For a moment, when she looked at him and then looked past him, he was afraid she would insist that they help. He was afraid that he would have to choose between risking the ire of the Eldouir falling upon them both or letting her go to certain death, because in the end, he knew what he would choose and he would hate himself for it. To the backdrop of barely human noises, she said that the poor man shouldn’t have to be alone. In another life, he would have agreed wholeheartedly and rushed to help, but in this life, all he could do was stare at her, silently pleading that she not force him to make a decision he would regret forever. Don’t. Embric had long since resigned himself to the harsh reality: they could not stop what was happening.

It seemed she had too, for she nodded and she and the maned wolf began walking away. Something in him shattered a little more as he followed after them, trusting the gyrfalcon on his shoulder to keep an eye out for further trouble. They rounded a corner, and the soft thud of wood hitting packed earth was the only warning he had before he found himself pulled into a tight embrace. His arms came up and hugged her close, and for a brief, wonderful moment, he just basked in the relief that she was alive. Then reality crashed down around him, and he felt sorry, too. Lifting off his shoulder, Aine drifted down to stand before Savi, tilting her head to study the maned wolf.

“It is good to see you, as well.”

Finally, Embric extracted himself from the hug and stepped back, finding with some surprise that he no longer had to bend over to look her in the eye. “You’ve gotten taller,” He said, hands still on her shoulders as he held her at arms length. Had she? It had been something like six years since he had last seen her; she would have been somewhere near full grown, but then, perhaps he was remembering more the girl he had taught rather than the young woman she had become; admittedly, the years had begin to blur together, and none more so than these most recent. “Tell me, both of you,” He turned to address Savi as well. “How have you been? Who else is with you?”

It wasn’t her height, he realized a moment later. She looked older, of course, but the light in her blue-green eyes had changed. Where once her eyes shone with a bright, innocent happiness, now they hinted at decisions and horrors that neither of them wanted to remember.

With a soft trill, Aine reached up and accepted the invitation, gently touching Savi’s forehead with the top of her own. They had known each other too long, spent too long together roaming the plains of Dresmond to be anything less than family. “Mine as well.” Like her human, she was naturally more reserved, but the gyrfalcon offered a distinguished blink even as she turned her head to preen one of the ruffled feathers on her wing. Couldn’t go around being overly emotional now; stars forbid they start thinking she actually had a heart beneath all those feathers. “We have been worried for everyone for so long, but you were never far from our thoughts.”

Xanthe’s response had one side of his mouth twitching upward. “Have I?” He mused, tone laced with mild surprise. With a hand, he reached up to absentmindedly stroke his beard, as if he hadn’t begun to grow it out since his arrival in Elderkeep. First, the change had been out of necessity - shaving equipment had not been a top priority when they had been scrambling for food and basic necessities - but upon realizing that it made him a little more anonymous, Embric had made the decision to keep it. Still, his tone remained light and easy as he observed idly, “Oh, it appears I have.”

When she brought up her hands to wipe her eyes, he noticed the bandages, but hardly had time to comment on them before she expressed her confusion. A shared look with Savi seemed to clarify matters, for a moment passed then she answered his question, and a moment after that, he had pulled her into his arms again for another hug. Behind her back, where she couldn’t see, he closed his eyes for a moment and sent a quiet thought to the stars for the old man and his reptilian dyr. “Oh Xan,” Embric sighed, wishing that those two words could heal years worth of loneliness and pain. Beside him, Aine offered her own condolences to the maned wolf, even as her human pulled back, folding his hands in front of him in the face of her concern.

For a moment, he studied them, and then: “My boy, he— he never found his dyr.” Still, after all these years, the wound on his heart felt raw, and if he poked it too much, it flared to life as if it had been dealt yesterday. The boy had had so much life in him, so much energy and hope for the future, and it had all been extinguished in a single night. Memories that concluded with a quick hug and a “I’ll see you when you return” were all he lad left. “My girl, is here. She’s fourteen now.” Fourteen, and missing an eye. Fourteen, and having known a life with more violence than without. Fourteen, and never coming close to having the opportunity to find her dyr and her name, because the Medallion had been long lost by the time she had come of the proper age for the Ceremony. “She goes by Kasni.” He thought she might remember Xan, though he wasn’t sure how well.

His eyes fell on her hands again, and as he gently lifted one, Embric remembered how she would follow Elijah like a little duckling, always eager to assist him with his trade. Leather-working, if he remembered correctly, and it seemed as though she was still practicing. “I wish you’d take better care of your hands,” He murmured, as if his own weren’t covered in the tiny scrapes and scars he had accumulated over the years. The herbs to treat any illness was always in high demand and short supply. “Can you not wear any gloves while you work?” A brief pause. “These are from work, correct?”

“We number so few, now.” Whether Aine meant Light-wielders or Dresmondi as a whole - or perhaps even both - she herself was not entirely sure. Half of those who harnessed Light belonged to their former caravan, peaceful people who were decimated when Coheed and then the Eldouir attacked; the other half ran with the Adoi, brave warriors who made up the first line of defense and thus suffered even more casualties under the onslaught. With the Medallion lost to the sands of time, there were no new dyrs who could fill in the spaces left by those who had been killed. With a hollowness to her voice as the realization struck her, Aine murmured, “We are among the last of our kind.”

The gyrfalcon was not alone in following that particular line of thinking. Connected as they were, listening to Xan talk about Elijah and Legba, and remembering now the loved ones whom he’d been forced to leave behind, Embric had also found his thoughts lingering on loss. “A noble death rarely tempers the pain for those who are left behind,” He said quietly, as Aine replied in turn, “They must have been magnificent.” Many long nights had found Embric comforting himself with the very same thought that Xan now articulated, that his boy was better off for having never experienced the horrors that Eldouir rule had wrought upon them all, but an ugly, selfish corner of his heart couldn’t help but with he had survived all the same. Silently, he nodded. For one, long moment, he let himself feel the exhaustion that weighed down his heart. Then he shoved it away to the back of his mind.

“Be wary of who you voice such thoughts to,” Embric warned her, though he wanted very much to kindle that tiny spark of hope. No where in Elderkeep was safe; whether out of fear or a twisted desire to please, many Dresmondi in the city would not hesitate to punish their own for expressing anything less than total gratitude toward their Eldouir captors. The wrong word heard by the wrong set of ears could lead to trouble that would last for far longer than the temporary comfort of voicing such wishes, so it was, he added, “Best not to speak of them at all.” Even if he nurtured the same dream. Only in his thoughts did he dare to admit, I’m trying. His face showed no sign of the quiet, desperate rebellion in his soul. For Kasni. For you. For all of us. It’s not much, but I’m trying.

At the mention of tribute, he squeezed her hand and let it drop. He understood. Embric could offer platitudes about how her efforts would be worth the pain, but they would be pointless; the only predictable thing about their captors was their tendency toward violence, and as he’d been reminded earlier, that was plenty unpredictable as it was. At the reminder, he glanced around, just as Xan must have been struck by a similar thought. Nodding his agreement, he crouched down and offered an arm for Aine to hop onto. In a practiced motion, he rose and tossed her lightly in the air, and with a few flaps of her powerful wings, she was soaring above their heads to land on the roof of a nearby building. With a hand out, he silently gestured for Xan to wait until…

“They’re walking away now. They’ve left the body, though.”

Embric sent back grim acknowledgement. To Xan and Savi, he relayed the message, before looking at her and finally answering her question. His hand fell to the four marks on his arm, and his thoughts turned once more to the fourteen year old girl for whom he carried them, and he simply said, “I must.”

The inherent downfall to knowing someone as well as he did Xan was that he could see the exact moment his words of caution made her deflate. Regret trickled through him, but it met the stone wall of his resolve and drained away. While he might have found some solace in the fact that his boy had died before experiencing any of this nightmare, Xan was still alive. She had survived, and if there was any say he had in it, she would continue to survive, even if that meant extinguishing the tiny flame of hope before it could even fully catch fire. He couldn’t lose her too. So he offered nothing but a silent hand resting momentarily on her shoulder before drawing back as they moved on.

With a quiet woosh, Aine landed upon his shoulder once more and peered around while they walked. “I have an idea,” He said grimly. “But it’s not one I like to linger on.” There was nothing else to offer that they could live without, save a couple trinkets whose worth rested more in sentimentality than any sort of usefulness. Even the fact that he was seriously considering this particular sacrifice for Tribute had him reflexively shoving the prospect away to the darkened corner in his mind where denial ruled supreme. “And Koti…” His voiced trailed off into a deep, somewhat ragged breath.

“We were caught near the border, trying to escape,” Aine filled in silently. Communication by dyr was more secure; no one who wasn’t intentionally included in the conversation could eavesdrop. But the gyrfalcon could be blunt with her words in a way that Embric often was not. “We fought, and Koti and Rex were both killed.”

Within the folds of his cloak and out of sight, Embric wrung his hands together at the memory of them sprawled on the ground, eyes staring vacantly out of blood splattered bodies. Only rarely did he let himself think of the man to whom he had entrusted the most fragile parts of his heart. They were supposed to have grown old together, watched all of their children flourish into young adults, and spend long nights under the stars in each other’s arms. Instead, Embric was here, and Koti was… gone.

Embric dreaded the day he entirely forgot the sound of Koti’s voice. It faded a little more with each sunset.

But Xan didn’t need to know that. She had suffered her own losses and didn’t need to feel the weight of his own as well. So instead, he said quietly, “Where were you headed when I stopped you?”

“They will.”

Peripherally, because he was bonded to Aine who saw that which his own downcast gaze missed, Embric knew Xan was struggling with the realization that two more of her family were gone, but awash as he was with his own resurrected grief, he knew not how to provide meaningful comfort that would be anything more than platitudes. So he stayed silent and tried to tuck the memories of Elijah and Legba, Koti and Rex, and his dear boy back into the rarely disturbed corner of his mind where they would not be tainted by the horrors of Elderkeep.

At the mention of Ermir, he glanced sideways at her. “I know where his tavern is,” He mused, thinking with some fondness of the establishment that had become something of a discreet little refuge from the rest of the city. There was, by design, nothing remarkable about it, but sometimes a wall between oneself and everything else was all that was needed. “Best food and drink in Elderkeep, or so they say.” Never mind that in a rat’s nest like this, no food or drink was much more than merely palatable, but the friendly tavern-keeper did his best with what he had in front of him. Perhaps the fresh meat with Xan’s arrangement would help with that. “Quite considerate of you to share the meat,” He added, quietly proud of the young woman she had grown into. Despite her losses and the hardships they had all suffered, she had managed to keep her heart when so many others had not. Desperation drove many to selfishness, though he could hardly blame them for keeping what extra food they could scavenge. Kasni did the same for them.

“Ermir is a kind man,” Aine stated, peering down at her from his shoulder. A kind man, and better yet, a good one. Good men were hard to come by, these days. “We are glad you have found him.”

“I was only heading home, but I am in no rush.” Embric paused for a moment. “If you don’t mind the company, I could join you in visiting the tavern. A drink wouldn’t be… remiss.”

"I'm not wrong," Embric counted lightly, politely ignoring the accompanying sniffle that came from her direction. "Being the only tavern makes it the best by default." The rebuttal had come so easily to him. Reminded painfully of long days spent engaging the young woman before him in harmless verbal battles, he tentatively let a thin trickle of hope through to his heart; perhaps, now that they had found each other, their days would once again be filled with little quips as they each tried to outsmart the other.

Or perhaps not.

When Xan insisted that her arrangement with Ermir was merely a deal and nothing more, he brought his hand up to ostensibly scratch his beard while he covered a small frown. It may truly have been only business, but he felt that striking a deal wherein she traded much-needed food for skins and pelts was generous regardless of the motivation. Elderkeep had required others to trade less for more. From the sharpness in her tone, however, Embric thought that she wouldn't appreciate hearing his perspective. No matter the memories that had just risen from the depths of his mind, he could tell looking at her now that she had changed - and he knew, undoubtedly, that he had changed too. Life had made them both more brittle.

From her perch on his shoulder, Aine swiveled her head to peer down at the maned wolf, and both of their concern only grew as she relayed to him what Savi had started to explain. "Oh Xan," He said quietly, not quite disappointed because he understood the impulse, but not quite happy with it either. Hoping to avoid sparking the defensiveness that had prompted the look she'd given her dyr, Embric tried to keep his tone gentle: an conversation instead of a lecture. "Savi is worried about you, and we are too. Exhaustion leads only to trouble, and isolation harms instead of heals - you know this." He paused. "I know - I understand - why, but I would be happy if you would consider taking better care of yourself, if only because you can't perform your best work when tired. Or if not now, then after, when it's over."

Aine sent a mental scoff in his direction. "As if you're one to talk."

I have more important responsibilities.

"Kasni will be in even more danger if you render yourself incapable of caring for her." Her sharp tone indicated that she saw through his flimsy defenses. "You and I both know your evening walks have started growing longer."

As he had every other time they'd had this conversation, Embric let the matter drop and weathered the stern displeasure his dyr sent down their bond. He had other matters to attend to, namely offering a warm smile in response to Xan's obvious pleasure at his decision to join her. "Norfolk?" He inquired, tone light. "I'm afraid I don't recognise the name. Is he a talented singer?"

While the humans chatted, Aine glanced in Savi's direction again. "Where is home for you, right now?" She asked him quietly. Even if Xan continued hiding herself away to work on her tribute, they could make sure she and Savi wouldn't be entirely alone, if they knew where to find her.