Sintija happened upon a camp freshly broken. The fire still smoldering and fresh tracks of shoed hooves, large paws and boots. She assumed that Markos had probably rested through the day, for some reason, and the night had seen him up and moving again; it was an odd schedule to keep for a human who wasn't looking for trouble.
But Markos was a templar. Templars found trouble wherever they went, and they left a bloody path of dabblers, witches, embers, and sometimes tatya hini and aphotics in their wake. Sintija had seen one or two of those battles, though she couldn't tell whether they were dreams or reality. Certainly, Markos's pain had been real; she had felt, for a while, the fire of his burning anger as it rose to a bonfire. He burned his fear, his and his unease as though it were a shrine. Against this inner fire, even aphotics seemed to quail - though the battle she had glimpsed had put the man in an apothecary's care for days afterwards. He had survived the night's terrors, so why would the night hold any sway over him?
Afternoon stretched into evening, and evening gave way to the twinkling of the stars through the pine canopy. The horse's head turned north. Sooner or later, they would reach the foot of the mountain peaks, and Sintija already felt the ground beginning to incline. In the few times that she broke the tree cover, she the mountains before her rose up like the world's natural wall. These were the Grasp, the far northern peaks that bordered a great tundra beyond. The nearest path was winding and ill used. None of the southern cities bothered with foot traffic. The path went upwards, nearly hidden between two of the peaks.
She decided to use the winding path to intercept him, he would have to use the other paths to navigate the large horse through. She paused only long enough to listen to the wind, and the building storm. The air smelled of frost, a blizzard was coming, they would need to take shelter soon or be caught inside of it. The other animals had gone to ground to wait it out. She felt the pulse again, and heard the heartbeat over the other noises of the forest. She couldn't fully see him yet, the phantom at the edge of her vision beyond the smooth bark of the white trees with their black needles.
The faint outline of a rider eventually broke through the motes of light, the steadily falling whiteness. The maraium armor was silver-gray in the gloaming. She could make out the thick, grey and grey fur that padded beneath it, to prevent its wearer from freezing. The paragons of humanity didn't dress like butchers did. Had they, it would have been red armor with a red cloak, and horses black as night.
Instead, it was Markos Louvel, all in white, his horse's head turned northwards, with the black mastiff loping along beside them. Sintija noticed that Markos had fashioned a coat for the dog, the same as the lining of his armor. She knew that the dog, and the horse, were what passed for friends in his lonely world.
She watched him for a long while and glanced up towards the sky. It was no good. There was no shelter along this route and the blizzard would only claim them as they ascended further. Sintija pressed against the pine, her own clothing blending into the white of winter and decided to break the growing silence. She whispered into the wind and directed it towards the templar to dance on the opposite side of his helmet from where she was actually located, "Markos Louvel."
The oncoming horse stopped. She had seen him rein; it hadn't appeared hurried.
The little threads of fate bound both ways. He looked right, decided against it, looked left. It might have just been luck, or he might, despite the maraium, have had a sense of her presence even like she bore a sense of his.
He said, "Sintija."
The gruff, human voice in the middle of the wild had none of the elegance of tatya hini wind-whispering. It stuck in the moving air like something unnatural, even if it were the most natural thing in the world, and yet it was her name so the wind carried it along back to her all the same.
"There is a place to weather this blizzard if you will accept a truce with me," she replied gently. "It is a Maraium cave if it makes you feel safer around me." She remained hidden, aware of the danger that came with revealing her presence. It was a matter of time before the dog caught her scent. Already, she noticed the rider looking to the beast but curiously, he didn't set the dog out. He didn't order, or motion, and instead only checked, as though to verify that the dog didn't see or smell anything. His breath fogged. The dog looked perplexed.
A light tap of his boots, and the horse began to plod onward through the light dusting of snow upon the foothills.
Sintija might have reached out and brushed the horse's mane with her hand, they came so close to her. The dog must have caught a cold. It was a humorous thought. Markos, on his horse, seemed like a gray statue in the winter evening, some immovable stone golem sat upon a charger to commemorate some holy battle.
He glanced her way, but passed on anyway. It came unbidden into her mind that he didn't quite believe it. She had seen him dozens of times, across the field of dreams; had he seen her? Did he think he was dreaming?
Sintija moved more fully from her hiding place and pulled a branch from the snow. She held the thing in her small hands and broke the branch in half, readying a spell to avoid the possibility of a bullet. "Freezing to death is fairly undignified for one of the Sword."
She found herself the object of a quite judgmental look from the horse. Markos stopped and turned slightly in the saddle, as much as the armor and the thick leather beneath it would allow, and viewed her out of the corner of his helmet's visor. She could see the frost had gathered on it, where his damp, warm breath had fogged into ice.
"It really is you," he said, skeptical.
Snow gathered on the top of her ermine cloak, her and chest legs were covered in white leather but her abdomen and shoulders were bare, showing far too much skin for someone travelling in winter. The grey of the belts across her thigh and waist were the only hints of color in Sintija's outfit. Her sky blue eyes watched him with growing curiosity as she waited for Markos to respond to her earlier offer.
"Do elves have anything that passes for honor?"
"We have our word. If we give it, we are bound by it and the Word from breaking it," the elven mage replied cautiously. "I assume templars have something similar with the threat of damnation from Teiwaz rather than magic?"
"The Oath," Markos answered. Though she waited for one, an explanation wasn't forthcoming. Instead he continued, after a heavy pause, "I'll accept your word."
"Will you give your Oath that you or yours will do me no harm?" Sintija asked gently.
"No more than the cold's doing you," he grunted.
Surprisingly, she found that when he moved, it wasn't for the rifle slung to his horse's saddle, or for the slender maraium sword that was meant to counter, and sometimes snap, the enchanted blades of her people. She found he moved for her. The metal-backed, but quite thick leather gauntlet extended to help her up.
She took an uncertain step backward and stared at his outstretched hand for a moment. She sensed no ill intent in the movement and accepted the assistance up onto the saddle. "It's not far."
"Be careful not to touch the armor." Before she could protest she wasn't using magic, he explained, "The cold will burn you."
"Then I should keep my cloak between your armor and my skin," Sintija replied with some amusement. "I should be fine but.. thank you." She settled on the saddle in front of him and against his chest to not impede his ability to control the horse.
"Elf." Markos scornfully replied, before he spurred his horse onwards into the mountain pass.