Further down the road - :Chosen, do you hear that?:

She focuses.

A few hundred yards ahead. A smooth voice, demanding - something - someone else, clearly frightened, stammering -

bandits.

"I hear it," she whispers.

Astirian breaks into a canter.

"What are you doing?!" Sufya squeaks.

:Our duty:

Sufya has exactly enough time, between processing that statement and arriving on the scene, to school her face into something that looks less like a frightened girl and more like a Herald of Valdemar.

There are three bandits, and one merchant leading a horse-drawn cart with a tarpaulin over its contents. One of them is better-dressed than the others, and he's the one who turns to look at her first. He says something in Valdemaran.

:He says to move along,: Astirian sends privately. :If it comes to a fight, just let me handle it - I can take three bandits:

A broad-band projection. :Leave that man alone: His voice rings with steel.

Sufya can recognize the bandit's response: it's predictably obscene, and not particularly cooperative.

Astirian's next projection is limited in scope, less so in power. Sufya can almost see an iron spike of thought punching into the man's mind. He crumples to the ground. His compatriots raise their weapons and run forwards.

Sufya's first thought is - not really a thought. It's just a sickening rush of gods, is he dead? She opens the eye-in-her-mind, terrified of what she might see.

He's not dead; his mannequin is still there, it's just stripped nearly bare, as if by an impossible wind. The other two men are swathed in the red of fury, over the sick green of fear.

Astirian isn't angry. He's just - resigned.

He rears up and kicks, lashing out full-force with his steel-shod hooves.

And one of the bandits -

Sufya can't see it, not in the real world, not and keep herself on Astirian's back. But she can See it. The man's mannequin goes from red fury to green fear - he tries to back away - Astirian's hoof -

it's almost slower than life, as the mind collapses and wisps away, out of his body and into nothingness.

The third bandit tries to stab Astirian. He gets him a shallow cut along his flank, and then Astirian hits him with a mental shout like the one that took out the leader, and he goes down, his mind scrambled but intact.

:Chosen, it's over:

:Chosen?:

:Chosen, close your Sight:

Sufya wrenches the eye-in-her-mind closed. Her real eyes have been clenched shut for at least a minute, by now. She can't see anything. Not the bare mannequins, not the nothing where there should be a man.

There's someone speaking in rapid Valdemaran. The merchant.

:It's fine, really,: Astirian sends. :We'll be fine. We need to reach Haven as soon as possible. If you want to thank us, just - pay your taxes. We really need to go:

Meanwhile she can feel him moving under her. Dragging one unconscious man off the road, then the other, then the dead one.

Slowly, she returns to herself. Once there's a tiny fragment of her back in her body, she starts the work of dragging the rest back in.

She just watched a man die.

She will watch other men die. Men die every day. She will, eventually, be called upon to cause men to die. To raise her sword and slay someone. This man was, if anything, a gentle introduction; he had a knife, aimed at the heart of her Companion. If he had not died, Astirian would be gravely wounded, maybe dead himself.

:Astirian, are you alright?: she sends. (She saw how it felt in his mind, to shape and direct and project thought - he did it to hurt and stun, but she can see the principle, the underlying logic that she can use to send a simple message.) :You were hurt:

:Um. I'm really fine, I think I'm the one who should be asking you - you seemed to take it rather hard, seeing - that:

:I will be fine. You are bleeding:

:...it's really just a scratch:

Despite herself, Sufya snorts.

:I have some wound-ointment in the pack, I'm going to step out of the saddle and apply it:

She does so. Halfway through the process, the merchant (who has not yet left the crime scene despite Astirian's exhortations) lets out some excited Valdemaran babbling and begins rummaging through his cart. He comes up with a jar of thick salve and presses it into her hands.

Sufya gazes at the salve, then stares at the merchant. :I really don't want any,: she tries to send to him.

He shakes his head vigorously, apparently unperturbed by another voice inserting itself into his mind. :I must insist,: he thinks loudly back. :If not for you, then for your noble Companion, without whom I would surely be ruined:

Sufya has absolutely no response to this. Eventually, she just - nods, and continues treating Astirian's wound. (He wasn't wrong that it's mostly just a scratch, but it's bled more than a bit, and she doesn't want his hide blood-crusted all the way to Haven.)

Eventually they're back on the road. The merchant fades into the distance behind them. The mental silence is palpable.

:...would you like to talk about it?: Astirian offers.

:There's really not very much to talk about. We - well, you - saved a merchant, and I have seen my first taste of battle. Hurrah:

:Chosen, you just Saw a man die. I know it can be traumatic:

:I'm not so sheltered I don't know what death is. It was ugly. I'm over it:

Trauma, she doesn't send, is for people who have time.

:...alright. If you need anything, though, just tell me. It's what I'm here for: