Faustine

- as the words “…quench the heated blade in acid” begged for her gaze to return to them.
“Yeah? What is it?”

Quiet reading, quiet prayer, an occasional word or joke between the two, the occasional passing touch, this was the routine they had found themselves in. There was comfort in silence and softness for two lives so wrought with violence.

When Miri arrived, Faustine’s eyes shot up from her book -

- as in, I wanna know what makes you...You. I'm a simple puzzle. Put four pieces together and I'm done. You...You're different."

- played with like a hound's chewtoy, and here she was ready to risk all of that agony again.
Perhaps she'd pay for letting her guard down, or perhaps she had let the right one in.
"I wanna get to know you. All of you."
Realizing how that sounded, Faustine quickly course-corrected.
"I mean, -

- afraid to move.
"If it's enough for you," Faustine began as her gaze softened, "it's enough for me."

Barely more than two days, and Wren had so thoroughly captured her attention Faustine would've suspected a spell or a trick in any other situation.
She'd been swindled, tricked, had her heart -

- Faustine did in that very moment.
Dumbstruck, her tongue refused to work for a moment as if it too was in awe.
She stepped closer to Wren, then closer still.
The distance between them all-but disappeared as Faustine looked down at them, her hands stuck close to her side as if they were -

- the sun filtering through the trees behind them as if goading the pair onward into the tiny valley.
"I'm just–"
When Faustine turned, her eyes were met with Wren crowned by the sun. Its rays sifted through their midnight-blue hair as if the sun wanted to run its fingers through it as badly as -

- say it.
Coming from anyone else, Faustine would likely have been upset by what Wren had said. Coming from them, though, it was not a bitter drink. In fact, it tasted rather sweet.

She heard the soft padding of Wren's feet stop behind her as they reached a clearing, -

Wren's words were the snap of a pine branch in a fire–so warm and welcoming until it startles you. They so easily and simply broke down the pieces and parts of Faustine, shaving away the years of hard calluses and toughened leather she hid herself behind.
She didn't know what to say or how to -

- survive for," she parroted, fiddling with the silver chain as it snaked over her scales.
"First time anyone's ever offered me a job without seeing an example of my work," she said with a small snort, handing the pendant back to Chloë.
"You hold onto that for now. I may ask for it back, y'know?"

- consider her future without them somewhere in the tapestry of her life. Would they be a single thread or would they be the stitches that held it all together?
Her eye caught the pendant as it gleamed in the sun, the chain wrapping around her clawed fingers as she took it.
"Something to -

- what she would do if she survived this, she found them pulled back in another direction entirely; Wren.
What would they do? Would they want to travel with her to such a strange place? Even if their relationship hadn't been set in stone, Faustine had found it increasingly difficult to -

The Dragonborn breathed out a small jet of smoke which curled and eddied in the still air as she thought.
"I'm used to being an oddity, not too many of us around these parts. Wouldn't be too different in that respect."
Another puff on her pipe, another thought.
Whenever her thoughts wandered to -

- Doesn't mean that I don't want it, I just don't know how to go about any of this. I like you. I want to get to know you more. Is that enough?"

- like that in a long damn time. I...You were kind to me. Warm. You trusted me."
Faustine went silent for a moment, the orange blaze of her eyes still scanning the dusty path ahead even though it was clear as far as the eye could see.
"I'm not used to this. I'm not used to any of it.

- of Wren for a moment, batting back some tall grass that loomed over the path.
"And that's why I wanted to talk."
Faustine dropped back in line with Wren, her pace slowing to something a snail would call slow.
"If I could repeat last night again, I would. I haven't been...Close to someone -

- the Dragonborn felt she could speak freely with only squirrels and birds to hear her innermost thoughts.
"Hm," she nodded slowly, her eyes more or less focused on the forest floor as they walked.
"A harsh heart and a harsh mind deserve some harsh words, dontcha think?"
Faustine stepped ahead -

Their meandering pace distanced the pair from the village step by unsure step as the morning rolled on its merry way with birdsong and the sun's defeat of the hazy mists.
The well-worn path that lead into the forest welcomed Wren and Faustine as if to their own cloistered getaway, a place where -

- For yellin' at ya. It wasn't about you, it was 'bout me. Shouldn't have flown off the handle like that."

- pace to stay close to Wren's side.
"I know. Far be it from me to do any fuckin' thinking."
Faustine's voice was abnormally quiet, almost subdued, the way she spoke only Wren had earned the privilege of hearing. A shame she herself hadn't realized that yet.
"But aside all that, I'm sorry. -

- forcing her arm back a bit before she swung the weapon onto her back and into its rightful place.

With that, Faustine swung her head northward as they began to walk, indicating the path she had taken into the surrounding forest.
"I...Did some thinking," she began, slowing her long-legged -

- way down?"
Faustine knew how heavy the damn thing was, she now also knew she had underestimated Wren's strength.
The Dragonborn stretched out her arm, her thumb and middle finger snapping as loud as a hard clap.
The haft of her hammer flew from the wall and straight into her hand, the impact -

Faustine swallowed hard as Wren set their instrument aside, their eyes flitting up to her own.
She tried not to make it noticeable. Failing that, she cleared her throat and pounded her chest as if she had just let a piece of food go down the wrong way.
"I...Um, thanks. You...Carried it all the -

- it. I can read anything, write about the same, and can do a mild amount of 'rithmetic and figurin', but wouldn't know a song from a sonnet. And most songs I know are about..."
Faustine almost laughed, but cleared her throat as she censored herself.
"...Some bawdy things."

- a comrade-in-arms was on the nature of the poet, the warrior, and the warrior-poet. Faustine had known a few of the first, many of the second, but none of the third. The Dragonborn supposed that Chloë would be the first, considering that noble way she spoke.
"Heh. I'm lettered, but that's about -

- bowl of the pipe, snapping her fingers to make a tiny flame appear at the tip of her thumb's claw, using it to fire the old pipe as she let it hang from the corner of her snout.
She did as she had often done in the presence of her old company, she smoked and she listened.
Today's ramblings from -

- ash with the claw on her thumb.
"...It's just how it is. S'pose we could convince a smith to let his forge get dirtied by someone else's hands, but that's a long shot. At night. While blindfolded. And drunk, too."
Faustine gently crammed the undeniably sweet-smelling pipe tobacco into the -

- inner pocket of her shirt, a small leather pouch along with it.
"Just how things work 'round here. I apprenticed under a master, got my journeyman's papers, then..."
She trailed off, her eyes distant for a moment as she smacked the metallic rim of the pipe's bowl on the rock, clearing out old -

- gentry and nobility. Around these roughly-hewed parts of the world a nobleman would be laughed out of a smith's shop and likely given a swift kick in the pants as a parting gift if he had tried that stunt.
"No need to 'pologize," Faustine said as she removed a short-stemmed pipe from the -

Faustine sat up with a small groan, her back emitting a series of small pops as she did. The rocky bed was working no wonders on her already battered body.
She listened as Chloë spoke and worked through the conundrum in her own way. Wherever she had come from clearly tolerated the whims of -