Keto shifted from boot to boot, looking up at the stone ridge they had stopped at.  Her mind noting that it wouldn’t take much for dragonkin to get the high ground on them.  She looked around, in the thin underbrush before the ridge there was little cover.  Her head snapped around, looking to the woods.  They were both too far away and held their own foreboding.

“We had historians,” Quartes commented, lifting up his lantern as he inspected the collapsed wall of rock before them. His expression neutral as he surveyed the rubble before him.  He glanced up at the top of the ridge but quickly enough his gaze returned to the collapsed cave entrance.

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Keto responded from several steps back, taking a moment in her distraction to add, “I think most people do.”  Her hands holding tight the straps of her pack while she waited for the Landian to finish with his inspection and to decide what they would do next. A raising of the hairs on that back of her neck turned her around but the dark of the forest offered her little to see. The darkness of the woods and the fading light did little to calm her.

Quartes stepped up on the rubble, getting a view to the top where the fallen rocks met the roof of the ridge. “There’s a certain skill to how stories need to be passed, how to capture the right details and convey them so all can learn.” Keto turned back around as Quartes continued, her hand drifting down to the sword on her belt. Her thoughts at the same time drifting to how little she had learned of its use. “It’s not just the details, it’s what was felt at the time, how to convey the context for those who may not have all the stories that lead to it.”

“How did they do that?” she asked, more out of reflex than anything as she looked once more over her shoulder.

“Often with music,” Quartes answered, turning and stepping down from the rubble.  He shook his head, “Wherever the Kercs are coming from its not here. This spot is sealed up tight. Let’s go find somewhere to make camp, I’ll pick up the trail in the morning.”

Keto fell in besides the Landian, the lantern in his hand between them. Its movement shifted its light back and forth, playing strange patterns across the trees as they reached and reentered the woods.  The shifting shadows creating false moments at the edges of her vision that she kept jumping at.

“They were called bards,” Quartes offered, “History keepers for the good of their kin is how Rolan referred to it.”

Keto looked to the Landian, at the slow sweep of his pale, pupil-less gaze and tried to remind herself that he would surely detect any attacks before they were at risk. She took a breath, “Could you sing any Landian songs for me?”

That brought a slight frown to Quartes’ features. “We didn’t sing as you would think. The music set a tone but the words were more of straight storytelling.”

“Sounds a bit dry,” Keto countered, looking over to see the Landian’s frown shift to a slight smile. She thought for a moment, “Rolan would’ve been your bard then?”

“Yes, of Calelden’s line. The oldest of us. Besides Elhandriel, I spent the most time with him of all my kin.”

“I imagine the storyteller wanted to be where the story was,” Keto took another easy breath and glanced to Quartes as he nodded.

“But often at the back of battles.”

Keto thought for a moment. “Losing your bard would be bad.”

“When we lost him, it was not just the stories he could help us tell. There was so much history he knew we never learned. That I never learned.” Keto dwelt on that for a moment, how that must’ve felt for Quartes and whichever of his kin to have lost more a history they had so little of. She looked back to the Landian. Where she expected to see his gaze lost in thought he was instead watching her, a small smile on his lips before his gaze swept the path before them again.

Something moved in the woods, or a branch fell, or the wind rustled the leaves.  Regardless, Keto jumped.  She sighed to herself as Quartes stopped long enough for her to steady her footing and continued on.

“This is how nightmarish Fey are created isn’t it?” She asked with self chastisement.

“Not if I’m standing here,” Quartes answered steps calm and steady.  “We’ll find a place to camp and I put out the shards, they’ll make sure nothing harms us.”  Keto nodded, cheeks burning.  “We’re in an area where there are at least Kercs and maybe a Hagerc.  It’s okay to be nervous.”

“Even when I’m around the Heir of Lehn?”

“Plenty of people have been around me, my survival doesn’t ensure theirs.”

She looked sidelong at him.  “That is not comforting.”  That little smile returned.

“I’m not going to let anything happen to my bard,” he looked at her for a moment, she gave him a nod that he returned before continuing.  “Now, ask me some questions.”