a fire in a corner of the one room cottage, the warm air sizzling away a little of the moisture on her face and clothes as she sat before it, yawning. Plim, snoring, she picked up and placed before the fire, fluffing up her feathers as best as she could - the dove cooed sleepily but otherwise did not stir - and as wiped out and peaceful as she looked, Hara couldn't leave Marigold to sleep in her own puddle, sodden and, if Hara was anything to go by, with a myriad of cuts to clean.
Nudging her, Hara had to grab the witch's hand and forcefully start dragging her over to the fire, which now crackled merrily, before she stirred, grumbling and trying to bury her face in the dirt floor.
'Stay away from me,' she groaned as Hara continued to drag her.
'No.'
Marigold turned her head and peeled open an eye, her face newly covered in grit. 'Leave me alone. I want to melt.'
'A quester,' Hara explained, stifling a yawn but continuing to drag Marigold until she got up herself, 'can't let a friend melt.'
'That,' the witch grumbled, limping dazedly to the fire and almost falling on top of it as she slumped to the ground, 'sounds like hero talk. Besides...' She looked at Plim for a long moment before gently stroking her head with a soft smile. 'We're not friends.'
Hara raised an eyebrow as she pulled off her boot and watched mud drip out of it.
'Well, we're not. I'm paying you!'
'Fair enough. But I'm still not letting you get sick. Plim's taken a shine to you and I'd hate her to wake up to a corpse.' Marigold continued to grumble, but she began to wring her hair dry and took off her cloak. 'Now I think...' Hara rummaged through her satchel, triumphantly pulling out a sodden blanket. 'I'll dry this, then you can use it to sleep. You better get undressed.'
Marigold glared at her but had to admit the sense of the suggestion, even if the idea of sitting half dressed, with Hara, in the middle of a storm, beside a fire was too odd of an idea to process. Even Hara's cheeks held a faint tinge of lilac as she slid out of her shirt and pants, although she acted as if it were nothing.
Wringing out her clothes and supplies, Hara sat beside the fire, her underthings soon steaming as the heat drew away the moisture. She hung up clothes, blanket, bags and Marigold's cloak as she worked and soon the small, run down shell of a building seemed almost homely with its array of drying decorations. She didn't notice Marigold until she was sitting beside her, hair all limp curls and face all disgruntled gratitude.
Hara eyed her sideways, confused.
'Let me see your stomach,' Marigold said and Hara continued to vacantly stare. 'Your wound, I want to make sure its not festering or torn. We've had quite a day and you should still technically be resting.'
'Oh.' Hara angled herself to face Marigold, lifting her cami to expose the healing puncture. She glanced down at it briefly but the red flesh and black stitches made her feel ill so the instead she looked at Marigold, noticing her corset for the first time. It was black with delicate gold embroidered flowers and birds and words Hara couldn't work out. It was a work of art, but Hara felt a little strange staring. There was no denying the bareness of skin between them, nor the creeping orange flush on her own cheeks.
'I like your corset,' she said quietly.
'Hmm?' Marigold looked up, then down at herself, then went back to examining Hara's stomach. 'Thank you.' The fire crackled and the wind whistled and Hara closed her eyes, the golden stitched words dancing before her eyes as she closed her mind to the small twinges around her wound. The letters moved, some becoming curlicues and some becoming nonsense. They twisted and twirled and formed a word.
'Hara?'
Hara snapped her eyes open, looking directly into Marigold's.
'I took out half the stitches. It's almost healed.' There was a crackle as she tossed something into the fire before moving away to the doorway, letting the rain clean her fingers and filling two small bowls before rejoining Hara, closing her own eyes and looking content.
'Why do you have my name on your corset, Marigold?' Hara whispered.
'You noticed that?' Marigold opened her eyes and stared at the fire. 'Here.' She passed Hara one of the bowls of water. 'Try and get the mud out of your cuts.' Hara did as instructed, but watched Marigold intently. 'When I was little, my mother wore this same corset and when she died, she said, "It's your time, Marigold. It's your turn." It tells the future, has been passed through my family for generations, but I didn't want to wear it. I wouldn't. I stuffed it into a cupboard and tried to forget all about it.'
Hara stayed silent, eyes drifting from the witch's face and, when Marigold nodded, down to the corset, the words Hara now perfectly visible, weaving along the top left, curling and fragmented but there, her name right there.
'I thought it should have stopped my accident,' Marigold continued, running her hand through the ends of her wet hair, flicking droplets of water into the fire. 'It was supposed to tell the future, but... it didn't.'
'What... do you mind me asking what happened? You don't have to tell me.'
Marigold ran a hand over her shoulder, fingers caressing the scarring that covered the skin; it was softened and looked old, but the scars retained a memory of something painful and impossible for Hara to understand.
'I know I don't,' Marigold said, removing her hand and stretching her legs out before the blazing fire. 'I was three. I was trying to make a potion to make my broom go faster - mother had put a charm on it, but it was too slow. The potion didn't work. My broom exploded and I lost my arm. Everybody always said how lucky I was- but I lost my arm, Hara. I was left-handed. I had to relearn... Even though I was little, I still remember it.' She rolled her shoulder as if the memory brought back the pain. 'I didn't feel lucky. We all cherished this piece of clothing and it hadn't helped me and I wasn't even allowed to be... to be mad.'
'You are. Of course you are.'
'I know.' Marigold half smiled. 'And I have been. Sometimes I still am.'
'What changed? Why did you decide to wear it?'
Marigold laughed and Hara... felt something in her stomach, a curving arc that twisted this way and that and would not be completely still.
'It was so beautiful,' Marigold said. 'I just wanted to try it on, just for me. And it felt... it felt like I had found a part of myself. I watched new stitches form and old ones disappear just as I breathed and I saw that it wasn't... it had never been about fate or the future. It was possibilities. And...' She paused, looked intently at Hara, and a small smile came to her face. Again Hara's stomach twisted. 'It felt like I had my mother back after three years. I didn't realise how much I missed her.' Tears filled her lilac eyes, but still she smiled, the firelight flickering in her gaze.
'I miss my mother, too,' Hara said, looking at where her sword - her mother's sword - leant against the far wall.
'Tell me about her,' Marigold said, letting her tears dry on her cheeks, refusing to wipe them away, not tonight. She looked at Hara's freckly, muscular arms and her dirty hair and felt at ease, she realised. Felt safe.
'That's... I hardly remember her.' Hara stood, moving across the room to pick up the sword, bringing it back to lie before them. The faces in the wood grain shone out at them, old friends Hara had carried with her every day for so many years. She could see them with her eyes closed, every shifting feature memorised. 'She went out after adventure when I was little. Three. She never came back.'
'Oh... we've not had much luck, have we miss quester?'
'I thought... that I was luckier than anyone, though. My mother a quester! I admired her so much, I was so, so proud of her... so how could I be sad? How could I miss her? I didn't allow myself to. And I... I've hardly begun to realise it. Do you think she really is the Quest Killer?' Hara asked, but she felt the truth of it still.
'The world is so large. The bladesmith may be wrong. I hope - Hara, for you I hope I am.'
Marigold fell asleep quickly, wrapped in the dried out blanket beside the fire, her hair spread out around her like a glistening crown.
Hara made sure Plim wasn't too warm and turned her so her leg feathers (which Plim had moaned many a time about how long they took to try) were getting their fair share of heat. The storm raged on, water trickling in from the sections of missing roof, and with the sound of the rain and the fire and Plim's faint snores it was so peaceful, but Hara could not sleep, her mind far too alive.
She thought about what Marigold had said, how Hara's name had, "appeared the day the troll stole my spells. When I heard your name amidst the few questers for hire it was obvious who to employ." She thought of Mere, appearing in all their lives after so long, wondered why she had wanted to speak to her.
She thought for hours as the others slept, her mind a whir. She found Marigold's sodden hat, all the shape stolen by the rain until it looked like a large sock and, as she pondered, she wrung it dry and twisted the material, bending it and shaping it so, when she set it to dry, it at least looked as if it were trying for the part. Even when she lay down it was a long time before Hara nodded off. Her last thoughts were of Charvay. Did she know about...