Emanrasu leaned against the wall, his eyes skimming across the carnage wrought.
Bodies strewn about in odd angles, left where they fell amidst the chaos of the battle. The Bren milled about but were shifting into action as they followed Boldar’s orders.
The acrid and pungent burning flesh still hung in the air, and the shards of light from the morning sun matched the starkness of the cold, crisp morning. The clanking of metal on metal and the creaking of leather against leather became a constant backdrop as the Bren gathered up the fallen brigands, bandits, and colorfully garbed warriors.
The bodies were stripped and separated from the weapons and other equipment that was left strewn about in the aftermath, the equipment destined for the smiths and artisans for repurposing, the bodies f.
Emanrasu’s sweat-drenched tunic invited the cold to come and lay against his skin. Shuddering from the chill, he drew a breath and, upon releasing it, steeled himself once more against the briskness of the morning. The exertion spent leading up to this moment, entwined with the emotional waves upon which he rode combined, slowing his movements.
As Tarlis retreated away, Emanrasu looked for something to keep himself occupied. The buildings on the compound need to be investigated and cataloged, but that was for another time. The reality of the task with which they had just accomplished rushed in on him.
The White and his little group of friends had successfully rallied a town. Their training and the support provided to them bolstered their spirits and pride in their community.
Looking across the courtyard, he gazed at Serrah, dressed in the bright yellow and red tunic and trousers she decided upon for her battle dress. The relief at finding her unscathed was immeasurable, and he still felt the remnants of his fear sneaking around the corners of his mind.
The journey from Erzt had endeared her to him, and when I struggled with her possible loss, especially on the heels of Rezua’s fall, it was almost more than he could bear.
With abilities that far exceeded her appearance back in Erzt, he grew more and more impressed with her as each day passed.
“Erzt…” the thought skipped around.
“…the embarrassment in the bathing room seemed such a long time ago…” A smile crept across his face, which only grew broader as he recalled the stench of her disguise.
Closing his eyes, he imagined her standing next to him as girochih and shechih danced in waves ahead of the breeze as the night deepened. Vowing to himself to reveal his feelings before this day was out, he scanned the courtyard and stepped over to a group of the Bren as they went about hefting bodies and equipment into carts.
Wandering around, he helped where he could, loading carts with the bodies of the brigands and bandits, along with the occasional bodies of the colorfully garbed warriors.
The crushing loss of Rezua forced his shoulders to sag, and the damnable recurring vision of the crossbow bolt penetrating the large man’s chest brought with it waves of grief and regret that caused knots in his stomach.
“Grappling with the large man’s loss…” he thought as he gathered the weapons close by. “…will never pass.”
The safety of Serrah and the ultimate success against the occupants of the Zerocha Manor served to soften his grief but not his regret. Trading one for the other felt like an unwinnable choice.
The black buildings held an ominous and unnerving air to them as he let his sight scan across the courtyard. 
The fighters from Bren, or simply the Bren, as Emanrasu came to think of them, were being directed by Boldar as they dispatched the foes still moving and gathered up the dead.
Emanrasu’s first command had turned out well, discounting Rezua’s unexpected demise and that of Erikr. The trade of the town’s safety for that of his friend’s life felt almost too steep a price to pay in retrospect. The thought made him cringe. He had considered the loss of his own life but never the loss of his friends. In hindsight, he did not know whether he would choose to sacrifice Rezua for Bren.
The incessant barking of dogs in the distance brought him from his depressing revelry, only now impressing itself upon his ears, only to be drowned by the gathering crows and other scavenging birds.
He looked to the courtyard opposite Boldar and spied Tarlis working with Dorn and Olaf, and further over, Freydis and Catlina were intent on tasks given to them by Tarlis.
Serrah helped the Bren lift and pile the bodies into the cart, his eyes following her as the conversation ensued.
She stood up and stretched, and catching his eyes, she smiled broadly, reaching down to lift the next body.
As she reached down, a hand shot up from the prone body of a warrior. Grabbing a fist full of her tunic, the warrior dragged her close, plunging the dagger blade in and out of her chest and torso several times at an almost blinding speed.
Emanrasu found himself running toward her, “SERRAH!” the roar thundered from him as he barreled across the open courtyard.
As he thundered across the courtyard, throwing the Heater and the Hack to the ground, as he ran to her, she grabbed the tunic of the warrior in his multi-colored garb. Her blade materialized in her hand, and she plunged it deep into the warrior’s soft throat and up into his skull. She twisted the blade, and as the warrior stopped moving, she slumped over, pulling the now motionless warrior over on top of her.
Tarlis, the first to reach her, reached down and grabbed the back of the multi-colored tunic with one hand. In one motion he lifted the warrior from Serrah, the sound tearing of cloth ripped through the still silence that followed his roar.
Tarlis effortlessly threw the man’s body a full four horse-lengths away, where it crumpled lifeless against the side of a building.
Emanrasu reached Serrah, throwing himself to his knees and frantically working through her tunic to evaluate her wounds. Her hands clenched, one around her dagger, the other still clinging to the remnants of the multi-colored cloth her hand had ripped from her attacker.
Racing as he ran over, his heart stopped as the seriousness of her wounds became more apparent—the weight of her loss on the heels of Rezua’s death crushing him under it.
He struggled to staunch the bleeding as others arrived. The gathering of Bren townsfolk and fighters provided for whatever he asked. The silence of the gathering spoke volumes of their respect, not only of Emanrasu but of the magnitude of support this remarkable woman had provided.
Knowing it was ultimately insufficient, he bound her wounds as best he could; tears filled his eyes, blurring his vision before a swipe of his forearm cleared them once more. 
Tarlis placed a hand on Emanrasu’s shoulder. As he knelt, the armor glinted in the sunlight, accompanied by the whisper of metal on metal as the scales rippled with each motion.
Serah’s gaze turned to Tarlis, and she managed a weak smile that disappeared into a bloody cough.
“You did well, girl,” Tarlis said, his stoic figure belied by the quiver in his voice. Tarlis, too, had grown to love this young woman, filling his heart with the daughter he once lost; she had become family.
She coughed, and the warm spray of blood spattered Emanrasu’s face, mixing with the warm tears he struggled to hold back.
“I should have told her!” Shouting in silent anger and desperation, his mind struggled.
Reaching down, he pulled her to him, lifting her to bind her untenable wounds. His hands and body were almost automatic in their actions as he looked up into the eyes of friends and acquaintances, then back down at the beautiful face of Serrah.
“I am, sorry… I should have…”
“Don’t…” she whispered as she struggled to make words.
Her raspy, gurgling breath tore at Emanrasu’s heart, leaving him empty and filled with guilt and rage.
Shoving the guilt and rage deep into himself, he looked into her face. Her eyes focused on him, her face relaxed a bit, her fists clenched tightly by the pain that seemed to dominate her.
Serrah raised her arm weakly, her unrelenting grip still grasping the piece of cloth. She gently coaxed him closer into a hug, the hug he had so desperately wanted before all of this. He held her close, her shallow breathing getting weaker by the moment. He could only say the one thing he had struggled not to say. “I love you,” came the whispered admission. “I don’t know why, but from the moment we met in the inn. Me, a wandering idiot with a silly quest, and you, working beneath your skills as a maid, since that very day, you have always been in my heart.”
Serrah looked at him, her eyes streaming tears steadily down her face, “I know,” she mouthed. Her body relaxed, and her eyes ceased to focus as the last breath seeped from her.
She coughed again, the warm spray spattering his face once more.
She opened her mouth, but the gurgling refused to form words.
Her eyes filled with tears as she looked up at him. Stifling a cough and waiting for it to pass, she looked back up at him as he held her. She stopped trying to talk but mouthed the words, “I know…”, then grew still.
Her eyes, once glassy orbs of exquisite beauty, turned dull and seemed to lose focus, now unmoving; Emanrasu looked into her face and her now unblinking stare. Reaching up with regret and sorrow, he looked into them for the last time as he slid her eyelids shut. He held her body gently in his lap, cupping her head in his hands. 
Shrugging off a hand that touched his shoulder, he buried his head into her shoulder, pressing his cheek to hers. Her last rasping breath creeped out of her and finally stopped. First Rezua… now her… the pain continued to grow unattended.
People started moving away to leave him to grieve, each offering a light touch on his shoulder, back, or head in support as they did. The chill in the air, once brisk and refreshing, now crushing him, almost callously oppressive. As through a thick pane of frosted glass, his conscious acknowledgment of the people leaving was barely noticed as through a frosted pane; he could almost not even feel them.
“Rezua… and now Serrah…” thoughts swam in uncertain random circles. The exquisitely horrid reek of her transformation into the old hag was now a memory he struggled to hold onto.
He held her, waiting for the chill to take her as he struggled to understand the depths of grief. His wait fully encompassed him as the snow blankets every part of the field. Thick, soft, oppressive cold drained the warmth of his feelings away, leaving behind a cold, barren, lifeless mass of sorrow.
Holding her, his body provided continual contact, keeping her body warm. This kept his mind full of hope with the illusion that she, somehow, had not fallen and fed his hope unreasonably. His fingertips against her throat confirmed there was no pulse.
Leaning over, he kissed her forehead, then picked her up and moved her off his lap, back down onto the dirt that so eagerly lapped up her life’s blood. 
He brushed back a wisp of hair from her face, kneeling beside her for a fleeting eternity.
A hand gripped his shoulder, and he looked up. Tarlis looked down at him, whispering, “It is time.”
Emanrasu’s heart sank.
Her life had ebbed away from him, much the way each wave of sparks and flames ebbed and flowed across the fire fields. Closing his eyes, his thoughts drifted to the fields of girochih and shehchih she had shown him and the spectacular waves of sparks.
Tarlis helped him to his feet. He shifted unsteadily under the weight of the loss of his friends, his thoughts buried in clouds of grief. He stood for a moment, a hand on Tarlis to steady himself.
Tarlis, after a time, took a deep breath.
“What…?” He whispered, dropping to his knee as he reached out to Serrah.
Her reddened flesh continued darkening with each passing moment. The sound of sizzling flesh and the pungent wafting of burnt flesh filled the air as Tarlis snatched back his hand.
The old man, his piercing eyes seemingly filled with unanswered questions, looked at Emanrasu.
“I have never… I have never seen the like. What in the Da…”
The explosion hurled the two flailing men through the air—landing hard two full horse-lengths away.
The impact upon the ground drove the air from Emanrasu and ushered in darkness. The swirling images of the Dance rushed in and filled the void of his consciousness with the promise of answers but dissolved just as quickly into the harsh, biting, crisp cold of the morning.
The cosmic representation of balance to which he was tied provided no relief and served only to engender more resentment in his losses. 
Emanrasu opened his eyes and struggled to his feet taking in the scene and aftermath. The deep thundering boom sent nearby horses into a frenzy—some rearing, others sprinting away as handlers scrambled to catch them.
The incomprehensible force provided nothing to which he could tie it, and the magnitude of it was similar to the full force of a horse’s kick.
He paused briefly to fill his lungs with air, crisp and clear but tinged with the acrid and pungent smells present.
Only he and Tarlis remain of the small group of strangers that departed from Erzt in an attempt to protect Serrah from the abuses heaped upon her.
The bonds that formed, now tattered and torn, with Rezua and Serrah fallen in the attempt to rid Bren of the incessant raids perpetrated upon travelers, seemed to die in their wake.

As I put ink to paper, I carve into the annals of existence the historic context of what is about to unfold—a record, immutable and unyielding, for all to see and know. In dreams, I am as a bird on the wing or a cloud in the sky, an observer from heights unattainable, glimpsing that which defies perception, knowing that which yearns for clarity and resolution. Were it not for an extraordinary gift, these stories, these moments, these words would dissolve, forgotten in the ceaseless tide of time and the collective experiences that shape us all.
Though you may question the hand that writes, know this: it moves not by the will of its owner but as the witness of truths beyond itself. It chronicles not its own perceptions but only that which is—unyielding, unembellished. Bound by edicts that predate the stars, these stories—fleeting instants of time yet timeless in their gravity—are etched into my mind, each a gem whose facets I polish but cannot create, for I am without the power to turn carbon into diamond.
As I wander through the vignettes of existence, a great weight presses upon me, the unseen specter of my charge. An invisible phantom, I am unable to set pen to parchment save for when the truth demands it. I etch these truths, these visions, into permanence, preserving their essence within the boundless vault of eternity, and I offer them now as a gift of clarity to deepen and lift the understanding of what has transpired.
These words hold only the basest truths of what was, what is, and what may yet be. They emerge from a struggle—a quest to discern the tangled threads of the journeys herein. In the waking hours, I live as fully as I am able, but when I lay my head to rest, I traverse the lives of those I am destined to follow, their moments entwined with mine yet held apart. In dreams, I am granted vistas beyond comprehension, privy to knowledge unattainable, sights unseen, and whispers too faint for mortal ears—each as vivid as the sun yet devoid of emotion or care.
The manuscript presented here unfolds as greatness itself—its wings spread like a hawk soaring high, its tale unfurling like sails catching the winds of truth, propelling us across seas of wisdom and experience to lands uncharted. On the shores of the unforeseen lies the future of all, disembarking burdened by fears and regrets that should long since have passed into oblivion.
I ask only for your understanding and acceptance that the words within are unbiased, genuine, and balanced only by the hopes and dreams of the lives they recount. With every curve and line drawn on parchment, I immortalize visions not meant to be seen, whispers of truths unspoken, and the enigmatic echoes of events that remain mysteries even to those who lived them.
The truth I offer must come untainted, discovered by oneself, and shared among kindred souls. It is not mine to keep—it is yours to take. Though I am only the alchemist’s catalyst, stirring the pot in which change brews, the transformation belongs to the base substance itself.
If you are willing, take this journey of words and truth. Partake as you would of a feast, consuming only what nourishes your spirit and fills your heart, for each of us gathers uniquely, harvesting what sustains us, and no other will taste what we each find in this banquet of discovery. This journey, if you allow it, will transform you, lifting you to soar like a bird, to drift as a cloud, carried by the wind toward boundless potential.
The path before you, though inevitably your own, is forged by choice. Walk it with intention, for destiny bows to the direction of your heart.
—RCotD—

“Through time immemorial, reality, the cosmos, the eternal existence we call life, has struggled for balance. The struggle between opposites ensues, creating a battlefield upon which our meager existences are caught in a web of decay and renewal, with no knowledge of the need for balance; these are the domains in which the Cadre of the Dance inhabit. The knowledge of the true need of equality, in form and action, are their struggles.” – RtCotD

“Eclipsed by Time, Yet Everlasting; In Battles Endless Worn Unbroken. In Struggles Forged and Renewal Refined; From Dust to Destiny; In Balance, Brilliance.” – the Hack