Ash and Embers

The three of them sat in silence, watching the fire crackle and breathe, fed occasionally by feathers or dry wood. Smoke curled into the night sky, carrying with it the acrid scent of scorched chimera. In the distance, faint thuds echoed—distant, rhythmic. Unsettling.

Corvin’s boot tapped against the ground as he slowly shook his head. “So… should we talk about that?”

Mira looked up from the flames and toward Reith, who was once again by the beast’s corpse, his silhouette barely visible in the gloom. “I don’t know. What’s there to talk about?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe Mr. Harvester over there tearing into that thing like it owed him rent?” Corvin gestured broadly toward the dark figure. “He went full horror movie back there.” As none seemed to get his point Corvin got visible disappointing before turning towards Mira. “What did he say when he was here erlier?”

Mira sighed and hugged Reith’s leather jacket a bit closer. “He didn’t say much. Just checked on Eira, handed me this, then walked off again.”

Corvin threw up his hands. “Yup. Totally normal behavior. Definitely not unsettling at all.”

Sai, who sat quietly beside the fire, nudged a log deeper into the embers with the tip of his blade. “C’mon, he’s not a psycho.”

Corvin raised a hand, holding up fingers one by one. “Alright, let’s count it out. One: rarely talks. Two: shows next to no emotion. Three: doesn’t react to pain—he got hit earlier and didn’t even flinch. Four: always distant. And five—”

A voice cut in from behind. “what you are counting?”

Corvin froze, hand still mid-gesture. Slowly, he turned to find Reith standing behind him with a bundle of sticks with meat stuck at the end.

“Uh… nothing?” Corvin offered weakly.

“Mmhm.” Reith didn’t press it. He simply walked over to the fire, planted each skewer in the ground at a careful angle, and let the meat begin to roast. The scent of cooking flesh soon overpowered the lingering rot in the air.

“I’ll be back,” he muttered before turning once more toward the chimera’s remains.

The firelight danced across his frame as he walked—soaked in dried blood, his scythe catching the glint of flame. The others watched in silence.

Corvin muttered, “You see this, right? He’s not… normal.”

“Not being normal isn’t a bad thing,” Mira replied without looking at him.

“Alright, alright,” Corvin sighed. “Maybe I should’ve said ‘special.’”

“At least he gets things done,” Mira shot back. “Right, Stucky?”

Corvin leaned forward and jabbed a thumb at himself. “Hey! Just because my axe got stuck one time—”

“—More than once,” Sai murmured under his breath as he played with the fire.

“—doesn’t mean I’m useless!” Corvin barked. “I did damage!”

“Yeah? Well maybe I should call you Axe-Head,” Mira teased, a grin finally cracking her serious expression. “Since you seem to think more with that than your brain!”

“Oh, real original. Coming from Miss Care over here, or why not miss i wont move out the way of a monster charging at me!”

The two continued to bicker until a sharp sound silenced them.

Reith had returned unnoticed and drove the naginata into the dirt between them. The weapon hummed slightly from the force of the impact, its blade catching a glimmer from the fire.

“You two done?”

Mira looked away, lips tight. Corvin huffed and crossed his arms again.

Reith ignored the drama. Reith raised his arm slightly, from under his arms where he had held them dropped a bunch of bloody arrows to the ground in front of Mira. “The ones you shot earlier. Some of the tips are dull now.”

Mira blinked, surprised at the bloody arrows. “Oh. I… completely forgot to collect them.”

Reith gave a small shrug and sat down by the fire. Blood clung to his clothes and hair in dark patches, and the scythe strapped across his back still dripped slowly onto the ground.

Nobody spoke for a while as Mira collected her arrows and Reith turned the meat over the fire.

Eventually, Sai broke the silence. “We can’t stay near the mountain.”

All eyes shifted toward him.

He glanced around the fire, voice calm. “Whatever that creature was, it didn’t just wander down here by accident. And if it did then there must be more out there.”

“So where do you think we should go?” Mira asked.

Sai stayed quiet, he knew they couldn’t just wander into a random direction thru the forest, they would get lost in the thick bushes and trees.

“We can follow the river” Reith said before he took a bite out of the monster meat

“I guess we could yea” Sai agreed “Better then the forest at least”

Reith took some time chewing the meat until he finally spoke, his voice low. “Then we leave in the morning.”

Mira looked at him. “You think that’s wise? Eira’s still unconscious.”

“Well if we need too we can always carry her”

Corvin leaned back, letting out a breath. “Great. Mountain’s with beast made of nightmares, and now we need to carry someone away from it”

“You’d rather stay here?” Mira asked.

“No, no, I vote move. Just, you know… I’m not carrying her.”

“Well then its decided we leave tomorrow” Sai said as he retracted his sword from playing with the fire that crackled between them as silence returned, only now as it carried the weight of decision.

After a while, Sai stood and stretched. “I’ll take the first watch.”

“No,” we can’t keep watch one and one anymore, not even when the two of you” Reith looked at Corvin and Sai. “was enough to deal with a single threat” he said simply and honestly. “Mira and I will keep watch, you sleep.”

Mira looked up at him. He didn’t meet her gaze, just stood and got ready, Mira stood up and pushed her arms thru the jacket, and soon joined Reith as he walked away slightly.

and letf Sai and Corvin at the fire Sai nudged Corvin as he saw the look on his face. “He’s not a psychopath.”

Corvin raised a brow. “No?”

Sai smirked. “Psychopaths usually don’t care about or helps people”

Corvin snorted. “Fair point, but still something is off.”. Corvin and Sai took a piece of meat for them self and started eating before they soon settled in their beds.

Mira and Reith stood just outside the light, on opposite sides of eachothers, watching the treeline in silence. One of them was draped in blood. The other wore the jacket still stained by it..

The night stretched on.