##Chapter 3##

Base camp.

Great. They knew her sex, her allegiance, and now her skill of untying knots. And unexpectedly, at least one of them knew-

"How did you know my name?" she demanded after the skirmish. Tucker looked at her.

"You spoke in your sleep," he said. She made a face. She'd done that since she was a child, and usually it recurred most strongly when she was in a jarringly different location or under stress. Gods know she had experienced both lately.

"It was the fever," Tucker amended quickly, seeing her grimace and mistakenly thinking she was berating her weakness in concealing information instead of simply being disdainful of a characteristic habit. "The medication we gave you loosened your tongue along with mitigating the illness. I learned your name then."

"What did I say?"

He hesitated. "You mistook me for a friend, I believe," he said slowly. "The nightmares were upon you, you seemed to be reliving something from your past. 'Bedwyn,' you said, 'Bedwyn, it's me, Arri'." He looked at her and noticed her face became an almost imperceptible shade paler. Though he was bursting with questions, he held his tongue. Arri obviously didn't want to talk about it; the girl looked so tense he was sure one misplaced word would shatter her. She shook herself out of it soon enough.

"I -ah, oh- ."she trailed off. Then she just started reciting, out of the blue.

"Bedwyn lived in the gutters all his life. A card shark, a gambler, a thief. He taught me to lie with a straight face, a trick that has saved my life more than once. He found that sharing his skill was a double edged sword, though. We became closer, yes, but we were never exactly sure of the other's feelings. We never wanted to gamble too much on the truth." She laughed hollowly, her eyes transparent. He waited for her to continue.

She concluded her story softly, letting the events speak for themselves. "He loved me, I think. I loved him too, as a companion, as a friend. Maybe more, I don't know. He was always there when I needed him, thief or not. He got me out of scrapes, and kept me out of trouble most of the time. He took the heat when I couldn't handle it, and refused to let me pay him back. So yes, we were close." She bowed her head for a moment under the weight of memories, and made a small noise deep in her throat. Her tone was low when she spoke again.

"The one time he helped me out when I was outnumbered by bandits, he got a really bad injury to the head. I stopped the bleeding and everything, but that night he was delirious and ranting. He didn't recognize me; he tried to fight me. He kept slipping into the past, saying that he had been abandoned before and didn't want to be left again. He was looking for me, saying he was lost and couldn't find me. It was horrible, him crying, and me crying because he was living that nightmare all over again." She broke off, her arms wrapped around herself as if to protect her from a chill. She glanced up at Tucker.

"He was close to death then." she stated. "He risked his life by coming to me. He came to rescue me, to find me, and he still couldn't do it. I couldn't find him. I never will now. He's dead." She rose abruptly in a swirl of tattered cape: elegant and dignified as any queen.

She picked up a bowl from a crate by the entrance, and stepped outside.

"Hey!" Tucker said. "I don't think you're allowed to-"

"Escort me then," she snapped, walking briskly to the nearest campfire. Any comment directed to her was met with an icy stare that even the most brazen of the soldiers could not withstand. Wordless, she bent to scoop some of the white ashes of the fire into the bowl. She crossed back to the healer's tent, going around to the back entrance. Facing the hillside and the setting sun, she paused, closed and opened her eyes.

Arri tossed the ashes in the bowl rhythmically, he head cocked and her eyes on the ground, almost as if she were listening. The motion threw some of the pale powder out of the bowl; when she was satisfied with the weight and feel of the remaining ash, she lifted out a handful.

Nikalarn.

Her lips moved silently over her filled fist, and gradually she sifted the dust from her hand to the earth. She took another handful, and Tucker watched as she again mouthed strange words over them.

Timeyno.

Softly, very softly, he could hear her chanting, singing, a weirdly haunting but beautiful song. He did not know such noises could come from a human being.

Greshen; Jonas.

Arri finished scattering the ashes on the ground, continuing that alien tune. Tucker saw her spit on the earth, and before he could register what had happened, his knife was in her hand and she was slicing open the inside of her forearm.

Bedwyn.

Red blood streamed down from the lengthwise gash as she fell to her knees in front of the pile of ash and saliva and soil. Tucker ripped off his own overtunic to place against the wound, cursing.

"Are you crazy?!" he yelled, worry and surprise edging his voice. "What are you doing? Why-" He stopped when he realized she wasn't reacting at all, neither hindering nor helping him. She simply sat in the dust, mollified and slightly haggard-looking.

"It is finished," she breathed, amazingly calm and collected, despite her oozing arm. "It's all I can do." She clutched at her arm, and leaned against Tucker. Impulsively he put his arm around her to support her. He knew, from that slight contact, how drained she was. He knew she had put her soul into her lament. By the gods.

"Are you all right?" he asked her.

"Tired," she rasped. "Can to sleep?" She sounded so much like a little girl Tucker felt his heart twinge. Was he really cradling an enemy warrior in his arms? He looked down on the exhausted face and saw only a young woman, a girl. A girl who had lost her friends and lost her innocence in a war too blurry for anyone to draw meaning from. Suffering, so much suffering.

His jaw tightened as he stood, helping Arri to her feet. Dazed, she followed him back into the tent, falling asleep the instant her head hit her pillow. He stayed and watched her for a long moment, thinking. Then he turned and walked out of the tent into the waning twilight.