It's all in the little lies we tell ourselves.

She spins, fighting back against the literal demons in the dark. Telling herself that she's clearing space, that this is a fight worth fighting. That the battle she finds herself in is hard won. That she's made a difference. These are the lies she has to tell, to keep her sword arm swinging strong when it would be easier, smarter even, to hide away and put her hope in avoiding the attention of those who are simply too [i]big [/i]for a lone knight of the Flowers.

Her breath catches when the roar shakes the castle.

Again, she tells herself that she's not afraid. Again, it is a lie. This time her conscious mind is able to recognise this, and identify the fear it for what it is. It's the fear that had been there when she'd left the inn. A fear that never really left. Only withdrawing to lurk like a river serpent beneath the waters of her mind. It's not a fear of death, or pain. But a fear of loss. A fear of things out of control. A fear that the big things are slipping away. That things might be too late to stop. All because she'd focused, like a fool, on the smaller, more immediate, problems. 

But the lie is still a necessary one - otherwise the urge to curl up, to wail away in grief at what's she's losing, would only doom the fear to coming true.

[Kalaya marks the condition "Frightened"]

She weighs the paths in front of her. Fengye is away, and there can be no doubt that she'll get the priestess to safety. It's another lie, but one Kalaya cements in her mind as fact. If there was any doubt, her oaths would command her to run after them; to defend the weak. The priestess must be safe, she has to be. Otherwise, she couldn't do what she needs to do.

To an outsider, Kalaya must have been like a leaf on the wind - swinging in every direction. One instant one way, the next the other. 

Once, when she'd been much younger, one of the castle guards had shown her a trio of magical pieces of iron. He'd said they'd been blessed by Manimekhala, the goddess of storms and sea. And they really had seemed magical back then, the way that they'd cluster together without anybody touching them. The way they'd required actual force to pull apart. How he could hang them in a chain, despite them never being physically joined.

She always remembered when he'd set them in a line, alternately pushing the ends closer, dragging that stone in the middle back and forth across the stone floor, back and forth, until at last it cleaved to one piece over the other.

Back and forth. Pulled in twain. Caught between her oaths and … what?

Kalaya makes her choice and, in doing so, she proves that it's in the little lies we tell ourselves that bigger lies are sometimes hidden. As much as her mind cements as fact once again; that this is for friendship past, a debt owed …

The truth is bigger than that.

The truth is … hidden deep beneath the surface and buried beneath the little lies and self-justifications. There is [i]hope[/i].

In one quick action, the bars to the dungeon are thrown back once more and the door opened. Armoured in her lies, the green knight leaps through.