As the sun set the grey pall cast of the village of Imerre darkened. Chill winds began to blow through its streets. They howled and wailed as Clair walked away from the tent Harlowe had retreated to. The wind hid the woman’s soft sobs. Clair tried to steel herself as she walked, not wanting to let her guilt eat at her. This of course did not work. Didn’t work before all this, why would it now? Despite her heavy clothing the chill cut deep. 

Her mind kept returning to what Harlowe had said about her condition. Losing her senses, her emotions… It brought her back to her own past. Father Sturm. He’d taught her how to repress emotions, freeze her heart. As snow began to fall lightly, Clair lost herself in a memory.

She was in the chapter house in Ravelfel, a major port on the western isle of Tynan Weir. Father Sturm, a massive and imposing member of the Order of the Frost Queen led her to a room in the lower level of the building. It was made of old stone, grey and cold. The lightstone embedded in the ceiling cast pale white light on them. There were no furnishings inside, only thin slits in the walls.

Father Sturm turned to her after reaching the center of the room. “Brother Aleksi, you came to me because you were troubled by your desires.” His grey eyes narrowed on her past self. “Desires for comfort, for softness.” 

She stood in front of him as she waited for the man to continue speaking.

“Well, boy?!” His voice echoed in the small chamber, it made her ears ring.

She quivered. “Y-yes, chapter master!” She bowed deeply. “I have desires ill-suited for an instrument of our Goddess.”

Clair remembered the shame she’d felt as Aleksi back then. It had been drilled into her from before her trial in Firthaven that what she felt was wrong. When she’d returned with her childhood locks cut and burned she remembered the relief on her mother’s face. It was better for everyone that she be the man they wanted, or at least that was how it felt at the time. 

Father Sturm put a large hand on her shoulder. “It is good you admit these failings and do not hide them.” His eyes darkened. “I would hate for the Coldfront to be called on such a promising member. Now, kneel.” 

“Yes, Father.” Clair knelt down on the cold stone and placed her hands on her knees, the thick robes of her order not doing a thing to stop the cold that bit at her flesh. “The Coldfront would come for me if I had pursued those feelings?”

“A dereliction of duty is worthy of having them see to any member.” Sturm bent down to lock eyes. “As for dealing with your desires, I will teach you as I was taught.” He held his holy symbol high and began to recite a prayer, “Frost Queen, Lady of Winter, I beseech thee. Freeze my heart so that I may be an instrument of your will, a rime-covered shield and a jagged axe of ice. Take from me my weakness, my softness and replace it with permafrost.” 

She recalled repeating the prayer as she raised her own pendant, speaking the words with a shaky voice. 

Sturm smirked and stepped away. "When you have done your penance, the door will open." 

The room began to fill with icy mist from the slits in the walls. She remembered panicking then trying to calm herself. Feverishly she repeated the prayer and as the chill seeped into her bones she spoke her own denials. She shouted that she could never be a woman, that she had to be a man, that she would suffer for others.

The memory was so strong that the beginning of the prayer escaped her lips outside of the past. "Frost Queen, Lady of Winter, I beseech thee…" she felt a pressure on her lips and stopped speaking. "Who?" 

Clair looked around herself, but saw no one in the streets of Imerre. Only her, her memories and the cold. 

She pulled her coat tighter to herself and scanned the treeline for the smoke of Marcus' forge. There was no pillar of smoke. She stopped and turned around. Perhaps he was still at the Folly. It made sense that he would have been. She didn't really expect him to be back in shape to run the forge, even after his wounds were healed.

Clair began to walk back toward the Faerie's Folly and towards Harlowe's camp. Imerre wasn't a large town and the distance she had covered could easily have been traversed in a few minutes, yet twilight had come and was waning as she trudged through the snowy streets. As she walked the memories came back anew.

Her heart frozen and will made as hard as packed ice, she remembered her life in the Order. Wandering the world of Lohr Baihl she had accumulated so many wounds that stuck around even though the physical scars were erased in her rebirth. Innocents lost, people failed. Her thoughts returned to the town of Ashford. Of the story she had begun telling Marcus and Vance. 

The fishmen had entered the village in a small group. She waited in the empty home the town's mayor had left her in as the creatures set about stealing people for whatever vile purpose they had. Her plan was to wait for the splintering of wood to rush out and ambush the things. The fishmen walked through the village outskirts, but there was no attack. Time passed as she continued to listen while staring out the broken door of the home. 

Eventually most of the creatures left and she stood up, her axe in hand. She stalked through the houses, seeing where the intruders had been. Small gashes marked some of the doors, but none had been further damaged. It was near the end of her patrol that she encountered one of the fishmen. It was on the ground, one hand against the door to a home. The being was uninjured and she surmised it would stand nearly her old height and still a couple feet more. Its skin was scaled with shimmering fins on its back. 

She raised her axe, moonlight glimmering off the edge and catching in the rime-pitted flat of its head. The creature turned to look at her, its large, flat eyes staring into hers. She had a moment of hesitation. This creature was no threat, the flame of life was dull in its eyes. It tried to speak, gurgles and croaks were all it made. The axe weighed heavily in the air. The fishman pulled its clawed hand from the door and reached out slowly. 

She remembered bringing the axe down. 

It hit the creature's skull then caved it in. Clair put a boot to the dead thing's shoulder and wrenched the blade from its skull. Briny blood and chunks of brain matter fell onto the ground. Her eyes drifted to where the thing's hand had been. The light of the torch the home's owner had put out filles the crevices carved into the door. They spelled words; "Katya, help me." It wasn't trying to attack me.

The memory twisted, it was no longer the fishman, she was no longer her past self. She held a spear, its tip towards a ghoul with only a single arm that laid in the snow. Its face was covered by black iron. She began to speak the prayer to freeze her heart, her eyes fixed on the dim crimson eyes of the ghoul in front of her.

"No!" She shouted to the cold. 

The warped memory fell away. There was no ghoul in front of her, there was no spear in her hands. Her heart ached. Clair shook her head. She was not that person anymore. 

She had managed to reach the Folly in the time she had been trapped in her past. The marks from the attack were still on the doorframe, though snow had settled in them since. She placed her hand against the door, then hesitated and looked across the street. 

"Harlowe…" she sighed.

Clair turned and walked towards Harlowe's tent. As she approached her foot stepped on something hard. She bent down and picked up the spearhead from earlier when Harlowe snapped it from its haft. The end where it had been crushed was splintered and had caught some of the snow. She dropped it back into the snow. 

Clair walked up to the tent, her heart beat heavily. "Harlowe?"

She did not respond, but opened the flap of her tent. Harlowe stared at Clair, her eyes dim.

Clair swallowed and put a hand behind her head. "I'm going to the Folly for dinner and to see if Marcus is there." A blush grew on her cheeks. "I'm asking if you'd come with me."

The half-ghoul raised a brow. "You know I can't eat regular food, right?"

"Yeah, I just," Clair struggled to fight her embarrassment, "would like to spend some time with you that's not serious." 

"Why?" Asked Harlowe.

Yeah, actually why do I want to? Clair's stomach felt like it was doing flips. It feels like it did with… her blush made her cheeks hurt, like with Isette, but Harlowe is…

"And the cleric is frozen again." Harlowe stood up and put a hand on the shorter woman's shoulder. "Hey, you gonna talk again?" 

She shook her gently, then stopped. Ahh, she's touching me… In the dark streets of Imerre Harlowe could see something moving on all fours. Its body gaunt and its back legs blackened with burns. 

"Clair!" She shook her again, much more forcefully this time. "Quit fantasizing about whatever the fuck and pay attention!"

"Eh wha," mumbled Clair.

Harlowe forcibly spun her around and pointed to the ghoul that was approaching the Faerie's Folly. Clair's reverie broke and she strained to see the figure.

"Human eyes, of course." Harlowe brought a hand to her collar. "Scaoileadh." 

As the mask fell into the snow Harlowe dashed forward on all fours. Clair ran after, bending down to grab the spearhead from where she'd dropped it. She pulled ambient magic together as she ran. The splintered haft grew like fresh wood in her hands and was reinforced by veins of ice that spread over and through it. 

Harlowe collided with the ghoul and slammed it into the side of the Folly. It shrieked and clawed at the empty air as she launched backwards off the wall. 

"You got away last time," Harlowe raised her right fist, thin darts of metal slid out from between her knuckles. "Lorg!" The three darts became illuminated with arcane energy and flew towards the ghoul. "It won't happen this time." 

The darts twisted in the air as the ghoul ran at Harlowe, two of them sunk into its knees and the third stuck inside an elbow joint. It screeched in agony as its joints pressed on the metal spikes and it fell face first into the snow. Clair reached the two of them as the ghoul slid to a stop in front of Harlowe. It used its undamaged arm to swipe at her only for Clair to drive her spear into the arm's rotator cuff. 

The door to the Folly opened, light spilling into the street from inside. Erich and Marcus exited, wielding a spear and axe respectively. The ghoul squealed and thrashed. Harlowe pressed a foot against it's back, grinding it into the snow.

Erich ran up and pressed his spear into the downed ghoul. "I've got your back, Clair." His eyes flipped from her to Harlowe. "And your… friend?"

"Yes, her friend." Harlowe glared at Erich. "I don't recall you from the mob earlier today." The joints of her mechanical leg whined as the ghoul tried to move.

Clair tried to focus on keeping the ghoul pinned and not the giddy feeling of Harlowe calling her a friend. 

Marcus hefted the woodcutter's axe onto his shoulder. "Why don't we conclude this business and head inside." He stepped over to the ghoul.

"Gonna have to keep the thing steady if you want a clean cut, old man," said Harlowe.

Clair and Erich leaned harder on their spears. Her spear slid through the joint and into the cold earth. She concentrated on the ice in the spear and her magic made it flow into the creature. Its thick ichor began freezing in its body. As it froze, its veins bulged and split near the spear and then radiated out like a fractured statue. 

The ghoul was less able to move and Marcus lined up his axe with its neck. "Jus' one moment." He hefted the axe.

The light from the Folly glinted off Harlowe's teeth "Careful you don't throw out your back, old man," she quipped.

Marcus gave her a look and shook his head before bringing the axe down on the neck of the restrained ghoul. With a sickening snap the monster's head was cleanly severed and came to rest in the snow. 

Erich wrenched his spear out of the corpse’s torso. “It’s rather sad in this state, isn’t it?” 

“No.” Harlowe sighed. “It’s better this way.” Clair met Harlowe’s eyes. “I’ll catch up inside, okay?” 

“Yeah, I hope you will.” Clair smiled. “Let’s head in.”

Marcus nodded to Harlowe as he grabbed the ghoul’s head. “Just want to get the locals something to celebrate. Anyone messes with you again, I’ll set them straight.”

Clair and Marcus entered the Folly and Erich waved to Harlowe as he closed the door.

Harlowe chuckled. “She did end up getting me dinner after all.”