Olberic was nervous.

It had been a long time since an emotion like anxiety had dominated Olberic's life so thoroughly, and he had to admit that he did not miss it in the slightest. It had been years since this unsettling sensation of believing everything was going to go wrong had gladly come into his mind, and Olberic wished it would go back where it had come from initially. Unfortunately, his mind refused to cooperate with him in such a way, so he was left to sit with the bundle of nerves like a still-beating heart that wanted his hands as their altar.

Olberic couldn't say he was surprised by the circumstances. At one point, something like this wouldn't have bothered him at all. When he had been Olberic Eisenberg, the Unbending Blade of Hornburg, he was ready to handle everything that came his way. Nothing could even think of challenging or scaring him as long as he was the one in charge of the battlefield and his own emotions. Even the most terrifying of battles felt like nothing to him. Olberic respected that there was always a chance the fight could go poorly and that he would lose his life, but he knew in equal measure that fear would only hold him back when push came to shove. He needed to be confident and sure of his skills if he was to triumph. Olberic was grounded in the face of all hardships, knowing that his love of those around him would help him to pursue victory, and if that was not enough, then he would just have to fight to make sure it helped him the way he needed it to.

Times had changed since then though. Olberic was no longer the Unbending Blade, and he didn't know if he wanted to be either. What glory was there in being the Unbending Blade when he had been responsible for the death of his king? Olberic should have gotten there sooner. Maybe he would have been able to save his liege's life if he had just realized what was happening a few moments before he did. Olberic was a man of missed chances, and he had missed so many of them in his time since setting down his purpose and changing out his blue attire for a lifeless brown. Olberic had since found a love for the shades of sapphire of his old uniform again, but his purpose yet evaded him.

There was perhaps a selfish part of him that had hoped he would find what he was searching for as long as he was traveling with the rest of the group. In many ways, Olberic felt as if he was closer than ever before to figuring out what he wanted to fight for. The travelers were all amazing people, and they made Olberic want to be better in a way that no person had since Erhardt so many years ago. Olberic didn't want to fail those who had given him a chance, and he would give every battle at their sides everything he had to make sure he could help those who needed it most. The travelers were light and hope, and Olberic found himself basking in their shine far more than he had any right to admit.

But that dawn had begun to lose its luster over the last few weeks, and Olberic found himself yearning for a past that felt like it was lifetimes ago now. He missed the tourney when they had all fought together at their best. He missed searching for the eldrite and proving themselves to its guardian. He missed defeating the gods as a team, finding ways to tap into their unique synergy unlike anything the world had ever seen. He missed all of them being happy more than anything else, but the world would not grant him the power to return to that long-gone past now. It never had before, and it had no reason to give him that mercy now.

Olberic had initially wanted to brush off his failure to defend Cyrus from Lucia's dagger as little more than an accident. He wanted to think that he had done what he could, and while he had fallen short in the end, Cyrus was still alive. That should have been enough of a positive to keep Olberic moving forward... But that wasn't the case. Instead, he sat there with his deep anxiety and a worry for the future that never seemed to fade. Olberic hadn't just failed to keep Cyrus from being stabbed by Lucia. He hadn't done enough to stop Miguel either. Olberic had given the battle his all, but he was no match for a trained soldier of the modern day. All of Olberic's training had been over a decade ago, some of it bordering closer to fifteen years ago, and that wasn't enough to keep him in the battle the way he had needed it to. Miguel had pushed him aside with no issues and then pursued Therion with the intention to kill. Olberic hadn't seen through Albus' trap in time either, and he didn't think to look after Primrose as she searched for information either. No matter what, Olberic was always too late somehow. There was always something he was missing, and he didn't realize he had made a mistake until after the damage had already been done.

Deep down, Olberic knew there was no point in blaming himself for all of this. There was no way he could have known to expect everything that happened. Olberic could hate himself all he wanted, but it wasn't going to help anything. He couldn't go back and undo the damage of the past. He was stuck there in the present, and unfortunately, the Olberic of the present lacked the power and presence of the Unbending Blade. He had been a shell of himself for years, and now, he was forced to confront the truth of it all.

No matter what he did, Olberic was just Olberic, and that was the greatest problem he could have ever faced.

He would never dare to admit it openly, but he was terrified of what was going to happen when he met with Erhardt. Olberic had been glad to let the other travelers' plans dictate their pat for a while, and he had even taken greedy solace in the fact that he had time to figure out what he wanted to say to Erhardt before the party arrived in Wellspring. Olberic had thought he would be able to find a handful of words to tell his old friend to make all of this better before they met each other again... But that wasn't going to happen. Olberic had already run out of time, and he was too tired and had run himself too ragged to even think of finding something to tell Erhardt now. His words were going to fail him when he needed them most, and Olberic had no idea what he was going to do about it.

Erhardt was the person who had given Olberic a purpose when they were fighting in the army of Hornburg. Olberic had struggled with finding a place to belong before then, but all of that had melted away the instant he and Erhardt locked eyes. It took time for their banter to develop into friendship and then something more, but Olberic had adored it every step of the way. At long last, he felt like he had somewhere he could call himself at home...

But then Erhardt had killed Albert, and everything fell apart with the drop of the blade onto the king's vulnerable body.

Olberic had thought through what he was going to tell Erhardt if they ever saw each other again countless times when he was still living in Cobbleston. It felt like the only saving grace he had left. If Olberic could somehow express his rage with Erhardt for his betrayal, then maybe he would be able to make up for all the years he had spent wasting his life on swinging his blade without any real weight behind it. Olberic had needed Erhardt to be his salvation, but now that the freedom he had sought was finally in sight... What could he do to change it? Was there any solution to make this easier?

No. There would never be anything to fix this, and Olberic knew it. He wasn't the Unbending Blade anymore, and he never would be again. Olberic was just a person, and unfortunately, being human was the greatest flaw he could have ever had. The thought made him sick to his stomach. Why couldn't he just figure out what he was going to say to Erhardt? Why couldn't he just help the travelers when they needed him? Why couldn't he just do something right?

Olberic had needed to sit with his own thoughts for a while after Primrose was attacked, so he chose to wander around Noblecourt for the group's last day in town. He couldn't think of anything better to do, especially when he was too restless to come up with anything he wanted to say to Erhardt. The best outcome he could think of at this point was to just let his blade do the talking for him, and while Olberic wasn't entirely satisfied with that since he hadn't had a purpose for fighting in nearly a decade, there was no other way to handle this. Words had failed him, and Olberic knew they would fail him again. He was a fighter without a reason to fight, and it had only been a matter of time before he burned himself to little more than a pile of ash.

Olberic nearly lost himself in his thoughts to the point of not realizing that he was far from the only member of the group who had chosen to wander Noblecourt in the brief interim the travelers had been given before they had to leave town. Therion was sitting on one of the benches near the outer wall of the inner ring of the city, taking a bite out of an apple before he flicked it up in the air and caught it again. Therion didn't seem to notice that Olberic was watching him, instead just choosing to stare off into the distance with something that looked a lot like a glare in his eyes. Olberic thought for a moment that perhaps he should leave his friend alone before realizing Therion wouldn't be able to sit with his worries forever and deciding to close the distance between them.

Therion had been acting different ever since the battle against Miguel. Olberic couldn't say he was surprised, especially with how close the thief had come to losing his life during that horrible fight, but he wished there was something more he could do to help pull Therion out of the darkness. The thief was so anxious these days, barely seeming to be able to relax even when he knew it was safe to do so. Olberic knew that constant sense of hyperactive vigilance all too well from his time as a soldier, and he had decided years ago that he wouldn't wish it on anyone. He wouldn't be able to entirely fix Therion's problems, but he could at least try to reach out, and hopefully, that would do something to help the thief feel better.

"Mind if I sit here?" Olberic asked, careful to not speak up too suddenly and risk scaring his friend. As it turned out though, it didn't matter much. Therion wound up jumping anyway, nearly dropping his apple and fumbling for it for a few seconds before reclaiming it. A pang of grief pulled at Olberic's heart at the sight; he had never seen Therion this anxious before, and he hated that there was nothing he would be able to do to fix it.

Therion didn't seem to care about Olberic's inward crisis though, instead nodding as the warrior took a seat beside him. "What do you want?" Therion asked without missing a beat. As per usual, he was all about business, and he wouldn't let Olberic's kindness pull him off his recent path of flighty concentration.

Olberic warred with his words for a few moments, trying to figure out what the best thing to say would be before he gave up. There was no path quite like the direct one, and as far as Olberic was concerned, that was his best choice at the moment. "I'm worried about you," Olberic told him. "You've been so anxious ever since the battle against Miguel, and--"

"I'm fine," Therion cut in even though they both knew that was a lie. "I'm just..." He wanted to finish that thought with something that would even come close to reassuring Olberic, but in the end, no words left his mouth to close out the sentence. Therion just pressed his lips together into a thin line and then took another bite of his apple. It was far from a satisfactory answer for either one of them, but it was at least something. Therion wasn't entirely trying to push Olberic away, and as far as the warrior was concerned, that was a step up from the way the thief had been behaving previously.

Olberic wanted to try to coax a better response out of Therion, but he sighed before he had the chance. His mouth got the best of him before his words could completely fail him, and he could only hope this was the best decision in the long run. "I felt this way at one point too, you know," Olberic confessed. "After the fall of Hornburg, I couldn't seem to bring myself to calm down. I thought I needed to be on edge at all times to stop something like that from happening again, but... There was nothing that could fix it. The country had already fallen. It had already happened."

"There's still something I can do about Miguel," Therion muttered, but they both knew that his words wouldn't be taking him as far as he would have liked. His eyes shifted around the area in search of the best path to escape in case his words carried him down the wrong path. "If one of you tries to--"

"Do you think any of us would do that to you?" Olberic cut in. "I'm not trying to put you on the spot. I want a genuine answer. Do you think that we would betray you if we were given the chance to do so?"

That honesty was enough to make Therion falter, and his hand reached for his dagger only for him to force his fingertips to settle restlessly on his lap again a moment later. "I..." Therion tried to answer a few more times before he eventually decided to sigh to fill the silence instead. As he took another bite of his apple, Therion found any excuse he could to not meet Olberic's eyes. It was far from surprising, but it was enough to make Olberic's heart soar regardless. Therion may have feared being betrayed, but he didn't think any of them were going to stab him in the back. That was a massive step in the right direction, and Olberic couldn't have been happier to hear anything in that moment.

"We wouldn't do that," Olberic insisted. "I understand that me saying that is not the same as you believing it, but... You have to know it too. If we were going to leave you, wouldn't we have done it already?" The blunt approach wouldn't have worked with most of the other travelers, but with Therion, it seemed like the only thing that would work. Therion wanted to believe he dealt in nothing but hard facts, and while he was very different in practice compared to that theory, he still held true to it as much as he could. It was the only saving grace he could find, and right now, that was what Therion needed most.

Therion continued to stare at the ground in front of him for a long time, weighing his potential answers before he realized there was no good way to respond to the question Olberic had posed. In the end, he took yet another bite of his apple, and the only sound that broke through the silence between them was his chewing. Olberic didn't bother to speak up initially, instead remaining perfectly silent and looking at the place where his shoes met the streets of Noblecourt.

"I'm not going to ask you to answer me right away," Olberic assured him. "I just want you to think about it. None of us are going to betray you." Therion opened his mouth to counter, but Olberic didn't give him the chance. "I want you to listen to your heart and head, not your fears. You know what the answer to this is going to be. I know you do."

Therion fell into an extended silence again a moment later, and Olberic could feel the thief's resolve begin to fade beside him. Eventually, Therion let out a sigh. Olberic knew Therion was resisting the urge to lean against him, to seek the comfort he had been depriving himself of for the last few weeks, but he did not commit to it. "Yeah," was all Therion said instead. "I do."

~~~~~

Tressa sat on a stool in Barham and Orlick's small home, kicking her feet back and forth as she wrote away in her journal. She had been doing her best to find something to do to fill the rest of her time in Noblecourt, but it wasn't going as well as she would have liked. It would have been so much easier if Tressa could just explore Noblecourt and see everything the city had to offer, especially in light of Albus' death, but she couldn't do that. Her ankle was still healing, and while she was in a much better place now than she had been when she first arrived in Noblecourt, Tressa couldn't risk putting too much weight on it if she could avoid it.

Tressa didn't want to sit around in the inn either, especially since everyone else in her traveling party had only been getting more depressed as of late. Tressa could feel the weight of their negativity holding her down whether she wanted to admit it or not, and she despised it. She needed to get out and find something else to do with her time, and so, she went back to see Orlick and Barham. Cyrus wouldn't be able to visit them again since he was spending the day with Revello, so Tressa was more than happy to thank them for their help. Without the map Barham had given the travelers, they never would have found most of the shrines, or if they had, it would have been due to divine intervention on Ophilia's part.

After thanking Barham for the help though, Tressa found herself struggling to figure out what to say to the two men. They had talked so much the day before about the fights with the gods, but today, Tressa found herself struggling. She had already asked her all of her questions that had come up since Orlick was freed from the control of the ruby dragonstone. The main inquiry had been as to why they hadn't both moved into the mansion; Barham and Orlick agreed to leave it for something simpler to put that part of their dark past behind them. Tressa had understood not in the way a merchant would in terms of riches but in the way a person would in regards to sentimentality no matter how foolish it seemed.

It felt like there was something else she should have been saying, but the words just wouldn't come to her even as she searched for them desperately. She could only pretend to write in her journal for so long; she had finished her entry for the day ages ago, but she hadn't found a good way to start a conversation yet. Tressa needed to say at least something, but where could she start?

"How is everyone doing?"

Eventually, Barham did the work for her, and Tressa looked up to see him watching her as he worked on a new potion of some kind. Tressa, glad for the distraction that she hadn't needed to provide for herself, shrugged loosely. "They're doing about as well as they can be," she said, but the look on Barham's face told her that he didn't believe the lie. Tressa watched him for a moment before sighing and shaking her head. "Bad. Everyone is doing bad."

"What happened?" Barham asked. He passed over the potion in its bottle to Orlick, and the other scholar picked up with his own research a moment later. Barham walked over to Tressa, taking a seat across from her at the table. She was taller than him, at least for now, on account of her chair being taller than his. Tressa had been given the tallest stool in the home to help her ankle so she didn't have to put weight on it, though that made any conversations with Barham and Orlick while they were all seated hilariously awkward.

Tressa hesitated for a long time, hating that she didn't know how to describe just how miserable all of her friends were. In the end, she let her cheek fall into her hand as she rested her elbow against the table. "We were in Stonegard a few weeks ago, and we were tricked by someone we thought was our ally. She tried to kill Cyrus and Therion, and while they've mostly come back from it since then... I think it scared everyone a lot more than they want to admit. Then we went to Saintsbridge, and that... That was all kinds of disastrous. We thought we were helping a man who was just trying to look out for his family, but he was actually a serial killer, so we had to... Put him down. Then we came here to Noblecourt, and Primrose was stabbed when we were trying to stop the Obsidians from making things any worse around here, so..."

Tressa only looked up after she had finished speaking, and when she did, she was met with the horrified expressions of both Barham and Orlick. The latter had decided to pause his work in favor of listening to her, and Tressa was honestly surprised he hadn't dropped his vial entirely because of how aghast he looked. Their shock was enough to make Tressa's cheeks go pink with heat, and she shook her head. "We're doing our best," she told them simply. "We're trying to find a way to make all of this work, but... It's much easier said than done, to say the least." It was the understatement of the century, but it had to go somewhere when it came to easing the fears of her company, right?

"I would say that most people have never even come close to seeing that much hardship in their lives," Orlick muttered with a shake of his head. "And you're acting like this is just a regular part of the journey for you. That can't be true... Right?"

Tressa winced at that, and she wondered if this was what everyone would think of her travels. Would her parents react this way too? Would they be surprised to hear that she had been put in danger so many times without ever thinking of her own safety? Would she ever really be able to understand that outside perspective again? Maybe Tressa had gotten a bit too caught up in her new ideas of normalcy. Was this really so unbelievable to everyone else? When had it stopped being unbelievable to her?

"I... Um..." Tressa tripped over her words a few more times before she settled on sighing. "I guess it is. We're doing what we have to in order to see our journeys through to the end, but it can be pretty dangerous at times. We're all looking after each other and making sure we stay safe though. It's not all bad."

"If you've been thrown from town to town and fight to fight for this long, I don't know how much of it I can call good," Barham confessed. "You told us just yesterday that you and the rest of your friends had been fighting against echoes of the gods consistently for months. You've spoken to ten out of the twelve. This is hardly your run of the mill adventure, Tressa."

"I... I guess not." Tressa couldn't believe how much admitting that embarrassed her, but her cheeks grew hot all over again the instant she realized just how bizarre all of this was. Maybe this wasn't a regular adventure. She had set out from Rippletide in search of something exciting, but this was a far cry from what she had expected. When had she grown so desensitized to it all?

"I'm not going to tell you to stop traveling, if that's what you're thinking," Barham assured her with a shake of his head. "I just want you to be careful. The last thing I want is for one of you to end up killed because of your penchant for excitement."

"That won't happen," Tressa said a bit too quickly. She bit her lip as soon as the words escaped her though. Cyrus had nearly passed out from blood loss after he was stabbed, and he still seemed to go into shock whenever he saw too much blood. Therion had nearly died twice in as many town visits. Primrose had been stabbed and drugged by the man she thought she could trust most. Perhaps Barham and Orlick had a point... But Tressa didn't know if she would ever be ready to admit it.

"Why are you still doing this?" Orlick asked. Barham's eyes went wide, and he hit his partner on the arm with the back of his hand. Orlick moved to backpedal immediately, pink rising in his cheeks as he stammered. "I mean, you've been placed in danger so many times. Does it ever bother you? Do you want to stop it?"

Tressa thought about that for a long moment. She knew the answer to the question was a resounding no. She didn't want to stop traveling. She would have continued traveling the world with the others for the rest of her days if she was given the option, as a matter of fact. Tressa didn't think she would ever be able to go back to Rippletide again after what she had seen... But all good things had to end eventually, didn't they? This couldn't last forever. Everyone was burning themselves at both ends, and that wasn't sustainable. It never had been. Tressa knew they were trying to keep themselves held together, but it had only gotten harder with time. It wouldn't have been right to ask them to keep this up for too much longer than they already had.

But she loved it. Maybe traveling was dangerous and had ruined her innocence time and again, but she loved it even so. The road was Tressa's home just as much as the arms of the travelers were, and she wouldn't have had it any other way. She didn't know how the others felt, but she hoped they had even a slight trace of her optimism towards exploring the world as a team. If they understood how Tressa felt even if it was only by a fraction... They wouldn't ever want to leave either. They loved it too. They wouldn't have stayed together if they didn't love it.

Tressa's eyes found her journal and the scrawl of her much-improved handwriting across the page. The journal felt like so much more than just a book she had found on a ship these days. It was her guide to the road, the culmination of everything she had learned and seen over the last few months. It was proof of what Tressa had experienced, something tangible that embodied the adventure that had changed her life. Tressa had changed a lot from the easily-frightened but plucky merchant's daughter she had been in Rippletide. The world had showed her its true colors, and she had put her pen to the page to try and capture even a fraction of its beauty. Perhaps her journey had been long and treacherous... But there was no journey Tressa would have rather had.

"Never," Tressa eventually replied, doing her best to hide the faint smile trying to spread across her face. "Things might be hard, but there will always be light at the end of the tunnel." The group had certainly struggled in their early days, but that darkness always gave way to daylight. The darkness of Stillsnow peeled back to show that the city was capable of love and kindness so long as it was given a chance. Therion and Tressa had bickered so much when they first met, but these days, Tressa would gladly place her life in his hands if it came to that. The group had struggled massively in Quarrycrest, but they had found life and light again in Victors Hollow. Everything always found a way of working out because they made sure it would. They were confident enough in themselves and each other to know they would see the sun rise when morning came. No matter how dark the night, a dawn would always wait for them on the other side.

Barham and Orlick exchanged a glance at that, and Tressa knew they had expected an answer like that but still hadn't wanted to hear it. "If you ever change your mind, we'd be happy to give you a place to talk about it," Barham offered. "I feel like it's the least we can do after everything you did for us."

Tressa smiled, the reminder of her past good deeds enough to warm her heart through any cold spell. "I'll remember that." Even though I doubt I'll ever need it in the first place.

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And so ends the Primrose three arc! Woohoo!

I was originally planning on trying to cram everything into three chapters of aftermath conversations, but I'm really glad I decided to expand it to four. That gave everything a lot more room to breathe, and I'm so happy with how everything turned out. This chapter is one of my favorites.

First off, we have a slightly unorthodox pair interacting in Olberic and Therion. I'm trying to cover all my bases by making sure every pair of travelers has talked with each other at some point before the story ends, and putting Olberic and Therion together was the first step to reach that goal. I loved seeing them talk here, especially since they're about to take center stage together in Wellspring. I have a lot planned for them both, and right now... Ough. I love them so much. I really do.

The crown jewel of this arc has to be that scene with Tressa though. It went in a very different direction than I had originally planned, but I'm in love with it. I'm not complaining about its change in course because of how well it turned out. I'm planning on having Tressa's final chapter be the last chapter four, and I feel like you can start to see why. I can't wait for it... You know, in, like, seventy chapters when we get there. Oops.

I have a few other things to comment on before I let you all go. First off, this week was a big one for me! First, I turned 21 on Tuesday, and since I've been writing this story since I was 18... Yeah, that was a bit of a reality check for me. Wowza. On top of that, I got a great birthday gift: this story hitting 25,000 views on Archive of Our Own! Thank you so much to everyone who helped this story to get so far. It really means the world to me, and I hope you continue to support the story in its remaining 95 chapters in the coming years!

I'm going to leave things off there for now. Next time, we're headed off to the Balogar fight and then to Wellspring for our third and final two for one special town. Until then, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Feedback is appreciated as always. Have a nice day, everyone!

-Digital