The Vampire & Her Witch

"I want you to join us. Not as a soldier, but as a captain," Bassinger said, leaning forward on the wooden crate and holding his wooden cup of ale in both hands as he made his earnest request.

"Commander Bassinger," Milo said, his whiskers twitching in shock as he was momentarily stunned by the offer. "I, I’m sorry, but I can’t" he said as soon as he recovered. "Perhaps there’s someone else from my village, or one of the other Heartwood clan villages that’s further away and didn’t suffer like we did, but.... I can’t do this."

"Why not?" The bearish commander asked, surprised by how quickly Milo had rejected his offer. "Is it because you’ve had enough of war? I thought that you and your clansmen still wanted a chance to wash away your hatred in Lothian blood. Have these few days changed your minds?"

"No, not at all," Milo said, his gaze growing sharp as his free hand curled into a tight fist. The hand holding the wooden cup remained perfectly steady. No matter how simply it had been carved, no one from his clan would ever lose control of themselves to the extent of harming the fruit of another woodworker’s labor, but his tail thumped the ground several times in agitation.

"I hate them," he said. "I hate them more than I have words to describe. But there are more important things than hating the Lothians. I only came this time because... because several of us were hoping to spill Lothian blood and because we thought we might get to face Owan Lothian’s men again to claim our vengeance. But they aren’t here and we," he said, his tone turning bitter. "We have been denied our chance to take human lives in the war so far."

"You’ll have that chance very soon," Commander Bassinger pointed out. "The humans leave their priests and healers in their well defended camps when they send their soldiers to raid a village. We won’t have to be cautious about Loman Lothian anymore. You can kill to your heart’s content as long as you follow my orders about where you stand and when you retreat."

"I, I appreciate your offer," Milo said after spending several moments sipping the foamy ale and organizing his thoughts. "And we’ll fight under your command until it’s time to return to the Vale. I’m not going to abandon you now just because we haven’t been able to kill our enemy yet. I don’t have to like it to understand that there’s a bigger picture and we all have to play our parts. You don’t have to worry, I’ll play mine in the days to come."

"But after that, you’ll leave the army?" Commander Bassinger asked, raising a bushy eyebrow at the young archer. "Why?"

"Because this isn’t where I belong," Milo replied with a helpless shrug. "I’m sure I’ll find a place to fight in the war to come. I don’t intend to hide from it. Perhaps, if I’m lucky, I’ll have a chance to kill the men who burned Lako to death with my own hands. Perhaps I won’t. But, as I said, there are more important things than my hatred."

"Family?" Bassinger asked, scratching the fur on his cheak with a sharp claw. "I heard that Old Nan was doing better now that construction on a new village had begun. Or are you planning to start a family? If you need to wait until you’ve had a chance to father a child, I can give you some time," the bearish commander said.

It was something that he had seen many times in the war before. The more times men danced with death and lived, the hotter the fire in their loins burned to leave behind an heir who could continue their legacy if they failed to return one day. No man wanted to die childless, esecially not one as recently married as he’d heard Milo was.

"Yes, family," Milo agreed with a nod. "But not like you think. It, it’s Sir Ollie," he said a touch awkwardly. "I know he’ll fight in the battles to come. I intend to be by his side when he does. I can’t do that if I’m responsible for leading a unit of my own. He can’t be here right now because he’s taking care of my family, building our new home along with everyone else’s new home," he said, hanging his head in guilt and shame.