When they return to the inn, all soiled armor and reddened eyes, it is past midnight, and Rielle awaits them inside near the door with Myste close behind.

Sidurgu doesn’t say much, only walks up to her with an “Again?”

She shakes her head, eyes looking away from Sid and towards Eithne. “No... It was Myste, he couldn’t sleep. And then... when you weren’t there...”

Sid sighs, “Right.”

From the corner of his eye, he sees Eithne looking directly at the boy, concern and hesitation muddling her expression enough that he struggled to imagine she was the same woman that had clobbered him hardly half a bell ago. “Well, we’re back. You two need to try and sleep again.”

“What happened...” Rielle is quiet, her eyes only moving to look at Sid when his answer takes just a bit too long.

“Late night patrol, now off to your room.” Myste’s lip trembles as Sid speaks, but he would have to wait another day. Rielle would help him, Sid was sure— but who else in this camp could help Eithne? “Should he wake again, you two can come to my room.”

She’s unsatisfied, but she takes Myste’s hand all the same, and he watches her until the two disappear up the staircase, unmoving until he hears the soft whine of a door hinge upstairs followed by the tell-tale thud of it closing. It is only then that he turns back to Eithne, finds her immobile and distant—

“I need a drink.” He tells her as he stretches his neck, hands already moving to undo the latches of his gauntlets. “Join me.”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, only makes the same climb up the stairs the children had done, her quiet footsteps the only reply he expected to get. The silence between them now is different from the one in the clearing, not so much defensive as it was vulnerable. He reaches his room and lets her close the door behind her, more interested in ridding himself of his cumbersome plate than playing at an amenable host. He tosses his gauntlets off to the side, takes off the top layer of his armor, tries not to think about the mud he’ll have to scrape off of it tomorrow. He still doesn’t say anything as she sits down somewhere behind him, doubtlessly staring out through the window as she usually did, when her heart faltered.

He prepares what little he carried with him that she’d actually stomach, made easier by the two children he was forced to take with him on this particular outing. He pours yak milk into the kettle provided with their accommodations, haphazardly throwing in the sugar and cocoa powder mixture he kept in a sachet along with it, before lighting the hearth and settling the kettle on the handle. Ishgardian hot chocolate, just about the only thing that could calm Rielle down after her nightmares; he hoped it would have the same effect here, that there was some truth to the ‘magick’ Rielle ascribed to it.

His own drink is much easier to prepare, and before he knows it he’s carrying two tankards to the small side table, a sense of deja vu coming over him as he holds out the hot chocolate to her, mulled wine in his other hand— except the eyes looking up at him are gold, not the seafoam green he’s used to, and his heart warms at the memory. Gods, he truly has gone soft.

“It’s sweet, but it’s all I have; take it up with Rielle if you’ve a problem.”

Mmm, is all he gets, her hands reaching for the tankard with an inscrutable expression, and he is all to eager to sit across from her and avoid contemplating on what it meant, letting the crackle of fire dull the edge the night had sharpened on them both.

“A broken blade doesn’t suit you.” Sid speaks after a time, once warmth spreads through him, the night’s chill banished to nothing but a memory. He thinks of her tears, each name she whispered echoing through the night, only two familiar to him— the mad Iceheart who invited Rielle’s father to heresy, and the bastard son of House Fortemps. “We need to put an end to this... crusade, of his, and fix it. You know well by now that there is nothing to be gained from breaking one’s self in the service of others.”

A crystal split in twain, made whole once again— And then what?

“Or are you content to forsake the path once more?”

A warrior straps a greatsword to their back once more, staring straight into the abyss— And then what?

“If that is what you want then—”

“He looks... He looks just like them—” She grips her mug as if it were a lifeline, and he wonders if she can even see it for what it is, or if the memories have taken her somewhere else again. “Myste has his eyes, and her hair...”

“I just... want to find my answer.” Eithne’s voice cracks, and he doesn’t need to look at her to know what pitiful expression she’s making. “Why did they do it, why should I...”

Why did you save me, Sid remembers that small Orl boy crying to Ser Ompagne, there’s nothing left for me here...!

It's his turn to grunt in acknowledgement, a rumbling Mhm his only response before taking another swig from the tankard. He leans further back into his chair, an arm draped over the back of it, letting himself truly relax for the first time in weeks. An answer, her answer—

He thinks of Rielle’s eyes again, almost the same color as his, almost the same as the family that delivered him to these cursed frozen wastes. Not a perfect match, but that small sliver of connection between the two had been enough for him, enough for Fray. He briefly wonders who the he and her could be, before accepting that it didn’t matter to him, that it could’ve been every he or she Eithne cried out for, or any other who’s name still laid buried deep within her heart.

It wasn’t about who they were, but what it meant to her— The bright green of Rielle’s eyes gave him hope, the feeling that he wasn’t alone; what did Eithne feel, looking into Myste’s?

Ser Ompagne would know what to say right about now, but Sidurgu was not him, not in the ways that mattered. Sid was the inheritor of his blade, his vengeance, it had been Fray who'd always known what to say, and how to say it. The only one out of the two to inherit his kindness, Sid always thought, and now it was Eithne who carried his soul crystal, the very same kindness in her veins.

In searching for a response, his mind brings him back to a different time, back to those days when Ishgard’s stone pillars seemed to grow taller, thicker, when all it took for bile to rise to his throat was a flash of the white and blue of the Temple Knight’s insignia. We're leaving for some time, Ser Ompagne would say suddenly, so bring anything you’d miss, and before he knew it he was camping in Moghome, nothing but stars and the quiet thrum of nature.

“If that's so,” he sighs, staring deep into the hearth’s flame, “then it is enough. I’ll think of something for the boy, so—”

So you don’t have to worry, he wants to say, “until then, you should focus on yourself.”, he grumbles instead.

It’s only then that he looks back at her, sees her staring into the half-empty mug, notices the way her shoulders seem to have loosened some. Eithne doesn’t look at him, doesn’t say anything, but there is acceptance in her silence; an implicit understanding borne from the darkness they both walked, together.

The battle within her was not unalike his own, back when Rielle rightly told him off— it is the inherent nature of the path. To save those who cannot, to slay those who’d harm the innocent, and through it all remain true to one’s self, to avoid becoming a slave to those very same desires; thence comes the darkness, to consume...

Yet even in depths...