Will you come and gather round me near and listen to Voices born on the air through time and my poor memory?
Fortune held fast and breathed the fire warmer, under skin, under glarings, simmering long until the chill cracked the vessel wide...
The night he came to blows with Sid, long after drinking, long after listening, long after the tangle of their sneerings each to the other, the heat of battle rose its head and neither man nor woman fled its drawing...sucking in and turning angry words to Fight! And fighting, brief, blood flowed against the bone before the night was over!
(The bard's hands few unfettered through the cacophany of strings, dischorded)
And who was there for witness of the fanning flame, but Lucien himself, Mallorek the Barrister, wounded and weary, his healing painful and slow.
He did not know...
He threw himself in and in between to put a stop to madness.
Guthorm smashed his war-hard fist, a glancing blow to bruise Sid's jaw, undeniable for all to see, for Bloods to find Insult and Harm...oh let them come! He bid them come with that bruising blow!
And Mallorek launched on dizzy feet and did his best in a tangle of limbs, but Sid did not fall or run. Mark for mark was called for. Vengeance brings ever more the same in so many hearts and never mind that Lucien, in the middle, wrestling, wrestling, was cast back in force, too close, a victim caught in anger.
Sidelong the Norskmann saw misfortune but neither could stop then, the aiming of the stool...neither man nor woman for any sake, and she wielded the weapon well. Wood met bone in a muffled crack, splinters flew, and nearly healed, a broken rib broke anew.... And it was enough. Proof of fire grown between them, the bruising of dark blood between them. And each to use, as they would and as they must, to fan the flames yet higher.
Let them come....let them come, for surely this would draw attention...
And so he left them, Sid and Lucien, to give their comforts each unto the other.
But the traitor could not stay. Guthorm took his victory with him, hope wrapped about him like a winter's cold cloak.