Keana took back her hands and looked down. The silence stretched past awkward into something heavy and oppressive. Arn looked to Val, but for once he seemed to be out of encouraging words. Pepper – Pepper looked disgusted. That’s not outrage for what happened to Keana. Something else.

Arn said. “Awful. I’m so sorry Keana. I know what its like to lose your parents – but not like that. Pepper, you look like…”

Pepper cut Arn off. “No. I’ve had shits I’ve known longer than you all. I’m sorry life took a crap on some of you. Really. My life hasn’t been hugs and sunshine either, that’s for damn sure. But I don’t need to share, and this group is not going to work for me anyway. We’ll part ways in Reach.”

Arn scowled and went for the kill. “Bullshit. We aren’t blind. You didn’t like Sar and Keana’s story. Hit a little too close to home did it? Don’t want to be reminded you’ve been a victim yourself? Hiding from your shit won’t make it go away.”

Pepper didn’t visibly react, but Princess started snarling, drool dripping from her jaws. Pepper spoke calmly, but with venom. “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. You think maybe there is a reason I didn’t want to get into it? For that matter, you ever stop to think. About anything? Anything at all?”

Pepper sighed. “There are victims that roll over. There are victims that want to kill the one that wronged them. And then there are victims that decide they are some God’s avenging angel, that sit on the knife’s edge, ready to kill. Ready to kill anyone that looks a little squirrelly. Says the wrong thing. Looks at someone the wrong way. I know how that goes. I’ve lived it. I recognize it. Not that it’s some flipping mystery. Sar and Keana made it pretty damn clear, didn’t they? They kill some rapist or slavers, I won’t shed a single bloody tear believe me. But some woman that looks a little too much like a sister or mother cries – we all know they aren’t going to wait for answers. They won’t think.” Pepper paused, and her face twisted in a mask. “I’ve lived that too. And I won’t again.”

Arn thought, started to speak, and stopped to think again. “I’m sorry Pepper. I was wrong. We don’t know what you’ve gone through. But maybe, just maybe, if you tell us, we can work it out. Maybe, even if you leave, you can help someone make the right decision down the road.”

Pepper looked surprised and thoughtful. “I don’t know about that, but I suppose my life ain’t exactly some big secret either. I don’t know I needed to smell your shit, but you want to smell mine, so be it.”

“We were horse farmers up by the northern border, town called Chance. Biggest ranch in the area, successful too. But life can only bring you down when you’re up. Disease, a fire and horse thieves, all in the span of three years. My dad was a rock back then. He taught me, sometimes a foal is stillborn, there is nothing you can do. That’s the way life is. You do the best you can, and you go on. And we started to do just that, could have turned it around, I know it. But he took a fall running off the horse thieves, hurt his back. Didn’t think much of it at the time, but it got worse, not better. Got to where he couldn’t sit on a horse without pain. By the time he realized he needed help, it was too late for any of the local healers to do anything, and he was too stubborn, and we were struggling too much, for him to make the trip to anyone that might have made a difference. So he started drinking. Not after work with the fellas. All the time.”

Pepper froze, staring off into the distance. When she resumed, her voice was full of hurt. “He started taking it out on my mother. Hitting her. Wasn’t no excuse, but even the strongest rock can crack. He wasn’t all the way gone. Maybe he needed a night in the stocks, a talk from a friend. Something. He could have found his way back, I know it. He never got the chance.”

Pepper’s usually sour look twisted into outright disgust. “The Sisters of Yarris were in town, I don’t know why. They represent themselves as heroes, and I guess that is what my mother thought they were. Imagined they would rough up my father a bit, shake some sense into him. Might have worked too, if the Sisters were what she thought they were.”

Pepper looked around the table. “The Sisters aren’t active around here, maybe you haven’t heard the stories. The way they tell it, the Sisters are shining protectors of women and children, heroes through and through. And sometimes they are. The Sisters have taken down more slavers than kings, brought down nobles with torture dungeons, cults that sacrifice children and horrors that would make you sick. But in the real world, people aren’t ever all hero or all villain, and if that is all you see, you’re not really looking. The Sisters only recruit victims, and that shapes who they are, all the way through.”

“They came to the house, shouted up at my father, who was on his horse. He was a prideful man even without the drink, so he shouted back. They pulled him off his horse. A year before they never would have touched him. But that day, he fell hard, must have felt like being stabbed by a dozen knives given his back problems. He came up swearing, reached for his dagger.”

Pepper sputtered with hatred. “Three high level warriors with swords against a middle-aged drunk rancher with a tiny dagger. But that was all the excuse they needed. By the time my mother realized what was happening and started begging, it was too late. I don’t think they meant to kill him, but they weren’t shook up about it either. Blamed him, and only him.”

Pepper deflated and paused, resuming in a quiet, sad voice. “My mother was never the rock my father was, and that is putting it as kind as I can. She wailed. She told them we were finished, that we couldn’t survive and that she couldn’t take care of me. I can't hate her for it. If they gave her a day, she would have calmed down, but that isn’t who they are. They said they would send help for her and they took me as one of their own. Ignored my curses and screams. To them, I was a victim. And I was, only of their own making.”

Pepper looked up, focusing on Sar and Keana. “I lived with them for five years, and I can tell you that what happened to my father wasn’t the first time, the last or even the worst. The things you said today, the road your on, it won’t lead where you think.”

Pepper paused, staring. “You want to hunt beasts, collect herbs, fine. I’ll come, just as long as you two promise me one thing. You want to draw your blade or summon your fire against a man, you do one thing first.” Pepper visibly fought tears. “You think of my father.”