A day is just a series of moments.

*

There is a moment, when Minona is standing nose to nose with a member of the Inquisition on the porch of the church cabin, watching her Lady disappear behind a closing door.

Callie had asked her yesterday how the Valerians felt about the Inquisition, and she had told her, with some reproach, that the Inquisition was a valued member of the Church of Mankind, and she had meant every word as she said it.

And yet now she is still on edge, calculating how long it would take to summon Alfred to break the lock on the door. Wondering if she made her final mistake. Thinking about her Lady, subdued, clad only in robe and hood, facing a danger Minona failed to protect her from.

*

There is a moment, when Minona is standing out on the road, her Lady in front of her, then Dragomir, then O’Craig. A moment of quiet, miserable eye contact as the seal on the writ is proven true, that the Inquisition has condemned Runeheim and its people to the flames.

O’Craig is raucous, jubilant, and these children around him are taking up the cry of “Freedom!”, and in the middle there are two Valerians trying to find the question to ask that isn’t a mournful “But what do we do?”

Grasping at straws. Feeling the certainties in the world cracking. All to the sound of the seething rot, the thing that the Inquisition should have been cauterizing, filling the air.

*

There is a moment, when Minona is standing in the firelight cast from the tavern, in her habitual place behind her Lady’s right hand. Her Lady, with a voice like steel, reminds Runeheim of its duty to the Throne. The Paladins concur.

Even the Njordic rabble listen to the Paladins, if they won’t listen to Lady Valerian. She thinks, Maybe this will be enough.

*

There is a moment, when Minona is standing out in the woods, mages behind and naught but shadows and twisting anacrusis ahead. It’s all she can do to keep them off of her, to batter them back with her shield.

Then an arrow streaks over her shoulder, and Silvester takes up position behind her. This is strength, this is certainty – a Valerian would never let her down.