“I’ll be,” Homer speaks with his hands on his hips, “this beauty seems to be attuned to healing.”It’d happened almost *too* conveniently. After a day of preparation at Hawk’s Rest the pair had left to travel deeper into the Sawbones, with their most direct course taking them up the center mountain (called the Keybone by the locals) and then down it to continue ahead ‘till they were out and almost right next to the capital, but,

  Maia’s eyes happened to catch a glimpse of something sticking out of the rocky wall right near the exit gate; gleaming and green, inviting and mysterious. Homer was very enthused to entertain her request of retrieving it; this was the most cheerful and curious she’d been in days after all.

  Although they both got a very stern lecturing from one of the guardsmen when Homer punched the rocky wall so hard it almost caused the whole exit gate to colpse. At least they’d dislodged the crystal *and* it hadn’t broken in the fall. About the size of a fist and a few extra fingers, they didn’t need to appraise it- Homer’s seen plenty of these crystals in his military days.

  They’d be at the capital a good week or so before the Rebirth was to happen, so they could turn right around and spend a better part of the day finding a local smith who could grind the crystal down a little to make it fit onto the slot in Maia’s walking staff.

  “Try it.”Homer extends his hand, fist bruised from the earlier rock punching. For a moment she considers denying him and calling him an absolute idiot for whacking the whole wall, but she concedes and gives the walking staff a slight dip. Per the smith’s instructions, there didn’t *need* to be motion to trigger the crystal; the way these staves worked was that the wizardwood it was made out of simply detected the user’s thoughts thanks to the physical connection (her gripping the staff) and then instructed the crystal to activate. But the swing made it feel a bit more meaningful.

  The crystal glows a green hue, now a rather pleasant opal-like shape in the slot. In just a moment that glow extends out to Homer’s fist and envelops it, with the bruising disappearing slowly but surely. Once the glow’s gone he shakes his hand in the air a few times, fingers flexing.

  “Not the most powerful crystal I’ve seen, but it’ll do. Regenerates at a below average pace, but the size implies you could get more out of it if you really practice. It’ll be helpful for the Keybone. Lots of harpies means lots of small cuts. You can sell it when we get to the capital for a lot of walking around money too; you can just take the safer roundabout path back once your mission is done and over with.”

  … A startling reminder that Homer was a man with a mind for logistics and organization. She ought to keep his military background in the back of her mind more often, instead of merely taking him for a cheery old man with a talent for swordpy.

  “Mmm. I wonder if my god would consider such a thing antithetical to her existence…”

  Healing magic and Death obviously had a somewhat complicated retionship. Minor healing magic less so, but resurrection spells especially- Necromancy was a protected disciple of hers, certainly, but resurrection brought about true return to life while necromancy was merely an imitation drawing right from Death itself.

  “I’m sure she can forgive me for any transgressions when I see her face to face, if I’ve committed any to begin with.”See her face to face *again* is what she could say, but she doesn’t. This will be different. On her own terms, with plenty of mental preparation. And then she would-… give her god a piece of her mind?That felt odd as a thought. She’s not sure she likes the mouthfeel of that. She’ll keep working on it.

  “You and your religious beliefs are what they are, ss, but I’ve a simple line I draw with the gods: as long as they’re not interfering with how I’m being killed and how fast, all’s fine.”

  Thus, they depart once more. Maia does wonder how such a crystal had cropped up directly next to the gate without anyone grabbing it, but she didn’t dwell on it: strange twists of fate shouldn’t be worrying her when she’s dealing with matters of godly caliber. She was quite sure it wasn’t Death being her patron once more, since crystals and magic like this ought to be within the caliber of her brother Life. Maybe she’d find out ter.

  The first hour or two of travel would be pleasant; while Hawk’s Rest occupied the safest spot of the ravine, it still continued on from beyond it; the almost fully harpy-proof rocky roof just changed into a more uneven one full of holes, easy for them to sweep down from. Homer ensured that they rarely did so, since Hawk’s Rest was so close to begin with.

  Then the Keybone would come into sight. The very tip of it seemed to reach almost into the clouds themselves and past it, the upper half of the mountain encased in a yer of snow. According to Homer they wouldn’t have to go that high up though, since a mountain path was carved to go across the lower half. Problem was that the path was long abandoned due to the harpies and bandits.

  Bandits they’d mostly avoided. Probably since it was just the two of them; why bother robbing two travelers with barely anything to share between ‘em? The crystal they’d just found likely raised their net worth by hundreds of gold, sure, but that was it. Homer was also the size of an outhouse and just as wide, and bandits had some survival instincts.

  So did the harpies, granted, but they were more numerous and had flight on their side- flight and anger.

  “Harpies are communal, ss. Just because they chitter in a nguage we don’t understand very well and just because they don’t wear clothes doesn’t mean they aren’t intelligent. They’ve got sorcerers and thinkers and rulers.”

  Maia nodded along. She’d never thought of the harpies as *lesser* per say, but she hadn’t really paid any mind to the idea of what their lives were like either… This was the first time she’d seen them in her whole life, after all.

  “Don’t know too much about it, but what I know is this. They’ve got a queen, maybe multiple, who rules over them. They’ve got both sexual organs, so they can breed without needing human mates- that’s a common misconception, since they usually present as female. How they live up there is a mystery. Nobody’s really lived to tell the tale.”

  Both their eyes trace up the mountain, as if clouds were swirling in rotation around the tip of the Keybone. How do people live up there? Do harpies have farms and communities, animals that they look after? One cannot survive on just scavenging, after all.

  “They’re territorial due to necessity. Some old dynasty pissed them off and they’ve been closed off and defensive since then. Nobody’s bothered to broker peace on either side; isotion has been fine so far.”

  That was a little sad, wasn’t it? Did either side really recall why the conflict had even begun? Could this even be called a conflict, really? It was more like two neighbors who didn’t like each other for an arbitrary reason and just kept throwing occasional punches at each other while passing by…

  “And they remember slights. Harpies value family and friends more than anything, and we killed a bunch of ‘em. Chances are we’re going to be having a few more screechers coming our way as we cross the Keybone. Best thing we could do is get to the foot of the mountain, camp up, and only move at night. They can’t see any better than us in the dark, so as long as we don’t light up torches and just follow the carved path we should be fine.”

  That all sounded reasonable, like always. Maia merely nodded along or whispered a soft ‘yes’ or ‘mmhm’ as they went along, but she was starting to realize that she must be sounding ungrateful… She’s never been good at socializing. She can- and has!- spend weeks without talking to anyone, so the thought of holding a conversation always feels strange.

  “How do you…”So she speaks on instinct, putting misty fog from the back of her mind out there into the world for him and only him to hear.“... Deal with killing something like that… Things with feelings and thoughts like ours. Not even harpies, how do you deal with killing someone who has a life like you do? You talked about how dreams haunt you and make you stumble, so do you just- do you just accept and deal with it?”

  That was an incredibly poor question to ask. Nice job, Maia. Conversation starter of the damn year right there. She’s lowering her head already, and the short silence makes her think she really must’ve screwed up now.

  In the end, it was merely a thoughtful pause. Homer ends up letting out a short and wheezing ugh, like she’s managed to drag out something through the stone cogs turning in his body to create such a raspy sound.

  “I suppose ‘accept and deal with it’ is the best way to put it. They’d be struggling with simir questions if they killed me, after all. Do I want to ruin lives? No. Do I want to kill?” Homer pauses again. “... No matter what the blood of War in me says and no matter how it boils at the thought, no. I don’t want to kill anyone either. A soldier is only good when they’re reluctant but ready to fight despite it. A soldier who enjoys it has no pce in a unit of mine. Combat can be honorable and good, but war- no. War is never a good thing, ss.”

  The difference between martial excellence and the brutality of war… That didn’t escape her.

  “Then- then you don’t have to fight War. You could just… You’ve been able to ignore that boiling feeling for so long, right? Just keep ignoring it. Travel the world, see people and pces. You were so happy at Hawk’s Rest, Homer. I don’t want to travel with you only to see you die. It’s-”

  It should be an honor to her, though. To see the noble death of a man trying to defy his own god, to be able to see this final journey. A good death, an honorable death, a death with purpose at the tail end of a man’s life, like a star in the sky burning out in a brilliant fre! And she’d get to see it, and pray over him, and perform his burial rites! This is the kind of thing that worshippers of Death dreamed of!

  Yet all she could do was dread it. The stormy season she’d been dreading way back in her forest hovel was coming, the wind was picking up and howling, and her mind was taken along with it swirling in the air in abject terror. She could only fear Homer dying. Herself dying. Others dying. And it shook the very core of her faith.

  How do you reconcile not wanting others to die with the worship of death itself?

  She’s had this trail of thought so many times before and she doesn’t have anyone to share it with. To burden Homer with her religious ramblings would be doing too much for someone who’s helped her through every hurdle from the smallest inclines to the greatest climbs. She has to figure this out herself.

  This all fshes through her mind in only a few short seconds, but is then pushed aside when Homer chuckles and pats her on the shoulder once.

  “Then travel with me to see me win, ss. Sure. I’ll probably lose. I’m traveling there to lose myself. But I’m not just going to throw down the gauntlet and then let War kill me. I’ll be fighting like a man possessed. Imagine that! Becoming the first recorded godsyer in history! You should be traveling with me to see that, and your god.”

  Absolutely ridiculous. He was an unreasonable oaf of an old man. How could she lie to herself about his chances? There were none. A total of ninety nine point nine nine nine nine nine nine nine-…So there was a zero point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero-one.

  “... Heheheh. Heheheh- heee.”Maia can’t help giggling, lifting her gaze and smiling a little at Homer. He ughs in turn, their eyes then turning heavensward towards the Keybone.

  Crossing it would take a week or two, but after they reached the other side, it’d be a safe and fast trip right to the capital.

  Just one mountain of trials.