“Banshee!” Clover yells, just in case the knight didn’t hear him the first time. Though Clover can barely hear himself over the gods awful scream echoing from the torn face of the ghostly helborne.

They really got lucky with the thunderstorm, for the pouring rain and booming thunder help muffle her ear-piercing cries. It still hurts, hurts enough that Clover instinctually tries to cover his ears, but it’s not crippling like a full banshee’s scream most likely would be. For the human knight it’s most likely just an annoying buzz instead of the budding headache its causing Clover; sensitive hearing rarely has its upsides.

Thankfully, Clover doesn’t get to test just how much his poor ears can take because the banshee doesn’t manage to get a full scream out before the knight is charging. There’s a new sword in his hands, no longer the burning iron but instead, glittering, blessed silver. The blade decorated with gold and shimmering with a faint divine enchantment. The knight having a feyer sword was strange enough, iron weapons are rare but not that uncommon, there is good money in fey trophies and Clover has run into his fair share of fools who think themselves fairy hunters. But only templars carry blessed weapons, each one bound to the templar that uses it (or so say the legends, Clover’s never actually met a templar to ask if that was true).

The helborne screams again, but it’s a sound of pain instead of its infamous deadly wail, recoiling from the knight’s blessed weapon. She hobbles backwards screaming in rage as ash spills from the cut in her chest. Helborne aren’t alive, so they don’t bleed like normal creatures, their veins instead full of ash and grave dirt.

The knight presses his advantage and lunges. Clover loses sight of them as they are swallowed by the dark stormy night.

He rushes to the edge of the cave, trying to see through the curtain of rain, but the only light is from the flickering fire that has yet to properly catch ablaze.

“Fuck this is the worst night ever,” Clover cruses as he rushes out into the downpour. Rain slams into him, nearly knocking him off his feet, the water immediately soaking through his clothes and chilling him to the bone. Clover will be grumbling about the cold into the next morning most likely, but he can worry about the possible illness this foolish move will cause later.

Muffled screams and clanging metal echo around him, but with the still pounding headache from the banshee’s wail and the rhythmic beating of the downpour, the sound is distorted, and Clover can’t pinpoint where the sounds are coming from. It’s somehow worse to be able to hear the fight and not be able to see it.

“Hey, shining armor where are you?!”

The knight is still heavily injured from the fight with the bear monster, the human hadn’t even had time to begin wrapping his wounds yet! There’s no way he’s in good enough shape to take down a powerful helborne all by himself. And if that stupidly brave knight dies here to this banshee—well Clover would have two powerful helborne trying to kill him, which is not a problem he wants to deal with.

Clover reaches down and scoops up the biggest of the discarded sticks from his firewood pile, it’s not a real weapon but it’s better than nothing.

“Seems it’s my turn to be the hero!”

There’s a particularly loud clang and a huff of breath, “You’re not a hero bard.”

‘Really?’ Clover thinks as he races off in the direction of the voice, “That’s what gets you to talk to me?”

It’s still hard to see through the downpour but Clover can make out the silhouette of two figures, one a ghostly white and the other dark metal.

This is a trebly idea, one of Clover’s top 10—no maybe top 5 of all time, but he still rushes forward to get involved.

The knight shoves into his space, nearly knocking Clover over as he growls, “Get out of the way bard.”

“I’m here to help bastard, stop being a prick!”

“You’re in the way.”

“I’m not it the—” the blessed silver sword slides in front of his face to block a wayward taloned claw from tearing his face apart. “…way,” he finishes lamely as grudgingly he backs up a step to allow the knight to do his thing.

Well, Clover wasn’t really sure what he was thinking, he’s never been very good in hand-to-hand. Even the few times he did grapple with other bards and patrons, Clover got away purely by playing dirty, a little unseen wind magic here, a well-timed insult there, mixed together with an attitude that riled people up and made them get sloppy so Clover could slip in past their defenses. But those kinda mind tricks are useless on a mindless helborne.

Which only leaves plan B then. Clover had managed to get the bear monster’s attention earlier with a well-timed thwack to the head, all he needs to do is distract the helborne long enough for the knight to get a clean shot. Considering they are in a forest by a cave its rather easier to fish a rock out of the mud, only this rock is oddly fuzzy and green, with yellow eyes

“Fuck!” he jumps a little and has to fumble with catching the strange thing again before he losses it to the mud, “Why the Hel are you back!?”

It’s the same weird creature from before. ‘Was it following them? Was it a different one? What the Hel?’

“Am I cursed?” he mutters out loud, staring down at the strange mossy thing that continues to stare into Clover’s soul with its large yellow eyes, “Oh, I really hope I’m not cursed, that will be a nightmare to explain to Áine—"

“Bard—"

“Today is already the worst day of my life,” and now Clover’s rambling in the pouring rain while a knight and banshee fight to the death right in front of him. And he’s holding some alien creature in his hands and he can’t stop talking, “I’ve been hunted by two monsters now and I’m not dealing with whatever the fuck you are. So, in all due respect, go the fuck away.”

And like before, Clover chucks whatever the strange thing is with all his might.

His aim is a bit off with his high-strung anger and the rain leaking into his eyes, but the weird mossy thing still nicks the banshee in the shoulder. She stumbles back a step (or rather floats back a step, she’s both solid matter and ghost after all). Her hallow gaze snaps up to Clover for the first time and it’s the first good look Clover has had of her as well.

Underneath the horrible transformation that has befallen her in her death, she must have been a rather pretty woman in life, with tumbling blond hair and high cheekbones, her clothes are ragged but obviously of decent quality, burial robes designed to mimic armor. It is common practice to bury the dead of loved ones in warriors' clothing, hoping to trick a Valkyrie into letting their loved ones into Valhalla. She was loved in life and yet she’s forced to kill in her undeath.

It’s a beautiful sort of poetic sadness, ‘one that will make a heart-wrenching ballad,’ part of Clover thinks, but he’s too tied up in his own feelings to notice that thought too heavily. The fight drains out of him, anger escaping like a popped balloon as he sighs. It’s stupid to feel guilty for a creature that’s no better than a mindless puppet, just a body hungry for the life it once had, starving mad and even less than a wild animal, but still… death is a sacred thing and its awful that she can’t find true rest. Her only hope to meet her second “death” at the hand of a templar, and grant her the mercy of the gods.

Clover’s had enough excitement for one day, and he doesn’t particularly want to see another creature murdered right before his eyes, much less one so human-looking. He meets her blank white eyes, unafraid of the monster she has become only seeing the woman she once was, “Please just leave.”

His words are no louder than a whisper, but both the knight and banshee freeze, as if neither can believe just what they heard.

Lighting arcs across the sky, illuminating the frozen scene, both sides statute still as the golden light fades.

The banshee’s hallow eyes flicker to the knight before finding Clover’s purple ones once more. She tilts her head evaluating Clover even further, and it’s bizarre how the action looks so much like she is nodding, but that is an impossible thought, helborne are mindless monsters except for the most powerful and horrible of their kind. Souls twisted so heavily through undeath and corrupted so thoroughly with hate and anger that they toss away their humanity and reshape themselves as Hel’s willingly warriors, delighting in acts of carnage and destruction.

This is just a normal banshee, a regular helborne lusting for mortal blood and flesh. There’s no way she can understand him, but as she gazes at Clover with white hallow eyes it almost feels like she can see him. She inclines her head once more in a move Clover is struggling not to read as a nod, as agreement to his words. Yet between one blink and the next she fades from view, leaving only Clover and the knight standing alone in the pouring rain.