A soft breeze always seemed to carry Jera into the firehall. Once in, she drew off the hood of her cloak revealing a timeless beauty, despite her plain style and clothing. Her heritage is expressed through her sparkling blue eyes and long silver-blonde hair with a perpetual hint of an ear tip peeping through the fine wisps.

On this eve she had come to the castle burdened with two jars. The crockery was heavy but made slightly more portable by rope slings. Currently they were empty and after she set them on the bartop for Lumiere, she had to ferret out the cork lids for them from a pouch tied beneath her cloak. She was certain that Lumiere took notice of her deposit since he arrived immediately with her usual mug of hot water laced with honey. He knew she carried her own tea blend with her and preferred it, no matter how fine Camelot's selection may be.

Jera offered her thanks and appropriate coin then found a comfortable seat by the hearth. After the addition of crushed tea leaves and a little stir, the mug was set aside to steep. She then untied a rolled bundle of oddly shaped pieces of worn fabric onto her lap. It was a trick managing to catch her spool of thread before it rolled away. She unhooked a needle from the center of the opened bundle then slipped her hand into what turned out to be a pouch, wrong side out. Jera checked for holes or frays and proceeded to mend.

As she curled slightly to bite off the thread from the first patching, Jera peered into the mug of tea and determined it was likely ready for a sip. It was over the rim of the mug that she saw Ashevathallion enter the firehall. His long graceful stride carried him straight to a chair and he sat, without word to anyone, decidedly distracted.

"S'dia shaya," Jera greeted him. Still wondering about the seriousness of his demeanor. However, he looked up, recognizing her words and voice immediately, "Z'par servu, Jera Skyspear." At least a smile appeared on his face now.

"I see no load upon your shoulders and yet, you seem to bear one." she supposed.

Ashe answered with a casual shrug, "I am concerned about the search party. They have been gone so long." Indeed, the search for his nephew's twin daughters was taking a long time, although whether this bode ill or well was difficult to say.

Jera noted just how preoccupied Ashe really was when he arrived. Heretofore, if he was to sit with her, he seemed to try to keep her to his left side, so his scar was not so noticeable? This time however, she could see it quite plainly. She could not help but watch him and the movement of the long mark when he smiled or spoke. It was still a curious thing to her. But, she tried to get her mind off of that and back to his concern.

"Is there a set time for such things? I had not understood it that way. Or are you sensing something?"

"I sense nothing." He shook his head. "The Isle blocks contact with Ian and so I worry. Perhaps for no reason, granted, yet still..." His words trailed off then he added more quietly, "Perhaps I am being foolish."

Jera sighed and turned her fingers' attention to mending the next pouch. "So, if they had need of you, they could not summon you there? No way to get word to you for help?"

"Not from Tol Dolen. At least not to me. I think... I suspect... the girls have somehow spoken with the other children over the years, but I cannot be sure."

"Then I suppose you can only do what you can do from here and while it may not satisfy you, it surely sets parents' hearts at ease to know the other children are well in your care." She looked up at Ashe with what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

He nodded slowly, "Yes, I hope I've given them that small comfort."

Again Jera watched his jawline then dragged her gaze back to her mending. "Please do pardon my little chore here. I sometimes find it difficult to sit and do nothing."

"No need for pardon. What is it you are working at?" He leaned slightly to look at the apparent project in her lap.

She fanned the edge of the stack of pouches. "Gathering sacks. Old friends." She had to grin at herself. "But as such, our friendship needs tending now and again with a stitch here and there." She finished up another pouch and bit the thread, then knotted the loose tail from the needle and started on another.

"I see. Very practical of you."

"I suppose I have a tendency for the practical. Certainly not for the lavish." She looked around the great hall and all its tapestries and decorative features. Ashe followed her gaze, "Aye, they might need some repair."

Jera chuckled lightly. "I think I'm short of thread for that." She completed her survey of the room and found her gaze on Ashe again. "A few fine things are of interest though."

Returning to the mending at hand, Jera stitched at a loose seam on one pouch and wondered, not for the first time, why Ashe's cut had not healed properly. She frowned, although appeared to be scowling at her mending.

Ashe leaned back in his chair and watched the firelight play on Jera's profile. "I did not see you at the Beltane festivities. Were you ill?"

She answered distractedly, her mind still on his scar, "I'm not oft given to public ceremony." After a bit of a pause, she had to ask her question. "How came you by it, Ashe?" Despite the topic she still appeared to be concentrating on her stitching. "I cannot get it out of my mind and you've said very little. 'Though, perhaps I've no right to know."

"Came by what, milady?"

She rested her hands and their work to her lap as she looked up at Ashe, "That mark upon you."

"Ah... a case of mistaken identity--"

"Yes, but..."

"Someone thought I was Yarrow."

Jera shook her head, "Could no one heal it? A reasonable treatment with calendula or other--- It would have left barely a hint."

"Perhaps, had it been tended to quickly. But circumstances prevented it."

She wondered more, but, she just quietly responded with, "Oh" then quickly added, "I do not mean to say that it troubles me over much, I just... I can see sometimes that it troubles you."

"It's not the scar itself. It's the memories associated with it."

Jera watched him and looked at more than his face now, yet not really directly at him, but around him, perhaps even through him, as if she was detecting something more than the ordinary. "I can see that, aye."

Ashe actually flushed a bit and looked away briefly at the fire while Jera lowered her head again and slipped one hand into the next pouch to begin working on it. She whispered, "It dims your otherwise bright light."

Ashevathallion stood up then. "It's part of me." He nodded to Jera with a slight smile then abruptly announced he was leaving. "If you'll pardon me, I think I should go and make sure the children are properly abed. S'dia shaya, Jera Skyspear."

Truthfully she was a bit surprised and could only think to hurriedly say, "I'd rise to properly bow and send you off, but I've a lapful of work. Rest ye well, Ashe."

He was smiling when he left, but Jera wondered if she'd sent him away with her inquiry. She also wondered whether or not Lumiere had managed to get her jars filled with clarified broth, which was why she'd ventured here in the first place.

Jera put away her sewing chore, tying up the bundle under her cloak again, and exited the hall with a jar hanging from each hand, just as when she came in, but now they were a wee bit heavier... and they sloshed under their cork caps.

~~~~~~~~~~

As it happens, Jera had to return to the firehall the next evening, after her other transactions were concluded. She'd carried one of the jars back because the kitchen had erroneously given her two jars of beef broth instead of one beef and one chicken, as she'd requested. So, once again with her tea mug she wandered across the firehall to wait while Lumiere straightened out the difficulty.

Had Jera not been busy in conversations with Lumiere, she might have noticed Ashevathallion entering the hall from the library. Even as she crossed the great room, she might have caught sight of him, had she not been fascinated by the pattern of the steam rising from the shimmering water in the mug. Ashe certainly noticed Jera. He heard her voice and went toward the bar to speak to her, but she was soon enroute to the hearth. He laughed softly as they nearly crossed paths, then corrected his course to follow her.

Jera finally took her seat and Ashe waited for her to get settled with her tea, lest he startle her and cause a spill. He offered his usual greeting, "S'dia shaya, Jera Skyspear." and she looked up, smiling immediately. "Ashe? Good to see you again, always."

Ashe nodded and took a seat on the hearth, right next to Jera, crossing his arms over his knees. He came straight to the point, his reason for tracking her across the length of the firehall to here. "You asked me a question last night, and I did not answer it. Ask it again of me, and I shall.

She straightened a little and looked at him quite curiously. "I had thought... Well, you left rather abruptly. I had thought I'd pressed too much, but truly, I would like to know what it is that troubles you concerning that mark. I know tis not just the mark itself, as you say. Nor is it that part which... which is of concern to me."

"No, I was tired.." He shook his head. "...and you were asking a fair question. I'd rather tell you now and lay the question to rest." He looked down at his hands then. He was determined to answer but of course it would not be an easy thing to tell.

Jera spoke a bit more quietly, "I doubt it will put it to rest, but I would hear the tale, however long." She dipped her head to smile softly at him. "You know I love your storytelling." Yet she was fully aware that this was not a story which Ashe would enjoy.

He snorted softly and didn't look up as he began, "Do you know that humans cannot tell one identical twin from another? Strange isn't it? Our folk can tell by the light within each, but human folks don't have that Gift, for the most part."

Ashe fell silent for a few seconds as he further gathered his thoughts, while Jera said nothing. Nor did she move. She didn't want to push any more than she already had and didn't want to interrupt him.

With a deep breath, Ashe plunged on, "Yarrow and I found that ...challenging. And we soon learned that most human twins did as we did, taking advantage of the confusion. We were young and foolish. It was a new world to us, and we set about having what we thought was great fun."

"Aye, harmless pranks and the like. What child does not?" Jera let her gaze trace Ashe's profile, his hair fallen across his shoulders, his hands, his whole demeanor. He glanced up and nodded then looked back toward the floor again.

"Believe it or not, Yarrow cut quite a swathe with the young human women in those days. And I, sad to admit, was his decoy. While he was having assignations with daughters, wives, and sweethearts, I would make myself visible in some other part of town in clothes that mirrored his."

Well, Jera blinked at the notion and hissed, "Were you not also then possibly liable for his transgressions?"

Ashe nodded, "But when angry male relatives would accuse Yarrow or I, there were witnesses to swear I had been in whichever public place I had made my presence known."

"So, you were willingly a part of this game? It seems not the sort of thing... well... you were young, you said..." She didn't want to take him to task on this. There was obviously enough tied up in it already.

"Yarrow never abused his lovers. I would have known and the notes they sometimes sent after confirmed it. But, we failed to consider what would happen to them afterwards. We never considered the possibility they would face angry men."

Jera sighed, "Aye, yet another trait the world could much do without."

"We were in Byzantium. We'd journeyed there on a trade mission for our father, and played our old game. Yarrow had become cocky, careless. He wooed the daughter of the commander of one of the palace guard units and was spotted making a hasty exit from her room. He fled to the tavern where I waited as I swapped songs with local bards." There was a long pause then. Ashe poked at some mud on his boots with a long finger. Jera had leaned forward and turned her head to look more directly at him, even though he'd still been speaking mostly at the floor. She assumed he was getting to the moment, because he was stalling.

Finally Ashe continued, "The father burst in shortly after, dragging his daughter along, some of his men following. He stopped when he saw two of us. The tavern folk told him I'd sang for them wondrously, and so, he had us both sing, thinking that would catch the culprit." He made a shorter pause then added, "Yarrow sings as well as I."

"Yes," Jera said quietly, "I would imagine he might." She offered the only comment she could at this point.

"Then... the father pushed his daughter forward, telling her to point to the one who had dishonored her. And she, poor girl, could only shake her head. She said 'I cannot tell them apart.' "

Taking a deep breath, Jera clasped her hands together in her lap. Besides her own dread to hear what happened next, she felt Ashe reliving it in the telling.

"Her father threw her to the side... and before either Yarrow or I could realize it... he drew his sword, and... this..." Ashe ran his finger along the scar. " 'No one will have the problem again.' That's what he told her."

Jera gasped out, "Then it mattered not to him whom he'd cut? Only that it cleaved one of you... changed one simply to distinguish him from the other?"

Ashe looked up and nodded, "A human solution, and a soldier's one at that. He dragged us to some cell, leaving his daughter behind like she was a dirty garment. Yarrow had tried to resist and was beaten unconscious, while I was reeling with shock. We were unable to summon the Road for some hours... perhaps a day."

Nodding slowly, Jera could now understand the scarring, "Thus... the healing was too late... or too little..."

"Aye. By the time Yarrow was strong enough to get me out of there, the wound was infected. I nearly died. This was the best the healers could do with the wound."

Jera unclasped her hands and lifted one toward Ashe. She hesitated then gently drew back his hair, her fingers lightly brushing along his scar.

Ashe flinched slightly. "SO... there you have the whole sordid tale."

She spoke in a bare whisper, "I'm not sure who bears the worst of it, you for how it marrs your perfection... or your brother, who must see the results of his own games, streaked upon your face, each time he looks at you. Evidence of a past he cannot change."

Ashe looked up, watching her face with a steady gaze. "It's scarred us both. Yarrow could not accept the fact that he bore partial blame for what happened, as I must. So, he went from fascination with humans to abhorring them. My scar is on the outside. His is on his soul."

Her hand rested on his shoulder a moment before she withdrew it back to her lap. She looked down at her hands, then to the fire. "Thank you for sharing this with me. I believe I now understand what happens to your light. I know not what can be done of it."

Slowly he shook his head, "Nothing now. It is too late. Yarrow has gone so far down his road of vengeance... first my face, then our sister with Voran Blackthorn, and bearing him a son, and finally her death. It is too much. We were once of one mind, two halves of a whole, and now we are so far apart."

"I should think that distance would be a good thing. While lonely, having lost his company within, are you not safer, more at peace, with him apart from you in this way?"

He looked away from her again and back to his hands, "I feel... incomplete..."

With her hands clasped together again, Jera sat back in her chair. She needed to swallow around the lump in her throat before she dared speak, so, she just nodded in response.

Ashe could not swallow his feelings, "I hate him for what he has become. I love him for what he once was. I would give anything, anything, to have the old Yarrow back, sitting here, jesting, playing music with me."

"Yes, I imagine that you would, but, is it not difficult to realize, to admit to oneself, that we cannot change another. They must change themselves."

"It's like trying to play your part of a duet without an accompanist."

"I have only an inkling of what you mean. It has been long years since I felt anyone that close to me. Even... Well, long years.. and never such a bond as twins would have."

"Yarrow cannot change. Not now. It's gone too far. He's lost to me, and I have severed the bond between us because he would have dragged me down into madness with him."

"I do think that is wise, but as you note, it is surely like cutting away half of yourself. Were it not for the family you have here, I would think it unbearable."

Ashevathallion looked up again, nodding. "The children have been a comfort, aye. And a repayment, in a way. I regretted not being there more for Ian as a child. So I am here for his children now."

"I'd say he's done well. I'd also say that you are missing the full value of what you give to those children, beyond what they return in love."

"I spent most of my life as a warrior. It's much more fulfilling to nurture something rather than destroying."

Finally, Jera smiled a bit. "That brings me to another question, which is surely more easily and pleasantly answered. Why did you leave your life as a warrior?" To which Ashe chuckled, and Jera was so very pleased to hear the sound of it.

"It was a necessity for so long. Then one day, it no longer seemed to be as needful."

"So few manage to 'retire' from that profession. I am grateful that you could." Jera thought he surely had no notion of how much.

"Now I have Ianno's family... and my music.. They help keep me sane."

"I've had the pleasure of a bit of your fine music. I'm grateful for that as well."

"So there... that's the story behind this." He tapped the scar.

Jera grinned, obviously looking over his whole face, "Oh, there's a fine story behind that alright."

Ashe lofted a brow, "Looks can deceive, Jera Skyspear."

"Nae, Ashevathallion, not if one knows how to see." Her little grin quirked at one corner.

"Then perhaps you read too much into what you see. I should think the story would only underline that."

"It tells me more about where you end and Yarrow begins and, like it or not, you know the dividing line. You appear to respect it. Although... I wonder what might happen were certain opportunities available to either of you."

Ashe leaned back and tilted his head slightly. "Opportunities? Such as?"

"Well... Yarrow could begin the games again, at the price of marking his own face of course. There's the future of your clan to consider as well. From what I've been told, there is a rather... precarious line reaching down from your father to now." She quickly added, with a shake of her head, "I'm sorry. Too much time to think and a habit of strategy from my youth."

With a frown, Ashe noted, "Yarrow would never play that game again with humans. As I told you, he loathes them now. Rowan's death put the seal to that. He blames Ianno for it."

"Is it just the humans with whom he's at war though?"

"Right now, I think my brother is at war with the universe. He has been declared Unkin by my father for his acts."

"Desperation is a terrible place from which to act, even if your cause is just and right. Yet for one such as your brother, as you have described his state..." She shrugged and left it there, in favor of a sip of tea.

"Too far..." Ashe murmured, "He's gone too far. My brother is dead to me. Things can never again be as they were. But now you know why." In one easy movement, Ashe rose to his feet. "I think I've darkened the mood enough for one eve. I'd best be getting back to the manor before the children wake. I thank you for your patience in listening."

Jera's brow furrowed even as she rose to nod respectfully. "I thank you and... I asked. As for Yarrow, it is a good thing that you are not receiving your brother's mind and heart. It may also prove a tragic thing that you are not receiving your brother's mind and heart. What a terrible choice that must be to make... and to keep."

Ashe nodded silently then bowed, "Z'par servu, Jera Skyspear" before he turned to leave the firehall.

07/2002 RP