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The warmth of a fireplace fought against the cold that soaked into the bones of the brothel. Wind and rain shook the shutters in pattering gusts, threatening to find some crack through which to sneak past their wooden vigil. The sky had warned of this storm since the gray billowing tendrils of cloud blotted out the sun that morning, which had proceeded to drop sheets of heavy spring rain. Rain was a common sight in Rondon, but this was a particularly bad storm. A pale woman sat upon the edge of a bed, her white-blonde hair draped over the back of the blanket she had wrapped around both herself and the child in her arms. She cooed to him, rocking him back and forth in an attempt to assuage his cries.
Work had been difficult with a newborn babe, but Celeste was thankful for the other women in the brothel. They would watch over him while she would see to her clients, as she would with their children who roamed the back corners of the brothel. The mistress of the house was harsh but fair, an older woman of the night with hair and a will like iron. She expected that a girl would pay a large portion of her earnings for food and lodging, but in return kept the more unsavory men away.
Even still, Celeste had been praying to the Alll-mer for the relief of an early and warm spring, so the roads would open again and the coin of travelers would find its way into their beds. There were the regulars who would return throughout the winter, but she found that the influx of new work for the men would often make their silver flow even more freely. Yet with the thaw came the showers, and the winter is not one to be beaten back so readily. Perhaps warmth would soon come to the city, and she would once again be able to afford hardy meals for her table and new clothes for her child when the men returned to call. It was a life, not the life she wanted to live but a life nonetheless.
“Celeste, I know that you weren’t planning on working tonight, but there’s a man here to see you,” a whisper from Celeste’s right, surprising the woman lost in thought. She looked up to see one of the other girls, a dark haired woman with a soft face and angular nose. Celeste knew Mercia quite well, as the two of them had started working at the brothel at around the same time. In many ways they considered themselves sisters, bonded by a shared lot in life and the secrets they kept together. “He doesn’t look like one of the regulars, at least any I’ve seen. He’s very tall, and asked for you personally!”
“See me, personally? Hmm. Thank you Mercia, I suppose that Madame Mara has already spoken with him, then?” Celeste replied, offering a quizzical smile.
“She has, I was minding my own business but happened to listen in to the whole thing. I was in the main lounge, reading that book I was telling you about - you know, the one that Samuel left with me - when this cloaked man comes in out of the rain. Now, I told you he was tall, but I swear he had to duck his head to get under the door frame. So I’m intrigued right there, either he’s a poor sap who got lost in the storm and went into the first dry place he saw, or he is the kind of man to walk through a storm just to find a brothel. And get this,” Mercia leaned in to Celeste, a sign that this retelling warranted the secrecy of whispers, “he brought a little girl along with him! She’s a small little thing, shivering like a leaf from the wet and holding to him for dear life. Part of me thinks that she might not have let him leave on his own either way. First thing he did was ask if one of the girls would be able to look after her for a bit, and she immediately pulls herself closer into his cloak. He starts comforting her, saying that he’ll be right back, and she eases up on her grip, but I think the poor girl is afraid of being abandoned. I hope he’s not planning on doing just that.”
Celeste held her cooing son to her chest, her heart aching at the thought of what this child must have felt. There are many ways that could have led to her feeling that pain, all heart wrenching things that were sadly a fact of life.
“Oh, poor child… did you offer to look after her yourself?”
“At first I was going to, but when he asked for you I assumed that I’d be taking care of Lisandre when you were with him. If you decide to, of course.” came Mercia’s reply, as she offered a smile to the wide-eyed child who reached out to her. Seeing the gesture, Celeste passed him into Mercia’s arms.
“Of course,” she chuckled, her laugh ringing like a delicate bell, “I can always count on you, Mercia, thank you. I’d do the same for you any day.”
“It’s no problem at all, Lisandre is a joy,” she bounced the baby once, twice, to elicit a torrent of giggles. With the child firmly secured in confident arms, she returned to focus to her role as messenger, “The mistress said that she would be able to watch over the girl personally, which seemed to make him quite relieved, nodding his head and thanking her. I’d bet that he’s either been here a long time ago, or otherwise heard about Madame Mara’s reputation. That’s what I’d bet.”
“And of course next the Madame asks him the usual questions for first time visitors, with some obvious questions about why he’s out in the storm,” Mercia continued, “From what he said he was a traveler, and he knew about this place from a mercenary who liked to frequent here. Then he mentioned that he wanted to see you by name. So I’m guessing that he may have met one of your regulars?”
“It could be, I’ve known a few men who might be called mercenaries. I wonder who spoke about me,” Celeste replied, running through a list of faces and names in her mind, “No matter who it was, I’m glad for it. More customers means more jobs, and more silver. I think I’ll see him, then.”
“I’ll take care of little Lisandre, and you can go see to this man,” the dark-haired woman nodded, making a half-turn before stopping, and turning once again to face Celeste, “Oh, and one other thing. I think he was burned in a fire. I couldn’t see much more than his hands and a part of his face, but there were scars, and the skin was discolored. I don’t know if it will change your decision, but I just wanted to tell you what I saw.”
“I don’t think it will, I’ve seen to many men who’ve been changed by the world. If they are scars or burns or marks of sickness, it’s a sign of something he escaped. I think that deserves another escape,”
“And of course, his silver is as good as any other,”
“Any man becomes the most handsome in the world if he has enough silver. It’s those eyes that keeps bread on the table for girls like us,” she replied with a sardonic chuckle, giving Mercia a one-armed hug as to not squish the child in her arms, “I’ll come for Lisandre when I’m done.”
It didn’t take long for Celeste to prepare herself, running blush along her cheeks and tidying up her hair. Her outfit didn’t require much work, it was a beautiful dress made of a soft white fabric, simple but in its own way beautiful. It wasn’t the focus of her efforts anyway, since the dress would be an incidental thing in the end. When she felt herself properly ready, she strode down a hallway decorated with bright and detailed rugs.
He was sitting in one of the couches that long ago may have claimed to be lavish when Celeste entered the hall, his frame a large dark shape shrouded in a damp traveler’s cloak. His right elbow rested lazily on the couch’s back and his hand, scarred or perhaps roughly calloused, hovered near his shoulder. A gaunt child sat on the couch next to his, wearing a similar black cloak which seemed far too large for her, the length of it roughly cut to stop it from dragging on the ground. Unlike the man her cloak was pulled back from her face, her reddish hair falling down over wide eyes as gray as slate. She held in both her hands a loaf of fresh bread which she seemed to be devouring with relish.
It was the girl’s wide eyes which noticed her first, as she stopped her chewing when Celeste entered the room to tug on the man’s cloak. He looked down at the girl first, before following the direction of her eyes. With the hood drawn up Celeste could still not see his eyes, but now she could see his mouth and the bottom of his nose, which was crossed with another thick scar. He stood, his lips parting slightly as if he had considered saying something, but the words had died on his lips. Mercia had not been lying when she said the man was tall, Celeste was not a short woman but the man had a presence that seemed to make one feel small.
“Hello,” Celeste said with her usual charm and a warm smile, sauntering over to the man, “Quite a night for someone to come calling, I wasn’t expecting a visitor in a storm like this. Not that I mind at all~! Your… daughter - yes? - will be perfectly safe with Madame Mara,” she turned towards the girl, “So don’t worry, alright? My name is Celeste, I’ll be taking good care of him.”
The girl, who was now standing behind the man, nodded slightly. She released her grip from his cloak and returned her hand to her bread. Celeste reached out for the man’s hand, to which he hesitated a moment before grabbing it gently. Her smile widened, and she leaned closer to hopefully get a better view of his face, but could only make out the stoic, imperfect, line of his oddly quirked mouth.
“Yes… hm, hello Celeste,” the man’s voice was deep and held an accent she couldn’t place, but beyond that something about his words felt off to Celeste. She wondered what was going through his mind at that moment, studying what she could of his face and body. As if aware of her prying eyes he turned from her face, reaching behind the couch and pulling a worn bag onto his shoulder. When the Madame shot him a glare, he added curtly, “I’d like to keep an eye on it. Can’t be too careful.”
The glare didn’t cease, but she waved the pair onwards, walking over to the small child who continued to work on finishing her bread. Celeste tugged at the man’s hand gently, to guide him back to the bed for the night he had paid for.
“So, who do I have the pleasure of spending this rainy night with?” she asked as the two of them reached her shrouded bed. She pushed back the curtains and sat herself on its edge looking up at the man even more. He had yet to take off that cloak of his, and had barely said a word to her, a combination which started a dread to grow in Celeste’s heart, “Where, do the two of you come from? You and the girl?”
“We’re from different places. It doesn’t really matter where, but we met in a place you might have heard of,” he placed the pack down before the bed, sitting down next to Celeste and dropping his voice, “The dungeons of Fear and Hunger.”
Celeste’s blood ran cold as the dread in her heart filled her body. She knew that name, it was the place that Cahara had told her about when he came to visit her for the last time. It was a big job, a huge job; one which would not only put quite a lot of silver on the table, but could perhaps ingratiate him in the eyes of Rondon itself. ‘Imagine, my name honored for saving the great Le’Garde,’ Cahara had spouted after his first bottle of wine, ‘My sword will be seen as something valuable, and hopefully the arm that swings it! It will be a new life for us when I get back to you, baby. I’ll marry you and you won’t ever have to work again.’
“Did you… meet a man named Cahara?” Celeste whispered, afraid to hear the man’s answer. He looked away from her, and all she could see was an expanse of black fabric.
“I did. He talked about you a lot, liked to say that you were his reason for going there and the reason he kept fighting despite…” the man trailed off, his shoulders tensing with the weight of something heavy and unseen. In that moment, Celeste was too afraid to rest her hand upon him, “There are things in this world that people are not meant to see, and he faced them bravely. He fought to the bitter end.”
A sob welled up in Celeste’s throat, which she did her best to stifle to not distress the other girls. Her hands were clasped over her mouth, tears welling up in her eyes. So she finally knew his fate, the man who she had hoped would be different from those many others who had abandoned her in life or in death. He had promised her a life , freedom beyond the shackles which bound her to such a lowly profession, and on top of that his love. Those hopes were dashed with his fate, but that is just the life of a woman of the night who falls in love.
The man turned back to the crying woman, whos eyes were fixed forward on the floor near her feet. Hearing her sob he instantly reached out to her, paused, drew his hand back, and then reached it back out again to wrap it around her shoulders. Feeling the comforting pressure she leaned into him, resting her head against the leather of armor beneath his cloak.
“Here, he wanted you to have this,” the man’s voice had finally cracked its facade, as Celeste could hear the pain in his words. She looked up as he shifted, pulling a large sack which bulged and jingled like it was full of silver coins. He placed it upon her lap, it felt like more than she would make in a year, “it’s not the bounty you were promised, but I hope it will help.”
“Who… who are you?” she asked again through her sobs, trying again to meet the man’s eyes with a searching glare instilled with a new fervor. Her voice quivered, but her resolve quickly bit through the grief, “You came all this way, paid for my services, dropped money on my lap and told me my lover was dead, all without being able to look me in the eye! Please, let me see your face. Let me know you didn’t kill him, and gave me this money to mock me.”
“I’m not trying to do that, I swear on my honor. It was not my blade or arrow that killed him. I only wanted to-” his words were interrupted by Celeste abruptly shifting to sit facing him, straddling his leg. She reached up to push back his hood, his right hand catching one wrist but the other continued forwards to knock the hood off.
Finally, inches before his face, Celeste could make out all of the man’s features. The mottled skin which she assumed was a scar or burn was actually a chimeric patchwork of lighter and darker tones, dividing his face almost perfectly through the center. His shoulder-length hair followed this pattern, with the left side of his head covered in a rusty brown and the right side a raven black, each broken through with small patches of the other color. The features of his face were slightly off following this line, as if one cheekbone was higher than the other and his eye sockets were uneven. It now made sense to Celeste as to why his lips had looked crooked, they were divided along that same line.
What was most striking about the stranger’s face, however, was his eyes. His left eye was a soft green, bringing to Celeste’s mind the image of a wide field of grass, but the right, well, the right was a much darker color. Her whole body shook, that was his eye, staring back at her out of this mottled stranger’s face.
Celeste pushed herself backwards, tumbling onto the ground. The sudden commotion drew the attention of many eyes, concerned girls willing to help fight back against a rotten man.
“What… why do you look like him? What’s wrong with you? What are you?” Celeste’s voice cut through the abnormally quiet air. The man looked down at her from his position on the edge of the bed, a look of deep pain in his eyes. He moved his mouth as if to speak, but the words were slow to come.
“I didn’t know how to explain this to you, or if I even should,” the strange man’s voice no longer held that air of detachment, ringing with the desperation of a drowning man reaching out for the last hint of shore, “But you’ve seen my face, it would be worse to say nothing. I look like Cahara because I am him, but, well, not entirely.”
“What insanity are you speaking!? What does that even mean?” Celeste squeaked, inching away from the man but finding herself drawn back to his face. The more she looked at him, the more she saw that reminded her of her lover. That raven black hair, the way he sat on a lounge couch, the look in that one dark eye - she even wondered if even his laugh was the same, “...Cahara?”
The patchwork man sighed, running a hand through his hair, “It wouldn’t feel right if I called myself by that name. I wasn’t lying when I said Cahara fought to the bitter end, but the bitter end wasn’t death. You see there are… rituals that can be performed in the names of the new gods. Rituals that you can turn to when there’s no other options, for the blessing of a god,”
“We had been traveling together for some while, Ragnvaldr and Cahara. We both had our reasons to be in that dungeon, and if sticking together meant we would stay alive, it didn’t make sense not to,” the man took a moment to compose himself. Celeste was no longer backing away, her face frozen in a mixture of shock and confusion, “It was rough going, but with the two of us working together it was doable. Even more so when we had Moonless around.”
“Then it found us, a twisted mockery of a man with a crow’s head and a maul for an arm. That thing’s call…” a shiver passed over the man, “We killed it, in the end, but we weren’t in a state to continue. Cahara had been blinded, and Ragnvaldr’s leg wouldn’t be able to hold his weight anymore. We were as good as dead, in the state we were in. So we made a choice to stick together, forever.”
“The Sylvian blessed us with a union of the flesh, and we were whole again.”
Celeste could only stare and listen, her hand clasped over her mouth. It felt wrong to hear these things, as if just knowing of such rites would corrupt her soul with some twisted stain. To think of the things that her lover had to experience brought the feeling of sickness to her chest. A scattering of girls, drawn by the commotion, stood listening from a polite distance with various expressions of horror.
“I… I don’t know what to say to this,” Celeste stammered, making no effort to stand up for fear of crumpling back to the floor. Her head felt light, like she was in some dream or nightmare, “I feel like I know you but I don’t. Who is Ragnvaldr? What should I call you?”
A sudden rush of bravery, or perhaps concern, passed through Celeste and she reached out for the man’s twisted hand, “Does it hurt?”
As the delicate pale hand extended towards him, the man grasped it with two large, mismatched hands, squeezing it firmly. For the first time she saw a smile cross his crooked lips, but it never touched his deep, empty eyes, “No, it feels wonderful. Like always having someone by you, no matter where you are or what you experience. That is her gift to those that seek her blessing, I suppose. Love for love. And it left us whole and renewed, with two arms, legs, and eyes.” he ran a thumb along the back of Celeste’s hand, something that Cahara used to do, “All I wanted was to be able to see you again.”
Celeste drew her hand back, slipping it free of the man’s grasp. It was like seeing a reflection of Cahara in a broken mirror, and she was afraid she'd cut herself on the shards of glass. She remained silent, pulling her hand to her chest and continuing to stare at the man. His smile faded somewhat, the ghost of it still lingering on his lips, for her sake.
“I can’t give you a name to call me, it wasn’t something you thought about in that place. But I can tell you about Ragnvaldr,” he continued, glancing at the small crowd of women which had gathered. As he spoke, his voice took on more of that other accent that had been creeping into the corners of his speech, “He was an Oldegardian warrior, hardened in battle and by cold. He went down into the dungeon to seek a certain man, found him, and ended his life. That’s all there is to say.”
“Oldegarde, the country across the sea? That’s so far,” Celeste replied, her voice still quiet.
“It was, but a journey I had made before,”
“Do you… plan on going back?”
“No, there’s nothing for me there,” his answer took no thought, it seemed. There truly was nothing left for him in Oldegarde. The silence fell between them, before the man abruptly stood up.
“I shouldn’t have said anything. I’ll go, leave Cahara in your memory,” grabbing the larger bag but leaving the purse of silver on the floor where it landed, he started to make his way towards the door. He swung the bag over his shoulder and pulled up his hood, the crowd of women parting around him as he walked. Looking around the lounge, he found the girl under the watchful eye of the Madame.
“We’re leaving,” he said to the girl, “get your cloak back on.”
“Wait!” that delicate, beautiful voice cried out from behind him, “You said you weren’t going back to Oldegarde, where are you going, then?”
“A man of my skill set can be useful, we’ll find a place,” he didn’t dare to look back, out of fear that he wouldn’t be able to leave.
“Just,” she stammered, closing the distance between the pair and looking down at the girl, “it’s still raining, she’ll catch a cold. Stay here until it passes, please.”
The patchwork man turned to face Celeste, his eyes holding a thousand words that he could not dare speak. She could see that he still loved her, no matter who he had become.
“If you want the night, you’re going to have to pay for it,” Madame Mara cut in, crossing her arms and looking up at the man, “This ain't a charity, after all. We have bills to pay and girls to house.”
“Yes, of course,” he replied, taking the opportunity to look away from the woman whose beauty was like the sun, “I’ll pay it up front, for the night. And a bottle of ale.”
“So do you remember everything? All the time we spent together?” Celeste and the patchwork man sat aside each other on her bed. She had finally convinced him to shed his traveling cloak, revealing heavily worn leather armor atop mismatched skin. As they spoke, the sides of their hands brushed up against each other, needing to touch but unsure what the depths of their feelings were. She could just pretend this was any other customer, go about the routine of sweet, empty whispers and the act of love, but she didn’t want to do that to Cahara.
“I remember everything, including the promise made to you. I’ll keep to my word, you’ll never have to work again,” he gestured at the bulging bag of silver sitting on the bed, “That won’t be the last, I promise you. Even if you didn’t love me, I couldn’t leave you with dashed dreams.”
“Don’t say that!” Celeste placed her hand over his, running her fingers along the twisted skin, “You may not be the man I knew, but that doesn’t mean I can’t love you. I just… need to get to know you again before I know how to love you. But I will, I know I will.”
“Even now, changed as I am?” his free hand gesturing to his face as a sad smile crossed his lips, “For everything the Sylvian did, she didn’t preserve our handsome faces very well, did she?”
“I don’t care about how you look,” she leaned into him, pushing the red hair out of his face and looking deep into his eyes, a genuine smile crossing her lips, “I know plenty of handsome men, but I fell in love with one man’s heart. It only helped that he was handsome and an incredible lover.”
He laughed, and it sounded a bit like him, but not quite. It was a hardier laugh than she had heard from Cahara, but it wasn’t bad. Just different. “Well, if that’s how you truly feel, I won’t leave your side from now on. That heart still beats in my chest, after all. Although I do hope that you’d wouldn’t mind that I’ve become a bit of a father to the girl I rescued from the dungeon. She could use a better family than she had before.”
“Of course, she seemed like a sweet child, and I’ll treat her as my own,” Celeste gingerly leaned in, hesitating for just a moment before kissing him on the cheek, “If we’re going to be leaving here tomorrow, do you want to meet your son?”
“My son! He’s alive?” his sudden fervor caught Celeste off guard, but she simply laughed.
“Why, yes! There weren’t any issues with the birth after all, he’s happy and healthy. I left him with Mercia when you came calling,” she stood, holding his hand with the intent to lead him once again.
It wasn’t hard to find Mercia, whenever one of the girls wanted to get away from any commotion in the main room of the brothel, it would not be hard to find them in one of the back rooms. The boy was asleep on a pillow, a blanket gently tucked around him. Seeing the pair enter the room, Mercia tilted her head and lifted an eyebrow at Celeste.
“Mercia, I’d like you to meet the boy’s father,” Celeste gestured to her companion, whos wide eyes were locked on the sleeping child, “There’s a bit of a story I’ll have to tell you later.”
“Oh, really? I can see the resemblence! It is a pleasure to meet you personally,” Mercia replied, shooting a glance to Celeste saying ‘You need to tell me who this man is.’
The man didn’t say a word as he walked towards the sleeping boy, stepping quietly as to not wake him with heavy footfalls. He knelt down on one knee, reaching out towards the short crop of black curls that crowned the child’s head, as if in disbelief that this creature was real.
“It turns out he was yours after all. Or, at least I’d like to think that,” Celeste said, beaming at the large man’s gentle expression of awe, “He’s almost a year and a half old now.”
“Bjorn,” the man’s voice was low, yet soft, “I’m here to bring you home, I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“His name is Lisandre,” Celeste said, slight confusion evident in her voice, “I didn’t know what you wanted to name him, so I came up with one that sounded right.”
“It’s a good name,” he replied, drawing his hand back. Lisandre stirred, his eyes opening and blinking, perplexed. Cahara’s dark eyes stared up at the man who was once Cahara. The patchwork man’s eyes began to water as he scooped up the boy.
“Buh, buh,” Lisandre gurgled as he reached two hands up towards his new father’s face, and grabbed at his hair. Celeste smiled at this, relieved that, after all of this, Lisandre would have a father in his life. She wondered for a moment if this was some strange, twisted dream, but she didn’t want to wake.
“Thank you,” it was the only thing the man could think of saying to Celeste as he held his new son, a single tear escaping to trickle down his face.
“You’re silly, you know that?” Celeste replied, placing an arm around the two of them, “After everything you’ve done for me, you still think I’m the one who needs thanks.”
The man shook his head, there was no way for him to explain to her how much this meant to him. So much of him had been consumed by the dark, losing even an individual identity to the necessities of survival. He feared losing it, this new light he had gained, but this time he would make sure of it. There would be no monsters left in the dark to trouble his family, human or otherwise.
By word or by blade, he would make sure of it.