A/N warning: this one's sad

Sly

There was no gentle way to press through the busy street we had to traverse to get back. Even the back alleys were a mess of hung laundry and children playing to stay out from underfoot close to the docks. It was by now full evening and torches pinpricked the streets as we went.

We finally rounded to the street where I could see the Snoring Dragon. Through the front doors in a panic, all I found was a small crowd that kept Abe busy behind the bar and Addah was in the kitchen.

I made a straight line for the kitchen, a winded Orchid behind me.

"Is everything okay here?" I asked Addah.

Her hands were busy, never moving from their task as she peeled carrots for the next batch of soup, but her face turned my way. "Yes, a normal evening. Sly, are you alright? Your face is all red."

"Running," Orchid puffed.

"Where's Davery?" I asked. "Is he back yet?"

"No," Addah answered, now concerned enough to put down her knife and wipe her hands on her apron. "What's going on?"

I ran out of the kitchen, Addah calling after me. "Sly! What's the matter?"

The tavern room's crowd, which I hadn't looked through before other than to confirm Davery wasn't a part of it, had a couple of familiar faces. Dirk and Jexa were at the far end of the bar nursing a pint each of a heady amber beer. They looked up, as if sensing my distress.

Uneasy. Everything felt wrong and strained and empty. What whisper of a warning brought me here with such urgency only to let me struggle to find the problem?

Turning on my heels and nearly slamming into Orchid, I dodged her and slipped through the kitchen again and out the back door.

Something moved to the side of the building. My hand flew to my side for the familiar handle of a blade, but my hand groped air as I cursed at not bringing something with me on my outing with Orchid. In the heartbeat that I spent looking for a blade, it allowed an arm to grab my shoulders and slam me into the side of the building.

"Where is he? And where is the map?" A gruff voice spat the vicious tone into my ear as I winced. My ribs cried out in pain, possibly bruised from the assault just now.

"Grethan." It wasn't a question, it was all the little pieces of a puzzle that had irked me about him falling into place. The arm at my back pressed me harder into the wall.

"Where is he?" Grethan snarled, then a cry of outrage and pain. The pressure on my back eased up and I sucked in a breath, spinning to see what happened.

My brother stood behind me and Grethan, the butt of his blade red with blood and a matching gash on the back of my assailant's head.

"Davery!" I cried as my brother stepped back, the blade now aimed at Greathan's heart.

"Get Jexa," he ordered.

Grethan snatched towards me, but I ducked under his reach and yanked open the kitchen door.

"Jexa!" I called, but Orchid was already talking to Dirk and Jexa both, likely filling them in on my strange encounter in the alley. Both men looked my way, and whatever was written on my face had them sprinting my direction. Good, they'd catch up. I whirled around and searched the yard for my brother and Grethan. They had drifted away from the building in their fight, but still easy to spot and I gasped as I watched Grethan swing at my brother with his knife.

"Where is the map?" Grethan screamed again, swinging at Davery.  Jexa pushed past me into the yard yelling, Dirk not far behind him. All of us were frozen, unable to join the fight without risk of putting Davery in more danger. Grethan swung his free fist high into Davery's face.

"Davery!" I screamed. Dirk moved an arm in front of me. I wasn't sure if he thought I'd move forward or not, but the strained expression on the old rogue's face was haunted, unsettling. 

Davery blocked the fist, thank Shadow, but his middle was just open enough and Grethan's blade swung forward.

That was it, I couldn't do nothing. Reaching forward, I yanked the dagger out of the holster on Dirk's leg and ducked under his arm. He cursed at me as I ran for my brother.

"Get her out of here!" Davery demanded, even as his eyes remained on his opponent. Grethan snarled, jabbing forward again with his blade until the icy moment when I watched this one connect.

A silver blade, well worn and likely well practiced. The blade of a soldier, if his story was even true. How many things had he killed with hit? Animal, human. The blade was surely sharp as I watched it sink into the sea of black, the same tunic Davery always wore given half a chance.

I screamed something, whatever it was be it a word or a sound, it burned through my throat as a blossom of red dripped from Davery's stomach and fell to the dirt at his feet. Davery's eyes flew up to mine, his mirrored green gaze seeking me out even as his knees failed him and he sank to the ground.

My arm flew, the dagger from Dirk now flying through the air and sinking into Grethan's shoulder. Hands grabbed me as I screamed, now weaponless, and watched the rest unfold.

Grethan cried out in furious pain as he turned and saw the numbers in the yard. There were too many of us, but he had already done an unforgiveable damage. Every one of us would die for Davery, every last one of us. Jexa lunged forward like a bull, slamming himself into Grethan who recovered enough to dash out of his reach a second time. Dirk was cursing up a storm, even as he shoved me back on my ass into the dirt as he joined Jexa, pulling out another dagger he'd had hidden on himself.

Slim hands pulled me into a tight hug and did what they could to help me up as Orchid practically dragged me in my brother's direction. The moment my eyes left the scuffle with Grethan, they landed back on Davery's prone form.

Crawling to his side, all I could see was the blood. So much of it, dark red and pooling on that endlessly black tunic. Davery's forehead was slick with sweat and I brushed the hair off his forehead.

Jexa sank to Davery's other side, pulling one of my brother's hands into his. Dirk was gone, likely chasing after Grethan.

"Salysta, "Davery began, and for once I didn't care that he used my full name. "I'm sorry."

"No," I pleaded. There was nothing, absolutely nothing for him to be sorry for, because this was all a bad dream. A nightmare that he would heal from. My brother, the strongest person I knew. I'd be dead without him. Our parents gone, our house destroyed, we had nothing but his brilliant, blazing mind to survive on. And we had survived. Thrived, even, from Swamp standards. So there was nothing for him to be sorry for, because this would all be over soon and we'd get him patched right up. My hands fell to his stomach, hot liquid drenching my skin on contact. "No, no, no." Tears now flowed freely where they dripped off my chin, landing in the wet mess of Davery's stomach beneath my hands.

"I love you, find the prince," Davery managed. His eyes were so soft, so tired as they fixed on me for a heartbeat before moving to Jexa. "Don't let her see this. I . . . I need your help."

Jexa, who I had never seen cry in my life, had wet cheeks as he nodded.

"No!" I was screaming it now, Orchid's hands trying to pull me back or keep me grounded, I wasn't sure. But it all stilled at once when a glowing form descended into the yard. A wave of peace rolled over everything, numbing my body. Something, someone, was intervening.

Short, covered in dark robes and practically floating over the ground. The figure could only be Spirit. None of us moved, none of us breathed. Spirit, the harbinger of peace and death, was showing himself in person. This was . . . unheard of. Of course, the gods could do as they willed and often did so, but unlike Bliss or Claw, Spirit simply didn't show their form.

He moved to us, Jexa backing up to make room for the god who bent down to Davery's body. My brother looked at the god before him, a peaceful resignation crossing his expression. My brother moved, almost imperceptibly now, to look at me again.

"I love you." It was faint, but I heard my brother gasp the last words I would ever hear from him.

"I love you, Davery," I cried, everything blurring. "I love you so much."

My eyes were only on my brother as a hand covered in dark gloves and draping robes moved over Davery's chest. Over his heart.

The glow cast on the yard brightened, flashing to near-blinding light for the shortest breath of time and I watched two things fade all at once: the god's blinding light, and the life in my brother's eyes.

He was gone. Davery, my pillar, the base from which everything I was had been built, was gone. Spirit, too, I finally realized as the sobbing crashed through me. I was shaking with the lament that clawed its way out of my throat, raw and burning as it was joined by others. Orchid, who was behind me. Addah, who must have come to the kitchen doorway at some point. Of course, she had, this all happened right by her kitchen. Jexa was almost as much of a mess as I was.

I had seen Spirit, I knew somewhere deep down what had happened was real, and it was permanent. Davery was gone. Time passed, it must have. The afternoon faded away and Davery was brought down to the cellar, to his bed. Cleaned up, and put into a new shirt. I sat next to him for the whole thing, holding his hand. The scarred hand, the hand that could have helped him in this fight, if he hadn't ruined it because of me. The disciples of Spirit came to take his body to be prepared for his burning day. I had to move from my place next to him, and I knew the moment I stood up I wouldn't be able to watch them drape that awful cloth over his body.

I couldn't be here, not right now.

I ran, and they let me. Sure, Jexa and Dirk called after me, Orchid was still too much of a mess to be heard over their noise but she probably said something too. But it didn't matter, because I couldn't be here right now.

Swamp was a maze of mud and clay, but when you were born in it, you knew how to get around. I wove around any major streets, finding more comfort in the back alleys now with the onset of dusk. Weaving all the way down to the worst streets in the district, down by the lake.

Water lapped at the clay, slapping the shore where more than one house lay abandoned or squatted in during the dryer seasons. It would flood soon, just a handful of weeks away and this place would be underwater again, just like that time when we were children.

The cobbled front steps of the nostalgic doorway remained in one piece. I was impressed, after all this time. Nothing else in the house remained worth salvaging, and angry lines of water from past floods decorated the walls all the way to the top. My eyes lingered on the worst line, a thick rim of mud that sealed this house like a tomb. This house, and many others that year, but here is where everything changed. Davery and I were born here, our mother died here, and we were alone.

My boots scuffed along the floor as I walked over to what would have been a kitchen if anything remained in it. I was much bigger now, but I still had one or two select memories of happiness in this place, and the wide windowsill where I used to sit was one of them. So, I sat in it, barely fitting now when it felt as big as a bed before. Curling in the windowsill where I last remembered all of us together, I cried. Once there were four of us happy to live in this little house.

Then it was just me and my brother.

And now, I was all that remained.