Is it a bad idea to trail after the weirdly strong human with feyer iron? Yes.

Is he going to regret this in probably like five minutes? Also, yes.

Is Clover still going to do this anyway? Sadly… also yes.

In his defense, Clover doesn’t have many options right now. Yes, following a weird man in the woods is a bad idea, but it’s an even worse idea to be out in the woods after nightfall with no fire or weapon. This far in the backwoods there’s no telling what kind of horrors are lurking, just waiting to devour a defenseless bard.

Running into an Unseelie out of season was bad enough, but there are other dangers to be wary of, humans and their iron, actual wild animals, and the Helborne. There’s been increased sights of Hel’s undead warriors in Freeshire recently, most likely do to the fact templars (the Helborne’s natural enemy) are… discouraged from roaming the territories. There’s bound to be a few shambling around, hungry for mortal flesh and misplaced vengeance. And in Clover’s humble opinion, getting eaten by an undead doesn’t sound like a fun way to go.

Clover could scramble up a tree, wet and miserable, and wait out the night. Most likely he would be okay until morning, Helborne aren’t really known for their athletic abilities after all, but that wouldn’t stop everything else. Considering Clover’s amazing unlucky luck as well, if he runs into a Helborne it’s not going to be one of the basic unintelligent Draugr but a true monster from Hel that won’t even need to climb to kill him. This is also not considering how upset his “savior” would be if Clover decides to skip out on paying the human the rest of his debt for the very timely rescue.

So, he follows after the knight, promising himself that he will be on his best behavior and not do anything that would get him stabbed.

It’s a shame how quickly that plan falls apart without Clover even really trying.

The knight’s eyes bore into the back of Clover’s head as they stand in front of the infamous cave. Without the bear monster blocking the entrance and sending Clover into a panic is painfully easy to see that Colver may have… over sold the idea.

For the “cave” is nothing more than a shallow hole really, the Unseelie must have barely fit with its hulking size. There’s enough room for two, but it will be a tight squeeze with all their luggage and a fire to chase off the night chill.

“Uh… I promise I thought it was bigger?”

The knight huffs and pushes his way inside, placing his bag down with a wet splat. Clover scurries in after him, so very thankful to finally be out of the rain. He gets as close to the left wall as he can, eyeing the small fire the knight is making from the damp logs he picked up as they made their way here. Clover carefully sets down the few he picked up as well, feeling the need to prove he wasn’t totally useless so that the hobbyist fairy hunter doesn’t kick him out into the downpour.

The knight glances at the pile for maybe 2 seconds before he makes another huffing sound Clover thinks might be a laugh or maybe a sigh, and pushes Clover’s pile of sticks outside and back into the rain.

Clover wilts, shoulders hunching as he plays with the strap of his bag, “No good?”

The human doesn’t say anything and begins striking his flint together to try and catch a tiny handful of dry grasses ablaze.

Clover despite his (according to some) demanding demeanor, does know when his presence isn’t wanted.

With nothing better to do Clover starts busying himself with trying to wring out his wet clothes. It’s in moments like these that Clover is both thankful and annoyed he chooses to wear four layers of clothing. At least this means at least some of his clothes will hopefully be dry by morning.

He can feel eyes on him as he moves. Clover makes a point of moving a bit slower than normal, angling himself in a way that the knight can see what he’s doing. First, he slips his long scarf off, wincing at the splatters of mud that have stained the light pastel purple fabric. Next, he pulls off both his traveling vest and plaid tunic at once, shaking his head like a dog trying to get water out of their fur.

Clover ponders pulling his blue and red dress shirt off, but that would leave him only in his white undershirt and with the rain it would be see-through enough that it would be like he wasn’t wearing a shirt at all. Clover has no problems with showing skin, in fact he’s all for it, especially in the sticky heat of summer. But… but Clover’s back. He only lets Áine see because she treated the wounds before he could tell her no. No one else will ever see the horrible scars. Plus, this human might notice the familiar scared pattern of iron burns. It’s uncomfortable but he keeps the layers on, directing his newfound anxiety towards tugging his boots off and socks off. Clover is only a little surprised that a fish doesn’t fall out of his boot with the amount of water that comes spilling from it.

“Watch the fire,” the not-feyer snaps, pulling one of Clover’s rejected pieces of wood and placing it firmly between Clover and the pile of sticks that has yet to actually be aflame.

The bard laughs nervously and nods, biting back the witty retort he wants to make, he’s already on thin ice as is, better not to push it.

Braving the rain, Clover gets a bit closer to the cave’s entrance, holding out his mud-stained clothes for the storm to help clean. It doesn’t do a great job, but it’s enough for now. Clover will properly wash everything once he gets to the next town.

Once everything is as clean as he can get them for now, Clover lays out the garments and scoots back as far as he can in the cave, crossing his arms and resting them on his raised knees. Even when making himself as small as possible it’s still cramped, the cave barely 10 feet across and only about 8 deep. Most likely they will both get rained on during the night even in their little hovel.

He tries and fails to not shake from the cold as he watches the first glowing embers of a spark take root and grow into a fire. Clover heaves a sigh of relief. ‘At least I won’t freeze to death tonight,’ he thinks a tad too morosely, ‘one possible death avoided.’

But now that the fire is burning bright and the laundry all sorted there’s nothing else left to do but sit in silence with the heavy patter of rain and the crackling of embers.

Clover fidgets, idly running his fingers across his arms like he’s plucking at the strings of a lute. Clover would naturally actually play his lute if he wasn’t sure that would get him tossed back into the mud. His human companion has made it pretty clear he doesn’t care much for noise.

And because it’s so quiet Clover picks up on the soft grunt and scuffing of metal. Carefully glancing up through his lashes, Clover’s breath hitches as he watches the knight unlatch his chest plate and – “Wow, that bite looks nasty.”

The human tenses and Clover slaps a hand over his mouth, realizing too late he said that out loud, but the man doesn’t do anything except turn further away from Clover, giving the fairy bard his back as he slips his dark helmet off. Dark midnight ink hair cascades down the man’s back, falling all the way to his hips. It’s tangled and messy, the ends poorly chopped as if the knight gave himself a haircut with the blunt edge of his sword. The man runs a quick hand through his hair, tying it back loosely, before replacing the helmet and turning back around.

Clover eyes the wound, bad might be an understatement. He can’t see it very well from this angle, but he’s sure it hurts, that bear had teeth as long as Clover’s forearm. The wound has stopped bleeding thankfully, and though Clover has limited knowledge of how human bodies work (he could barely remember how his fey one worked most days), but he’s pretty sure it needs medical attention.

“Do you… want me to help you dress that wound? I’m sure it’s hard to move with the pain and every—"

“I’m fine.”

Clover narrows his eyes, but keeps the “sure buddy” to himself. The knight must be able to feel it though because he glances back at Clover and says again, words echoing with a low growl, “I’m fine.”

Clover can’t help the smile or the snicker, his shoulder’s untensing at the knight’s words. Sure, it wasn’t the most friendly thing to say, but at least he’s speaking to him, Clover has learned over his short five years of remembered life that people tend to have a harder time killing you if you are holding a conversation. (it's awfully rude to murder your conversation partner after all).

“Sir knight you are very brave and bold. And I assure you a wound does not make you any less of that, so if you need…”

Clover trails off as a strange sound echoes in his ears, a high-pitching ringing that buzzes in his ears uncomfortably.

He squints attention completely focused on the sound as it slowly starts to get a bit clearer, less of a ring and more of a screech. It’s getting concerningly louder very quickly. Clover has never heard anything like it before and he can feel his feathers ruffling from whatever weird fairy realm they are hidden in.

Properly spooked Clover glances up but the knight is still polishing his armor, seemingly pleased Clover has dropped the issue of the bite wound. Clearly the human is unable to hear whatever is approaching them.

The winds twist around him sharply in warning just as he makes eye contact with the woman who stumbles into the clearing outside, only she’s not a normal woman, body ghostly white and hands stained with dripping red blood, face contorted in horrible agony.

Clover realizes exactly what this monster is the moment she opens her mouth larger than any human should be capable of, showing off jagged teeth and the torn clothing of the poor souls she’s devoured before.

The woman unhinges her jaw and SCREAMS, the sound piercing into Clover’s eardrums so hard he feels his brain shake from the noise, but even over the maddening Hel sound, Clover shouts to the knight, desperate to tell him, hoping somewhere that the hobbyist feyer might also be a hobbyist templar as well, because this is a not just any Helborne. This is a — “Banshee!!!”