There's rain falling down on the tents of this invading army. It pings, ping, ping on the quavering canvas like knuckles rapping on a door, asking to be let inside. Outside, the mud squelches and sucks, trapping boots and wheels, and anything else that dares set down in it. The land, much like the people who occupy it, has a hard grip that tangles, ensnares, and never relents. In the golden, wheat-grass plains of the Jarles, mud conquers all.

General Jin's command cut down another attacking squadron today as they crossed into the plains—though squadron is too big of a word in Hiran's estimation. What had been sent to meet them was not much more than a rag-tag group of spoiled meat and bones.

Faceless phantoms, he thinks, remembering the way the starved soldiers had wavered on their feet, like the blowing grass around them. Sent only to delay, never to defeat.

They were prisoners of war and otherwise captured people who had not been of Jarles before, though what they are now is less clear. What they should be considered, as they swing their swords of ice and throw their stone hammers in the honor of the great and terrible Imperator.

Allayria had peeled open one of the first ones just after they crossed the border, pinned it down and pried the cold, sharp metal off its bloodied crown. There was a flicker of perverse hope of what might be changed, reversed, as she dug and Lei held, but the freed being beneath them only laid there—for minutes, hours, days—and in the end, Allayria returned with a silver sword.

They know now the Jarles never send anyone who can be salvaged.

Most of the ones who come, one of Beinsho's soldiers confided earlier this evening to Hiran over the course of several pints, were Halften.

"Dfidnnt know theyfth taken so many," he had slurred, all red-rimmed eyes and haggard face. "Bon saw his cousin thish last time."

This, Hiran thought, is the point.

"The Jarles are evil little cretins," he told the man, clapping a hand on his back and holding it there because it seemed as if the man's face might crumple. "That's why we're here, to show Abadi Chaudri exactly what the people of Halften, Roften, and Solveig are made of."

There were cheers to that then, hands swinging, heads wobbling, but voices stronger, angrier, feet stumbling in an impotent frenzy.

Yes, Hiran had thought, more drunken rabble-rousing and less stewing. Because, though the swinging may be wild and erratic, at least they were swinging and not wilting into the ground.

That was several hours past; now Hiran trudges through the muck and dark, wandering back to his small, (relatively) dry hovel of a tent. Most of the ones he passes are dark, though he spots the flicker of candlelight in a larger one in the distance.

Allayria, most likely pacing in her tent. The Paragon has not been sleeping well, if the dark circles underneath her eyes can tell any tales.

Something to tell Feuilles, Hiran adds on in his thoughts—the tidbit peculiar enough to intrigue, innocuous enough not to reveal too much. He knows the High King will attribute it to nerves as they grow ever closer to Vatra.

"A nervous tick," Hiran can hear Feuilles snipe. "But what of Ruben? Have they talked in private again? What has she said—"

The High King's letters have grown more frequent, his probing more insistent. And, in direct opposition, Fae's have grown shorter, slower in their return.

If we weren't marching to determine the fates of four kingdoms I would hightail it back to Solveigard City, Hiran thinks, not for the first time, his mind flitting back to the last, sparse letter, to all the things—Caj, Beinsho, the Cabal—left unmentioned. The Halften general is in the city now, supporting what seems to be a crumpling reign, but all Hiran thinks about is Fae during the Gauntlet, the bright splotches of fury that had been painted across her cheeks as she burst through underbrush. Of how much it must chafe her now, to be given so much responsibility with so little power. 

She had told him about Feuilles' refusal of aid and Kali's visit to Solvigard, and the ugly knot twists in Hiran's stomach again.

We should have never—

"Hiran!"

He turns, peering through the rain, at the cloaked huddling form that trudges toward him. It's hard to discern who it is in the moonlight, but the rotund shape gives Hiran a dreadful suspicion.

"Returning from the mess hall?" Ruben queries, his eyes narrowed underneath his hood as he catches up.

He always catches up, Hiran thinks sourly. This is not the first time the Skill master has conveniently bumped into him on the way back to his tent.

Not that he's said anything yet, not that he's asked. Parts of Hiran are curious what these "chance" encounters mean—what is coming—and other parts are not. The parts, mostly, that linger on the sharp, quiet look the Paragon has been giving him, the way her information grows thin.

"Late dinner," Hiran replies to the old man and he tries to pick up the pace, but the sludge around his boots is not helping much.

"You will be in the war tent in the morning?" Ruben asks.

"That is where the Paragon has asked me to be."

"I heard about today," Ruben ventures, because of course he did and of course he wants to talk about the bones that came to them, because it wasn't bad enough to just witness it and bury it, along with all the other times.

I wish I was with you, Fae had written months ago, when her letters were long. Hiran wonders if she really would if she could see what is happening now.

"We'll be there soon," the Skill master tries again. "Sooner than you think. Trust me."

Hiran turns, offering him a pointedly raised eyebrow.

"It's always sooner than you think," the old man says, his voice quieter, difficult to pick out amongst the pinging of the rain. "And when you get there, you wish you had more time left."

"Yes, I do wish this part was extended," Hiran retorts. He picks up the pace, the mud squelching, his boots pulling down on his feet, and the Skill master drops behind him.

"Hiran," Ruben calls after a pause and Hiran halts, turning back yet again, even as his fingers flex. "When this is done, what will you do?"

Spend all my time writing to the High King, Hiran thinks sourly.

"Ah, who knows? Take a vacation, I suppose. Maybe see if the High King can arrange something," he answers instead, light and airy—because isn't this what everyone wants? All charm, no matter how empty. "I think I would make an excellent diplomat to Roften, don't you?"

He flashes a smile and picks back up on the laborious task that is getting back to his tent. Part of him thinks he should just Skill the blasted stuff away, but he's tired, a bit drunk, and is likely to make even more of a mess if he tries.

"And what if you had another choice?" Ruben asks behind him. "A different choice?"

Hiran stops, even though the mud gurgles and he sinks further into it.

"What choice?" he asks.

"What if you didn't have to work for the High King?" Ruben asks. "What if you could choose to work toward something? A good for everyone, not just for Feuilles."

The Skill master crosses his arms, the rain glinting on his dark green cloak.

"Would you do it?"

Hiran stares at the Skill master, his own eyes narrowing.

Surely this daft lunatic does not think I want to become his apprentice? he thinks with a touch of alarm. There can't be a way he thought— I helped him look for one old man once, he can't possibly think—

But Ruben sighs before Hiran can structure a response.

"Give it some thought," the old man says and he waves a hand, sloshing off down another row of tents, toward his own shelter.

By the time Hiran makes it back to his tent he is a sloppy, soaked mess. The cloak comes off him in a clinging clump, sliding onto the floor like batter, or watery eggs. He ducks through the narrow space, dropping his flask and bag, and slipping around the other clothed side.

It's a second of spraying rain, and then he ducks under the canvas on the other side, entering another, dark tent.

"Hiran?" Tara's voice murmurs in the dark, laden with sleep, and he hears her shuffle underneath sheets.

He hums his assent, groping his way to her bed. His fingers find the corner and then he plops down on the end.

"What time is it?" Tara asks, and he feels her hand make contact with his arm. "Uck, you're soaking. Get off!"

She aims a kick, but he's already on his feet, out of reach.

"How was training?" he asks, because he's awake, she's awake, and he wants to talk to someone about something that isn't depressing or cryptic. Something normal.

"Boring," she replies, and she sounds closer, like she has sat up. "Most of the time it's not even training, just looking at diagrams and going over siege tactics."

"What a struggle," he teases, settling on the ground beside her bed, leaning on the frame. "How terrible it must be for you, becoming Aren Dost's right hand."

"You know I prefer to just shoot things and let other people fret over the logistics," she throws back, never one to back down from his teasing, her own voice wry in the blackness. "And besides, you know she's only doing it because of Allayria."

He hums again, letting his head rest on the soft furs covering the cot. "She came for the Paragon, but stayed for your inspiring optimism."

Tara huffs somewhere above his head and he smiles.

"I hate it," she admits after a moment. "I should be with you, Allayria, and Lei taking the city, not out there, on the field."

He swings a shoulder up, over the edge of the bed and extends his arm, his hand finding her leg and patting it, unsure of what else to do. There's little he likes about this separation either, but the Chieftainess had specifically asked for Tara, and even the Paragon had to play nice every so often.

"I do think she's taken a shine to you," he says after a moment. "Mostly because you do tend to shoot the things that annoy you."

Tara huffs again, but this time it edges closer to a laugh and Hiran relaxes against the bed. His hand lingers at her ankle, but he makes no effort to move it, and neither does she.

"What about you?" Tara asks somewhere in the dark. "What are you all doing?"

"Nothing," Hiran answers. "The usual. Practicing with Chaudri, the Smith Skilling soldiers, Ruben. Not sure what else we can do, except breathing exercises for the sewer part of things."

"I am not terribly sad to be missing that."

"Oh, wow. All this grandstanding with the Chieftainess really is going to your head—"

He hears her kick out her foot and he pulls back, laughing.

"Allayria still not around much?" she asks.

"Barely."

The tent falls silent for a moment, quiet but for the rain and the rush of wind, and then Tara asks it:

"What do you think she's doing?"

A/N: Wouldn't you like to know? Or maybe not. I wanted to say something witty here, but I am tiiiired. This part is causing much sturm und drang. But not for our sunshine boy, who knows you gotta fake it 'till you make it! *jazz hands*

Chapter Notes: Hiran agrees to spy for Feuilles in Partisan's "Gold and Gossip," and tells Allayria in "Set It Alight." Kali brings Feuilles' rejection of aid to Fae in Prodigal's "In the Glow of Bombfire," and Hiran aids Ruben in finding Abe in "The Emptied House."