Chapter Text
FALL OF YEAR 399, VALENTIAN CALENDAR
Everyone in the village takes a great interest in the stranger, and Tatiana is peppered with questions whenever she so much as leaves the church.
“Where did he come from?” asks a woman.
Tatiana balances a heavy basket against her hip, her grocery shopping interrupted. “Oh, uh. Well…”
“Who is he?” presses another, who gently grabs her arm.
Tatiana hums. “I don't-”
“His name?” questions an older woman.
The basket nearly falls from her hip, and Tatiana purses her lips. “Uhhhhh…”
“Is he handsome?” a final lady asks.
Finally, something she can answer. Tatiana gives a solid nod of her head and says, “Very.”
The stranger is still baffled by his surroundings, and so weak that he can barely move in his bed. He's sitting up, however, when she comes into his room, and it’s a good sign. His eyes light up when he sees her.
“Tatiana,” he says. “It's good to see you today.”
She eases herself down into a stool, resting her shopping atop a bedside table stacked with books. “It's good to see you today, too.” She pulls the cloth off the top of the basket and pokes around inside, looking for the bread. “Anything come to you today? Do you feel better?”
The stranger frowns and shakes his head, then looks curiously at her rummaging. “What have you there?”
She stops turning things over. “You've only been eating the church’s cooking, and while Hannah makes good porridge, I thought you might like to try some new food.” She finally finds what she wants and pulls it out: A small, hard loaf of lumpy bread, tinged slightly green, and she offers it to him.
He takes it, eyeing it so dubiously that Tatiana laughs.
“That's salt bread,” she explains, and she shows him her own loaf. “Local seashore specialty. The crust is wrapped in seaweed and rubbed in coarse salt to give it some flavor.”
The stranger sniffs it. “Salty bread?”
Tatiana puts her own loaf down and reaches for his, gently taking it from him. He watches her closely as she breaks it open, crumbs shattering into her lap, and she shows him the inside.
“Just pick out the inside, if you don't want the crust,” she suggests. “I guess it isn't for everyone, darling.”
He does just so, and she pulls more out of her basket. What the village’s market has to offer is meager, but the Rigel Plains possesses some of the richest soil in the country. What she is able to buy here is much more than she’d be able to almost anywhere else.
“Do you remember if you have a favorite food?” she asks him.
He sets down the crust of the bread and looks troubled. “No. I fear not.”
“We can find you a new favorite, then,” she tells him, and she hands him an empty plate. “Rigel is a country that’s always a little short on food. Our soil isn’t very good. You’d find better pickings somewhere like Zofia, or even far off in Archanea.”
The stranger scrunches his face a little at the mention of Archanea, and Tatiana determines that she should bring it up again at a point. Given his features and accent, she wouldn’t be surprised if he were from further east.
“We have good food though,” she assures, and she starts settling it on the plate she’s given him. “Lots of meat and root vegetables. We also fish a lot, and we make our own bread.”
He holds out a hand after a moment, the corners of his mouth tipped up just slightly, and she realizes she’s piled his plate precariously high with her market purchases.
“You should eat,” is all she tells him, and she stands as he figures out where he should start. “I have to go help in the garden, and then I’ll be back to check on you. If you need me, just call and ask.”
“I shall,” he assures. “But I will try not to bother you.”
“Bother me?” Tatiana echoes. “You’re the most exciting thing that’s happened to me in a long time! You’re no bother to me at all, sweetie.”
He tries smiling again—an emphasis on “tries.” It looks like it doesn’t come naturally to him, like his face is too stiff to manage it easily, and Tatiana wonders once more who this man is.
“If I don’t see that plate cleaned by the time I get back, mister, I’ll be really mad!” she warns, and she places a finger firmly against his nose for emphasis. “All that came out of my own pocket so you could get nice and healthy again, so eat up.”
She leaves the stranger in a hurry, her face admittedly a little pink from his attempt at a laugh.
Tatiana hears a lot of the men in the village grumbling about the stranger—when they think she isn’t listening, that is. They clearly don’t see her tending to the garden, and she can hear every word they say.
“He’s mooching off of Sister Tatiana’s kindness,” they mutter to each other. They’re all standing in a large group, and she marches her way towards them. “He’s sapping up all the church’s resources! Our tithe is meant to feed us.”
“Your tithe is meant to help the needy,” Tatiana scolds, and the group of them all jump. She’s disappointed to see a few friendly faces from her childhood in the midst of them, but sets any of her bias aside. “That poor man was seconds away from death when I picked him up, and we will all treat him with kindness. Do you understand me?”
They mumble and grumble and break away, shuffling off into different directions. Tatiana huffs and pins her fists on her hips, her cheeks puffed out in indignation.
“I say they’re just jealous,” a wavering voice says from behind her. Tatiana turns to see the head priest, Alexi, stumbling up behind her.
“Why would you say they’re jealous, Father?” she asks. She kneels back down in the dirt and checks the blackberry thicket for more plump berries. A thorn pricks her finger, and she sucks on it for a moment before proceeding more carefully.
“You’re quite a beauty, Tatiana,” Alexi muses, and Tatiana flushes.
“Not at all.”
“Humility is a virtue,” the old man recites, then continues. “But you’re 19. Many of the men in this village have had their eye on you for a long while. They’re jealous of that stranger coming in here and scooping up all of your attention.”
She frowns and turns a plump blackberry between her hands, then plucks it off the stem expertly. It joins the others in her basket. “I’m really not sure what to say to that. I don’t mean to make anyone jealous.”
“How they feel is their own business,” Father Alexi tells her. “You’re doing a great service in the eyes of Duma and Mila by helping that innocent man. You just keep up your work, sweet Tatiana.”
The stranger is up and walking around the next week, and Tatiana is a little bothered that he doesn’t have a name. She thinks it’s probably lonely, not knowing even what your name is, and she hopes that maybe she can help him remember. They take long walks together, every day, and she asks constant questions to try and pull something up out of the corners of his mind. She’s always trying, asking, “Do you remember?” and he’s always saying, “Nothing.”
He appears especially troubled today, but she keeps pressing on.
“Let’s go back to trying to figure out your name,” she says. “Is that okay?”
He sighs and looks down the road, obviously unsettled. “It is.”
“Alexander?” she suggests. She kicks a pebble out of her path. “Does that sound right?”
“No,” he replies, twisting his mouth.
“Oh…” Tatiana taps her lips with a finger and scrounges around for another name. “Maybe something like Will?”
The stranger stops for a moment, clearly giving it deep thought. Excitement sparks in Tatiana, and she wonders if maybe, by chance, she’s struck upon the right name. She places a hand on his arm, eyes sparkling, but then he gives a disheartened sigh.
“Definitely not.”
“Drat,” she says. They continue walking, and she can start to smell the sea. Here is where their walks usually stop, and she turns to him. “Do you want to take a break? We can go back now.”
He shakes his head and gives her a warm look. “I’m fine.”
“Are you certain?” Tatiana asks. She looks him up and down, searching for any sign of exhaustion. He really does look healthy again, though, with more of his strength coming back every single day. If someone looked at him, they’d probably be unable to tell that he was on Death’s very doorstep only a couple of weeks before.
“Perfectly certain, Tatiana.” The stranger gives her a hard look, and then gestures to a nearby tree. “You, on the other hand, look a little tired. Do you want to sit down for a moment?”
It’s probably true that she looks a little exhausted, considering how she’s been pulling herself thin with her church duties and tending to her patient. And, if she’s being honest with herself, she’s not the sturdiest woman that the gods ever made. The long walk has left her feeling a little tired.
“One short break,” she relents, and they sit underneath the tree. She looks up at the nearly-bare tree branches, chewing the inside of her cheek. “Maybe… Sirius?”
“Pardon?”
“Your name. I’m not giving up until we find it.”
“I don’t think it’s ‘Sirius,’” he says. “You don’t have to keep fumbling around for a name, Tatiana. I’m sure it will come back in time.”
She sighs and slides her back down the smooth tree trunk. “I just want you to remember. It must be lonely, not even being able to remember something as basic as your name.”
“It is a bit lonely. It feels odd,” he concedes to say. He looks up at the overcast sky, and she studies the profile of his face. “It feels like it’s right there, but when I reach, it never is.”
“That sounds so terrible,” she murmurs, and she slumps her head against his shoulder. “I really wish I could help you, but I just don’t know how. I’m terribly sorry.”
The stranger looks at her, and she glances away herself. She doesn’t want him to catch her staring. Regardless, Tatiana likes it when he looks at her. His brown eyes are warm and gentle, almost tired, but she thinks they look sweet. The shape of his jaw is appealing, and she just adores his nose. He's handsome. Pleasant.
“You’ve helped me plenty already, Tatiana,” he says. “You’re truly extraordinary.”
Extraordinary? Tatiana doesn’t think so, and she waves her hand. “I already told you. Helping others is common decency, and it’s my passion. Did you really think I was going to stumble across you and then just leave you to bleed out?”
The stranger appears amused. “Well, no. But I didn’t expect you to bring me to your home, spend days upon days pulling me back to the living, and then clothe and feed me. It’s amazing.”
Tatiana frowns. “I’ve got no clue what else I should’ve done. You were suffering, and so clearly. I just had to take you in.”
He hums. “Regardless, I’m immensely thankful. I’ll never be able to repay you.”
Tatiana tilts her head and looks at him. His eyes still look so worn and tired, and she says, “You don’t have to. Just being around you is a payment in-and-of itself.”
Rumors start spreading after another week. They’re completely unfounded, baseless lies that the village’s guest is a Zofian spy. Perhaps, he’s even an Archanean spy—they’ve got a war or two going on over there, don’t they? Maybe they’re looking to drag Rigel in, somehow.
Tatiana isn’t surprised that the same people spreading the gossip are the ones initially resentful of his presence. She’s disappointed in them, and she tells them so when they come by the church next. They look guilty when she starts her scolding after their prayers are done, their consciences made more acute by being in the church. The gossip tones down, for a while.
The stranger is incredibly useful around the village, so much so that Tatiana wonders if he was maybe a handyman wherever he came from. He’s big, strong, and excellent at doing most any chores that people put him to. He never complains, never accepts a lick of payment, and many of the old ladies in the village have become fond of him. He’s seemingly oblivious to the way they all come out and sit on their porches when he’s chopping wood or fixing something, and Tatiana has a good laugh about it.
It’s concerning to Tatiana, though, that he’s not under her watch and care every second of the day anymore. They don’t go on walks as often. She has to peruse the village for a good hour every day before she finds him, fixing the wheel on a wagon, lifting crates, chopping wood, or doing something else that’s helpful and makes him even more dreamy.
Today, he’s all the way on the other side of the town, the blacksmith, Maksim, tells her. Gone down to the shore to help pull in the fish haul for the day before the big storm starts. Tatiana thanks him, accepts the fond pat on the head he gives her, and sets off, pulling her shawl closely around her frame. She’s in her warmest clothes, but the wind is blowing wildly and nipping at her nose. The sky above is dark gray, and the heavy rain clouds threaten to pour down at any second. She hears thunder rumbling in the distance, and picks up her pace. A Rigelian storm is never fun to walk through.
“Hello?” Tatiana calls when she gets to the shore. The fishermen look up at her from the beach and wave.
“Sister Tatiana!” The head fisherman calls back. “What brings you down ‘ere, lass?”
“I’m here for my friend,” she says. She carefully slides down the slope and stumbles a bit on the softness of the sand, but gets her footing back. The wind blows even more harshly, and she wonders if she should’ve worn a thicker shawl. “It’s going to storm soon. You all should get home, too.”
“We’re just about ready, thanks to your friend,” he tells her, and he points to where the stranger, with his sleeves rolled up over his forearms, lifts a large basket of fish, settles it on his shoulder, and carries it to a shed. “The man’s a workhorse! Caught onto whatever task we gave him quick, and did it perfectly. You found a real helper, Sister Tatiana.”
“Maybe he was a fisherman,” she suggests.
The old man chuckles. “Too burly. See those arms of his? Looks like a soldier to me.”
Tatiana feels as though she should keep the fact that she studies his arms very closely to herself. After all, she’s a woman of the cloth.
The stranger looks over after setting down his load, glancing at her briefly, and then again when he recognizes her. “Tatiana?”
“Let’s go home,” she calls to him over the howling wind. “The storm is gonna be really big! You’ll catch your death of cold, dear.”
He looks to the old man, who nods him away, and hurries over the sand to Tatiana. He rolls down his sleeves and sticks close to her, and she’s grateful for his broad frame to block out the harshness of the wind.
“Is it a hurricane?” the stranger asks, bewildered at the next gust of wind that nearly sweeps Tatiana off her feet. People around them scurry, heading into their homes and locking the doors, and eventually, it’s just the two of them walking down the road.
Tatiana smiles and rests a hand on his arm. “Oh, no, sweetheart. It just gets very windy when it rains on the Plains, and it gets awful cold, too. It’s best to stay inside while it storms.”
And, in the speed of a blink, there’s a clap of thunder and a stroke of lightning in the sky. There’s a drizzle for but a second, and then it’s pouring rain that pricks Tatiana’s skin like needles. She gasps and holds her hands over her head uselessly, but the stranger whips her shawl off her shoulders and holds it over her like a canopy.
The rain is already so heavy that she can barely open her mouth without getting a swig of rainwater, but she blinks up at him with a sheepish grin in thanks. He tries smiling back down at her and they press on, fighting against the storm. The church is a short distance away, but it feels as though they’ll never get there, what with the wind fighting them.
The gust has picked up, and a particularly harsh push of it nearly sends Tatiana sprawling back. Her shawl is soaked through and not doing much to protect her, so the stranger folds it over his arm and wraps the other around her, squeezing her closer to his body and pushing through the storm for the both of them.
She thinks that, even though he’s as soaked and freezing as her, he’s addictingly warm.
They finally get back to the church, burst through the doors with a gasp, and then immediately bar them behind them. An old cleric rushes over to them with towels, fussing and mopping them up, and Tatiana is sad when the stranger lets her go. She hopes that he chalks the flush on her face up to the freezing cold.
Sometimes the stranger wakes up, gasping for air and looking absolutely terrified. It’s not really surprising to Tatiana; he got those wounds from somewhere, after all. Whatever gave them to him must have been terrifying. A battle perhaps, a war, an ambush, something.
She wraps her arms around him whenever he jolts up, spluttering and coughing, and shushes him until he calms down. He grips her back on occasion, digging his fingers into her shoulder blades to the point where it hurts and bruises. He doesn’t realize it, though, so it’s okay. She pats him soothingly, whispers things she hopes are comforting in his ear, and hopes he can go back to sleep.
His body may be healed, but his spirit is still a bloody, dying mess, and it breaks her own heart.
Tatiana is out shopping for dinner ingredients when Jerome’s knights come to town. She’s on dinner duty, and she thinks that a nice, hot soup will be good for the late autumn season, maybe with a side of fresh bread, and some berries with cream and a sprinkling of sugar for dessert. Maybe this time, she’ll actually remember that she’s cooking, and she won’t burn her food to a crisp. Her cooking is actually quite good, people tell her, when it isn’t charred black.
She picks up a bag of sugar and weighs it in her hands, and suddenly, people are rushing past her. The merchants lean over their booths and stare quizzically out into the small flood of people exiting the market, and for a moment, Tatiana wonders if something terrible has happened, like bandits invading.
Her fears are laid to rest when she grabs someone’s arm and they say that, no, there’s nothing like brigands storming the village. Her heart settles, but then they tell her that Jerome’s knights have ridden in, and that they’re looking for a Zofian spy.
“‘Zofian spy?’” she echoes, and her stomach churns with anxiety. “There’s no spy here.”
“I haven’t the slightest clue what they’re talking about either, Sister,” they say. The rush of people has left, leaving befuddled shoppers in their wake.
They leave, and Tatiana is standing there, puzzled out of her mind. Jerome’s knights, there for a Zofian spy? No one new has entered their village in months, except for-
Her gut lurches and she drops her basket. She runs, as fast as her legs will take her, and sees a cluster of people huddled in a large circle as she nears the church. Her lungs are aching, and she feels as though she’s about to be sick when she hears the unfamiliar sound of someone punching someone else.
The people in the circle are marveling, and as Tatiana pushes through without even saying “excuse me!,” she hears what they say:
“He’s beaten down two of Jerome’s brutes now!”
“With just a shovel, too..”
“Who is he?”
Tatiana finally bursts through the clamor of people, nearly stumbling into what she can only call a makeshift fighting ring. Two men, whom she recognizes as some of Jerome’s better knights, are on the ground, blood gushing from their faces, and she gasps at the sight of them. What truly almost makes her faint is that her stranger is also gushing blood, but is standing strong and firm, his teeth bared in a snarl as he wields a flat shovel exactly as a soldier would a lance. The knight in front of him has multiple dents in his armor, his helmet has been knocked off, and his eyes are bloodshot with rage.
“S-stop! Stop, please!” she cries, and her stranger’s stance shifts immediately.
His face slackens into surprise and he lowers the shovel slightly, looking over at her as though he’s never seen her before. His bangs are clumped with a little bit of blood, and his face is a bruising mess. The shock switches into guilt and hesitation.
“Tatiana?” he says, takes a step towards her, and the knight takes advantage of his relaxed guard.
A heavy fist collides with his face, and she shrieks as he falls to the ground. The knight bends down, pins his chest with his knees, and starts pummeling her stranger hard enough that even Jerome’s other men on the opposite side of the circle look unnerved.
“Stop!” Tatiana keeps begging, and she runs over, desperately pulling at the man. Her fingers scrape over his armor as she tugs, but she has no effect.
Her stranger is guarding his face well enough, but he has the glassy look in his eyes that means the weight on his chest is suffocating him.
“Stop this!” she yells again, and she turns to beating a fist against the back of the knight’s head. Her fear and anxiety has washed out into anger at the sight of the brutality. “You lout, you horrible-!”
The man swings his hand back so suddenly that she doesn’t even really see it coming. It’s hard and heavy as it strikes her across the face, and it feels hot, like someone has held fire right up to her flesh. The force sends her sprawling back, and she throws out her hands to catch herself. Another searing pain fills her senses and she squeaks, lifting up her hand to find that a sharp rock has lodged into her palm.
“Wench!” the other man spits, and she barely hears him. The blow has her head spinning, and there are tears of pain in her eyes that she unsuccessfully keeps from pouring over. She hasn’t been struck like that since she was a child, since before being abandoned at the church. Even then, the blows weren’t from a heavily-armored fist.
The crowd around her starts shouting disapproval, as though someone has just committed a foul in a game. Someone—she thinks it’s Maksim the blacksmith—scoops her up easily, retreats out of the circle with her in his arms, and shushes her when she lets a pained sob escape. Another person checks her hand and picks out the dirt, and she hears her stranger yell her name. There’s a mix of cheering and yelling from the crowd, and through her teary eyes, Tatiana sees him bowl over the knight and relentlessly smash his face in.
“Stop this at once, fools!”
Tatiana recognizes that voice, and it frightens her, as she’s sure it does the other people in the crowd. She blinks away more tears and recognizes Jerome, standing above her stranger and the knight with annoyance writ all over his expression. The fighting stops immediately, her stranger frozen in place, and the knight beneath him groans.
The general’s eyes laze over to his other collapsed men, then land on the pummeled face of the one at the mercy of her stranger. Finally, he looks over at her, and she resists the urge to curl up against the blacksmith as she did when she was a child.
Jerome’s lip curls and he kicks out, his boot digging into her stranger’s shoulder. He yells and falls off the knight, who scrambles up as fast as his armor will let him. Tatiana squeezes her eyes shut as Jerome advances on him, his strut slow and menacing, obviously practiced into picture-perfect intimidation.
“This is the Zofian spy?” he asks. “Well, he’s certainly no commoner, based on the way he’s disposed of these men. I’d say this violence is reason enough to take him in.”
Tatiana opens her eyes to see Jerome jerk his head from his remaining men towards her stranger, and her blood runs cold when he says, “Arrest him. We’re taking him to the capital for punishment.”
Maksim lets Tatiana down when she starts struggling and protesting, and she rushes over to where Jerome’s men are reaching down for her stranger. He’s panting on the ground, flat on his back, and holding his shoulder. She falls to her knees and throws herself on his chest, wrapping her arms around his neck as best she can, and ignores his pained groans. The knights move back, shocked.
“He’s not a spy!” she shouts, and she buries her face into the bloody crook of his neck. “Go away! He’s not going anywhere!”
“Ta-Tatiana…” he groans, weakly lifting an arm and resting his hand on her back.
She hears an exasperated sigh, the crunch of boots over gravel, and she knows that Jerome is standing over them. She doesn’t dare look up, nor does she dare let her stranger go.
“It’s you,” he says. His voice drips with displeasure and annoyance. “You’re always a problem, aren’t you, Sister Tatiana?”
The crowd around them is dead quiet, and Tatiana doesn’t break the silence with a response. Her eyes are brimming with tears again, and she slowly, very slowly, releases streams of healing magic from her fingers until her stranger’s groans subside a little. She hopes Jerome doesn’t notice.
“Off of him,” Jerome says, and he prods Tatiana firmly in the side with his boot. “I have no desire to kick a cleric, you know, no matter how she’s wronged me in the past. I’m a gods-fearing man, after all.”
Jerome is no gods-fearing man, she wants to spit, but she doesn’t.
Father Alexi emerges from the crowd and hobbles over, bowing hurriedly to Jerome, and he leans over her and her stranger.
“Tatiana, release that man,” he implores. “They’ll take you as well.”
“No,” she protests. She squeezes him harder. “He’s not a spy. I won’t let them kill him.”
“Tatiana, please,” the priest pleads. “They’re getting impatient.”
She opens her mouth to protest again, but the sudden rumble in her stranger’s chest startles her. She pulls back and watches as he screws his face up, trying to muster the strength to say something.
She shushes him and shakes her head. “No talking. You’re beat up bad, and-”
“Tatiana,” he works out. His hand is still on her back, and he pats it haltingly, but comfortingly. “Let… go. Let go… Tatiana.”
She swallows and shakes her head. “No, I-”
“You heard the man.” Jerome reaches down and presses a hand on both of their chests, shoving them apart.
Tatiana falls back into Alexi's arms, and he pulls her to her feet and holds her as Jerome picks up her stranger in a much harsher manner.
“Don’t hurt him!” Tatiana calls out desperately.
“He’s a spy. Of course we’re going to hurt him, daft girl,” Jerome sneers. “But, I suppose we’ll hold out until the emperor determines what he wants to do with this trash.”
Maksim comes and helps the head priest hold her as she struggles, yelling obscenities not appropriate for a saint. She can hardly bear to watch as they bind his hands too tight, and as they throw him on the back of a horse like a sack of flour. Her stranger’s eyes wander up from the ground to her, and she thinks that, if he wasn’t so thoroughly beaten, perhaps he’d be trying to give her a reassuring smile.
She cries as they ride out of the village, her own stinging pain forgotten.