The morning came too early for the little town. In the fresh dawn light, everyone in Convallis could see the damage inflicted on their homes. The celebrations of the night before were almost entirely forgotten as displaced families realized the depth of their losses. No one could bring themselves to regret last night's revelries, but all were keenly aware that no one would be eating like that again for a long while. Slowly, the able-bodied adults of the town shook off their hangovers and trudged out beyond the city walls to deal with the dead.

In the meeting house by the market square, the elders discussed the state of their town in hushed tones between puffs of tobacco smoke. They huddled together in a secluded table in the corner of the large room. Around them, displaced farmers and shepherds quietly shuffled about. Some were getting ready for the day, packing away bedrolls and looking for missing shoes, others were trying to catch just a few more minutes of sleep.

Around the table, a few deeply hungover members of the makeshift town's guard nodded along as best they could, trying to make their pained grimaces look thoughtful and serious. Among them, Astera sat most upright, gritting her teeth against her desperate need to crawl under the table and die peacefully.

"It's hard to say, it's hard to say." Thymus mumbled into his voluminous brown beard for the fifth time that morning. Beside him, another two elders slowly shook their heads. "Until we hear word of the full extent of the damages, it is simply hard to say."

Next to Astera, swaying back and forth like a sapling in a storm, Cadmus nodded as though he was listening to something of great importance and was not suppressing the urge to vomit. He was doing a fair job of it, but Astera feared he'd end up falling into her by the end of this. She could barely hold her own weight as it was.

"What about the horses? We can at least say how many horses we can spare for a convoy to petition the king." Astera braced her arms against the table, clutching at the rough wood as Cadmus again swayed in her direction. She was determined to get something accomplished here. She took a deep breath. "On my last count, we had about fifteen good runners and a couple of warhorses. How many do you think you could spare?"

"Well, without knowing the damage it's-"

"Hard to say, I know. But you have draft horses to haul stone for reconstruction. They've gone completely untouched during the siege. You also have mules for plowing the fields and getting around. Can we at least agree that you don't need the warhorses?"

Basilicum frowned into his pipe. "How do we know there aren't reinforcements waiting for us to let down our guard?"

Astera sighed and shut her eyes against the light stabbing at the back of her skull. She didn't know how to explain that they couldn't afford to sit here waiting for a phantom menace that may never show itself.

At the end of the long banquet hall, the ancient oak door creaked slowly open. A single beam of light cut across the dirt floor, eclipsed immediately by Helianthus shuffling in quietly, stepping gingerly between bedrolls and apologizing profusely.

"Sorry, I had to get out of my chainmail." He mumbled as he squeezed onto the bench between Astera and Cadmus. She noticed with envious fury that her brother looked bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as ever, having escaped the agonizing hangovers they were all experiencing.

He cleared his throat and addressed the town elders who were quite absorbed in their mutterings. "Last night I thought up a rough plan on how to divide our forces to best aid with reconstruction."

"That's what you were doing last night?" Oxalis said, finally lifting his head from the table and pulling himself to a sitting position with some difficulty. A few droplets of drool sparkled in his thick, black beard, his olive-toned skin significantly greener than usual. He still wore the same cocky half-smile that he always did, though it seemed to be dripping off his face.

"Today and tomorrow the focus will be on recovery and reconnaissance. We assess our damages, get a better idea of what we're dealing with and rest so we'll be ready for the next phase. When we have a better idea of what we need, my forces will split up into three groups. Our strongest people will form a team tasked with rebuilding, our swiftest will form a hunting party to keep the town fed and I will go back to the city with four or five of the Legion men to petition the king."

All the town's elders seemed hypnotized by the steady, low voice of their prodigal son. The one who came all the way back from Astuvia dressed up in the bright, shiny uniform of the Royal Legion to save all their asses out of the goodness of his heart.

"Wait, men?" Astera barked, shaking herself out of the reverie induced by the certainty in her brother's voice. "What about me?"

"You'd stay here to lead the hunting party."

"No, no. I thought we agreed it would be more convincing to bring a towns...person to help make our case. Give it a more personal touch." She struggled to string her thoughts together, but they all scattered under the weight of her helpless, childish anger. She'd been stuck here, alone in this claustrophobic backwater for much too long.

"Yes, that's why I'm bringing Oxalis. You know the woods better than anyone. You can help find not only game but wild fruits and vegetables." Astera opened her mouth to protest. Why was Oxalis a better representative than her? She wasn't the only one who could tell potatoes from nightshade, why couldn't someone else be head forager?

Basilicum lifted his head, pulling the pipe from his lips for the first time, piping up before Astera could speak. "What if the invaders have reinforcements on the way? How do we know they are truly defeated?

Helianthus took a deep breath and turned his big, round eyes toward the elder with utter solemnity. "To put it simply, we don't. Just as we had no way of knowing that they would come in the first place. But we still have all the defenses that kept us safe through the siege. If need be, we can always retreat behind them."

That was all for negotiations. The elders were all on board for whatever half-baked plans came out of Eli's mouth. Astera been here since the break of dawn trying to get them to agree with anything she had to say. Then little Eli comes in late and gets anything he wants. It was as though the entire world had turned onto its head.

The band of makeshift soldiers had started to call him 'captain' ironically because of how quickly he had stepped up to take the previous captain's place when he died in battle. But now, as she watched her little brother talk strategy, she wondered if there was a bit more truth in the title then she was comfortable with.

The idea had been nibbling at the back of her mind all during the siege, of course. She'd seen her idiot little brother kill not too long ago. She'd seen him do it with ease and skill. At the time, all she had the energy to feel was relief. After all, she was doing much the same and too busy struggling past her own moral crises to judge her brother's actions. But now, the reality she had willingly swallowed was not sitting right in her stomach.

Where did her soft, sweet kid brother go? Once upon a time, he would get teary-eyed every time he had to slaughter a chicken. He was so quiet and awkward around strangers, he could barely say a full sentence. She'd even had to act as an interpreter for the Legion recruiter the day he left. Who taught her painfully meek little brother to stand up and command soldiers and negotiate with eloquence and confidence? When did that boy learn how to kill?

She wondered endlessly with a bittersweet taste between her clenched teeth.

"We'll all meet back here bright and early in two days. If all goes as planned, I'll set out to the city before noon with whatever resources you feel you can spare. I trust you'll spread the word to the people?" Helianthus declared, smiling bright as a new penny. He shook hands with every elder individually with a sturdy grip and a lot of eye contact. Astera gawped openly until Cadmus finally crumpled into her lap.

She stood up, dumping the man onto the floor before storming out of the meeting house, crushing a couple fingers and toes on the way.

The slam of the door took Oxalis by surprise, but he took no mind. During the siege they were all either creeping out into enemy encampments alone and terrified or crammed in such close quarters for so long they could tell each other apart for the smell of their farts. They all needed a little time apart.

Oxalis reached out for her brother's shoulder, partially as silent assurance that Astera would be just fine on her own but mostly to haul himself back up to his feet. Helianthus, having grown strong and lean as a horse in his time away, seemed to barely notice the weight on his shoulder. "Well I don't know about you, but I could use a long soak. Wanna head to the river?"

"More than anything in this world."

People had begun flocking to the nearby river as soon as dawn broke. After all, they weren't the only ones who went without bathing during the siege. Everyone had weeks of old laundry that needed washing and a desperate need to escape the confines of the town.

They did not join them on the grassy riverbank, though the clean, rolling water was tempting. Oxalis led him a little further downstream and off a little-known creek to a mostly dry riverbed where the water collected in slow-moving pools filled with crayfish and algae. It was all that was left of the old river when their great grandfathers redirected it to irrigate their farms. Here, they wouldn't be staining anyone else's clothes with their bloody runoff. It took a bit of climbing to get down to the calm green waters, but the rare moment of privacy afforded by the walls of the once-great riverbed would be well worth it. What was a little more exhaustion anyways?

On the way down, they chatted half-heartedly about all the things they didn't have the luxury to under siege. Keeping their mouths moving for the sake of it.

How things had changed in Convallis, how they had stayed the same.

All conversation ended when they reached the largest of the pools, gleaming green as polished jade between the mossy river stones and reeds. Helianthus undressed like his clothes were on fire, flinging them carelessly to the side as waded in. The moss-covered rocks making him slip and stumble.

Oxalis held himself back against the tempting gentle laughter of the cool waters. He thought of the small set of carving knives he always kept in his pocket. Out of all his tools, they were probably the cheapest. Only suitable for whittling trinkets for the kids when he had a bit of softwood and a little time on his hands. But still, he found a dry, flat boulder a few feet away from the pool and turned out his pockets.

The knife set neatly wrapped in leather, A tin of salve that had melted onto everything else, a heel of bread hard enough to drive a nail through oak, a crushed daisy. Then, buried in the woodchips at the bottom of his left pocket, he found a bit of soap. It wasn't much bigger than a walnut and coated in breadcrumbs and bits of wood. But at this moment, weeks after his last proper bath, Oxalis' finding was more precious to him than a raw diamond.

"Hey, Eli!" He called down to the pool where Helianthus was using fistfuls of moss to scrub off the filth of battle. The soldier turned, lean chest bare and glistening, the sediment in the water obscuring everything else.

"I have a bit of soap if you want it." Oxalis held up the little white pebble. Helianthus swam over to examine it, eyes round with disbelief.

"Sweet Sunshine, how did you manage that?" He asked, reaching out to get a better look. Oxalis stepped down to the waterline and handed it over. Helianthus held it as though it were a rare pearl.

"I don't know how half the things in my pockets get there, to be entirely honest. Must've been in my workshop when I had to clear out."

Helianthus held the little lump on the flat of his palm, afraid to get it wet but the look in his eye as he beheld it was akin to lust. "Are you sure you don't want to keep it for yourself?"

"Consider it an award for your leadership and bravery."

Helianthus turned red at the compliment, ducking his head to watch the crayfish at the bottom of the pool. "I just... did what I had to."

Oxalis groaned. "Please just use it, you stink worse than I do."

Helianthus cursed mildly at him and dunked the little bit of soap into the water, scrubbing it between his hands to work up a lather.

Oxalis was becoming more sick of his clothes by the second. They were now so stiff from sweat they could've been made from pine bark. He left Helianthus to revel in the luxury of his bit of soap and stripped down to his skin, leaving his clothes in an unceremonious pile by the rock holding his belongings.

Though he would've like to dive straight in, the pool was much too shallow at this time of the year. The best he could do was wade into the center and fall back until the water closed over his head. He had been much too busy building last-minute fortifications to participate in the fighting, so he had nothing so difficult as blood to scrub off. Just sweat, mud and maybe just a little urine.

Nothing the gentle current couldn't carry off on its own.

He pushed up from the riverbed when his lungs began to burn and waded over to where Helianthus was working the dried blood out of his hair. The sediment in the water had begun to settle revealing more of Helianthus' body, tanned and strong as freshly varnished maple. Despite the rippling distortions of the water, he could tell the other man was the same even tone down to his ankles.

"Must be sunny in Astuvia." Oxalis mentioned casually.

Helianthus shrugged a well-muscled shoulder and turned to hand him back the soap, now no bigger than a peanut. "Maybe a little. We just spend a lot more time outside. Training, doing drills and so on."

"Do Legion men all train naked, Eli?" He'd grown tall as most of his family did. The carpenter had to tip his chin up to look him in the eye, making it obscenely obvious that he'd been staring distinctly southward. Helianthus poured water through cupped hands over his head, reddish froth flowing over his shoulders and down the plains and valleys of his chest and stomach.

"No," Helianthus replied. He held Oxalis' gaze easily, without a trace of his earlier shyness.

"Ok. Yeah, that'd be... ridiculous. Of course." Oxalis shrunk back, his smile turning into an apologetic grimace. He busied himself with using up the rest of the soap, cooling the fire of his rejection by dipping under the surface of the pool. It was a bad idea anyway. Astera would kill him if she ever got wind of him coming onto her little brother. He could hear the searing accusations even now.

"But if you'd like to imagine it, I won't stop you."

Oxalis's heart lept into his throat.