A Fairly Reasonable Crashout (RWBY Adam SI) ch 23

+++

The training continued. I saw no reason to let up—not when I had so much to learn. Sienna wasn't the only one helping me. Her men pitched in, too. That's how I found myself sitting with Malik while the others worked. Though I was quite sure they were pitching in to help as a way to avoid working the fields.

The rifle sat between us on a folded cloth the color of dried blood. Malik crouched low, his shoulders hunched like a hunting dog at rest.

The weapon looked ancient, almost ceremonial—long as my arm and carved from wood that seemed older than the man himself. The stock curved in that unmistakable jezzail shape, its surface inlaid with copper serpents curling toward the butt. The barrel stretched far past anything sensible, like it belonged mounted on some warlord's mantle. A relic. Or so it seemed.

Malik unscrewed the bolt with a half-turn of his wrist and yanked it free in one fluid motion. The innards gleamed with modern menace: clean steel and precise machining, a bolt-action heart beating beneath its antique skin.

"This looks like a relic," I said, glancing up at him.

"Because it is, in a way," he replied, his voice low and even. "My grandfather carried it during the Great War. I modernized it. Just enough."

"Why bolt-action?"

"Maintenance," he said, sniffing like the answer was obvious. "I spend most of my time in the wilds. Complicated parts aren't exactly easy to come by."

"Practical," I remarked.

"Everything we use has to be," Malik said. "We don't get crates dropped from Vale or Atlas. No backups. No new models. What breaks stays broken—unless you can fix it yourself."

I glanced down at the rifle. "How does this thing even kill Grimm?"

Malik let out a dry laugh. "Very carefully."

Then he shrugged, his tone more serious. "These rifles were meant to be personal weapons. Crafted for their user, not for mass production. I re-chambered this one for .50 caliber. One shot will punch through most Grimm skulls, even at range."

"Is that standard out here?" I asked.

"No," he said simply. "I make the rounds myself."

I raised a brow. "Didn't you just say you were practical?"

"I did. Practical means knowing what you can do alone. I've got molds. I've got scrap metal. Dust, if I'm lucky. I press what I need."

"And if you run out?"

He paused. Then, without a word, he reached behind him and drew it—a blade, absurdly long, almost the length of his thigh. Narrow. Curved.

In a series of practiced motions, Malik slotted it beneath the rifle's barrel—click, twist, lock. The copper inlays of the rifle met the steel of the blade seamlessly, the transition so fluid it felt intentional. The weapon transformed into something monstrous: part relic, part modernity, part nightmare.

He stood, holding the hybrid weapon out so I could see its full silhouette. "You ever had to fight a charging Ursa when your clip's empty and your hands are shaking?"

He spun the rifle—not flashy, just functional. The balance was perfect, precise, like he'd done this a thousand times. "You don't shoot. You don't aim. You brace. And you drive it in."

His free hand mimed the motion—step, thrust, twist. The blade would slide between plates, into whatever foul essence Grimm are made of.

"This isn't just for show," Malik said, setting the weapon down again. "Everything here is earned. Nothing's ornamental. Every scratch, every groove, every mark on the stock—paid for in blood. If it doesn't kill, it doesn't belong."

His gaze shifted to me. Sharp. Testing. "Now, do you want to learn how to take apart a weapon?"

I nodded. "I do. But as you said—" I gestured to the brutal, beautiful thing lying between us, still glinting with heat, memory, and menace, "—that one's yours. Personalized. Your needs aren't mine."

"True enough," Malik said, his tone more grunt than agreement. "But basics are basics. Geometry changes. Function doesn't. Stripping a rifle is like anatomy. Once you know where the heart is, the rest is just muscle and bone."

He leaned closer, his voice dropping low, gravelly, like the words came from somewhere deep in his chest. "And let's be honest—you think you're gonna find a custom plasma repeater out in the ass-end of nowhere?"

I gave him a flat look. "No."

"Damn right you won't," Malik said, pacing a few steps, his words settling like the weight of a loaded trigger. "What you'll find are half-rotted carbines buried in river mud. Hunting rifles patched with duct tape and prayer. Even more ancient relics than mine. Stuff no sane soldier would trust."

He stopped, turning to face me fully. The jezail-spear in his hands wasn't a weapon now—it was a point being made. He gestured with it, deliberate and sharp.

"You don't get to wait for the right tool. You make the one in your hands right."

Then, lowering the weapon, Malik crouched again beside the spread of rifle parts at my feet. His voice shifted, grounding itself in the work.

"Now. Time to strip."

And so I did. Malik offered advice when he had to, but he made me work in silence. My hands moved cautiously at first, then faster as I gained confidence. Piece by piece, the rifle came apart beneath my fingers.

A few minutes later, it lay fully stripped.

"Good," Malik said, nodding once. "Now bring it back."

I moved without hesitation. The pieces clicked into place, one after another, until the rifle was whole again. Complete.

I huffed, glancing at him. "Now what?"

Malik grinned, sharp and wolfish. "Now?" He stood, hefting the jezail into his hands, its weight effortless in his grip. "We fire."

+++

The hoe dug in with a satisfying crunch, sweat slipping down her spine in lazy rivulets. Her braid stuck to her back, soaked through, as her breath came measured through clenched teeth. Another furrow carved out of the unforgiving field. They'd been here for half a week, and the peasant lifestyle had settled on them far too easily for Sienna's liking. There was still time before she and the Fang had to leave for Menagerie—faithless she may be, but she still represented the Solitan Fang. Until then, they were here. Free labor for a hag.

It wasn't the worst place to be, Sienna thought as the sun beat down mercilessly. She welcomed the heat—it was honest. The sweat on her skin told her what she'd earned.

Then came the gunshot.

BOOM.

Sharp. Clean. It echoed off the hills like the world itself had flinched. Birds burst from the trees. Sienna didn't startle. Didn't duck. She just sighed through her nose like someone who'd stepped in something unpleasant. Straightening, hand on her hip, dirt clinging to her thighs, she peered across the field toward the source.

There they were. Adam and Malik. Malik held that ridiculous rifle of his like a preacher clutching a relic. Adam stood beside him, hands still tingling from recoil, grinning like a boy who'd just kissed someone for the first time.

Sienna scoffed, loud enough to chase a crow from the nearby fencepost. Men and firearms. Every time a gun fired, they acted like it meant something more than pulling a lever. Adam looked pleased with himself—cheeks flushed, eyes wide with the thrill of it.

Bah. As if shooting a rifle compared to feeling an enemy up close. The weight shift before a strike. The crack of knuckles on bone. The blood heat of a real fight—brutal, honest, and earned.

"Boys and their toys," Sienna muttered, though her eyes didn't leave him.

There was something disarming about it. That light in him—the boyish edge he rarely let through the mask of scorn and fire. Malik stood impassive beside him, ever the sentinel, ever the teacher, a bit of corded muscle and calm savagery holding a rifle twice as old as either of them.

Despite herself, Sienna watched. Just a little longer. Adam looked brighter than he had in days—mouth open mid-laugh, shoulders loose, no tension in his neck. For once, he wasn't flinching at shadows or watching the treeline like it owed him a corpse.

And, despite herself, Sienna softened.

He deserved this. A moment to breathe. After everything. She'd promised Medea as much. Let him live, the hag had said. So she had. This was the result—a smiling, flushed version of Adam. It warmed something beneath her ribs, though she'd never admit it aloud.

Speaking of that damned witch…

Sienna straightened, frowning, eyes flicking toward the treeline. "Where the hell is that witch?" she muttered. Medea had promised to return by dawn. That had been hours ago.

Then the gate groaned. Metal dragging against wood.

Sienna's hand dropped to the whip curled at her hip, calloused fingers ghosting the handle. She turned.

And there she was.

Medea. Cloaked. Hooded. Staff in hand like some half-mad pilgrim from an old tale no one told anymore. Her boots were caked in muck—dark, crusted, reeking of things that didn't belong in sunlight. She walked like someone who didn't need to earn space, like the world bent to her passage.

The scent hit Sienna a second later. Iron. Old smoke. Wet stone. Blood.

Sienna dropped her tools and crossed the field, boots thudding with slow, deliberate rhythm. The sun glared down on both of them.

"I come back after a few hours," Medea said dryly, "and my nephew's picked up a rifle."

"Where were you?" Sienna cut in.

Medea gave her a long, sideways look.

"Out and about," she said, unhurried. She pulled back her hood. Red hair spilled free, cow ears twitching as the breeze caught them. "I went to see my dear in-law Pelias."

"And the blood?"

Medea's eyes narrowed. "No, I didn't kill the fool. Tempting, but we still have laws."

Her tone shifted, cooler now. "This blood isn't his. And it's not mine."

Sienna's brow furrowed. Her hand twitched at her side. "Whose is it?"

Medea tilted her head, a smile slithering across her lips.

"Inside," she said simply.

And so they walked.

The hearth glowed faintly, casting long shadows across the room. Argo lay curled before it, his ears twitching as Medea crossed the threshold.

"Argo, my beautiful boy," Medea sang, her voice light and lilting like nothing was wrong at all. "Come give mommy a hug!"

The hound blinked. Rose slowly. Sniffed once.

Then turned and walked away without a sound.

Medea clicked her tongue. "Bastard," she muttered fondly, propping her staff against the table.

Sienna followed, posture tight, arms crossed, her eyes locked on Medea like a blade waiting to be drawn.

"So?" she asked flatly.

Medea didn't waste time. "What do you know about Mistrali politics?"

Sienna snorted. "I know the Regency Council is useless, and the city's a crime-ridden hellhole where the rich drink wine while the poor eat rats."

"That's the spirit," Medea said, gliding toward the shelves. She grabbed a battered tin cup, filled it from a clay jug, and with a flick of her fingers, summoned a cluster of ice that clinked in like broken glass. She drank slowly, unbothered, before setting the cup aside and lowering herself into the crooked chair by the hearth.

"Let me expand the picture," she said, her voice taking on a storyteller's cadence. "Near the end of the Great War, Sky Cloud Palace erupted into civil war. The Emperor's brother tried to seize the throne, but the Emperor wouldn't yield. Their supporters tore the Palace to shreds, turned the Wind Throne into scrap. The palace was gutted—burned to the bones. From that wreck, the Regency Council was born to manage what remained."

Sienna leaned against the wall, her brow furrowed but silent.

"But the council's power," Medea continued, "only stretches so far. The city itself, maybe a few peripheries. Outside of that?" She shook her head.

"And why are you telling me this now?" Sienna asked.

Medea's gaze sharpened. "Because the central government is brittle. Anima is the largest continent in Remnant. The countryside, the mountains, the inlands—they're slipping through the council's fingers. And the old blood? The nobles? They're waking up. Some, like Pelias, want their titles back. Others are turning warlord. And in some places…" She trailed off, her expression darkening. "Well, the less said about the East, the better."

Sienna's jaw tightened. "And the blood on your boots?"

Medea's lips curled—not into a smile, but something colder. "Pelias told me a charming little story. Said a group of bandits had taken root in the nearby woods. They're biding their time, waiting for him to reclaim the town. Once he does, he'll pay them tribute."

Sienna's mind clicked into motion. "If they're waiting for tribute, that means they're part of a larger network. And Pelias promised them coin and power if they let him waltz back in like a king."

"Correct," Medea said, her eyes gleaming like wet obsidian.

"Did you kill them?" Sienna asked, her voice cool and blunt.

"No," Medea replied, too casual for comfort. She plucked a sliver of ice from her drink and flicked it into the fire. It landed with a soft hiss, curling to steam. "I scouted their camp. Found it, too. I can be sneaky when I need to be."

"And?"

Medea's smirk slipped. Her shoulders dropped slightly. "They're planning to hit the town in a week if Pelias doesn't pay up."

Sienna's jaw clenched. "And Pelias is currently enjoying a cell with a leaky roof and a bed of straw."

"Yup," Medea said, popping the "p" with theatrical apathy.

"That still doesn't explain the blood."

Medea waved a hand loosely, brushing off the question like it was a gnat. "On my way out, I ran into one of their scouts. Poor bastard was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Did he get a good look at you?" Sienna asked, her voice low, sharp.

Medea's tone turned cold. "As far as the camp knows, their scout got turned into mulch by an overzealous beowolf."

Sienna stared at her, unblinking.

"It was quick," Medea added, quieter but no gentler. "I don't waste time. And I don't think mercy should be extended to people who threaten our town—especially not over imagined thrones and tribute."

Sienna considered this, her weight shifting slightly against the wall. "Now what?" she asked, her voice steady.

Medea didn't miss a beat. "I've already alerted the Mayor," she said.

Sienna blinked. "You?"

Medea smirked and raised her glass in a mock toast. "He's going to do something about it."

"Oh?"

"He's planning to pre-empt them," Medea said lightly, as though discussing the weather. "Burn their camp to the ground."

Sienna's lips twitched—not quite a smile, but close. "What a proactive man."

Medea chuckled, rising with a stretch. "He's calling for volunteers," she added, tilting her head enough for her hair to catch the firelight. "Looking for people with experience."

Her gaze locked on Sienna. "Interested?"

The door creaked open.

The scent of sweat and sun-warmed leather drifted in as Adam stepped inside, boots scuffing softly against the floorboards. Malik followed, laughing and cracking jokes—until their eyes landed on the women. Sienna, arms folded, and Medea, standing by the hearth like a queen with her scepter.

"Auntie," Adam greeted, his brow furrowing as he caught the tension in the room. "Something wrong?"

Medea didn't hesitate. "There's a bandit camp in the woods," she said, slicing the air with a hand. "They were waiting for Pelias to take over the town and deliver their tribute. Problem is, Pelias is enjoying our jailhouse hospitality. The bandits? They're planning to strike in a week."

Malik's expression darkened. "How many?"

"Big enough to be a problem. Organized enough to wait. Armed enough to be bold. I killed a scout on my way out to avoid being followed," Medea said.

Adam's gaze shifted to Sienna, searching. She met it with that hard glint of hers—the one that always lived just behind her lashes. No fear. Just calculation.

"So what now?" Adam asked.

Sienna nodded toward Medea. "The Mayor's planning to strike first. Burn the bastards out before they make their move. He's calling for volunteers."

Medea's grin widened, sharp and gleeful, like a razor catching the light. "So, boys," she said sweetly, "interested in a little preemptive violence?"

Adam straightened, shoulders squaring like a blade rising from its sheath. "Where and when?"

"Tonight," Medea replied, her tone as casual as breath. "We'll hit them before they realize the leash has snapped."

Adam gave a curt nod. "Very well." Then he turned fully toward her, his voice softening—lower now, as if testing the weight of it. "Auntie… may we speak?"

Medea blinked, clearly caught off guard. "Oh? About what?"

Adam didn't miss a beat. "To spend time with you."

That made her pause—not visibly, not enough for most to notice, but Sienna saw the slight hesitation. Her hands stopped moving, her shoulders lost their sly tilt. Something unreadable flickered behind her eyes, like a ripple beneath still water.

"Ah," Medea said at last, slower now. "Right. Sure. What do you want to do?"

Adam's lips twitched, not quite a smile. "Want to fish?"

Medea stared. Her ears gave a small twitch, as if she'd misheard. "...Fish?"

"Yes," Adam said simply, like the suggestion was self-evident.

There was a beat of silence. Then Medea exhaled, sharp and amused, shaking her head like he'd just asked her to recite poetry while juggling knives. "Fish," she repeated. "Gods above, I haven't touched a rod since Jason." She eyed him, the corner of her mouth quirking upward. "But eh. Why not. Let's go commit aquatic war crimes."

"Grand," Adam said, turning for the stairs, his composure settling around him again like a cloak. At the landing, he paused. He glanced back at Sienna, offering her a quick nod—brief, impersonal, respectful. Then he was gone, boots creaking against the steps, the door clicking shut behind him.

Sienna didn't move.

Her arms were still crossed, but her grip had tightened. Her jaw worked once, and there was a flicker of something in her expression—not pain, not anger. Just that familiar, bitter bite of restraint. Despite everything they'd done together, he'd offered her the same flat nod he'd give anyone else. As if that were all she was. A footnote. A checkpoint.

Medea clapped her knee with cheerful violence. "Welp," she chirped, stretching lazily, joints popping like dry wood. "Time to ruin some poor fish's day."

Sienna didn't respond, her gaze fixed on the door.

Medea slung her staff into the crook of her elbow, then caught Sienna's eyes—and stopped. Blinked once. Twice. "What?" she asked, her voice shifting just enough to betray curiosity.

Sienna's mouth twitched. Her throat bobbed, breath catching mid-sentence that never formed.

What would she even say?

"Nothing," Sienna muttered finally, her voice rough, like sand underfoot. "Go enjoy your… hooks and scales or whatever the hell this bonding ritual is supposed to be."

Medea's brows lifted, slowly, her grin curling back like smoke under a door. But she didn't press. Didn't mock. She just turned on her heel and sauntered out, humming some old, off-key tune that probably dated back to when Mistral still believed in kings.

Malik's voice broke the silence. "Sienna?"

She exhaled through her nose. "What?"

"You good?"

Her lips twitched, a sharp, humorless curve. "Why wouldn't I be?"

+++

And so they fished.

The sun hung low, spilling gold that bled violet across the treetops, the sky like a bruised fruit split open over the forest. Cicadas shrilled their constant, ancient chorus, sawing into the stillness as if trying to split the silence apart.

Medea stood barefoot on the mossy stone bank, pant legs rolled to the knee. Adam stood a little bit from her. Neither of them had spoken in several minutes. They arrived, with fresh clothes, and set up. Medea knew how to fish, Jason had taught her. But now here she was, with her nephew. They broke branches, hunted for bait, then stood by the river. Finally, he spoke. 

"This is a big property, Auntie," Adam remarked, watching the wind stir the reeds, the long grass rippling like a sea of pale blades. The line on his rod barely twitched. "I didn't realize how far it stretched."

"It is, isn't it?" Medea laughed, short and dry, flicking a mosquito off her arm with a practiced snap. "Jason's family built it up for a long time. Most of them died during the Great War, with the exception of him and his uncle. He didn't want to see this place go to the man we took it over from, so he left it all to me."

"A Faunus inheriting prime land must've caused a scandal."

"It did." She smiled without mirth, casting her line a little further into the bend of the waterway. "The courts in Mistral contested it, but Jason—he was clever. Made it airtight. The deed went through before he even died. There was a moment where three different legal offices tried to issue me an eviction on the same day." She gave a low chuckle, grim and fond. "One of them sent a clerk. Poor bastard didn't know where he was. I had him feeding chickens by sunset."

Silence. 

"So what were you up to while I was gone?" Medea asked, one eye squinting against the lowering sun as she tucked her hands into her pockets.

Adam didn't look at her. He was watching the current, watching how it broke around a stone like resistance given shape. "Well, after I challenged you, I got Sienna to teach me how to survive. It's the basics, but I'm getting there," he recounted. "We spoke at length. At night."

She raised an eyebrow, a flicker of interest behind the casual tilt of her head. "About what?"

"Oh, just random things. Waxing philosophy and the like."

She let out a snort, biting and bemused. "Philosophy? Who cares? None of that matters anyway. It's all hypothetical questioning. It keeps on asking more and more until your mind's twisted in knots and your food's gone cold."

"You don't like philosophy?" Adam asked, amused now.

"It's pretentious sophistry, that's what it is," Medea laughed, sharp and disdainful, swiping a gnat from the air with the back of her hand. "People talking themselves into circles because they're too scared to just act. They'd rather sit under a tree wondering whether free will exists than do something useful—like plant another godsdamned tree."

"It's just common sense, really," Medea replied, tossing a strand of hair out of her face. "One of the few lessons I've kept after all my years walking this cursed rock."

"You talk like you're ancient," he snorted. "You're middle-aged, Auntie."

She grinned, something cocky and warm lighting behind her eyes. "Oh? So I still got it?"

Adam tilted his head with mock suspicion, lips twitching. "Maybe."

Taking that as a challenge, Medea clicked her tongue and stepped back, theatrically straightening her shoulders, stretching just enough to tighten her frame beneath the sleeveless shirt she wore. She angled herself, one hip cocked, arms lifted behind her head like she was posing for an old propaganda poster—warrior and woman both. Sunlight caught the whiteness in her skin, her hair, her body.

"Well?" she asked, flashing him a grin. "How's the old relic holding up?"

Adam didn't answer at first.

He looked.

Not playfully. Not like a nephew bluffing through banter. He looked—too long, too openly. His gaze lingered on the curve of her waist, the slope of her hips, the exposed skin of her legs where her pants were rolled to the knee. His mouth parted, breath catching just once. Just enough to make her shift—shoulders tight, chest rising as if the air between them had thickened.

Medea's smile faltered—not from discomfort. From awareness.

And Adam blinked, realizing too late, eyes dragging back up to hers.

"Nice," he said finally, a little too flat, a little too late.

Medea cocked her head. "Just 'nice'?"

His jaw clenched. "Beautiful."

"That's… uh… that's better," she finished awkwardly, trying to return to the fishing.

She'd tempted him like a woman.

He looked at her like a man.

"You know I was teasing," she said, not looking at him.

"I know," Adam replied, voice lower now. Calmer.

They returned to the house in silence, the bucket sloshing with fish and cool water, silvery bodies still twitching now and then like the current hadn't quite let them go.

"I'll make something nice from this," Medea said simply, brushing a hand back through her hair as she set the bucket down on the old stone counter beside the outdoor sink.

"Of course," Adam said, already turning to go.

"After we eat," she called after him, "we have to go to the Town Hall with the others. Write our names in with the militia."

"I will prepare," he said, disappearing through the back door with the sound of his boots echoing briefly against the porch planks.

Medea stood alone beside the sink. 

She rolled up her sleeves and reached into the bucket. The fish were still lively, still pulsing faintly against her hand as she drew the first one out, laid it on the old board, and began to gut it with the ease of someone who'd done this ritual more times than she could count. Knife in one hand. Spine in the other. Quick slit down the belly. Thumb to separate bone from flesh.

The blood came fast, dark and wet, smearing across the wood.

Her mind wasn't on the blade. Not on the task.

It was on the way Adam had looked at her.

Too long. Too hard. Like he wasn't trying to decipher her anymore, but feel her. Like he was thinking about her skin, not her words. And gods help her—she'd felt it. Not just noticed. Felt it. In the way her throat had tightened. In the heat behind her ears. In the sudden awareness of her own body: the way her shirt clung, the sweat behind her knees, the stretch of her shoulders when she'd posed for him like some teasing idiot.

The knife slipped. Just slightly. Enough to catch the skin of her knuckle. A thin bead of red rose immediately.

"Shit," she muttered.

She rinsed it under the cold faucet, watching the water carry it away. Her reflection in the basin's steel shimmered. Tired eyes. Bare shoulders. Loose hair. .

How the hell was she supposed to feel?

By all accounts, she and Adam were strangers.

Aunt and nephew they may be, but it wasn't as if they'd grown up together. She hadn't changed his diapers, hadn't been there for scraped knees and bedtime stories. He'd come into her life already half-shaped, hard-edged and grieving, scarred and angry—like a blade someone else had forged too young and then tossed away. 

She should be angry. Angry at herself. She should not have went that far and acted better. But no. 

She does not feel anger. 

No, what she feels terrifies her. 

Because she does not feel angry. No, the opposite. She didn't feel regret. She didn't feel guilt.

She felt want. 

​

She turned the faucet off. Water still dripped from her fingers, tracing her wrist, catching in the valleys of her knuckles.

She felt alive. She felt seen. She felt desired. 

That wasn't a boy's glance. That wasn't kinship. That was want, heavy and silent as a held breath, as smoke curling unseen through a shuttered room.

She remembered his voice—not the words. The tone. Calm, low, steady. Not neutral. That was the voice of a man who'd seen something he wasn't supposed to, and liked it.

And her body had answered. Not in a girlish tremble. Not in any cliché flutter. No—her response had been silent, insidious, adult. It had happened in the muscles of her spine, the slow arch of her back as she stood taller without realizing. In the way her balance subtly shifted to one hip, the faint roll of her shoulders that pressed her chest forward, her breathing shallow but even. There'd been the sticky heat of sweat beneath her waistband, the drag of fabric against the curve of her breast, suddenly too aware of every place her shirt clung. A quick glance would've called it nothing. But she knew.

She'd wanted him to look again.

That thought should've disturbed her. But it didn't. It curled beneath her skin like warmth caught under a blanket, like a memory that hadn't happened yet. And it came with the quiet clarity of revelation: she hadn't felt this way in years.

Five years, to be exact.

Five years since Jason died.

And in that five years, she'd been hollow.

Not in a dramatic way—no screaming grief, no drunken breakdowns. Just… muted. Like a song faded mid-verse. Her world had shrunk to practicalities: crops, debts, repairs, obligations. Her voice had turned into something used for instructions and deflections. Her body, once fierce and electric, had moved through life like a cart down a rut. Predictable. 

But now—now—with Adam's arrival, something in her had shifted.

Not all at once. 

Just enough.

Enough to laugh with her teeth again. To feel her face flush from more than anger. To notice the way dusk caught on skin, not like time slipping past, but like a touch. Enough to pose. To tease. To be alive again.

He looked at her. She responded.

And maybe that was what scared her most. Not that he looked.

But that she welcomed it.

+++

Medea had excused herself.

Something about going ahead. She'd claimed there was no need for her to accompany them—she'd already given the Mayor everything he needed to know and signed her intention to march with the militia. Sienna didn't mind.

What she did mind was Adam's silence.

She'd noticed it earlier, at lunch, when both he and Medea had avoided each other's gazes, their words clipped and mechanical. Sienna had asked what happened, but Adam wouldn't say.

Now, as they walked toward Cius's center, his quiet lingered like a stone in her boot.

Sienna wanted to know more. Not because she was curious or enjoyed gossip—she wasn't that kind of person—but because she found herself disliking how subdued he was.

"Let's just move on," Adam had said when they began their walk.

If that was what he wanted, she would respect it.

But still, it gnawed at her.

As a friend.

Though… were they really friends?

They'd had that long talk around the campfire, shared pieces of themselves. Sienna didn't have friends, not in the traditional sense. She was friendly with her comrades, sure, but those relationships were professional—a bond forged in duty and necessity. What she'd shared with Adam, though, the way she'd let him into her mind even a little…

She supposed that counted as friendship.

Not good friends.

Not bad friends either.

Just… friends.

"There they are," Adam said, his voice cutting through her thoughts. He nodded toward the Town Hall.

Before it stood a small but growing group of people in armor—though "armor" was a generous term. Some wore the dull, standardized plates of the Town Guard, but most were clad in piecemeal gear that bore no uniformity and plenty of personality. Leathers, reinforced jackets, repurposed riot padding, even battered remnants of old Mistrali Legionnaire kits.

Locals, by the look of them. Farmers, hunters, scrappers, tradesmen. Each bore the weight of the moment differently: some chatted in low murmurs, adjusting straps and gear, while others stood silent and tense, their eyes fixed forward as if mentally crossing thresholds they hadn't yet stepped through.

"This is a real Menagerie of fighters," Malik murmured behind her, tone dry and amused.

"Malik, shut up."

"I am not sorry."

His gaze shifted to the Town Hall steps, where a makeshift podium had been dragged into place. A man climbed onto it—broad-shouldered, his coat cinched tight, his boots scuffed from real use. The mayor, Sienna realized. But he wasn't dressed for ceremony. No sash. No trappings. Just a man ready for war.

"Thank you for coming on such short notice," he began, his voice slow and sure, carrying a dusty drawl that filled the square. "But I'm glad to see we're united in one thing—we're not lettin' bandits take a single godsdamned thing from Cius!"

Scattered cheers broke from the crowd, dry and hesitant but growing.

He raised a hand, and the noise quieted.

"Now, as you all know, bandits have threatened our town. Claimed we oughta pay tribute. That we should kneel." His lip curled, the words sharp as a blade. "I say no. This is our town. Our homes. And if they want tribute—then let it be prisons and graves!"

That landed. Cheers cracked across the square like firecrackers. Even some of the militiamen in misfitted armor let out hoots and yells.

Sienna felt a flicker of understanding.

So this was why they'd elected him.

"Captains have already been assigned," the mayor continued, his voice steadying again. "But not sergeants. You'll choose those yourselves. Pick with your heads, not your drinking buddies."

A ripple of murmurs passed through the crowd, heads turning, quiet discussions starting.

"Get ready to march," he said, his tone dropping, tightening, each word weighted now. "I'll be at the front. Because tonight, we don't hunt foxes raiding pig pens and chicken stalls."

He leaned forward, fire sparking in his eyes.

"We hunt two-legged game now. And before us, they will cower and bawl."

This time, the cheer wasn't scattered. It was a roar, raw and primal, shaking the air.

+++

A/N: Tihi. 

Another update by my tomorrow.