The Vampire & Her Witch

"Even, even if you aren't afraid of Lord Owain," Samira said firmly when Ollie seemed to pause in thought. "I still can't go with you. You can take whatever it is you want from my chambers," she offered. After all, she had been planning to abandon nearly everything when she left anyway and none of it truly belonged to her. If he wanted any of it, he was welcome to it as long as she and Noomi could escape.

"I'll go hide in the dungeons beneath the villa," she said as she turned to leave. "Just, leave behind some food in the kitchens and I'll come for it after you're gone."

"Lady Samira, ye can'a do that!" Otis insisted, shocked that she would even contemplate something so dangerous instead of taking Ollie's offer to help them escape to the village he'd mentioned. "The demons will kill ye if they find ye! They'll cook ye in one of their great pots or those giants'll gobble ye up whole, or…"

"No they won't!" Samira shouted as a hot surge of anger bubbled up from her chest at the way Otis was repeating the same cruel lies about the Eldritch that she'd once believed herself. "They won't! They'll leave me alone, or maybe, maybe, maybe…" Samira said, repeating the last word several times as two thoughts collided in her mind.

How many times had she talked to Noomi about the day Owain had attacked the Heartwood Clan's village? How many times had Noomi cursed fate that the 'red-haired human' hadn't come earlier to convince her villagers to flee… early enough that she wouldn't have been too heavy with child to flee to the Vale of Mists.

The strange red haired human who told stories about how fierce Owain and his knights were. Who knew the kind of destruction that Owain was capable of and that he wouldn't give up on hunting for 'demons' until he'd spilled enough Eldritch blood to wash away the shame of what Lady Ashlynn had done at the Summer Villa.

"It's you," Samira said as she stared at Ollie in disbelief. "You're the one who warned Noomi's village about Lord Owain's attack. You, you're the one who convinced the Heartwood Clan to flee to the Vale of Mists. You, you aren't afraid of the 'demons' because… because you've already joined the Eldritch," she said with increasing certainty.

"That's why you can get us out safely," she said. "Because the Eldritch people attacking us aren't your enemies, they're your allies."

The more she spoke, the more confident she sounded and the more Otis felt like his stomach had fallen through a hole in the floor. But when he looked at the young man he thought he knew very well, hoping to see hot anger and denial on his face, he instead found a strange sort of smile.

"Ollie," Otis said as the sinking sensation in his stomach grew great enough that he felt the breakfast of bacon and boiled eggs that he'd eaten just minutes ago threatening to rebel in his stomach. "Ye didn'a, ye didn'a bring tha demons here ta kill us an' cook cook us, did ye? Yer not doin this just ta get at our treasures… are ye?"

It seemed incomprehensible. Utterly baffling and completely impossible. For the dutiful, helpful, and often too kind boy that he'd watched grow up in the kitchens to turn into some kind of heretical demon servant…

It couldn't be like that, Otis thought. But even though it shouldn't be like that, very little else made sense. After all Ollie had been very clear that before they fled, people should collect their treasures, and he kept insisting that Lady Samira tell him about the treasures in her chambers… So if he wasn't here to raid them with the demons, why else would he be so insistent on these things?

"It isn't like that, Otis," Ollie said gently as he tried to give his old friend a reassuring smile. "I want people to fetch their treasures because I've seen what happens when people have to flee without them. Sometimes, losing something small and precious leaves a hole in a person's heart that eats up their will to live. I don't want that to happen to people I consider friends. That's all," he said gently before he turned to face Samira.

"Madame Samira," Ollie said. "For you to know all that… and for you to call the Eldritch and the Heartwood Clan properly… I feel like you have another secret to share that's just as shocking as the child in your belly."

"You can trust me," he said, reaching into the pouch at his waist and pulling out a small figure of a knight, carved from a single piece of red cedar. "Milo of the Heartwood Clan carved this for me while I stood my vigil to become a knight," he explained as he held out the small figure that had been shaped by Milo's claws.

Originally, Milo had only meant for it to watch over Ollie during his vigil, and he promised to carve a better one out of cypress wood once there was a mature enough tree to harvest a branch from, but Ollie refused to accept a replacement. This was the knight that Milo had carved with all of his feelings of worry for his friend, and along with that worry, his desire to protect Ollie from harm that he couldn't hope to confront.

The carving was far too precious to be replaced, and Ollie had carried it on his body ever since he woke from his vigil. Now, he handed that carving to Samira, seeing confirmation of his suspicions when she reverently accepted the carving, clearly understanding its significance and the significance of Ollie's choice to carry it on his person.

"I took Heartwood as my surname to honor the friends I made in their clan," Ollie added as he held out his hand to take back the figure of a knight, returning it to its home in a pouch at his waist. "But it sounds like I'm not the only one with Heartwood friends," Ollie said with a reassuring smile. "So please, tell me what you're hiding, and I promise that I'll help you."