Petya felt the burden of the day upon him as he entered the tavern, all of which washed away the conversations as he sought a single moment of respite, as he let Oskana free from his hold. Petya wanted to sink down and rest, he was weary from a days hunting and his mind was fatigued from what had transpired during the night. He had paid little heed to the movements around him as he took a brace against the frame of a closed window, the night still dark with flickering torches out in the village still burning. He wondered how many had died alongside old Pavel this night. 

Petya breathed heavily, shut his eyes and felt their weight, and for what felt like a lifetime was drawn into state of slumber, that the noises and movements around him were nothing but the product of a fervour dream, before drawing himself back and discovering it all to be very real. Maybe this was still part of the dream, that he had yet to full wake, that maybe when the sun would rise he'd discover it was in fact a dream, and the day was simply another. But Petya knew better than to believe in such hopes, they had been the same hopes he had when his father died, when his mother died. That it had all been a dream.

A cry filled the room, an angry, bitter, and defeated cry. Turning, he did not expect to Oskana to be the one weeping. Proud Oskana the Hunter, it felt unsettling to watch as she finally succumbed to her emotions.

[i]I won't tell anyone,[/i] Petya repeated the stupid words in his head, turning away. “Petya.” Though Bogdan's father and his and Vasily's own had once been friends, Petya could not claim to share the same relationship with the son. (He could not speak for Vasily, though, Petya often felt his brother was friends with everyone).

“Thank you, and I'm fine.” Waving away the cloth, Petya was thus far unscathed and the old man; he had even yet to even mourn the passing of the old man. 

Bogdan handed Petya a beverage that the hunter wasn't particularly interested in, but drank anyway out of formality. “If we even survive the night.” A bout of pessimism leaking with Petya's voice, “We don't even know if what happened will happen again.”

People were angry, people were scared, people wanted answers and they all wanted results now but nobody gave a second thought to the [i]if[/i], to the if this may happen again. It was difficult to have rational thought in a time of crisis, especially if one had lost so much. But this talk of the witch, what would the village do? March en masse to where she made her home, torches in hand, blood lust in their eyes and scream for retribution. It seemed too simple, Petya thought.