Two Lights In Caerhaven

hen the knock came, it was soft.

From his chair by the window, Navian looked toward the door.

He waited, expecting another knock or a voice from the corridor. Neither came. After several moments he set aside what he was holding and rose.

By the time he pulled open the door, Oesora was already turning and walking away.

She had made it only a few paces before the sound of the door latch behind her stopped her. Her shoulders tightened slightly, and for a moment she remained facing down the corridor as though considering whether she might make a dash for her room and pretend she had never been there at all. And in that moment, perhaps for the first time, she envied the elven rogue.

She turned.

“Oh.”

Navian leaned slightly into the doorway. “Ria-Oesora.”

Her hair had been loosed and fell about her shoulders, and whatever composure had carried her to his door seemed suddenly less certain now that someone had answered it. She tucked a strand behind one ear.

“Forgive me. I thought you were asleep. I didn't mean to—”

“No, I'm awake. Still.”

Oesora nodded slowly.

Navian waited.

Her eyes wandered briefly past him into the room, then returned to his face, expecting something of him. Navian, expecting something of her, remained where he was.

With her hands clasped, Oesora tapped her thumbs together. “May I... come in?”

He stepped aside at once.

“Of course.”

The priestess passed him, and Navian closed the door gently behind her.

She went only a few steps before slowing.

A folded towel had been spread upon the floor beside the narrow window. Navian’s armor rested there piece by piece, some still bearing the dull traces of the road while others had already been polished bright enough to catch the room’s faint light. Two pristine silver pauldrons had been placed carefully beside one another. A cloth, a small tin of polish, and several loosened leather straps lay among them.

Oesora looked back at him.

“You were cleaning your armor?”

Navian followed her gaze. “Ah. That. Yes.”

“At this hour?”

“I... couldn’t sleep.”

She crossed nearer and examined the two pauldrons. Her brow furrowed. “They already appear quite clean.”

Navian glanced down at the armor. “It’s a bit... therapeutic,” he said. “For me.”

The word sounded faintly strange coming from him, as though he had only recently discovered it.

Oesora’s expression softened.

Navian bent to retrieve the cloth he had left beside the chair. “It clears my mind.”

Only then did Oesora notice the view beyond his chair.

Across the darkened rooftops of Caerhaven, green radiance still hung above the druid grove. The strange glow touched the low clouds and marked that distant quarter of the city against the night, steady and unchanged.

Her eyes moved from the window back to Navian.

“You’ve been watching it.”

Navian looked outside and took a breath.

“The tree still glows.”

Oesora sensed the hope in the words.

“It does.”

She joined him beside the window for a moment. The city beneath them had quieted considerably since dinner. Lamps remained along the wider streets, tiny pools of amber between darkened buildings.

Navian set the cloth down.

After a little while Oesora moved away from the window. “I fear I may have become overly accustomed to sleeping surrounded by other people.”

Navian looked toward her.

“For weeks now there has always been someone nearby. Talking. Moving about. Tending the fire.” A trace of embarrassment entered her expression. “A horse snoring.”

The corner of Navian’s mouth lifted.

“That might have been me a few of those nights.”

A quiet laugh escaped Oesora, but her smile faded. Her attention wandered around the little room and settled nowhere in particular.

“My room is very quiet.”

Navian said nothing.

“I thought perhaps that was why I couldn’t sleep.”

He leaned against the wall.

The priestess folded her hands loosely before herself. She looked toward the window once more, then toward the armor, as though either might offer another explanation she could borrow.

Neither did.

“I don’t want to be alone tonight,” she said at last.

There was nothing fragile in the admission. She spoke it simply, and because she did, it seemed to carry more weight than anything she had said before.

Navian inclined his head.

Some small tension left her shoulders. Her eyes moved toward the bed.

“May I stay here?” she asked. Then, after the slightest hesitation, “Just... to sleep.”

Navian looked down at the floor with the smallest of smiles, then looked back up at her. “Of course.”

He made no move toward her.

Oesora crossed the room first.

Only when she reached the bed did Navian follow, leaving the armor, the window, and the distant green glow behind them.

The two settled without a word or ceremony.

Oesora lay beside him a moment later, still at first, as though testing the space. Then, slowly, she moved closer, resting against his side, her head finding its little place just beneath his shoulder.

Only then did Navian's arm come around, resting lightly across her.

She did not move away.

His sword rested beside the bed, its white Light dimmed to little more than a pale line along the blade. It was enough to touch the nearest wall and the edge of the blanket, but the corners of the room remained in shadow.

Oesora watched it for some time.

“I used to be afraid of it.”

Navian lowered his eyes toward her.

“The dark,” she added. “When I was younger.”

He waited.

Her fingers shifted slightly where they rested against his arm.

“For a long time, I could not sleep without some kind of light nearby. A candle. A lamp. Anything.”

Her gaze remained fixed upon the sword.

“There was a verse in a book I had when I was little.” She paused. “Have you ever read it?”

Navian shook his head.

“I suppose that would have been easier if I had told you which book.”

A faint smile touched his mouth. “Probably.”

Oesora’s own smile appeared briefly. Then she looked toward the ceiling, searching memory rather than the room. “It was called Faelira Vaen Naë Nora. A story my mother would sing to me. Barely a book, in truth. It was parchment held together with strips of sapwood.”

Navian nodded.

When she spoke again, the language was unfamiliar to him.

The words moved gently from one into another, their vowels long and soft, almost musical in the quiet room.

Navian listened until the final sound faded.

“That’s... beautiful.”

Oesora looked up at him.

“It’s about a fawn waiting all night for its dead mother.”

Navian was silent.

Then, “Ah.”

A small laugh escaped her before she could stop it.

“No. It is beautiful.” Her amusement softened. “Just not particularly cheerful.”

“What does it say?”

Oesora rested her head against him again.

“It doesn't translate perfectly to Aranthian, but essentially:

A fawn stood where the meadow ended,
Watched evening moons turn gray.
Her mother told her wait till morning,
But morning was yesterday.”

The translation left a different kind of silence behind it.

“Why do you remember that part?”

Oesora’s fingers shifted once against his arm.

“I don’t know.”

He looked down at her.

She thought about it for a little while longer before giving the smallest shake of her head.

“It always just stayed with me.”

Navian did not ask again.

The room settled around them. Somewhere outside, footsteps moved along the street below and disappeared beneath the window.

“I learned to call the Light very young,” Oesora said eventually.

Navian’s attention returned to her.

“It helped.”

“With the dark?”

“Yes.”

For several breaths, she watched the faint white glow beside the bed. She tapped his chest with her finger.

“Your Light is different.”

“From yours?”

Oesora nodded. “I have to reach for it. Through prayer. But there is always that moment when it is somewhere beyond me and I have to ask.”

Navian listened.

Her hand softly flattened against him.

“You carry it,” she continued. “Even when you are not asking anything of it.”

Navian was quiet.

“When I’m near you, I don’t have to reach for Light,” Oesora said. “It’s already there.”

Navian looked toward the blade for a long moment.

“I don’t always know what to do with it.”

Oesora waited.

“People seem to think that because paladins carry the Light, we understand it.” His expression tightened faintly. “Some days it feels as though it is the only thing holding.”

He let the thought end there.

Oesora did not try to answer it for him. She remained against his side, listening, and after a while Navian felt the slight movement of her fingers where they rested upon his arm.

Her attention eventually wandered into the darker part of the room.

“It seems foolish now.”

“Mm?”

“Being afraid of the dark.”

“You were a child, Oesora.”

“I know.”

For a while neither spoke.

Then Oesora said, “Sometimes I think I should still be afraid.”

He did not ask what she meant. Whatever existed behind those words belonged to her. Instead, he reached for the blanket and drew it a little higher over her shoulder.

“I promise you won’t have to fear it again.”

Oesora became very still.

Her eyes lifted toward him, but Navian had already settled back against the pillow, as though he had said nothing remarkable.

Beside them, his sword continued its faint white vigil. Beyond the window, the green Light above the druid grove remained. For once, Oesora looked toward neither.

After a few moments, Navian looked down at her.

She was already looking up at him.