Indra wants to help you

"You may have surmised this already, so here it is. I'm a witch."

She gives you a few moments to appreciate the gravity of that admission to you, a paladin of the Burning Rose. Well, a former novice, at any rate. Witchcraft, necromancy, the dark arts... These are all things that go hand-in-hand with daemon worship. That's what your training would have you believe. If this woman, Indra, were to confess to such a thing before a formal setting, she would be publicly humiliated in the stocks for a week as penance. And then she would be burned at the stake. If War Mother Gisella were to accept such a confession, she might take pity on the woman and issue a summary execution on the spot, consigning her soul to the gods for eternal judgement.

You are weak and unarmed. There is little danger in exposing herself to you, but she must still be aware that your position sets you at odds with what she is. Then again, your situation is complicated. You are no longer a novice, and furthermore, it was the breaking of your vows and mingling with an infernal being that has averted you from your path. If that weren't enough, Indra has seemingly cared for you when you were ****. All things considered, gratitude outweighs the stigma.

"I think I would have noticed by now if you'd turned me into a toad, so... I'm in no position to disparage your assistance. Thank you. But that does not explain how you know my name, or what's happened. Or why you would risk taking me in?"

Indra visibly relaxes, releasing a breath you hadn't realized she was holding. "I think I can answer all of those questions for you, but you need your strength. Eat." She gestures back to the stew on the table. You were **** in her home for hours, so she could easily have **** you before now if that was her goal. You sit your blanket-wrapped body in the chair beside the table and begin to slurp at the warm broth as Indra begins to weave her tale.

"Stories are wonderful things, aren't they Sabine? Sometimes they come packaged in convenient books. Sometimes you need to piece a story together, like a puzzle. You gleam a bit here, and another piece over there. They may not even look like they're parts of the same whole, but if you study each piece, you can see where they connect, or perhaps where one piece of the tale went astray."

"You can imagine I have lots of time to collect stories out here by myself. Sometimes the wind will carry me a tale from a far off land. The trees will often spread rumors when humans travel through forest paths. And every once in a while, I will come upon a creature with a story so fantastic that it defies description."

"It just so happened that the wind was filled with excitement when daemons attacked your abbey; you'll have to forgive the wind, it fears for nothing, so excited is all it can be. I thought it must have been exaggerating, so of course when the trees whispered that you had strayed into the woods, I became curious. Of course it was your Aegis that confirmed what the wind had already described in such lurid detail; that one is all duty, by the way. It would be good for his spirit to let him run free if you get the chance."

You're not sure how to feel about the whimsical manner that Indra recalls her story. "Forgive me. You're saying you talk with the wind, and the trees, and with my horse?"

The exotic woman giggles a bit. "It's witchcraft, love. I'm a witch. What do you think we do?" As you search your mind for details about vile sacrifices and rituals, Indra interrupts you. "Never mind that, I know what you think we do. Witchcraft is concerned with magic bound up in nature and communing with spirits. Your order teaches you that we consort with daemons. Well, they're a sort of spirit, so it's not outside our sphere, but that's not the whole of the craft. You're trained to use that sword of yours, but do you go around murdering people with it? No, you're trained to protect people. The sword is just a tool, it's how you use it that counts. And just like there are bad people who kill people with swords, there are bad witches who make deals with daemons. I'm not one of them."

You'd never thought about it that way. To be honest, you'd never thought about it at all. As far as you'd been taught, witches are all heretics and witchcraft is black magic. If Indra is to be trusted, and thus far she hasn't given you a reason not to trust her, that would mean your teachings were wrong.

Should you question her about this? She may react badly, but if Indra is going to help you, it would be good to know what sort of help you're aligning with. Maybe it would be better to let the witch continue her story for now. Or perhaps there's something else you'd like to ask, maybe whether she has anymore details about what else happened at the abbey?