*Weekly updates* "There are no leashes now, no bindings," she says, her voice a dark lullaby in the flickering candlelight, "and it is their sacrifice that gave us this. Nothing can ever repay it. No one can ever take it from us. So now, in this hal...
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He sets up camp when the suns make their descent into the horizon. He fashions a small, flickering fire inside what is very much a rudimentary campsite. This at least, is an improvement over the last time he was lost in the wilderness, however pathetic it might be.
He's feasting on a slice of bread, a handful of berries, and a scoop of seeds when he hears it: the crunch of leaves, the breaking of twigs. His hand flies to the hilt of his sword, but Hiran remains sitting this time, waiting.
The visitors break into the clearing and he looks at each of them in turn. He recognizes the one who chews on a cigarette, and of course the one at their head.
He thought this might happen. Shit-stain he might be, but Ben is no fool. His moves in Solveigard City and Quersido proved that. It's that kind of cunning Hiran needs, that he's depending on, despite the blackened heart beneath it.
"I have heard congratulations are in order," Ben says, stepping closer to the fire. Underneath his hood he's gaunter than Hiran remembers, and even back then he was no plump piglet. There's an ill cast to his features, as if a sickly green glow sits upon them. Hiran wonders if this is a new ailment, or perhaps just a result of the news the Smith callers brought him.
"Congratulations for what?" Hiran answers in turn. He doesn't like this, something in the man's words feels like a trap.
"First the Jarles, now Roften; you are amassing crowns far faster than even I am."
Hiran keeps his face blank and reaches up, pointing at his forehead.
"I don't see any on my head."
"No" the other answers. "Not quite yet, right?"
Hiran bristles at that, the ugly truth that he and, apparently, this skinny cretin had already divined.
"Not if I can help it," he answers.
And Ben considers him, if only for a moment.
"You sent me my men," he says then, changing tracks as quick as he can. "But you killed my friend."
Ah. Hiran pauses.
"It wasn't my choice," he answers, "or my intent. I would have much rather dealt with him. But he wouldn't listen, and others who didn't understand stepped in. I'm hoping you won't make the same mistake."
The fire flickers coldly in the man's gray eyes.
"Iaves was a good man," Ben says, "but one who sometimes acted with his heart before his head. I imagine after... I imagine at that point he might have been more like that than ever before."
Hiran blinks. It's not quite a concession, but it's close, closer than he had expected.
Ben removes his hood and sits down across the fire from him.
"You told these men to tell me Allayria is in Lethinor; that she is coming for me," he says and he picks up a stick, pokes at the weak flames. "You warned me. Why is that?"
Hiran looks into the fire. In truth, he had not expected to explain this to Ben; rather, he thought the man would take the warning and run with it, with little thought of its origin except mild suspicion. And should they, by chance, meet, Hiran expected Ben only to try to kill him.
He might still, depending on how this goes, Hiran thinks. He probably will try.
"Things changed in Vatra," Hiran answers. "I went, alongside my friends, to stop what Chaudri was doing. It seems the Paragon went to stop Chaudri—but not necessarily her work."
The man's face has not changed but Hiran senses curiosity underneath it, and continues: "When she went to face Chaudri she betrayed us. We meant to stand by her side; instead she sent an innocent boy in to be slaughtered so she could secure victory. She let him die and then, instead of dismantling all of it—the metal, the creatures—she took it for her own."
"So now you abandon her," Ben answers, the statement bound in both fury and triumph and Hiran looks up. The man's face is a confliction, a gaunt cast of a powerful, confirmed knowing that seethes in a righteous rage, even as his oddly curled hands tremble. He's almost vibrating, and it all suddenly hits Hiran. He remembers this man on the zeppelins, remembers spying him standing across from Allayria, of, even as far away as he was then, being able to see the terrible love on his face, a love Hiran had not yet been able to identify or understand.
Despite the tenuousness of the situation, a bark of laughter suddenly issues from Hiran's mouth and it opens again and words fly out:
"You've lost it, haven't you?"
Another laugh—he can't help it, because this, this is insanity.
The other man stares, face slack and Hiran's big mouth continues on, running now:
"You've got so many contradictory thoughts about Allayria twisted up in that head of yours you don't know North from South, do you?" he asks, and he doesn't even try to stop the next hysterical laugh, feeling himself unravel too in the ludicrousness of it all. "You don't know if you want to save her or kill her again anymore, do you? You've lost it."
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A/N: Ah, Hiran, you're such a dumbass. You gonna get shanked, you idiot.
Chapter Notes: Hiran and Ben last saw each other up close and personal in Partisan's "Our Muted Sounds." The interaction Hiran witnessed between Ben and Allayria was in Prodigal's "Breath Across Your Face."
