Yet if they press me sharply
and harry me through the day
Then look for me by the moonlight,
watch for me by the moonlight;
I'll come to thee by the moonlight
though hell should bar the way...
- "The Highwayman", Alfred Noyes

From the top of the grassy hill that towered over the campgrounds, you could see the entire sweep of the hundred encampments of the great War, spilling away from the foot of the hill, down the broad avenues between clusters of tents, around the shores of the lake. In the twilight darkness, countless campfires flickered to life; the sounds of laughter, of singing, of drumming, even wild Irish pipes from some distant gather. And it was there, amid the long grass at the top of the hill, two old friends sat side by side, watching it all...

Abbie sat in a simple medieval work dress, unadorned except for a simple cloth badge of a blue water drop in a white circle, Abbie wrapping her arms around her knees. Erin lay stretched out lazily alongside Abbie in breastplate and greaves, Erin’s hands tucked behind Erin’s head, watching the stars emerge into the night sky. There was a long comfortable silence, as between two close friends whose bond needed no words to fill the space.

“Hard to believe it’s been fifteen years, hasn’t it?” Abbie finally said with a happy sigh.

“Ayup,” Erin agreed.

In the twilight Abbie grinned. “I still think maybe you were trying to scare me off the first afternoon we met.”

“Hey, come-on --*everybody* knows all about gerbils!” Erin laughed. “And speaking of which, you remember later that year when you helped me with the gerbil incident?”

Abbie smiled warmly. “ ‘Course I do, silly –how could I forget spending the whole night looking for the little guy you let loose?”

Erin laughed again. “Or how you fast-talked both of our ways out of trying to explain what we were doing in the teacher’s lounge when we found it –and the nightwatchman found *us*…”

“Or you starting the brawl at –what was the name of the place in Roppongi?” Abbie questioned.

“ ‘Gas’,” Erin grinned, “and ‘twas nothing –I didn’t like the way that guy was giving you a hard time. My fault you were there in that bar in the first place…”

“And the time,” Erin continued, “when I lost my wallet, and you came with me halfway across freaking Ohio to look for it at the rest-stop I thought I dropped it at?”

“ ‘Twas nothing, Erin,” Abbie said fondly, laying her hand on Erin’s elbow. “ You ran five miles –in *armor*!—to give me back my keys.”

“You mean what I *thought* were your keys,” Erin chuckled.

“You couldn’t have known they weren’t mine. The thought was more –much more, important,” Abbie says warmly. “Or how about—“

…

And so story after story, moment after moment, on that magical night of anniversary, some fifteen years after the two of them had first met in a middle school on the other side of the world, Abbie and Erin sharing together a friendship deeper that even most shared by blood. The good times, the silly times, the adventures…and the losses, the grief, the sorrow. Through middle school and high school, college and graduate school, SCAdian Wars and festivals and revels. Through Thomas, and then through Christopher, through loves gained and lost forever, story after story, of all they had shared, every step of the way, together.

“I could never be jealous, Abbie, of you and Thomas, or you and Christopher” Erin said warmly, many hours of laughter and and not a few tears later. “I could never be jealous of my sis…”

Erin stopped as she realized what she was going to say. They looked at each other. And smiled.

“We really *are* sisters, aren’t we?” Abbie said with happy awe.

“Yeah,” Erin smiled back. “They just forgot to assign us to each other up when they were giving out siblings in heaven.”

“But we found each other, didn’t we?” Abbie answered, her eyes wet with emotion.

“Yeah,” Erin replied, her own eyes glistening, too. “Fifteen years worth.”

And then a long pause, as silence said all that needed to be said.

Such a buildup of emotions, over a long evening of memories and a decade and a half of friendship, that buildup had to go somewhere. In all the old legends such things always built up to a climax. And so Abbie knew what it was that Erin had in mind when Erin suddenly rooted into her pack and drew a small eating dagger, knew what Erin had in mind when Erin lightly scored her own palm, drawing the point of her blade across her own palm just barely enough to draw blood. Knew and took the dagger from Erin and did the same across her own.

“Sister to sister,” Abbie whispered huskily, as her small hand grasped Erin’s huge paw, and blood of the southern seas mingled with the blood of the highlands. “Yours in life or death.”

“Through fire and storm and darkness,” Erin replied, her voice cracking, “ though hell should bar the way.”

They held the handclasp for a long, long moment, feeling the warm wetness in their palms. And then they grasped each other in the fiercest embrace of their lives, happy tears coming down at last.