Plunge Into Depths

Renard, Fidel, and Verdan stand at the shore of the lake, the packs upon their backs heavy and the armour over their bodies secure.

The last of the soldiers have departed, and all that remains of the distant camp are scattered crates and burnt-out fire pits. This will be goodbye, to the last sure haven there is in this place.

With them also is the rowboat. Cutting deep grooves into the earth, Renard drags it to the lakeside, lets Verdan and Fidel hop on, heaves the last push float the thing, and scampers on himself. A few strong strokes of the paddles, and the vessel sets off.

Renard heaves forward, back, forward, back, allowing the mindless rhythm of rowing to flush his muscles with blood and occupy himself from his thoughts.

But, being that he is seated to face Fidel and Verdan, and being that the lake is both massive and calm, it is impossible for his mind not to wander, and impossible to completely avoid the discontent squeezing in his chest.

“It’s beautiful…" Fidel murmurs, gorging on the black sky, the full moon, the stately mountains, and glimmering water — each majestic in themselves, but exponentially mysterious when married together. It is enchanting. That Fidel voices so with such admiration, though, still pierces Renard’s heart like the prick of a needle.

Verdan voices his agreement, nodding and smiling, to cheerfully discuss the other great sights his army has seen on this venture. There’s lots of beautiful places in Nix — gardens, oceans, forests, mountains, and between those all, so many sweet little towns. A hundred years it might’ve been, but this was the old home of the Demiurge, and though his grandpawpaw’s grandpawpaw scowled at the barrier with the sourest grapes, saying, ‘Hmpf! There can be nothing so great in there.’, it’s pleasant to know such a sourpuss was wrong.

Fidel nods absently. “People used to live here," he considers vaguely, before letting the thought fade and instead saying, “I’ve never been on a boat before." And Verdan claps like a child, and goes, ‘Oh!’, and spills a tirade on how fun such an experience is and what a shame it is people don’t do it more often…

Forward. Back. Forward. Back. Gritting his teeth, too sick to speak, Renard rows.

If it’s between Verdan’s cheery banter, and Orpheus’ grave caution, Renard would rather have Orpheus — Orpheus, who wants him dead — on this boat than bear another word out of Verdan. He and Fidel, it is like… like they are children buzzing over a camping trip.

And even when a beast rises out of the water, even when the willows bowed on the riverbank snare them, even when they must pitch camp upon stinging weeds, even when the river boils, even when the earth turns to char, even when they sail into a field of geysers shooting evil acid, even when they near crash into a pocket, even when winged falcons screech down upon them, even when spirits in the trees try to draw them off course, even as they prevail over hundreds of dangers and obstacles in their path following up the river, it’s the discomforting eagerness of his travelling companions that preoccupies Renard’s mind more.

“Quite the what-for you gave those water beasties!" Verdan chirps, poking his head out of their freshly pitched tent.

Renard, with one last heavy hammer blow on the last spoke, sighs and glances up to him.

“Ooh, if those big claws had got me. Poor Verdan wouldn’t have any arms!" He hugs himself, dramatically.

Is it heartening that Verdan has such faith in Renard’s skill? Or just tiresome that Verdan doesn’t take himself seriously?

“Oh, don’t be sour," Verdan tuts at Renard’s grimace, but his expression does soften. I know this is rough on you, his pained smile says. Just think about now, not tomorrow.

A grin cracks over Renard’s face. “How many nights bunkered with a gremlin as you ‘fore a man forgets all of sweetness."

“Ack! Hauh? Ohh, I’ll turn all your socks inside-out! Humpf! Gremmel gremmel, dum-dee-dum…" Verdan hums a ditty to himself as he ducks back into the tent, followed by the light sounds of him rummaging through a rucksack.

Renard rolls his eyes, despite himself.

At this depth, having long left the lake, little resembles or follows the logic of the surface. Particularly, with no cycle of night and day, but only constant skies of blood red or sickly yellow or more commonly a star-spangled void, time has become hard to judge. Whether they should make or break camp is judged entirely by their own tiredness after hours on the river, alongside the hospitality of the environment, for the latter is becoming rare.

Relative to their place earlier ‘today’, a desert of spires that fired upon them beams of burning light, coupled with manlike ghouls in the water that clung to and slowed the boat, this lush little valley clearing is a suitable refuge for camp. The trees here are hospitable enough that there is even birdsong.

But, it’s wise not to wander. Go even twenty steps from the tent, and as experience has taught them, there can be holes.

Standing up, Renard glances after Fidel, who has dragged the boat to shore a short distance from camp. The boy grins to himself, lets out a light breath, and stretches.

In the seconds that Renard’s heart waver on whether to hail him, the continuing rummaging noise from inside the tent strikes like lighting: Is Verdan actually scurrying through Renard’s stuff!? Startled, Renard storms in through the tent-flap. “Verdan!"

“Mm?" Verdan hums, bent over his own belongings, having just excavated oils and rags to clean his daggers.

Nothing, after all. Renard sighs, massaging his sweaty brow, and lumbers to his own corner of the tent to cavort with his belongings. If being pestered with Verdan’s unpredictability is something he will always have to endure… like a shrew nibbling at his toes through the night… then how much more pleasant would it be to run the man’s neck over the whole length of Kingslayer.

Maybe then there will be some godforsaken peace!

Verdan shrugs to himself, tends to his daggers. “Sir Renard! I have a castle, and a court, and a whole kingdom of maidens who coo ‘oh, Verdan!’, but you haven’t called me a Lord in a week! Boo hoo. The most knightly of knights across the whole West is going to make Verdan demoted…"

“Knightly of knights. As you have not done I?" Renard chuckles grimly over his backpack. “Would you conduct yourself more as a prince, then answer I would to your court…" Though, given that Verdan’s titles are legitimate, it may be Renard’s foul for allowing himself to dismiss to them so casually…

“You’re even knightlier? Are you Sir Sir Renard?"

“No. I am also a Lord," Renard’s brow quirks. “Did you not know that, …Lord Verdan?"

The way Verdan squeals like a gibbon confirms that no, he did not.

“Wherefor? Whatfor? Whither? How!" Verdan cheers, crashing across the room like a cannonball to pour a hug across Renard’s back. “Oh! Sir Sir Lord Renard!"

“Och! It is only a principality within Lacren," oh, what modesty! Bashful warmth rises in Renard’s chest and on his cheeks as he shoos Verdan off his shoulders. “A little farming place, of no eyecatching repute…" yet larger and more loved than Verdanheim.

“No repute! It’s just the ward of the world’s best ghoulslayer in 100 years… which is also how long there’s been ghouls!"

Renard blushes, turning away. It’s surprising that Verdan didn’t know. If he has been in contact with the Queen, then surely… but aha, is that not the rub. There exactly proves how little the Queen must have brought him up.

Shaking off that note of regret, a smile rises on Renard’s face. Yes, things must be in a poor state up in Meurille right now… but so many memories, incorruptible and beaming with light bolster Renard’s heart away from such sorrow. The swaying fields, the merry laughter in taverns, Colette spinning in her sundress — all far more real images than the unseen ghosts of men fleeing and struggling in an earth ruptured by quakes and thirsting for water.

Renard unclips the flap of his pack, the warmth of the memories lingering.

“Do you have a big golden statue? Do you have fields of sugarcane?" chirps Verdan.

“Off with it," Renard chuckles. Yes… for his sourness towards Verdan, and his pestering, if he has taken the role of morale-booster upon himself, then by offering an open ear to reminisce, he is executing that role flawlessly for Renard.

A thread of concern wisps through Renard’s mind — is that not a stressful position, and one Verdan truthfully ought not need to fill, if Renard could simply hold himself better? But that wisp like a broken spiderweb passes, shouldered out by the warmth of the joy geysering from his heart to his throat as he takes a breath to speak.

And as the words tumble out, first the stories and visions of joyful and beautiful Meurille, he retrieves the logbook from his pack and feels around its depths to count their rations. Absent-mindedly he takes his notes, jots a heading: Day 7. A week now into the delve… and given all the challenges they’ve bested in this short period, they probably have made good progress.

Probably have, and yet…

Renard’s mouth twists into a frown as he tallies up the water and food in his pack. Months of victuals remain, yet unease prods Renard as he rips open their second water-pack. His words grow distracted, then silent, as he tallies, one, two, three, four litre-skins…

Verdan peers over Renard’s shoulder curiously.

…five, six…

Renard sighs and palms his forehead. Where had he left off in his story? As he refocuses, a strange hum in the air pricks his attention — and he jolts, as he realises this subtle hum, and vibration, akin to Orpheus’ ring with Anelle or Kingslayer at Ashurst’s rift, is coming from Verdan’s pendant.

“Verdan," Renard gasps.

Verdan leans back, looking aside as he loosely cups his pendant. But his hand soon falls and a cheeky gleam hits his eye: guess you got me!

“Verdan, your…"

“I’ll cuddle up with you if I need to!" Verdan laughs seriously.

But Renard’s attention is already not on Verdan. It’s on the flap to the tent, and on the illusion of the boy outside — Fidel.

Renard leaps to his feet and storms a step to the exit—

“Sir Renard."

—ignoring the call,

“Sir Renard," Verdan repeats, yanking back firmly on Renard’s arm. Though the muscle disparity is like a stoat trying to pin back a bison, and though Verdan’s everyday demeanour would not suggest rulership as a tool in his arsenal, the uncompromising authority in his tone hits as keen as a whack over the forehead. Like a scolded child, Renard freezes and tenses up, scared.

“That boy will be fine. He’s got waaaay more pieces than me, and they’re all waaaay stronger."

But that is not the issue. The issue is… Renard’s tongue flops uselessly in his mouth, unable to articulate what is wrong. Verdan has given such a sensible reassurance, yet every cell of Renard yearns to push back: no, that’s not right.

With a tired smile, Verdan claps his hands together. “You aching to make another go at that leg?"

“…I could not imagine how, we have already…" attempted every application of witchbane that made sense, and none of it stuck. Rubbing his temple, Renard glances away. Witchbane itself is a substance they barely understand; they would need the help of a proper shaman, like Pleione.

“We could experiment! Chop off the whole leg — chop!"

“Do not be stupid," Renard snaps. But, like an aftertaste, the thought lingers that it might not be the worst idea.

“It’s bothering you."

“As it surely would, Verdan," Renard continues. “Ought that boy even be here? He is—I make no slight on his capacities, for he is well talented and able to do what he wishes without leaning on me. Yet where do we go but to an obdurate destination? What is forward for us but more days on a river? And he does not tremble; he does not see to shrink back. He behaves barely as human."

Orpheus had been right.

That is the problem. Renard had been told to the letter what would happen, and he, like a moron, had once again, chosen to ignore it until it came to pass.

Where could he have changed anything? It’s not as though he can go back, but surely there must have been some point, where, if he’d been a little smarter, he could have kept Fidel safe from both the destruction in Sebilles and from injury in Nix.

“Mm, keep your voice down when you say things like that," Verdan murmurs. “You’re a little lucky, Sir Renard. If you didn’t have half your soul hexed into a vessel of witchbane I don’t think you’d be looking very human right now, either."

“So what of it, Verdan?"

“You’re the weird one here!" Verdan insists.

Renard flinches as if slapped.

“You should be some big googly thing that keeps running us into caves and getting mad when we don’t follow." Verdan pouts. “Ooh, and then you’d get us deep into the dark and hack us up with your sword. That’s normal! That’s normal, Sir Renard. Now that child, Fidel’s, a little harmless thing. He’s a little boy in a big place with grown-ups. I can look after that. Don’t you worry about that, I know how to get by with all that, you’re here to worry about the river. Think about this, Sir Renard, how come it’s hard to kill princes with poison?"

Renard buries his face in his palms. Verdan and his stupid riddles, winding speech.

“Hey, follow with me. It’s soothing to think. How come it’s hard to kill princes…"

…with poison. The trembling fury in his chest wilts impotently as he whirls the question around. For the answer is simple, and one Renard himself is impressed that he knows. “They are fed small amounts from when they are babes… that when they are men, they may take a mouthful, and become sick, but not die." Renard snorts. “For this is an obvious way an enemy may try to kill him."

“—Exactly." Verdan nods, deeply satisfied. “That’s a thimble of a poison. Now he’s just a bit sick, not lots."

Renard leans back in surprise. When Verdan puts it like that, it’s like he’s saying Renard accidentally gave Fidel a superpower.

When Renard thinks of it like that, all those times where Fidel carelessly followed him along into danger, and smiled at ghosts of Glennite towns, and took in the corrupt air like it were fresh on a glacier, and all those times Renard has caught him fiddling with his brace or massaging his leg or letting the mass of slimy tentacles free like a scientist experimenting with new parts after puberty, no longer feel so disgusting but wondrous. It means his resistance to ‘poison’ is working.

That, when they face the serpent, he will not be afflicted, but strike a shocking blow upon its face.

But how is that something to be happy about?

Adaptation to this place — is that not still wrong?

“Better it be, yet, the sickness is sucked out…"

“But not now and not here." Verdan shakes his head. “You hollow that essence out of him, ‘less you hex his soul into a stable phylactery like you, then just even worse venom flows in. What he has now is manageable. Way way, super manageable. You got to him really quickly. It’s a bad thing, but it’s a bad place, and right now, it’s helping him, here."

Renard’s hands tremble in his lap. How can Verdan say such things as if there is no doubt? And yet, the consolation is still effective.

“Once we’re back on the surface," Verdan says. “Then we can tell the boy he’s sick and see if we can solve Anelle’s riddle!"

Verdan claps his hands cheerily.

Renard falls silent, stunned.

The reason why Renard is so troubled, he now realises, is because he does not truly think this venture will succeed.

There is no future after this. There is no ‘back on the surface’. Were there a chance to venerate these mistakes, were Fidel’s corruption a temporary tool and a help, and not simply a degradation before he dies in a dark pit, unrecognisable in his manner and only half-human, then they would be passable, even appreciable in the moment. But that is not how Renard’s heart, mind, or anything measures the situation. Renard’s heart, to its deepest depth, is certain they will wander into nowhere and die, they will fall into snares and die, they will face too strong a ghoul and die, they will go mad and die, they will die, die, die… meaninglessly, wiped into darkness, that all their souls meant were nothing.

‘You’re stupid.’ It’s not cute, and it’s not reassuring.

Insides trembling hot near to tears, Renard swallows back fire and pinches his brow to hide his face. “How do you hold such faith, Verdan."

“That’s weird. I’m not alone, you’re not alone, and Camille’s still rolling around," Verdan says. “I feel like I have a lot of good friends! For coming all down here, I’d think we’re pretty special."

Underneath his palm, Renard smiles despite himself. Oh, Verdan…

Sighing warmly, Renard refocuses on the logbook. About a month of supplies, perhaps more if they ration… just as quickly as Verdan’s warmth hit his chest, his confidence again wilts. Two months, three months, four at the best, is that enough to get the bottom of the pit? How many things could go wrong in that time, how could they predict—

“It is all an attack, isn’t it?" Renard says suddenly.

“Hm?"

Renard reels in revelation.

“All of it," he says, with no explanation. Hand cupped over his jaw, he turns his face away to consider this lightning bolt of thought, the essence of his insight permeating as certainly as truth. Everything. This place, Nix, is not some static, passive thing that innocently came to be as it is through circumstance, though it masquerades as such. That there are so many traps, that there is no way to see the bottom, that it is so easy to lose faith — there is intelligence behind all of this.

And it is insidious! Is the serpent like a general, who stands with blade before his army? No, for it is an honourless thing. It is a maggot in the mud of a rock that, when its stone is lifted, and its filth is bore, will say, “what! I have no war with you. Why do you torment me by forcing me to feel such filth? Villain! Villain!"

And all the while it is the one who laughs while every grain of good wheat is withered! It is the one who made the meadow to mud!

It is your fault you withered, for you are not good enough wheat. It is your fault you fought a ghoul twenty times your larger and it dashed you on stones, because it drank more of my power. It is your fault you took the left fork over the right when you could not know where either went, because I concealed the way. It is your fault you broke to despair, because I took away every thing of joy. It is your fault you tried to live! It is your fault you didn’t do well enough! Everything bad you got — it’s your fault!

Why are there ghouls in this meadow!?

Even Renard’s worries over their food supply are as much an attack as a beast lashing out with its claws. That he cannot judge how thin to split them or how far they must go — that is purposeful.

Furious, Renard pitches the logbook at the opposite wall of the tent. Pages flutter pathetically from the spine.

“—Sir Renard!?" Verdan yelps.

“I must kill that snake!" Renard screams.

“—Sir Renard, no! That’s our stuff!" Verdan yells, sprinting over to restrain Renard, who reaches into his bag for something more tangible to destroy. But to restrain Renard’s powerful biceps, for a more slender man as Verdan, is like trying to pin a bucking stallion. Snap! A wooden measuring stick shatters apart.

“I-is everything all right in he—Sir Renard?" Fidel’s voice cuts in like a smooth light through the anger, the boy himself standing at the flap of the tent, dumbfounded.

A tremble of human concern is in Fidel’s voice that has not been there for a week. Abruptly self-conscious, with absolute shame flushing his face, Renard drops the shattered remains of the measuring stick, and finds himself without words.

“…I finished looking over the boat. It seems fine, if anyone wants to check it over." Fidel continues, entering the tent, that glimmer of emotion dulling into what has become a typical disconcern. “Are we having dinner around now or putting that off? We’re kind of early."

Renard’s teeth quietly clench. There it is, that careless attitude. And yet, strewn in a small pile of broken tools, like a toddler caught in a playroom among discarded toys, Renard cannot say he deserves any better, or that more attention given to this embarrassment would be pleasurable. Verdan daintily withdraws and smiles up to Fidel.

“Actually! For tonight, I think you should try splitting the rations!" Verdan says.

“Alright?" Frowning but agreeable, Fidel goes to retrieve the book from Renard’s pack — then double-takes with mild alarm at seeing it crumpled on the other side of the tent. Concern again flickers over his face as he picks it up. “…u-um, what happened?"

Stupid lies jump to Renard’s tongue. Wiping his hand over his burning red face, Renard gets to his feet and marches out the tent with a grumble, “…tend to the boat…". Neither of his fellows stop him, though their gazes stick on his back until the flap of the tent flutters closed.

The campground is tiny. Though pleasantly grassy and peaceful aside the gentle flow of the river, it is hardly any more than a mountain pass, and wandering off would be unwise. There is not anywhere to go to sit with, and cool down from his thoughts, except the field around tent.

Renard sighs, massaging his forehead. The boat lies upturned pulled in from shore; though Renard goes over, he cannot find the stomach to actually tend it.

Rather than just void, he can see now, forward of the river in the black starless sky, the face of the enemy.

And though the anger and hatred seething through his blood is soothing, it also leaves a cloying knot tightening thicker and thicker in his insides. Curse it all! As it has always been in regard to Nix, even this intense hatred, of knowing he is being antagonised by a yellow beast so craven its very shadow inspires contempt, cannot stabilise him into any peace of mind. There is no dignity, there is no purpose in it. Forward of the river and in that black sky — the courage to pursue and strangle this beast, with the single-minded fervour of a piranha on a fishing line, is simply murderous hatred.

He cannot say whether this is better or worse, even, than the despondency that has ruled him this last week. If he could, he would slit the throat of the very air itself.

Renard chokes back another sigh and scowls askance at the mountain wall. The muffled voices of Verdan and Fidel roll from inside the tent. He has surely not been outside long enough to have tended the boat — but every second spent waiting, doing nothing but seething at air for the vain idea his mood might get better, and that he may so avoid explaining himself, grates over his soul like tines of a pitchfork for how overwhelmingly pathetic it is.

Irritated more at his own inaction than he can be scared of Fidel or Verdan, Renard storms back into the tent.

“—saying that it’s an option," Fidel says.

“I think you’re just curious how something like that would taste! But old Verdan, he’ll eat the same porridge four months going ‘till his belly starts screaming. That’s when it’s okay to start dabbling the exotics. Unless?" Verdan presses his hands to his cheeks. “Sir Lord Lord Sir Renard! I take it back. Fidel is awful at this! He wants us to eat a season’s rations in a day — but then we’ll be fat as partridges and our boat will sink in the river!"

Renard grunts a grim chuckle.

“It’s not like that. It’s just hard," Fidel protests, as Renard kneels in to peer over the boy’s shoulder.

The mess from the broken tools has already been cleaned, Renard absently notes. He glances to Verdan, who smiles and shrugs with easy guilt, and gratitude washes over Renard immediately.

Rough equations litter the page. It seems Fidel encountered the same issues as Renard — desiring to split rations conservatively, but struggling to find the appropriate line between ‘conservative’ and ‘malnourishing’. Renard pats him on the back — Fidel’s eyes widen as if such affection is confusing — and gives each member of the group two pods of Ordish ambrosia and a third of a whole ration block.

It’s generous, nutritious, tastes like hard tack, and does not require much thought. That lousy snake can shove it. At least for today they’ll have a good lunch.

“It’s not bad," Fidel splits the membrane of the ambrosia pod, then squeezes it to lap up the sweetish granules inside lick by lick. “But it’s so thin and the taste fades too quickly to enjoy. How could someone live off this? The Ordish, I mean — it’s just powder."

Renard knows little of Ordanz but that it is a harsh, frozen land marked by frequent, and severe, famine. Mild irritation tickles at his chest. In such dire circumstances, of course the Ordish would cling to whatever edibles they have, and in their tenacity endure to build their great machines. Does Fidel not understand this?

“Oh, badly. Oh, they’re sure sick of it. Southerners come snuffling every year to scout the farmlands Verdan’s neighbours all left, and a bit of Verdanheim’s too. Sometimes they’re even quick enough to get in before Nix shifts on them!" Verdan exclaims between bites of his ration bar. “Ooh, it’s sure annoying. They’re awful, awful neighbours."

“What makes that so, Verdan?" Renard lightly challenges. “Be the fields anyways vacant, is much there danger in letting the Ordish grow wheat?" Even if Verdan finds it a threat to his territory, he could at least indenture them for the season, tithe them, and let them take most of the grain home.

“Oh, nononono. Oh, it’s terrible. It’s such a box of problems you open when you let the Ordish know you’ll give them food! Hattechim, Qumar, Yuselti, Dakmar, Lusselheim… you should know these names like Verdanheim, because these are all our old once-neighbours. Not a speck of them now, not a speck of them for hundreds of years! They all let in the Ordish, and the Ordish gobbled them up!"

“Nonsense."

“They did!" Verdan insists. “Inside two decades the Ordish servants stole too much, ruined the fields, or killed all their masters. It happened like that in Hattechim, they ask the servant, why Laurie? Your Lord has always been good to you. But the Ordish-man, he doesn’t know. Then in Lusselheim, ‘I become master! Everybody gets food!’, then whips the serfs until they kill him dead. But it’s the cleverer ones, the ones who sniff coins, oh those could eat the whole West. Verdanheim does strong work on the border!"

Though an inherent distaste for the notion that a whole demographic of people could be predisposed to this… wickedness, as Verdan is framing it, lingers on Renard’s tongue, it is in remembering that the family of Fidel, whose air has grown sombre as he chews on his bar, was ruined by such a single ‘coin-sniffing’ Ordishman, that he cannot help but quietly wonder if there is credence in Verdan’s words.

Which is not to say that Westerners are without fault, or produce no traitors and dastards — but there is a weird uniformity across every testimony of the Ordish he’s heard present in the West and an apparently senseless ruination of anyone who would show them goodwill. But, again, to even begin to make a judgement like that…

“Even the cute little families, who sneak in with hoes on their backs. Half will till the earth backwards to grow only mud, the other half run to Verdanheim begging for slaves to push the mud for them. Oh, the Ordish, bizarre in every way: I have seen them rip their new-sprouting seeds out of the dirt and eat a whole field in a day! I have seen the parents take the hoes and beat the children to service the field with only their hands. I have even seen them eat their own children — seen an Ordishwoman become pregnant to have children to eat. And they look innocent, the whole way."

“Atrocities," Renard spits, despite himself. Guilt wavers in his stomach the second he says it, but he cannot deny the clench in his gut at hearing of such abomination.

Renard glares down at the ambrosia pod in his grip, as though the thing were corrupt by its Ordishness. But the ones who would partake of these meagre victuals would not be the ones ‘eating their children’. The offence sweeps away into an odd respect and affection for the things.

“They don’t understand," Verdan hums. “It’s horrible, sad, horribly sad."

A shadow of disdain flickers across Fidel’s features. “How would you not cast these monsters straight under your blades?"

“If they’re in my jurisdiction, perhaps. But are these like ghouls, menaces even in an empty field? …No, but very strange men, and by their own devices their kingdoms destroy themselves. Some come to Verdanheim with such meekness — ‘please Lord, will you help us? Will you give us hoes, and fields, and seeds, so we can work well?’ — but there is the difficulty of it! What does Verdan get that Verdan gives you these things? They say, ‘Lord, I don’t understand. With these things, we will work well.’ Nope! Nope, nope nope, no good."

Though hard to place why, the Ordish half of this exchange does discomfort Renard deeply.

“They have to go home, or they go to the wild… hunting and eating the critters, or turn crafty and go sniffing for gold. Verdan doesn’t know after that." He leans back, squinting, as his tone grows faintly more serious. “That’s why they would ever come to Nix… all the way through every depth, to go hunting for ghoul meat."

An odd silence stretches as Fidel glances to Renard, as if his opinion here were greatly important.

“—Fairer a cause than the fancy for which you came," Renard grumbles, with a hard bite of his bar. He points to Verdan for Fidel. “That man came here to pick flowers."

“Flowers?" Fidel asks.

“Ook! That’s a sharp plural. Sir Renard makes it sound like I’m making a bouquet. Ooh, but if I could get one… then if I could get two… then if I could get three…"

“These must be remarkable flowers," Fidel notes blandly.

“Mmhm. They’re like little wishes. They’re so pretty, and bright like rubies, that if I put one to my chest, I could make myself king of the world!"

“—Enough chattering about the cursed flowers, Verdan!" Renard snaps.

Verdan raises his palms. The lack of seriousness feels like reproach: you’re the one who brought it up…

Two little volcanoes in Renard’s cheeks redden and burn from the inside. But did those clever words not admit a seriousness in this topic! For what is Verdan even here?

“…Senseless," the words proceed out Renard’s throat like boulders flowing in landslide. “You and you prance about after fanciful things while I alone remember what danger faces us, with venom spitting at my front where I must hold my blade, for propped at my back is two clowns. Will either of you regard with seriousness the gravity of where we stand, and of what I do? Or shall you prattle about magic and miracles when I, with muscles and metal, am casting ghouls off your throat?"

“That snake will get you in two seconds," Verdan says.

“Ho? And what am I but the strongest amongst us?"

“Yes yes, of the body, but where it strikes is the heart."

Renard’s hands tremble not so much with fury, but with powerlessness, of knowing Verdan is right. You’re a very weak person, Verdan judges. A very small, very very very very very weak little person…

If that is what Verdan is thinking, it is not showing on his face. He returns to his food disconcernedly, as if he had said nothing outrageous, though his eye does trail on Renard: Well?

Renard bites his lip and looks to the ground.

“Miracles…" Fidel muses.

“Come off it, Fidel," Renard mutters.

“I was just thinking," Fidel continues. A spark of warmth, and wonder, and sincerity in his voice hooks Renard’s gaze up from off the ground — and in the boy’s wide-eyed amazement, he looks more human than he has in a week. “If something like that… was real, it could probably fix all the damage that has happened back in Lacren."

Usually these moments are like sunbeams, flickering through gaps in cottony cloud, cruel for how they hint at hope and swallow it just as quickly. Renard’s only mercy is that they come so infrequently, he has not yet abandoned the very occurrence of sunlight as a trick.

Because, this moment is different.

There is no abrupt drop of demeanour. There is no deadening of heart. The warmth and the awe and the wonder lingers, as Fidel stares up at the roof of the tent, the eye in his mind focused on a vision inestimably far from here. As though carried on a current, Renard’s own mind follows Fidel to the same place: where the grim clouds do break, and the sun bursts through with a spotless blue sky as halo, shining as a summer day over the mended, healed, verdant yellow valley of Sebilles.

The earth is stable, the water tower is flowing, the castle is not cleaved in twain—

The people go happy to their routines, the buffalo snort in their trails, the wheat stretches skyward—

And that’s all.

It is such a plain wish! Nothing in it is different from how Lacren was. What of soul rot, what of the snake, what even of personal hungers, for rubies or gold or a kingdom or for anything far more fantastical? All disregarded. For, ‘I wish things to be as they were,’ is the whole of it, the whole long of short of this simple, innocent, and for that reason pure wish, as someone who would desire just this could do so only with a heart full solely with love for their country.

It is so overwhelmingly massive, yet so infinitesimally humble, that when Renard breaks out of the vision, he does so shaken and breathless. Verdan watches on silently, fingers fanned over his mouth like the claws of a beast, with a gaze squinted and harsh and not wholly satisfied. But for the bitter criticisms caged on his tongue, begrudgingly, he is unable to disapprove.

With a dreamy stare and a gaze fixed on that vision, even down in Nix, a flame is lit like a torchlight.