Bismarck's (attempts at) Dailies

Guilt was not a part of the Az Avarhn. The texts there never spoke of emotion, before or after a battle. Before or after intimacy. Before or after the death of a loved one. Talya hadn't cared, previously. She had first read the Az Avarhn when she was but six years old, when she had been learning to read, and she had read it more times than she could care to count since. The Az Avarhn was divinity in text, the path laid so clearly, the traditions of the Custodian Order laid out in immortal ink.

It brought her no solace now, reading through the pages in her private quarters with her right arm in bandages. Faintly she could hear voices from the adjacent chambers and where they would once fall into mere background noise, now they were a cacophony in soft tones and it was impossible to focus on the text. Her ears flicked and she frowned slightly.

A Warrior acts without attachment, for the act of war is divinity in itself.

She closed the Az Avarhn and rose, flexing the fingers on her right hand. It was a shallow wound, but it was a wound dealt to her Ozi Erii, the black tattoos that ran from the back of her palm down her fingers and up to her mid bicep. The black eye on the back of her hand had a bandage over it, and she frowned. She began to don her armour, the blood already scrubbed from the black plating.

Talya's opponent had been an Orridian like any other. A scout poking around in the Shadows to bring some report of uncharted pathways or Custodian outposts to their commanders, situated at the northeastern edge of the mountains. Building their plan of attack. Threatening to strike into the heart of the Shadows of Eris. Clad in meager bronze armour and the crimson of Orridia, her first words to Talya echoed in her head.

"Please. I don't want to die."

Talya left her quarters and strode out. She walked in stern silence as she often did as she made her way to the armoury. The Custodians maintained not only their own stores of armour and weapons, but anything they could collect from their fallen enemies. Much of it was repurposed, melted down and reforged into their own black armour and weapons. Some was kept as trophies. Talya entered the armoury and the armourer, Jovi, greeted her with a nod.
"Ser Talya."
"Ser Jovi, I would have the helm I brought back today."
"Very well, my lady. A trophy?"
"Of a sort." The armourer brought her the helm. A standard Orridian helmet, bronze in colour with a single red plume at the top. It was splashed with blood.
The Orridian had been a poor fighter. Likely a new recruit, sent on a scouting mission either as initiation or because a more valuable soldier wasn't worth condemning. There had been others; other custodians had reported three other scouts slain today. Talya wondered if they had all been like her opponent. She had been eighteen at the most, her white scales more rough than normal and her hair drawn into a loose brown ponytail at the base of her helm. Her eyes had been brown as well. A perfectly mediocre Orridian.

"You aren't worth a prison cell."
"No, please. I never asked for this."

Talya tucked the helm under her arm, took a plain longsword from a shelf, gave the armourer a cordial nod and left, heading outside the citadel and traversing one of the high roads around the edge of Solace. Her destination was the Shadow of Penitence on the south side of the city. She had returned from the northeastern road when she had finished her reconnaissance with the helm tucked under her arm mere three days, and she had left it in the armoury as she always had. It had been a mission as any other. Accomplished promptly and to the letter, as the Black Hand of Eris was known for.

Why, then, did the face of the unremarkable Orridian scout still haunt her dreams? Why did her thoughts drift to those final words of hers before Talya had executed her? 

"Make your peace, Orridian." Talya levelled Sunderer at the fallen scout. Her spear and her arm were broken, a trickle of blood running down her freckled face. She panted for a moment, her sorrowful eyes travelling the length of Sunderer and settling on Talya's face.
"Gods forgive me for whatever transgression I have made." said the scout. Talya hesitated.
"Transgression?" Her ears flicked. The Orridian spat blood onto the ground.
"Truly I have sinned to be dragged from my home, clapped in bronze, and sent to die on the blade of a demon." said the scout. "I am at peace."

The Shadow of Penitence had a monument present, as many of the Shadows did, but it was not for the custodians. The epitaph here had a simple inscription written in old Ahzohn.
ALL WHO FALL IN THE LINE OF BATTLE REST IN ERIS' HALLS, BE THEY FRIEND OR FOE OF THE CUSTODIAN ORDER
Talya stood before the Epitaph for a moment, and realized she had only been here once before, when she was nine. Her mother had brought her and her sisters to observe something. Ziva had come with the helm of an Orridian Centurion as well as his broken longsword.
"He was your enemy, mother, why are we here?" Talya had asked. Ziva hadn't answered; she'd instead planted the longsword in the ground and rested the helm atop it without saying a word. She said a silent prayer.
"Come, children." Ziva turned on her heel and left. Talya look at Maja, who shrugged and followed their mother. Talya then looked to Sofya.
"Why?"
"I don't know, Talya. Maybe the Az Avarhn will know." Sofya took Talya's hand in her own. "Let's go back."

Talya planted the longsword in the ground and rested the Orridian helm on it, then knelt before it.
"I don't know what to say, in truth," she began. "But an apology would... not be sufficient, I think." She was silent for a moment, a cold wind blowing through her white and black hair. "All my life I've read the Az Avarhn and known that the day I die, I will know exactly what I died for. I don't know what you died for. I'm sorry." Talya kissed two of her fingers. "May Eris forgive me for what I have done."
With that, Talya rose and turned to leave the Shadow of Penitence.