Safest in my care, huh? 

Leif stared down at the invisible hold wrapped around his hand and pulled back with a soft sigh. The warmth tucked in his palm felt real - undeniably so and he curled his hand into a tight fist to press against his back.  "Meet us at the road leading out of the village,” he said. “Quickly and without question."

"Us?" The note of happiness in Ambriel’s voice nearly made the corner of his lips twitch, but he swallowed the urge to smile and glared out the corner of his eye. 

"That was a question, Ambriel."

While he couldn’t see his face, the smile in Ambriel’s voice was close to beaming. "So it was," the bard chuckled, "I'll come as quickly as I can…” 

Leif considered telling him to get moving but his breath hitched when warmth wrapped around his middle, holding him tight in an embrace. A shiver ran down his spine when Ambriel whispered sweetly in his ear, “Do wait for me, won't you?"

Leif opened his mouth to say something when the touch immediately receded when Coltham shouted,  "Oi, Leif! Didn' ya hear me?"  The warmth in the stone clenched tightly in his fist died down and Leif opened his fingers to find the aquamarine glow dulling. He turned his head at the sound of Coltham’s heavy footsteps as he grumbled, "What're you doin' back there?"  

Leif turned around entirely, the aquamarine glow in his fist entirely faded. Coltham blinked at him oddly, scratching his head as he stared down at Leif’s palm.  "Mn? What's that?" He asked, taking steps closer to look at it from a different angle. 

"A wave stone," Leif explained, turning the stone over between his fingertips with a slight frown.  "It transmits voices and sensations through mana to the one whose energy signature matches. Pretty good for sending messages at a distance."

He didn’t think much of it from the outward appearance, but Ambriel took pleasure in all of his little trinkets. The warmth still surging from beneath his skin reminded him of the way the bard held his hand gingerly, and smiled at him as he left the stone in his grasp. 

"Huh, could use those around the village,” Coltham mused. He rubbed at his beard, then glanced over his shoulder at the crowded street. “Would make it better to know when 's quittin’ time."

"While I agree,” Leif tucked the stone into the pouch at his thigh and shrugged. “There's only one like this and it's attuned to someone you may not want to speak in your head."

It was mildly embarrassing as it was to know that Ambriel was the only one who could communicate with him in that way. Not only that, he could speak in his mind and their conversations would only be heard by the two of them. Knowing how the bard interacted with him in the public eye, it was a wonder if he could keep his proclivities for teasing to a minimum when it was only conversation between the two of them.

Leif shook off the thought and swept past as Coltham called after,  "So that one’s to that bard 'f yours?"

When did he become my bard? 

Leif sighed, shaking his head, "We'll be gathering him on our way out of the village."

The idea of Ambriel waiting for him out in the open made him want to move with a greater sense of urgency. When Leif neared the back of the cart, he checked once more to ensure the wooden chest was properly secured along with Coltham’s things. "I can't count on him not getting into trouble while I'm away," he explained when Coltham didn’t respond readily, and glanced up when he heard the old man chuckle. 

"What?" Leif asked, raising an eyebrow when Coltham swept past him with a grin. 

"Y'talk about 'im like he's one of the youngin's,” Coltham chortled. 

Leif groaned, following after him with a shake of the head. Ambriel wasn’t nearly as endearing as Brenna and Paityn could be. "You couldn't possibly imagine the mischief he gets himself into," he said. He could imagine several instances at the top of his head when Ambriel had gotten into his own set of problems. The bard was the type to probe into things that he was interested in and continue to admire them heedless of the dangers. His passions, as he put it, could seldom cause him to run amuck and fall into circles that weren’t the healthiest or easiest to escape.

But in the same breath, he was happy doing what he did and it was his joy that was quite infectious. 

A smile touched Leif’s lips as he climbed up onto the cart’s front seat beside Coltham, looking oft as the old man urged the ox into trotting along. "But I suppose he is earnest like a child."

He could see Coltham shift easily beside him, seeming to smile erstwhile as they rounded the corner of Katarina’s shop and into the busy roads. When Leif turned his head, he could see the proprietress come to stand on the front porch and wave goodbye to them. He watched her until she was too small to see before turning to face forward and crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Now that it dawns on me, I don’t believe I ever asked where we would be going,” Leif said, looking up to Coltham with a slight tip of the head. The smile on the older man’s face dipped at the corners of his lips, forming a miserly scowl. His eyes lingered ahead and for a long moment, he said nothing, seeming content to dwell within his thoughts. 

“To an old friend of mine’s,” he sighed eventually. His eyes never left the road but Leif noticed a mistiness creeping up at their edges. “Sure y’ve heard of the night terrors of late…”

Leif pursed his lips and glanced ahead. Night terrors was a generous way of putting it. The people of Yun-Fe had lived a comfortable life of sorts, at the very least until the recent turn of the season. It happened once or twice, livestock being led from their pens and found in odd areas around the outskirts of the village. Then, what some of the farmhands described as the “cullings” began as one by one - their livestock was slaughtered by an unknown assailant in the night. 

He supposed it didn’t help that their arrival to Yun-Fe coincided with the uptick in deaths of livestock. The welcome they’d received was certainly not a warm one, and Leif could recall how Zopha told him to greet the villagers with grace as they had suffered great losses. Still, it did make for a confusing instance until he realized their ways and how great the loss of their precious loved ones was.

“I’m assuming you received note of it after we’d parted ways?” asked Leif.

Coltham pressed his lips together, grunting an agreement and saying precious little else afterwards. It was awhile yet before the greater bulk of the crowd melted past them and they were riding steadily toward the outskirts of the village. While he’d been asleep during their first ride, Leif now looked to the watchtowers and the guards posted at the wooden gate leading into the village proper. While there were several others way to enter Yun-Fe, the number of watchswords posted around the village’s perimeters would have made it difficult for someone to slip through without notice. 

For an otherwise peaceful village, perhaps that should have been the sign that it was anything but.

“The missive was short,” Coltham mused aloud as though he were half-speaking to himself and half to Leif. “But I doubt her and her missus wanted to dwell long hte details. Since ‘s my job to take the corpse to Rest, I’ll do it.” 

“Shouldn’t you have petitioned for a member of the Watch to come with you,” Leif asked, doing his best not to meet the eyes of the ones they passed. It wouldn’t bode well if they took his lingering stares as a means of minding their movements. “The death might have resulted in a—”

“Don’ say it,” Coltham brusquely cut him off. “I know what might’ve come out of it. But please lad.”

Leif glanced down at the white-knuckled grip he had on the reins and pursed his lips. The last thing he wanted was to upset Coltham after they’d managed to enter back into good terms. Yet, the tremble in his hands spoke to a pain that was not out of anger. At least, perhaps it wasn’t solely born out of anger itself. 

“Don’ say those words.” 

Averting his gaze, Leif’s mouth twisted but he said nothing in return and instead allowed Coltham to breathe through his upset. If the most he could give him was the silence between them and the hope that his worst fears would not have to be realized, he supposed that it was the best kindness that he could offer. At the very least, it was the kindest that could be given in the face of an awful demise.