I woke with a startled soundless cry for help-

  My arm outstretched to the end of the tent I breathed heavily as blood pumped in my ears louder than my heart ever could have.

  Hyperventilating, my chest heaved as I sucked air in and out like it was going out of fashion.

  It took me a moment to even realise my nails were cutting my palms when I raised a hand to wipe sweat from my brow as my breathing slowly returned to normal.

  “Fuck!” I swore under my breath trying to crush the sensation, the despair in my chest that sunk deeper than any gaping void under the ocean.

  ‘Not again damn it’ The thought repeated itself a few times until I managed to calm myself.

  …

  Sitting in silence tears pricked the corners of my eyes as adrenaline faded to pain from my hands.

  ‘Why am I so fucking broken?!’ I wanted to scream into the early morning light that peaked through the tent, but restrained myself.

  I’d managed to keep Brunhild from seeing one of my nightmares for almost three days already, nothing good ever visited me when I slept and I’d been able to avoid her seeing it the day we met being that we stayed in separate rooms at the boarding house.

  ‘Shit it must be my turn already-’ I breathed a hoarse sigh moving myself out of the tent into the air of the morning where I found the Nemean woman sitting on a stump looking out on the rolling plains around us.

  It might have been a bit obvious a place to rob someone of that inclination, we’d left the forest behind a while ago and it was back to just rolling hills and flower fields with a winding river. Amongst the plains a handful of trees on their lonesome, we happened to settle under a few.

  Looking up I saw the moon was waxing and at its peak.

  Hild had her eyes closed as she sat on the stump of a fallen tree, her ears twitched as I got out of the tent and amber eyes settled on me a moment later. If she saw the red dripping from my palms, she kept to herself about it instead inclining her head for me to come sit with her.

  Wiping my hands on my thighs I winced at the sting and moved to where she was.

  “If you were given the quill or reed or charcoal to right your own destiny- your very fate, would you?” She asked in a somewhat sombre tone that didn’t really seem to fit her.

  Or at least not at first, but after a moment the image of her illuminated by moonlight framed the words and things seemed just right.

  “Are you usually this philosophical in the middle of the night?” I asked in a croaky voice, I needed something to drink.

  She purred a sound like a hum of affirmation, closing her eyes again she listened to the world.

  “Only when the Eye of the Goddess is out.” Her lips drew into a smile, mirth in her tone.

  A few minute long pause passed between us, the night air cool enough to enjoy but not cold.

  Eventually she opened her eyes again, this time turning to meet mine. “Is this all you’re destined for Harpe?”

  She queried me again, those same words she’d said when we met.

  “I don’t know, I never really thought about what I was destined for or what I wanted.” Sighing I wanted to complain about having this sort of conversation in the middle of the night. “What about you then? Is this all you’re destined for Nemean?” I asked back.

  She answered with a shrug, the melancholy hanging around her so distant from the bubbling mess of a person she was through the day.

  “Do you know any songs?” She asked shifting topics as she turned her eyes back onto the fields.

  “Yeah a few, but none you’d know- why?” My eyes had finally adjusted to the dark fully now so I could see better.

  “Can you teach me while we’re walking?” She asked and I nodded my head, I didn’t see why not.

  Not like anyone could stop me from ripping off their music here, especially not considering I only really remember the lyrics to a handful of songs in full otherwise it's a mess of forty-ish percent of the songs lyrics.

  “You’re a strange cat, you know that?” I said while yawning into my hand before wringing it out in pain as the stinging came back.

  “So I’ve been told.” She replied almost wistfully before releasing a breath and standing with a stretch. “Don’t fall asleep again.” Patting my shoulder as she walked away I shook my head.

  Chuckling to herself as she crawled into the tent I was left to stew in silence.

  I rubbed my eyes and sighed.

  ‘I hate long nights.’

  [1]

  Later in the morning after we set off the Tigress reproached her interest in learning some songs to pass time and so I spent a little while coming up with a few that worked well without the music to match the pace or whatever- I wasn’t even sure if I could hit the notes properly I wasn’t formally or informally trained to sing in any capacity.

  ‘A song for travelling, one for a journey between two opposites huh..?’ As I thought about it the image of a particular movie came to mind.

  “Heh” I let out a chuckle, shaking my head.

  ‘I don’t want to infect this poor woman do I?’ I could barely contain myself from bursting into hysterics which was more than enough to get the interest of the woman in question.

  The problems arose when I was inundated with ideas and songs as they all flooded my mind, each either more fun or silly to share with someone who’d never heard them before.

  “Fuck I wish I had my guitar” Eventually my frustration came out as I held my chin unable to hide the grin on my face.

  It would have made things even a smidgeon better if I could poorly play the tunes.

  “Guitar?” Hild asked, sounding confused.

  “Oh? Uh don’t worry about it, just an instrument… uh here how about this one I’m gonna whistle the tune and give you an idea for its sound before I start saying the lyrics- I’m no bard so don’t expect anything good.” I prefaced quickly as I was drawn to the easiest thing I could think of that was still a bit of fun for me and easy for someone to remember.

  “You didn’t look the type anyway” She helpfully added as I was finding lyrics in my mind.

  “~Always look on the bright side of life~” There were a trillion other songs to come to mind, but this one was more fun with people anyway.

  It took a few minutes, as you can imagine, before I came to the end of the ballad.

  Brunhild was laughing to herself the whole way through, whether at the lyrics or at my performance I couldn’t say, but we were both having fun at least so it made up for the lack of sleep.

  “Pffftt! Where did you even hear something like that?” Her hearty laugh echoed out across the plain.

  “Some guy on a crucifix” I replied with a shrug, unable to wipe the grin off my face from seeing someone else's reaction to it all these years later.

  “A dying man had that much time on his hands?” She questioned, voice full of disbelief.

  “Guess so, but I can’t deny he wasn’t at least looking on the bright side.” She just about giggled at the joke and I turned things back to the point of giving it a go. “So want to give it a go Hild?”

  She nodded her head, mane shaking as she did.

  “Alright well shoul-”

  There was a scream across the plains, it was ahead of us.

  We barely met eyes for a moment before Hild was off at Cheetah speeds down the overgrown road, I was so stunned by her speed and initiative that I stood there for a moment somewhat flabbergasted before realising I should catch up with her.

  I felt like a soldier running with the heavy camping pack down the uneven path.

  “Fuck fuck fuck!” I swore, hoofing it as carefully as I could trying to avoid divots and awkward mounds so I didn’t snap my ankle or something stupid.

  It took me a minute or two to catch up but I found the two metre tall woman in combat with a monster, a fucking creature of utter nonesense.

  There stood a ten or twelve foot tall lion with a goat on its back and a huge fucking snake for its tail- if there was anything good about the situation it was that the Lion part was looking kind of dead while my companion was pulling the goats attention away from a bloody site.

  “Grim- Get them away!” Hild shouted, her deep voice carrying across the plain unimpeded, the order jolting me into action.

  Running over to the site of a Seelie man clutching a bird winged woman in his ash arms, both soaked in blood with tears rolling down the man's face mixing with the crimson. Both were dressed fairly normally, tunic, trousers and shoes- nothing especially noteworthy.

  “Are you able to stand?” I asked, finding myself feeling calm despite the things I was seeing.

  A huge groove in the bird woman’s gut that I suspected matched the horn of the goat had emptied her guts onto the grass and dirt.

  “Aye” The man said with a strained tone, pain clear in it as he lifted the woman up.

  “Where’s the closest village or whatever?” I questioned and he flicked his head back toward the hill we’d been facing along the road.

  The large river running along the left side of the road we’d been travelling along went into a small woodland ahead, which was where I assumed the place he was talking about was.

  “Alright lets go-” Getting him moving I noticed the other bodies around, a smashed cart and supplies painting the road.

  One of the bodies had a spear snapped next to it and a bent shield with a claw mark down it, grabbing it I followed suit keeping my eye out for anything else.

  “What was that thing?” I questioned as we walked and the Seelie let out a strangled breath.

  “Fucking Chimera” He spat, clutching the woman in his arms tighter.

  She seemed to react to it, arms tightening around him as he did. I was glad she was alive, but I wasn’t sure for how long.

  We couldn’t really move fast but it didn’t take us long to get over the hill and run down a path to the edge of the woods where there was a small collection of buildings around a log mill with a large water wheel across the river.

  There was a small group of rather panicked looking Seelie and Krijn standing about with tools and weapons ready to take on whatever they saw-

  “We need help!” I yelled getting their attention.

  “It’s Alastar! And a Harpe?!” A voice yelled from behind the wall of people holding wooden shields up.

  “What’s he doin’ with a Harpe?”

  “Over here Al! We’ll get Cristyn patched up!” An Asterion woman called us over to her as she parted the towns people, she stood well above them with her strange eyes locked onto us whe whole way over.

  Reaching them the Goat headed woman directed the man into the crowd where a pair of men helped him toward a round house not far from where they were gathered. The Asterion however stopped me, her imposing figure and blue eyes with the rectangular pupils studied me-

  “We thank you for your help Harpe, but you’re people are unwel-”

  “That’s great but my friend is currently fighting the Chimera so I’m going to go help her!” I cut the woman off and turned on my heels sprinting back up the slope and over the hill toward where I’d seen Brunhild taking it.

  “Fuck! Where is she?!” I swore as my eyes danced around the plains looking everywhere for any sign of her, I chased nearly a kilometre in the direction she’d gone but I couldn’t really see anything that looked like blood or footprints or disturbed earth.

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  Right when I was about to yell out to her I heard footsteps behind me and a voice-

  “There you are!” The distinct voice of the Nemean woman made me spin on my heel, at first out of fight because I was a lot more tense then I thought I was with how calmly I’d accepted all the other stuff and then because I saw the woman covered head to toe in blackish-blue goo.

  “Urgh yuck, that smells revolting.” Were the first words to my lips upon seeing her and subsequently breathing in one of the most foul things I’d ever had the displeasure of being in the vicinity of.

  “It’s Chimera venom sack and blood mixed together.” The soaked woman replied lifting her arm to watch the gunk fall off and splatter on the ground.

  “I don’t have to help get that out of your fur do I?” I half-joked, but she wasn’t impressed.

  “You didn’t until you said that, now you will be making sure my coat is soft as wool when you’re done.” She groused with a stern and serious tone, I felt worried for my safety.

  “What happened to the Chimera?” I asked, shifting the topic to something else.

  “I managed to cut the head off its tail and it ran away, it will come back though we should help get the village those people were headed to ready to fend it off.” Her explanation and subsequent course of action was followed by her walking off without waiting for me.

  Cursing under my breath I jogged after her to keep up, holding my nose the whole time trying not to take in more of that stench than I had to.

  “It’s not that bad after it’s blocked your nose.” Hild joked with a grin showing her teeth through the dark muck covering her face.

  “Ha ha” I replied dryly, rolling my eyes.

  Walking in silence for a while we passed through a trampled pasture I’d somehow missed with blood and upturned earth- the likes of which I’d been looking for in the first place making me grumbled internally about being blind when I needed to be observant, something I’d seemingly kept quite intact since arriving.

  Anyway, as we crested back over the hill where the attack had taken place, the visceral site and sight was still just as it was ten or twenty minutes ago with the Tigress choosing then to break the silence.

  “Were you able to get that Seelie and his wife to safety?” She questioned.

  “Hm? Oh yeah- I got told to fuck off by the village though.”

  “Harpe?” She asked and I nodded my head. “Well if they don’t want to be slaughtered they’ll have to accept your help.”

  With some forethought we picked through the attack site and took all the weapons we could from the guardsmen that had been travelling with the cart- which was four but they all had a spear or other polearm, a shield, a sword and a dagger each including the spear and shield I’d already requisitioned.

  Carrying them all we headed over the next crest down to the riverside village where we found a less sizable force still standing guard, where there had been about forty or sixty people before now there were about twentyish.

  “That Asterion in charge?” Hild asked as we got closer and the tall goat headed woman in questioned ordered her people to stand down.

  “From the three seconds I had to speak, yeah.”

  “We managed to drive off the Chimera for now, but if you don’t want to be turned to mulch in your sleep and eaten alive by whatever monstrosities are following it around for scraps then you’re going to want some help.” She stated bluntly to the group, a wave of shock cutting across the faces of the men and women- even the Asterion.

  And then they started gagging and I realised it wasn’t from her words as much as the smell coming off of her.

  “And if you want us to leave then let me clean this shit off.” For effect the Nemean woman flicked her left leg kicking off a glob of muck that splattered against the path.

  “You can stay until the monster is dealt with, but no longer- We have no patience or care to have a Harpe in our presence.” The Asterion woman spat with a great deal of disgust and venom on the very name of the people I was one of now.

  “Caerwyn show them to where they can-” The Asterion gagged out a horrid sound. “-can wash off.”

  A man stepped forward, he was Krijn with nearly blonde brown hair and dark eyes dressed in bright- if faded a bit faded- red tunic and black hose. The belt around his waist easily holstering the oversized woodchopping axe he’d been wielding until that moment.

  He greeted us and directed us away from the line of defense.

  [2]

  Nearly throwing up three or four times was a small price to pay after about an hour and a half we managed to get most of the Chimera blood and venom…? Out of Brunhild's fur, despite my initial inclination she was at least semi-joking about my participation.

  I learned she was being very serious about making me wash it out.

  There wasn’t much to be thankful about, I’d pretty much seen everything at this point anyway whenever we stopped by rivers or under bridges along the way so I guess I’d already become numb to it. She did try to be funny while I was scrubbing her back down but ended up just falling over for her efforts, which did make me laugh until she decided we needed to play a game I was intimately aware of as a younger sibling ‘Dunk the Diver’ wherein she dragged me under the water and I got to choke on water for a bit.

  Each day we were together the more it felt like I was with a friend or a sibling- well aside from the scandalous way in which she approached dressing herself. If there was something to be thankful about at least she wore underwear beneath her skirt even if she had nothing to support her chest.

  Anyway, after we finished and she was somewhere between orange and purplish-brown the Krijn took us back through the small village of roundhouses to a more longhouse style home where we were presented to the Asterion woman again, when we entered she was washing blood off her arms.

  I assumed it was from the people by the cart and that she’d gone up to bring them back to their families.

  Female Asterion were strange in many ways but the way they had only a Goat head and legs from the waist down were certainly at the top of the list, I don’t know why they had human torsos and arms but I guess god gave up or something.

  I’m getting distracted again-

  “How did you drive off the Chimera?” The woman with square pupils asked.

  “Cut off its tail, but it’ll be back once its Lion half recovers in a few days.” Hild replied, she took the lead so I just shrunk into the background and looked at the home while the two talked.

  I didn’t want to make the comparison that it felt like I was a kid waiting for my Mum to have a conversation with a the principle or something-

  But it did feel like that.

  While they talked anyway wondered about what it was the Harpe actually did to get the reputation they had, I’d been sort of uncaring of it up until this point about the treatment I got for it because there were enough people willing to interact with me if only so I’d leave that it hadn’t bothered me too much.

  But the only reason we were allowed to stay here was to make sure a giant monstrosity that I didn't really know how I was supposed to help in fighting would be killed. Sure I could see how Hild cut its tail off, she was tall, had muscles that made her look like she was descended from that statue of Heracles and carried herself like someone who knew how to throw down with a T-Rex.

  I guess that was to say I felt a bit inadequate even with my minor skills and the fairly toned state of the body I’d inherited. Though seeing the Asterion men all built like World's Strongest Man contestants was the sort of thing that kind of peaked at ‘fucking hell what do they put in the water?’ so I guess that was good..?

  Mind you I guess comparing myself to a Tiger woman whose people are named after a Lion with an impenetrable hide was probably not a great idea anyway, it was hard not to when she was the second person I’d spent the most time with aside from Gareth in the merchant caravan now.

  It felt like a strange affliction the way I wanted to know all about each of them though- the people of the world that is- Find out why the Seelie had arms made of ash with black and white veins running along them, to learn whether or not that bird womans people fly- to see if an Ophidian could unhinge its jaw like a snake or to meet one of the mountain dwelling Gwenhwyfar I’d heard about while with Gareth.

  What was the reason for the scar over my would be heart location? How could Harpe live without hearts?

  Sigh there’s just so much I wanted to know about, most importantly though…

  I wanted to know whether the Garden of Sinners really existed and if it could actually take me home, if it can? That's great. I hope it's like a Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe situation where I could go back and forth.

  If not though..?

  I.. I don’t really want to think about that.

  …

  “Grim we’re going now.” A voice said to my right and I nodded following after their shadow as my mind dimmed and my thoughts drifted somewhere darker and more unsure with the lingering idea of being stuck in this world on its shore.

  Barely an hour passed, we’d eaten and gotten ourselves situated in the empty home we’d be borrowing for the time being. With that all out of the way though-

  “Show me how a Harpe fights.” Brunhild made a ‘c’mere’ gesture with her left hand as she stood opposite me in a space we’d requisitioned not long after leaving the Asterion woman’s home.

  This came about when I asked her to help shure up my abilities for obvious reasons.

  We were just throwing hands and nothing with sharp edges besides her claws but she’d promised not to use them to avoid gutting me or worse.

  I didn’t really want to find out what being gutted was like, so I was thankful.

  Anyway I raised my hands and mimicked a fighting stance I’d seen some years back with my left hand forward half cupped and my right clenched into a tight fist.

  I would only be right to say I’d never actually fought someone, spats with my brothers? Sure but as much as we attacked they never left any damage or whatever.

  Sigh

  ‘I haven’t seen them in ages, I should give them a call when I’m back.’ The thought turned my mood more sombre than I’d initially thought it would.

  Lowering my hands for a moment I almost forgot what I was doing-

  “Are you alright Grim?” The woman across from me asked, breaking my stupor, she sounded concerned and something similar to what she’d sounded like when I found her this morning poked through.

  “-uh yeah sorry, just thinking about the Garden.” I lied and she nodded, making a show to reset herself so I could do the same.

  Taking a deep breath I gave a little forewarning to her. “I kinda skipped over this but I don’t know how to fight-”

  Using the momentary distraction I rushed her but she was far too good to even left it bother her as I threw my fist forward, the strike sailing past there her right shoulder had been as she stepped to the side and slapped the side of my stomach making me yelp a little.

  Stumbling, I recovered and swung back toward her with my left arm and tried to follow it with a low kick to her calf with my right foot using the momentum from throwing my arm behind me for it. She ducked my hand but my foot connected, although I didn’t celebrate as much as it put pride in my chest because I was pretty sure she did it to see how hard I hit.

  “Good, strong follow-thru for someone who’s never fought.” She let out a jovial laugh as she bounced back a couple metres.

  “I’m going to fight back this time, a couple more slaps and maybe a punch so try to keep that in mind when I move.” Brunhild locked eyes with me for a moment to make sure I’d heard and understood what she had said.

  “Okay, be prepared to catch a paw to the face.” I joked back and she grinned back something less than friendly.

  ‘Not to self: some cat jokes are too much.’

  “I’m ready when you are.” She declared and I tried something different this time.

  Moving forward slower with my hands in the same positions as they were when I first launched my attack I circled counter-clockwise trying my hand at recreating something I’d seen again rather than just following my gut.

  I tried not to make what I was going to do too obvious-

  Trying to feign throwing my left hand forward first I punched with my right as I threw myself into her lazy open palmed guard-

  At the last moment I ducked down to tackle her stomach only to catch something to my chin-

  Everything went black after that.