Stark steps forward, battle-axe heavy in his grip, as the brush at the camp's edge shivers with quiet menace. Fern kneels behind him, murmuring the first lines of a spell, her staff pointed toward the darkness. Frieren, pale in the firelight, is already half-shrouded in gathering mana. Stark's hands shake so badly the haft of his axe rattles, but he plants his feet, forcing his breath slow. Moonlight glances off steel as a pair of yellow eyes flicker between the trees. One step further, and the monster slips into the fire's glow, a sinewy thing with human lips stretched over too many teeth.
“Stark,”
Fern says softly, not scolding for once, but sure.
"We're counting on you."
Stark swallows, shifts his stance, and swings as the beast lunges. The cold, the fear, even the shame, none of it matters when the line must be held.