“How about you?”

The words brought him back to the present and he blinked at those that he shared the fire with, “Huh?”

Those around him burst out laughing and if the light had been better, there might have been picked up a darkening of his skin. Aaron laughed good-naturedly along with the rest and grinned, “A tale? A tale, a tale...” He paused to drink more ale and then exchanged it for a fuller tankard.

“There was this girl. Most annoying thing I had ever met, and when I met her she was dirty, dingy, and was dressed in something that almost passed for rags.” He half smiled at the memory, “Kasen...that’s what her name was, though I didn’t know it was a her at the time. She looked rather boyish; she was trying to pass herself off as a boy come to think of it.

“Anyway, I agreed to let her come with me, mind you at the time I thought she was a he, I figured I’d help the poor kid out...imagine my surprise when I wrestled her into the water after awhile because she stank and started stripping her down to make her take a bath.” He shook his head and chuckled, “after that things were a bit different. No more secrets. Not only did I learn she wasn’t a boy, she wasn’t as young as she appeared either.”

Aaron took a swallow from his tankard, “We kept traveling together though, a better partner I’d never had be it trouble, fighting or in bed. But I suppose everything has to come to an end, eh? We joined up with a traveling group of mercenaries and were in the Western Mountains when we were attacked. I don’t know how we got separated, we always fought back to back but somehow it happened.” The Schi stopped and swirled his drink in the container. He could still see her, hair the colour of the ale in his tankard when the firelight struck it; how it fell in thick waves around her shoulders and plastered to her skin when she’d been working out. The defiant tilt of her head when they argued and how quickly the storm clouds could blow away, leaving her with a grin that got them into more trouble than what their own lives were worth. Maybe that was why he enjoyed the Wyvern Lass' company so much. The spunk that was bound to get her in trouble, or both of them if he ran into her again. He didn't know, but he wasn't going to dwell on the reasons, just enjoy the feelings.

“What happened to her?” The question shifted the image to the last days he’d seen her. Hair matted with blood as she laid on the ground beneath the ass that had collapsed on her. He’d had to shove the body off of his lover to get to her but little good it did, she had already lost too much blood. There had been no loving words passed between them, no goodbyes. He had knelt beside her, gripped her hand, as she looked at him with already glazed eyes in a bloodless pale face. Peace hadn’t even passed her face, she had died with determination as though it was just another battle in her life again.

“She died.” Aaron said finally, flatly as though she hadn’t meant anything to him at all, but the exact opposite was true. It had been the first time he had spoken of Kasen since she had died.

Setting the tankard between his feet he shoved off from the log he was sitting on and joined the dancers.