Spirits of the Earth

@DragonSong

Idris wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of an arm as he placed the horse's hoof back on the ground with a fresh shoe snuggly in place. He hated shoeing horses, but that was his job and Herald didn't seem to want him advancing in his career at any point in this lifetime. Horses brought in money and Idris was young and spry and more likely to survive if the horse spooked and kicked him in the face.

He stood and sighed. That was the last one so he was finally finished and could go back to doing the little side projects at the forge he was allowed to work on once the jobs for the day were done. He was working on a bracelet that was giving him a run for his money. It made his eyes strain to look at all of the tiny engraving details he had decided to etch into it. Not to mention the tiny interlocking chains that wove into designs that looked like swirling wind. It was a piece of art and had taken him months to figure out.

But he needed to be finished today. Marigold was going to come by and he needed it to be ready. He needed it to be perfect. Why? Because she was perfect. And once she showed it off to all of her friends, he was bound to get a influx of orders and then Herald couldn't keep him an apprentice. He would finally get out of the horseshoe business and into jewelry.

For now, he jut had to finish it.

So he packed up his tools and stepped out into the sunlight before starting the twenty minute walk back to the shop. They were on the outskirts of the town which was safer if a fire ever took their business, but it was also more dangerous because bandits and thieves liked going after people on the outskirts. Thankfully their worst encounter so far had been a man stealing a dagger or two. Since then, they put their more expensive work in their storefront deep within the city and only kept the working items in the forge.

Idris usually kept his head down and his feet quick on these walks back, but today was different. He breathed in the crisp afternoon air and smiled. Today she'd see him. She'd really see him. He'd be more than just an apprentice - he'd be an artist. The sun made his dark hair glimmer blue and his eyes were a stunning light violet today and really glittered with excitement.

Everything would change today.

And that's when he noticed Adrianna. The flower girl. And he stopped.

"How much for the whole basket?" he asked her excitedly.

Spring was usually her busiest--and most successful--time of year. The blooms she sold were fresh daily, and the weather was warm enough that most of her customers would forgo the pesky cloth coverings that prevented her from sneaking a bit of nourishment from a brush of fingers or a handshake.

So it seemed to be just dumb luck that she was growing so hungry this last week. It seemed every lady she interacted with wore her gloves--they were back in fashion this season--and there'd only been one man who had expressed interest in her wares in the last four days. And he had been in such a rush that he all but snatched his bouquet from her and went on his way.

So it took nearly all her energy to summon up even the barest trace of a friendly smile as she waved to passerby and called, "Buy a flower, love? Just two bits for a bouquet!"

Gods, she was so cold. Warm spring air on her skin, and her hands and feet were like blocks of ice. If she hadn't been so used to it by now, it would have been downright painful.

"Crocus for good cheer?" she tried, smiling at a pair of young women who strolled by arm in arm, with either their child or perhaps a much younger sister--she looked too much like the azure-haired woman to not be related--clinging to one of their hands.

The girl paused, attention grabbed by the basket of bright colors, but the two women smiled and shook their heads. "Not today, thank you."

Of course not.

She didn't even have enough energy--or emotion--to be disappointed. She was so listless as the little family walked away that she didn't notice Idris until he was right in front of her.

"Oh." She blinked at him, dark eyes vague rather than surprised as they should have been. The blacksmith's boy--well, not a boy anymore. Hadn't been for a while, clearly. She'd seen him before, but he'd never actually stopped to talk to her, let alone buy anything. "The whole...basket?"

Wait.

The whole basket?

Her eyebrows went up, and she looked down at the woven basket of blooms on her arm before her eyes flicked back up to him. "That, ah...a silver, ser." Just a bit more than the flowers were actually worth, but if he cleaned her out she would have to go pick more, so she figured it was just about a fair trade.

She looked down at the basket and back up again before adding slowly, "If you, ah, if you want the basket too, that'd be...one silver and two coppers."

He grinned almost madly at her, such was the joy and hope he was feeling today. His last gig had landed him a few silvers that he had charged extra for a rush job that Herald wouldn't miss - nor did he even know about the upcharge - so her fee wasn't anything to gawk at. And he was in a good mood. What was a silver to him today?

"Yes! I'll take that too, then." he reached into his coin purse and produced the silver and coppers as requested. He even threw in two extra coppers just because. "Nothing can go wrong today, eh?" he beamed at her, then looked around suddenly to make sure he wasn't going to accidentally run into Marigold.

"They're for Marigold." He couldn't contain himself, "You know, the nobleman's daughter over that way?" he gestured behind him, "I'm finishing a commissioned piece for her and..." he stopped and just smiled as he handed over the coins. He wasn't going to count his chickens just yet. He still had to finish it, "Let's just say it's going to be miraculous. Lights and everything."

Adrianna forced her smile to stay in place, despite how difficult it was to put on any air of interest just then. She would have felt guilty about it, if she could have--he was clearly so excited.

But all she could think about was just how that excitement could sustain her for days, if she only had a chance to sip at it.

"Well, that's lovely, ser," she told him as sincerely as she could manage. She shifted the basket off the crook of her elbow so she could hand it over, holding out her other hand to accept the coins as she did. "I'm sure she'll be thrilled."

She paused a moment, then reached out to shift the flowers slightly so a cluster of daffodils rested at the top of the carefully placed pile. "For kind regard," she told him. "Not sure if Lady Marigold speaks in flower, but it's a nice thought."

Idris took the basket from her, especially pleased at the care she took when placing the daffodils - kind regard indeed.

"Thank you!" He grabbed her hand with both of his firmly, "It must be prophetic that I saw you today. I usually just rush by from one job to the next. But I have to go! The bracelet won't finish itself and she's going to come pick it up soon."

He gave her hand another quick squeeze before turning and rushing off with his newly purchased basked of flowers. Nothing could go wrong today. Nothing.

It took every once of her self-control not to drain that excitement right from him when he grabbed her hand. Gods she could have wept at the warmth of it against her frigid skin.

Luckily, he seemed to be in too much of a state to notice anything amiss. Nor the fact that the smile she gave him before he pulled away seemed much more relaxed and genuine than the one she had fixed like porcelain on her face for the better part of the day.

Just a tiny sip. That was all she'd needed, just a little more to keep her going.

"You're quite welcome," she told him with a little wave. "And thank you, ser."

As he was about to round the corner, the last person in the world he wanted to see right now was there. Gods she was beautiful. Her hair was the color of moonbeams and her eyes were as bright as the clearest ocean. Even her skin was like alabaster. She was wearing a blue satin gown that whispered against ornately decorated shoes that must have been new because they weren't even creased yet, and behind her were three other women of similar rank - all were giggling and stopped short when they saw Idris standing there with his basket of flowers.

"Oh! Idris! My goodness, I didn't expect to see you in town. You will still be able to keep our appointment I trust?" she flashed him a warm smile.

"Yes, of course, Mar-My Lady." he gave her a deep bow to hide the flush in his cheeks. He still smelled like the stable and dirt was clearly visible on his pants and leather apron. Even his fingers were dark with soot and soil and he just hoped that maybe, just maybe, she didn't notice or better yet didn't care.

One of the ladies whispered something that caused the others to chuckle behind their hands and he saw Marigold shoot them a look. Idris hated her friends. They were catty, rude, and undignified. Mari often complained about them when she came by to sit with him to watch him work on her commission.

"It is finished then?" she asked.

"Nearly. Just a few more chains to solder and then add the light you requested. Shouldn't take long."

She nodded and then looked at his hands that held the basket of flowers. Her gaze remained there a few moments too long to be anything but judgmental and Idris felt his stomach sink. It was ruined. It was all ruined. They were here and he...he was a mess and smelled like dung. Why did he have to work in stables most days?

"Those are beautiful." she finally responded, shifting her eyes to the flowers instead of his shit-stained common hands. "Are they for someone special?"

Idris froze. What should he do? It wasn't suppose to happen like this. In his mind they would be alone in the forge. Herald would be sleeping and he'd bring out the flowers and the bracelet and she would be so taken with both of them that...that then they'd share a kiss and...It shouldn't matter! He wanted to be with her and she had more than expressed enjoyment from his company. Where they were or how events unfolded shouldn't matter because they were just right for one another. He would make her beautiful jewelry - they would be together and as an artist he would finally be of a rank suitable for someone like her. Hadn't she said as much just the other day? One day, when you're a famous artist, we'll be able to prove to my father that breeding means nothing. That's what she had said!

"Um..er...yes. Yes in fact they are." He took a deep breath and swallowed his fear, "I thought they belonged to the most beautiful woman in the city." he handed them out to her and waited.

And waited.

She looked surprised. Even her 'friends' seemed stunned. But he wasn't crazy! As an artist he could ask for her hand!

And then the laughter. The awful catty chuckles that turned into full belly laughs. His heart plummeted as he watched the tiniest of smiles hint at the corners of Marigold's face. No...no no...not her too?

"They're for....me?" she asked slowly, her face once again a calm mask. She waived her hand behind her at her entourage and they immediately fell silent. "I'm the most beautiful woman in the city?" Idris gulped and nodded. "Oh, Idris." and then her mask fell and there was annoyance and spite behind her smile. She took the basket from his hands and picked up one of the daffodils, "You are so common. These are so common."

"But..." he couldn't form words. It was like a dagger was ripping through his gut. He wanted to be anywhere but here, "I'll be an artist soon..."

"But Idris just think. No one would take us seriously. Look at yourself. Look at me. We are from different worlds."

"But...your..." he cleared his throat, "We'd prove to your father that breeding isn't...." the laughter echoed through the streets and this time Marigold couldn't keep it back despite trying to cover it up behind a gloved hand.

"I'll send a servant to collect my bracelet this afternoon." She told him, "Clearly you need to remember your place, apprentice. Master Herald will get all of the glory from anything that you make, you know this. You are no master, you are a student."

And with that she dropped the basked onto the ground and she and her friends walked over it, crushing the flowers under their perfectly shoed feet.

Their laughter rang in his ears like an executioners drum.

It wasn't like she was spying. Once Idris had bought her basket, Adri needed to collect more flowers. It was barely noon, after all, that was near half a day of sales still, if she was quick enough. And it just so happened that her nearest "garden" was in the same direction her most recent customer had been heading.

So she was really only half a block behind him when the whole sorry affair unfolded in front of her.

Oh dear.

She almost wished she hadn't been able to take that sip of his excitement; it was enough that her stomach twisted in sympathy and second-hand embarrassment as the women started laughing. The discomfort was quickly accompanied by a flash of anger at the sheer spite she could see radiating from the woman in the lead--Marigold, she had to assume.

Common. Common flowers, common man. And oh, she could just see how much fun the damned woman was having with it, enjoying the way she could flaunt her status over this poor lovesick apprentice.

The group swept passed Idris, heading in her direction, and she made a split-second decision. Rather than ducking out of the way to defer to their right of passage, she held her ground and kept walking, eyes downcast to make it seem as though she wasn't paying attention to where she was walking.

She swerved at just the last moment, checking her shoulder sharply into Marigold's rather than smacking into her full-on. The dainty lady squealed indignantly and whirled on her.

"Watch your step, you ungainly clod!"

Uh-huh. Not even a hint of the gentility she'd started with when speaking with Idris. Because Adrianna was just a passing waif, not someone who Marigold's manipulations could offer any amusement. How long had she been stringing the poor thing along, waiting for some sort of opportunity?

Maybe it was an unfair judgement on Adri's part, but she was angry, and just being able to feel the anger felt so damned good. For a brief moment, in Marigold, she saw every snotty rich lass who had turned her nose up at the shoeless orphan huddled in a doorway with one hand out begging for coin, for the barest scrap of kindness.

"Apologies, m'lady," she mumbled, tucking the satin coin purse that her sticky fingers had slipped from Marigold's belt into the folds of her own modest skirt.

Marigold huffed, then turned and carried on her way, the catty laughter of her entourage once more floating back through the air.

Adrianna sighed, finally lifting her head to glare at the woman's back before she chanced a look in Idris' direction. She approached cautiously, like he was a wounded bird who might startle away from her.

"...I can give you back the silver," she offered quietly once she was in earshot. It was rather poor effort at comfort, but it was all she could really do.

Idris was too stunned to move. Too stunned to do anything but stare at the trampled flowers in the middle of the road. People whispered as they passed and he caught a few "how embarrassing"s and "that poor boy" that were spoken louder than intended. His whole world felt like a lie now...

How long had he worked on his skills for this? Pushing himself to the limit in order to transcend his station and make something of himself? He had dedicated a decade of his life to blacksmithing and even at 25 he was still an apprentice and....

She was right. Any accolades he achieved would be credited to Herald, the master blacksmith. After all, he was the teacher, right? Anything Idris could do was directly because of him. And if he were ready, he would have been promoted right? But he wasn't so the world thought him lesser. Herald made sure he would always be lesser.

He was those flowers. They wouldn't come back after being kicked and smashed underfoot and neither would he.

"No." He responded to the flower seller, his eyes still glued on the ground, "No. I don't need it."

He pulled out the rest of his coin purse and held it out for her to take.

"I won't need anything."

"Here now, none of that," Adri said briskly. She couldn't deny that the coin purse was tempting, but she pressed it back toward him with one hand and took his arm with the other.

"Why don't you come along with me for a minute, lad?" she offered quietly, shooting a quick glare at a passerby who was gawking a bit too obviously. "I know a quiet spot not too far from here. You can sit yourself a moment and get your head on straight."

Idris looked at her listlessly. It didn't matter. She could take him to the moon and it wouldn't fill this hopelessness that threatened to engulf him.

"It won't matter." He responded, but didn't stop her guiding him wherever it was she wanted to go. He didn't care anymore. "Nothing matters."

He was a laughingstock. He had fallen in love with a girl who could never love him back. No...not just someone who couldn't love him, someone who went out of her way to deceive and manipulate to get what she wanted. That was so much worse.

"I know," Adri sighed as she led him along, linking their arms together like they were any other pair of folk out on the street. "I know..."

She did know what that felt like--not from despair, but from apathy. The thought that nothing mattered, so why bother?

But she'd never let it win, and after seeing that, she wasn't going to let it win with the blacksmith's boy either.

It didn't take long to reach a relatively abandoned corner of town, and she led him down a narrow alley that opened up into what had once been a tenement house of some sort, but was now little more than a few crumbling walls and the outline of what had been a foundation.

And flowers. So, so many flowers, growing stubbornly through cracks in stone or gracefully from mounds of loamy earth that she had spent many backbreaking weeks hauling to this spot. It was a riot of color and scent, and with the sip of excitement she'd taken from him earlier, she was actually able to appreciate it.

"Here." She steered him toward a half-fallen wall and offered, "Sit a moment. It's quiet here, you can...get yourself together a bit."

She waited until she was sure he would sit before she knelt and started plucking blooms that she could sell, focusing on the sunny yellows and blushing reds. She was quiet while she worked, though she kept glancing up at her--her guest, she supposed, with mild concern.

He sat down where she directed him and couldn't bring himself to do anything else besides relive that horrifying moment over and over again.

You're common....The flowers are common....

The numbness started to be replaced with something else. Something boiling beneath the surface. Something that had the potential to turn into pure unadulterated evil.

"Gods dammit!" He shouted and slammed his fists into the floor hard enough that the whole building seemed to shake. "Gods fucking dammit!" There were tears of rage in his eyes. He hated her. He wanted nothing to do with her ever again while at the same time he wanted to see her suffer.

"Hey, easy now."

Adrianna sat back quickly, giving the man a wary look. She never did this—she never did this, but... Gods. She couldn't do nothing, not after seeing all that.

And besides, if he took her up on this, who was he gonna tell?

...Alright, probably best not to think about that too deeply, or she'd talk herself out of it.

"Alright, here." She stood and took a few steps to pause in front of him. "Listen, I can—I can help. With what you're feeling. The...pain. The anger. I can make it...quieter, for a bit. Just for a bit. Do you...want that?"

Idris was so lost to his emotions that he didn't really hear what Adrianna was saying. In his own mind she didn't really exist in the moment - nothing did but the drive to just do something. To make Marigold hurt as much as he did. To embarass her, humiliate her. He hoped that one day she'd meet someone who would just rip apart her soul like she had just done to him.

"Fine. Sure. Whatever." He spat, "Just make it allllll go away."

Alright. He was clearly in too much of a state to truly understand what she was offering.

So, rather than draining away his emotions entirely—as he had claimed to want—she knelt in front of him and laid one hand over his.

As soon as her skin touched his—hers still far too chilled for the warm spring weather—she allowed herself to take a bit more than a "sip". Just enough to help him calm down, to smooth the jagged edges of his anger and embarrassment, just for a moment.

She shuddered as his pain bled into her, then settled into that faint core of warmth just beneath her breastbone that always sparked to life when she fed. She took a breath, eyes closed, then looked up at him cautiously.

"See what I mean?" she said gently, but with more kindness in her tone than there had been before. "I can do that, but more. It won't make it go away, not entirely, but it should make it...manageable. At least for a little while."

She met and held his eyes as she asked again, "Do you want that?"

It was like the wind had suddenly left his sails and his eyes cleared for the first time. He was angry, yes, but it was manageable now. It felt like wounds a month old instead of those that were fresh, raw, and bleeding profusely. It felt...

He snatched his hand back and stared at her, first in confusion and then in something akin to fear? He couldn't place exactly what he was feeling just that it was unexpected, new, and both exciting and scary all at the same time.

"What...did you do?" he asked breathlessly. A quick glance at his hand proved that he was completely fine. She hadn't burned him, or cut him, or drained him of blood or anything but...a part of him was gone. She had taken something from him.

His heart beat faster and his breathing increased as he tried to process something that he had absolutely zero understanding.

And then he realized he didn't care.

He held out his hand to her, "Do it again. Please."

Adrianna swallowed. She wanted to. Gods, she wanted to, she was so cold, so hungry. It wasn't as though it would hurt him—the emotion she had already drained away would return in minutes, with how strong it had been.

And even just that little bit had been so good. She'd gone hungry for nearly a week now, and it was so hard, so damned cold—

She swallowed again, hoping the desperation didn't show in her eyes. She could tell he was confused, even afraid, and guilt clenched in her stomach.

"It won't make it go away," she felt the need to repeat when he held his hand out to her and she had to use every bit of new strength in her body not to grab for it. "It's like...it's like I'm pricking a whole in a canteen that's constantly being filled, if that makes sense?"

Gods, she'd never had to explain this before. She couldn't even really say why she was doing it now—she'd gotten enough from him to get through the next few days, at the least. She could just walk away.

But she'd offered. And now he was asking.

She just had to make sure he knew what he was asking for.

"I can drain it away—a lot of it, if you want—but it will always come back. If I—" She kicked her lips and hoped she didn't look as starving as she felt. "If I drain a lot it may take a few hours to return. Are you sure you want this?"

He shook his head. He didn't really care about her explanation at this point. All he cared about was the fact that for a moment even that embarrassment, that humiliation, that anger had been lessened. And if she could just take the whole thing?

"Do it." he reached forward and grabbed her hands. "Just take it."

Adri sucked in a sharp breath when he grabbed her hands, and the kicked-orphan's instinct to pull back warred briefly with her desperate hunger.

She took a breath, forcing herself to control both. Then she murmured, "Just—tell me if you want me to stop."

Another breath, and she sipped at the quickly rebuilding shame and anger she could feel pulsing from his hands into hers. Her lips parted slightly, eyes fluttering; she almost never had the opportunity to do something like this, to "drink" freely. The last time had been when she was a teenager, still living with her gang in the streets.

Some of them had known what she could do, and would seek her out when the despair became too much. She'd learned how to drain slowly from them, to force herself to gradually draw a single stream of emotion into herself so that they could feel the calm washing over them as a comforting tide, rather than an abrupt absence of passionate emotion.

It was hard. It always was. The yawning, cold emptiness inside her wanted to gulp and tear and consume, but she refused to let it. And the emotions he was feeling certainly weren't pleasant, which meant as she drew it into herself she felt all that rage, that shame, that sense of self-doubt and deep despair. It didn't last, quickly turning into a warm golden energy in her core, but each little sip was a fresh wave of that negativity for a moment.

The rage, the despair, the hatred, it all just slowly went away. He felt his chest loosen and the tears in his eyes dry up and everything felt easier. Moment by moment his worries just melted away and left him...empty.

Blissfully empty.

Marigold didn't matter any more. Her friends didn't matter. The lies and deceit  meant nothing.

Nothing.

He felt nothing.

And it was incredible. His violet eyes had shifted to a stormy gray and he looked up at Adrianna for the first time. Really looked at her. Sure he'd seen her in passing, but he'd been so focused on himself and his future and his own selfish worldly woes and yet here she was just instantly offering to help him.

"You're amazing." He said in awe.

Adrianna sat back, head tipped up and eyes closed as she allowed the last drips of emotion she'd drained to wash through her.

She felt—gods. She felt.

She chuckled a bit and looked at Idris with eyes that suddenly sparkling with life that just hadn't been there before. "I mean, don't get too excited." She shrugged. "Like I said, it'll come back soon enough. But hopefully you'll have some time to get your head on straight about what just happened, so it won't be so overwhelming."

Another shrug as she got to her feet and dusted off her skirts. "That's the idea, anyway. How do you feel?"

She cocked her head at him, lavender hair brushing over her cheek as she smiled faintly. He should still feel the dregs of all those negative emotions, but nothing so intense as what he'd been dealing with before. Maybe there was even room for something else now, some joy or curiosity or...well, something nice, she hoped.

"No, don't do that." He urged, "Don't diminish what you just did. I..." he paused feeling somewhat ashamed but continued anyways because she had obviously seen what had happened. She knew what he had been feeling in the moment, "You saved my life and I think you know that."

Her cheeks colored. She couldn't say her...abilities had ever been credited with something like that before.

"Well." She cleared her throat and glanced away, still a little flushed. "I didn't—I mean I couldn't just leave you there."

She had felt the darkness threatening to swamp him. She just hoped having a bit of breathing space would help him better process it.

After a moment, she mumbled toward the ground, "I'm sure nothing I can say will really make it better, but...from what I saw, you're too good for her."

He deflated a bit at her words but was pleasantly surprised when the despair didn't creep up to swallow him again at the mention of Marigold.

"I disagree. Or...that's what I used to think....it's all just embarassing and I'm an idiot for believing her all this time. But you? I mean it....you're incredible. Have you always been able to do that? To take away feelings? Does it hurt you or anything? Where do they go?"

"You're not an idiot," Adri told him firmly. Her mouth twisted sourly. "I've known people like her. They get a kick out of manipulating people. They like an audience."

She blushed a little deeper when he insisted she was "incredible". She cleared her throat and reached up to tug at a lock of hair hair bashfully.

"I...yeah. Always. As long as I can remember, anyway." She shrugged. "And it definitely doesn't hurt me. I mean, I feel whatever it is I'm...drinking. So with you I felt the—the heartache, and the other stuff. But I only feel it for a second or two, then it's just..." She trailed off, spreading her hands out.

She didn't know how to explain. Not without sharing much more about herself than she was comfortable with a near stranger. She'd already shared more with him than almost anyone else just by offering to help.

"I...don't know where it all goes," she mumbled. "It...fades, eventually."

That was true. It was as much of the truth as she was willing to share just then, anyway.

He listened, truly intrigued by what she had to say. They weren't exactly from a world where magic was new or surprising but this? He had never encountered anyone with this kind of magic. There were so many questions he wanted to ask, but was afraid of stepping over the line - this was the first real conversation they had ever had after all and she seemed almost calculated in her responses. Made sense, though, he couldn't fault her for wanting to piece out her information. If he had any control over what others new about it, what had just happened would definitely never see the light of day.

But that wasn't going to happen. It was grossly public. Everyone would know soon enough about the whole thing and there'd be no way to escape it.

"So...you felt it all...?" he asked, his face suddenly flushing with embarrassment, but a healthy kind - not like what she had just taken away, "I'm sorry...that was...selfish of me, to just put that all on you."

Adri shook her head quickly. "No, don't apologize—I offered, remember? I knew what I was getting into."

She gave him a quick, bright smile before kneeling among the flowers again. She started to pluck a few blooms, laying them in a careful pile beside her since she no longer had a basket for them. She could sell by armfuls, it was just more tedious; although she did feel like she might have the energy for it now.

"Sure you don't want a refund for those flowers?" she asked after a moment with a glance up at Idris. A hint of mischief sparked in her eyes and she fished out the coin purse she'd filched from Marigold. "I could probably even give you interest, with this."

Iris' mouth dropped practically to the floor when the coin purse flashed in Adri's hands. Of all the tricky little stunts to pull...and he laughed. A pure, unfiltered and uncontrolled laugh that shook him to his core.

"Stop...you..." he gasped for breath, "When?"

Adri grinned. "Bumped into her on my way to you. And I've got...sticky fingers." She shrugged—it was hardly the worst thing she could have admitted to him.

Still, she felt the need to defend, "I don't make a habit of it. But honestly, you can't tell me Little Lady Asshat didn't have it coming."

She shrugged and dug into the coin purse, then flicked two silvers in his direction. "I'll have to spend it soon, and ditch the purse. Keep that."

He caught the coins she tossed his way and didn't argue. Apprentice work certainly didn't give him much by the way of extra spending money, but he also wasn't exactly poor either because his apprenticeship allowed him a little cot in the forge so he didn't have to pay rent or buy a house or anything crazy.

When Adri drew attention to the purse, a wild grin spread across his face.

"Oh. I have the perfect place to ditch it. C'mon!" Without thinking, he grabbed her hand.

She drew in a sharp breath when he grabbed her hand, and had to work for a moment not to sip at his sudden cheer and excitement. But she let him pull her along, tucking the purse back into one of the pockets hidden in the fold of her skirt.

"Where exactly are we going?" she asked with an arched brow. She may have taken something of a liking to the apprentice, but they were still practically strangers; her free hand moved to another hidden pocket of her skirt--this one with a hole in the bottom that allowed her to reach the knife sheathed to her thigh.

Because it never hurt to be cautious.

"The forge." he told her with a grin, "There's more than one thing that I think could do with a good firing today."

"Oh boy." Adri chuckled quietly and relaxed her grip on her knife. She knew where Herald's forge was, and it was not so secluded that she was over worried about Idris having any nefarious intentions--not that she really had been before, but those sorts of habits didn't shake easy.

A thought occurred to her and she asked somewhat cautiously, "This, ah, this piece Lady Whatsit ordered from you--do you still think you'll finish it?"

A sinister grin spread across Idris' face and he dropped her hand pausing just long enough to say, "Oh, it'll be finished. And Herald will get all the glory."

And he continued to lead the way until the forge roof appear on the top of the hill just on the outskirts of town.

"Well, that certainly sounds ominous," Adri joked. She couldn't deny that she appreciated he didn't feel the need to hang onto her hand as he led her to the forge; maybe it was her being sensitive about a slight stature, but she never much liked feeling condescended to when it came to stuff like that.

A thought occurred, and she frowned. "Ah--a bit late to be considering this, but, um...what are the odds she thinks you stole her purse?" He hadn't had the opportunity of course, and there had--unfortunately--been plenty of witnesses to the scene. But logic didn't always win out in these situations.

He lead them into the heat of the forge and, naturally, Herald was nowhere to be seen. Probably off taking a nap or propositioning some brothel or another with the coin his apprentice earned his shop. It was hot. The heat met them even before they got close to the ever burning coals. Idris had years of experience, but he was suddenly aware that Adri probably did not.

"If it gets too hot, you don't have to stay." he let her know and then held out his hand for the purse, "And she won't have any proof, will she?" he added.

Oh, the heat. It was godsdamned intoxicating.

This...might be a problem.

Adrianna's eternal chill meant that she was very susceptible to any sort of rise in temperature, while at the same time she absolutely craved it. It was something she'd learned--more than once--could be painful if she wasn't careful. While she loved the heat of a fire, it could still burn her.

She seemed a little dazed as she handed over the purse--emptying out the coins into her pocket first00but gave him a small smile. "I'm fine," she assured, resisting the desperate urge to stand right in the direct heat of the forge itself. "Honestly, been a bit chilly today. This is...nice."

Idris flipped it over and made sure they hadn't missed any coins - not that he expected there to be any left, but the forge wouldn't care if it was empty or not. It's main purpose was to melt metal and a little bit of silver would melt away fairly quickly.

With a slightly too-excited grin he gave the purse a squeeze and then tossed it onto the coals. Instantly the fire flared and danced as the threads snapped and burned while the expensive inks used to color them sent colorful sparks into the air. In that moment he felt a waive of calm wash over him.

Then, too quickly, it was gone and all that remained were a few smoldering pieces of coal that consumed the last bits of thread before returning to their gentle glow.

Without a word, Idris climbed up a small rickety ladder to the loft on the other side of the forge - his little bedroom, if you could call it that, and returned a few minutes later with a piece of black velvet careful folded into 3rds length-wise. He placed it on the working table and gently started pulling back the sides to reveal the bracelet he had been making for Marigold.

A few silver and gold links remained in another bag that he emptied carefully onto the larger piece of cloth before studying his work silently. He was staring at months of work...the clear crystals had just been set into their prongs yesterday and just the few bits of chain to finalize the clasp were needed now. The interlocking mechanisms were of his own invention and as he lifted his work, the spirals of silver and gold worked in tandem to look like waves crashing around those tiny clear gems.

"I was going to melt it down." he frowned at his work and chewed on the side of his tongue, "Ruin it in some way." Gods it was so much work. He took a breath and blew gently onto the gems which began to glow softly with a gentle, white light that seemed to be kindle from their very core. Another breath made them even brighter until the entire piece looked like stars on a gentle sea.

"Don't—"

The word was out of her kith the moment he said "ruin" as she stared at the intricate work laid out before him. It just didn't seem fair for something so lovely to be destroyed all for spite. For one woman's petty spite.

Then he breathed light into the crystals, and her breath caught. Something in her stomach went tight and she stared, lips slightly parted and eyes wide.

On her shoulder, the handprint burned. Even in the warmth of the forge, in the flush of a full feeding, she could feel it surge with heat. Like it was responding to something.

She shook her head slowly. "Don't ruin it," she murmured, still staring at the bracelet. "You put so much work into it, so much love." She glanced up at him sidelong. "Maybe she never deserved it, but that doesn't mean it was wasted. You—you made something so beautiful. Don't destroy it."

He stared at it for another moment before pulling out a silly looking headband with magnifying glasses attached to the front and slammed it over his eyes. Then a pair of tiny needle-like pliers were in his hand and he was quietly linking chains together with a speed only skill and practice could attain. Just the way he moved and interlocked the pieces of silver and gold proved that he was a master, no matter what Herald or the rest of the world believed.

Without realizing, he was humming a jaunty little tune as he worked. This kind of thing brought him true joy and it was obvious.

After a few minutes passed, the last links were complete and the clasp secure. He pulled the magnifiers off his head and held out his hand towards Ari so he could secure the bracelet onto her wrist.

"You're right. It belongs to someone else."

"Oh!"

Adrianna stared at him, looking so taken aback it was almost comical. "N-no," she protested softly, wincing internally at the stammer. "I mean, surely you shouldn't—I can't accept this."

She laughed nervously and shook her head. "This looks like it should be worth twice what I make in a year. I...I can't accept something so fine."

She smiled a little crookedly and gestured to herself, her plain clothes and the dirt on her knees from kneeling amongst flowers. "Besides, I'd rather look like a street mutt in a diamond collar, don't you think?" she joked wryly.

But she couldn't stop staring at the bracelet, quietly marveling. It truly was lovely—and as impressed with her own abilities as he'd been, she'd never seen someone use magic quite like he had either.

"You don't have to wear it." He blushed, embarassed, "You've just...done more for me in the last ten minutes than half of these people have done in a lifetime. Herald isn't going to make me a partner, he's going to keep me shoeing horses until I die. I thought that...Marigold would change all of that...."

The shame and embarrassment of the ordeal were creeping back in slowly, but just being with Adri and talking to someone without feeling like he needed to hide himself was doing more good than he could have imagined.

"You can sell it." He added hastily, "If you want."

She stared down at the bracelet, and despite the protest she'd offered him--and how much money she knew she could get for it, how long that could keep her safe and warm and fed--she just couldn't imagine selling it.

She pulled her wrist into her chest, rubbing at the bracelet vaguely with her other hand.

"I..." She shook her head with a quiet, disbelieving laugh. "Thank you. Really. This is...well." She smiled at the ground. "No one's ever given me something like this."

Glancing back up at him, she suddenly frowned, then asked slowly, "Would you--I mean, if you're sure he's never going to make you a partner...couldn't you leave?" She shrugged. "You're clearly talented and skilled enough to have your own shop. Isn't the point of an apprenticeship to learn? What more could he really teach you here?"

His breath caught at the compliment, "You....you think?" He stammered, "I know that shoehorses bring in more consistent money but it's just.....awful." he sighed,  "it's both boring and dangerous. There's maybe 30 seconds where the nails are just sticking out of their hoof and if they get spooked it's more than a broken skull that could kill you."

He sighed heavily and thumped his head onto the table, "It doesn't work that way, unfortunately, just getting up and leaving. I have to get my master seal and only a master can give it. I could open a shop, but I wouldn't be protected by the guild and people....think you're less."

"It looks good on you." He commented, glancing over at her from his slumped position on the table, "truly."

"Oh course I think!" Adri exclaimed, admiring the bracelet for a moment longer before she looked up to see him slumped over the worktable.

Her lips twitched, and she had to work not to chuckle; it wasn't that she was laughing at him, it was just...well, she had real emotions for the first time in a while, and he did look rather silly.

Her expression sobered and she cocked her head as she approached to lean her hip against the edge of the table next to him. "Does your master seal have to come from this master?" she asked slowly. "I mean...if you went to another smith, showed them what you can do--could they give you a seal?"

He grunted and shook his head awkwardly without lifting it from the table.

"They sponsor you. Herald has paid for everything. If I leave, I have to pay it all back. If I find another smith, they'll charge for the master's test and even then are more likely to fail anyone not affiliated. I'm stuck, Adri, stuck right and good."

She frowned down at the bracelet on her wrist. He certainly did seem to be stuck. On top of the whole messy affair of the public rejection.

Hmmm. Stuck. Public.

"What if--" She paused, turning the idea over before she tried voicing it. "What if you could...show people what you can do? Enough people that Herald would have to recognize you officially, or they would all see that he's just using you? Surely that would be bad for his business, right?"

He chewed on his lip and picked his head up slightly to survey Adri closer. She didn't seem to be joking. And she certainly had already proven herself more trustworthy than the company he had previously kept.

"What do you mean? How could I prove anything like that?"

Adri spun the bracelet on her wrist, eyes tracking the slight blur that became of the lit crystals.

How could he prove it...

She gasped and suddenly straightened up, brown eyes suddenly so bright they seemed to have a few glints of gold in them. "Flowers," she said excitedly, turning to face him properly. "If you can do work like this, something this delicate, surely you could make something from metal and jewels that looks like a flower, right?"

She gestured vaguely back over her shoulder, out of the forge. "And I could sell them with my flowers. I mean, I'd give you the coin for them, obviously, but I'd take them out in my basket. At first glance, most folk won't be able to tell them from the real thing, until...can you delay this?" She held up her wrist to jingle the bracelet lightly. "The light thing? Make it so it doesn't happen for a few hours, or days even?"

Ohhhh, this might--might--actually be a very good idea.

He frowned, but fully lifted his head up from the table at this thought Flowers? It wasn't something he'd ever actually attempted before, but it didn't sound like it would be completely out of the realm of possibility. For the flower portion at least but...how would he get the material? They would need to be made from simple, inexpensive metals like steel or maybe aluminum?

"I don't know if I can delay it..." he said slowly, "At least, it's not something I've ever actually done before."

He chewed on his lip again as he did when he was thinking. He reached his hand forward towards the bracelet and instead of breathing out, he breathed in and the light from one stone dimmed and then went out. Then he breathed in through his nose and.....tried. But tried what even?

At first nothing happened. Then he let a little more air out and...the stone lit up just as quickly as before. He emptied his lungs with an audible sigh.

"I don't even know what I'm doing, Adri," He admitted, "How to you delay something like this?"

She waved a hand, a part of her still marveling silently at the quiet beauty of those flickering crystals. "No no, that's not the important bit. Let's say you make these metal flowers, and I sell them from my basket, and then folks are curious, right? Oh, where'd the simple flower girl find these pieces, these should be adorning crowns! And then I tell them, well, you see, a friend of mine is deeply talented, but his master won't make him partner, so he's stuck on an apprentice's pay, y'see. So I offered to help him out making a bit of extra coin with these pieces he makes in his spare time and yes aren't they lovely? He made me this bracelet too, see?"

She grinned, holding up her hand and turning her wrist back and forth. "And then look at that! You've got all these happy customers so confused as to why someone with your talent and skill is stuck an apprentice, and surely his master must be giving him a seal soon, and there you are! If he doesn't make you a master, his whole customer base knows he's a cheap, shady jerk. And--" She held up a finger. "The best bit: if Herald starts blaming you about it, you tell him you had no idea! My friend just asked for a few little pieces to decorate her basket, I didn't know what she was planning, blah blah blah."

She planted her hand on her hip and looked at him expectantly. "So? Thoughts?"

He considered her idea, thinking through all of the possible ways this could bite him. If Herald wanted to, he could have him jailed for theft of goods, but would he? That would put him out a shoer and the person who actually did the work that kept the shop afloat. Of course, he could always just deny the seal and ignore the whispers that might follow. Idris had no power in this arrangement, but if he did nothing then nothing would change, right? Was it worth possibly being dismissed and forced to give all future wages to Herald to repay the last ten years?

He wouldn't do that though, surely?

"I mean, I guess....? We could certainly try....but...I need to figure out how to get Marigold out of the picture. She's seen bits of the bracelet and even though she hasn't actually paid for anything yet, she could still make my life hell if I don't give her something...."

Ah, right. Marigold.

Adrianna pursed her lips. "And once again, thwarted by Little Lady Asshat," she sighed, then shrugged. "Ah, well. Just an idea, I suppose—you can certainly think on it."

She glanced down at the bracelet, then back up at him. "Do you...think she'll cause a fuss, about not getting this?" It really was a beautiful piece—if she'd been Marigold, she'd be devastated to have lost it.

Of course, if she was Marigold, quite a few things would be different. Probably best not to dwell on that idea too much.

He rolled his eyes at her question and looked at her sideways, "What do you think. After today I'm pretty sure she'll do whatever the hell she wants because she thinks she's won."

Then a sinister look washed over his features. He could....but that would be awful but...

"Hang on." he jumped from the work station and moved to pull on gloves that reached up to his elbows before disappearing behind a partition and returning with a chunk of raw metal held with some clamps and extended away from his body. He placed the piece onto the table and took a step back to consider what he was planning to do.

"That's iron." he told her, "So...probably don't touch it. It doesn't bother Herald so he does all that work when it comes in but it's awful stuff..." he reached down and opened a drawer to pull out a very simple bracelet - one of his first attempts at jewelry so it was clunky and unrefined especially compared to the piece of art he had just given Adri.

"So...uh...I could doctor this up and add some prongs made out of that."

Adri blinked, a little taken aback but how vindictive that was—though she probably shouldn't have been, she really didn't know him that well, after all.

"I mean...couldn't she charge you for assault for that?" she asked delicately, eyeing the iron with no small amount of wariness. "Even if it's just a small allergy for her, she could say it was a clear attempt on your part to harm her—and people like her always have the guard in their back pocket."

Idris groaned again and ran a gloved hand through his hair, "Ugh you're right. It's stupid and too much..."

He grabbed the clamps and quickly returned the iron back to it's safe space in the back of the forge before coming back like a puppy who had just been caught stealing food off the counter.

"I don't know what to do, Adri..." he picked up the dud of a bracelet and ran his fingers back and forth against it, "If I don't give her anything I won't have any reputation to use to make those flowers....It's a real good idea, too."

She watched him for a moment, wishing she knew what to say to make the situation better. "I'm sorry," she murmured.

She looked down at the gently glowing bracelet on her wrist, then back up at him with a small, rueful smile. "You should give her this." She held her hand out toward him. "I know she doesn't deserve it, but if it gets her off your back..." She shrugged. "I mean, if she's already paid you for the commission anyway..."

She cocked her head. "She...has paid you, right?"

He opened his mouth to answer, but instead of words there was silence and he dropped his gaze in shame. He really had been an idiot hadn't he? Would she have ever paid him, he wondered? Or would she have taken it and found something wrong and then forced his hand to give it for free?

That seemed like something she would have done, now that she had shown her true colors.

"It's yours." he croaked. His mouth was deathly dry.

"Hey."

Adri hesitated, then reached over to lay her hand on his arm gently. It was over his sleeve, so she couldn't have drank from him if she wanted to—which she didn't, and she hoped he didn't think that was her only reason for hanging around.

...Even if the idea of a consistent source was appealing, a part of her couldn't deny that.

"It's not you," she told him quietly. "It's not your fault you wanted to believe the best of someone." She smiled a bit, ducking her head slightly to try to catch his eye. "But hey, that's...well, it's very shitty of her, of course, but considering the circumstances at least now you don't have to give her anything, right? No bill of sale, nothing for her to use against you."

"But it kind of is, isn't it? My fault I mean. I should have known better. It's not like a noble marries a smith or even so much as date them. I don't know what I was thinking and then that...."

A man off in the distance could be seen making his way down the path to the forge. Even from a distance his clothes were clearly well tailored and the way he held himself reeked of entitlement. She hadn't given him much time, had she?

"Don't let him see that." Idris murmured to Adri, indicating for her to hide the bracelet around her wrist.

She had just opened her mouth to protest again that it most certainly wasn't his fault, but then they seemed to have more pressing issues on their hands. Adri nodded quickly and rolled her sleeve down over the bracelet--she couldn't think of anything else before the man was practically at the door to the forge--and clasped both hands behind her back.

"Maybe I should...make myself scarce?" she muttered to Idris out of the corner of her mouth. "Or--I don't know, I could pretend to be here for a commission of my own?"

Idris shook his head. She had just a much right to be here as Marigold's man; more in fact because she had been invited.

"Hail from the house of Devereaux!" The man proclaimed from the front, "I am here on behalf of My Lady Marigold for a commission from Master Herald. I have come to collect."

Idris' eyebrows shot up in surprise and he couldn't stop himself from glancing over at Adri. Had she noticed it, too? Marigold must have expected this to hurt him even more by claiming the work had been completed by Herald and not the apprentice. But....this could very well work in his favor.

"I'm not sure what work she commissioned." Idris said, slowly, trying to calm his breathing and slow his heart, "Master Herald isn't here. Perhaps you should come back later....?"

Adri sidled up just behind Idris as he spoke, keeping her expression curious rather than annoyed—or frankly disgusted—at Marigold's not-so-subtle last dig.

"Maybe we could look around for your lady's commission?" she offered the manservant. "Like my friend said, Master Herald is out at the moment, but if you tell us what the piece looks like I bet we could find it?"

She smiled cheerfully, eyes wide and utterly guileless.

The servant sniffed pompously as if he was somehow above them. But he was just a servant; a slave to the upper crust just like the rest of them. Just because he got to wear fancier shackles didn't make him any less of a tool.

"I believe that would be well advised." He shot back.

Idris dipped his head in acknowledgment and began the charade. He pulled out drawers, overturned little boxes of trinkets and pieces of metal that had both been shaped and were raw. He made sure that each search was loud and obnoxiously dramatic. It wouldn't do for the man to return with stories of how they were u helpful.

"I don't know!" Idris cried with fake frustration, "I'm not sure where the Master would keep such a commission!"

The servant looked at the velvet cloth that had once held the bracelet now on Adri's wrist. In the shuffle, the clunker had managed to get folded into it and the clasp peeked out.

He sneered, "Is this it?"

Idris looked over and his palms began to sweat. He wasn't a good liar. He wore his emotions too much on his sleeve and he struggled to suppress his nervousness.

He wiped his hands on his pants, "er...uh...maybe?"

The servant surveyed the apprentice, "Are you quite alright?"

For her part, Adri was a fantastic liar, and she was observant enough to know when her skills might be required.

Flashing a quick, apologetic look in Idris' direction, she took a step forward and smiled brightly at Marigold's servant before saying, "Apologies, serrah. My friend has had a...trying day. I'm afraid we were a bit, ah..." She cleared her throat and glanced away like a bashful maiden, willing herself to blush to add to the bit. "Distracted, upon your arrival."

Let's see how Little Lady Marigold feels about that.

"But surely this must be the piece?" She continued hurriedly, as though trying to move on from an uncomfortable topic. She added another look around--perhaps a bit theatrically--before looking back to the servant with a shrug and a smile as she held the box out. "There's nothing else here that seems so well-packaged. Here. Take it. With Master Herald's regards."

The servant's face was a mask of disgust and horror that he tried, poorly, to hide, but he didn't want to stay after that performance. He grabbed the wrapped dud of a bracelet and left them so quickly it made Idris' head spin.

He hadn't even been able to figure himself out before it was all over. Now here they were, alone in the forge, with a truly awful looking bracelet on the way to Marigold. His jaw was practically on the floor as he turned to survey Adri.

"What....that....." he stuttered, trying to find something coherent to say, "Did you just imply....?"

Adrianna winced and glanced at him guiltily. "Errr...yeah," she sighed. "In my defense, I knew it would get him out of here! Folks who want to be toffs as desperately as that guy did always try to act like they've got a toff's delicate sensibilities, too."

She rubbed at the back of her neck, eyes slightly downcast. "Sorry. But, I mean, it's not like it'll give you a reputation or anything! Who's he gonna tell?"

Besides maybe Marigold. But she'd rather assumed Idris wouldn't care so much what she might think.

"Oh...no no...I'm not offended...It's just like...how do you come up with this? Just on the spot? Without needing days to plan it out and run through every scenario that could go wrong? You just do it?" He gave a nervous chuckle and a smile started to grow across his face.

"I mean it, Adri....you're incredible. No way around it."

"I'm incredible because I'm a good liar?" Adrianna asked wryly, arching one eyebrow. "I think maybe you need to raise your standards."

She shrugged and glanced away, reaching up with one hand to rub absently at the back of her shoulder. "Besides, you've got me on a good day. It's a lot harder to think quick like that when I'm hungry—"

She cut herself off sharply, snapping her mouth shut, and shot him a wary glance. Okay. It was okay, this was fine—"hungry" could mean something entirely normal. She hadn't said anything yet that should make him think it was related to her more "abnormal" ability.

Idris just laughed, that full belly laugh that is infectious to all who are around to hear it.

"Oh I get that!" He exclaimed when he got himself under control, "There are times I'm so engrossed in my work I forget to eat for hours and then someone asks a simple question and...let's just say it's not pretty."

He grinned down at Adri, adrenaline kicking in and making him feel a bit giddy. Had they actually figured out how to get around Marigold's little tricks?

He chuckled nervously and ran a hand over his face, "Oh Herald is going to kill me.....I might have saved my reputation - maybe - but I sacrificed his, didn't I? Oh Kia, help me..."

"Oh, I don't know about that." Adri flashed him a quick grin. "In order for her to complain about the piece, she'd have to bring it back here, yeah? And he certainly knows he didn't make that. Which means she'd have to admit to Herald's face that she went to you and not him when she wanted something beautiful made."

She leaned her hip back against the work table and cocked her head. "She might still do it, I suppose, but it's a risk to her if she does."

He frowned and went back to his nervous tick - chewing on his cheek.

"Y....ya think?" his voice betrayed his doubts.

She shrugged. "I mean, I can't say I know the woman well after a thirty-second observation and even shorter interaction, but I know her type. If she does decide it's worth coming down her to bitch about a clunky bracelet, all you have to do is make yourself scarce. Herald will be so offended she went to the apprentice that he likely won't care about the shoddy work itself."

A nervous smile spread across his face, "What's your favorite flower?"

He'd start there.

Adrianna blinked at him for a moment, struck dumb.

For all her years selling the things, no one had ever actually asked her that before.

"...Hydrangeas," she replied quietly, with a small smile. "I like hydrangeas." Her smile turned a little crooked. "Do you know any of the language of flowers? They symbolize frigidity. Heartlessness. But they're still beautiful."

She shrugged. With an abrupt, dry chuckle, she added, "For what it's worth, marigolds are suppose to mean cruelty, grief, and jealousy. So. There's that."

Idris blinked in surprise, "Oh. Wow. I didn't know that flowers meant anything like that. I just thought they were meant to be, I dunno, just pretty and stuff?"

He leaned down and pulled up a stick of charcole and a sheet of paper, "Think you can sketch one for me? I know I've heard of it before, but I can't say I know what it looks like."

"Oh, you can say all kinds of things with flowers," Adri chuckled as she accepted the paper and charcoal. "Could have a whole conversation, if you wanted to." She began sketching the outline of a hydrangea bunch, lavender hair falling forward to shade her face as she bent over the work table.

"I don't expect they'd be easy to make," she noted with a wry little smile flashed up at him. "They're tiny, and they come in clusters. Like this, see?" She finished sketching in some details and stood back.

She wasn't a bad artist, all things considered; the hydrangeas looked like hydrangeas. She shrugged and glanced back at Idris.

"A lily or sommat would probably be a better start--not that I know anything about metalworking, mind, that's just a guess."

Idris accepted the drawing and his brain immediately went to work. If he was truly being honest with himself, he wanted to make all of those tiny petals out of clear crystal, but that would be a much longer project and he didn't have the tools yet to carve the crystals properly. He had smaller tools for individual stones, but that would require time that he didn't care to spend just now.

He muttered to himself; calculating, determining metals that would work best. Determining costs compared to what he was allowed to use for free and what would cost him extra.

"No. I want to start with this one." He gave her a warm smile, "for luck."

And then he got to work.

"You can stay, if you want." He said after a time, "There's some bread and cheese in there and maybe some dried fruits. If I'm being honest I haven't checked today so I might be wrong."

Adri shook her head with another little chuckle. "You'd know best--you're the master here, not me," she murmured, only slightly teasing.

At the offer of food, she perked up, though she tried her best to hide it. Enough strength of emotion to keep her sustained for days and a free meal? This just got better and better.

"I mean...if you're sure that's alright?" She smiled a little sheepishly. "I don't want to get you in trouble with Herald, when he gets back."

He waived his hand at her as he pumped the bellows into the coals, stoking the smoldering embers with red and orange sparks. The heat blossomed and he tossed in another shovel of coal before tapping the door closed with his elbow.

"Perfectly fine. Herald won't be back tonight because he's....ah....stoking some other flames." At least that was the norm for the Master Smith most nights. Most days, too. The man had a serious problem and Idris was the only reason the shop stayed afloat. Except for the iron commissions. Those he tried his hardest not to entertain. Even with precautions the process made him feel ill for weeks.

"You can grab a bottle of wine, too, if you'd like. You're here for a commission after all." He winked at her and started arranging a series of ingots on the work bench and stepping back to think.

"Other flames, huh?" Adrianna smirked as she set about searching for the aforementioned food and wine.

Gods, she hadn't had a chance for so much free sustenance in...well. Ever.

She managed to scrounge up bread, cheese, and a bottle of wine before returning to where Idris was working.

Popping up onto a free corner of the work table, she arranged the food out of the way and leaned back on one hand while she looked at what he'd laid out in front of him.

"So. How do you do this?" she asked curiously, holding out a small wedge of cheese to him in offering. "I mean, you don't have to give me a crash course on smithing," she added with a laugh, "but this part. The...the "looking at hunks of metal and somehow seeing a flower" part."

Idris continued to work as Adri made her way through the shop with the food he'd offered. By the time she'd returned, he was busy pulling out large poles of steel and copper and was cutting them into 8" lengths while arranging them together.

When she held out the cheese, he leaned forward and grabbed it with his teeth from her fingers while continuing to clamp and cut more metal rods.

"Well," he said, keeping his mouth as closed as he could since the cheese was still between his teeth, "Each metal does something different. Even a slightly different alloy has a different shine, a different look after it's hammered. So right now, I'm arranging two different alloys of steal with copper. When I heat it together and let them fuse together, I'll be able to hammer it into sheets and then punch out little petals - I'll make a punch while it's heating. The different metals will kinda....swirl together. Just using the steel creates some really pretty designs, but adding the copper will add color. Right now I'm trying to decide how much I want visible....probably just a few thin veins which is all well and good because copper isn't cheap."

He leaned down and pulled up a mold of some sort that had clearly been fired so much that it was completely black.

"This'll be used to hold all of the metal I want to make into an ingot." He started layering the different pieces together as tightly as he could. Then, once it was filled, he pulled out what looks like a fine gravel, "This'll fill in the air pockets. Too much air will make it brittle and keep it from fusing."

He blinked up at her, as if suddenly aware of himself, "um...er...if that makes sense? I know it's not super interesting or anything...."

He pressed the mold together tightly and transfered it to the coals.

Adri blinked when he plucked the cheese from her fingers with his teeth, but decided not to comment. She tucked into her own portion of the food, listening intently and humming every once in a while to assure Idris that she was paying attention as he explained what he was doing.

"It makes sense," she assured him with a quiet laugh when he paused. "I mean--I assume it does. I'll be honest, some of that went over my head, but it sounded like it made sense."

She grinned crookedly and took a sip of wine directly from the bottle--hey, she'd never claimed to have proper manners. Honestly, he was lucky she wasn't shoving the food in her face and running, the way she would have as a kid.

"Honestly, I'm more impressed by your ability to...I dunno. See something beautiful out of that." She gestured widely toward the ingots still on the table. "I just don't get that--like how a sculptor can look at a hunk of marble and see a statue inside it. It's...pretty amazing."

Idris made a face when she mentioned rocks, as if she had just said the most disgusting thing he'd ever heard. He was already moving onto molding the little pedal stamps and was chewing on his cheek in concentration.

"This is totally different than rocks." he said absently, "Metal is so much more versatile. Can be art, can be useful. Hey, would you say this is about the actual size of one of those pedals?" He held up a piece of thin sheet metal that he's looped around to match the shape as best he could.

She chuckled a bit. "I wasn't really talking about rocks versus metal. I just meant--your ability to see something else from a hunk of something that looks to me like just...well, junk." She shrugged. "It's impressive."

she leaned closer when he held up the piece of shaped metal for her inspection. "Yeah--wow, that's pretty exact." She shook her head with another little laugh. "See, that's what I mean! How did you see that in a piece of metal?"

He blinked her her, not quite comprehending how the little thing he did was really that exciting.

"Erm. Well. I mean. It's just a loop. Like a..er..visual to help with the metal?" He leaned forward and grabbed another piece of cheese from the collection she'd grabbed for no other reason than just to find something to do to alleviate the awkwardness he felt.

"I'm kinda just...experimenting right now...making a mold for the petals will probably work better - be faster - but I'd have to ask Herald for materials and...yeah...er...how's the food?"

"It's good," she chuckled, deciding to let the topic drop for now. Clearly he either didn't see--or wasn't comfortable talking about--just how impressive his own abilities were. "I mean, it's free, so that's good enough for me," she half-joked with another little laugh as she leaned her hip into the work table again and scuffed one foot back and forth across the floor.

"Can't remember the last time I had this much food in one sitting," she mused aloud, not seeming to realize that a third a loaf of bread and a couple handfuls of cheese probably didn't qualify to most as "much". "Should probably slow down."

She was completely correct in her assumption he didn't know how to handle praise of his work, especially praise for something so seemingly simple you'd learn how to do it within the first month of an apprenticeship. The more difficult skills came from the recipes that were held close to the master's chest or locked up in the guilds.

He waived his hand at her, "Eat as much as you want. There's plenty and I never go through what's the kept in the larder and a lot goes to waste" he made a face and glanced up at her, "er...I guess I'm sorry I never thought about offering it to someone else until now....I get kinda....lost in my work."

Once the anvil was clear, he prepared to check on the metals to make sure they were heating properly and wouldn't scortch. Coals weren't an exact art and it was easy to overheat and cause the metals to become brittle.

Before he turned, he paused, "I'm really sorry I've never really...uh...stopped and talked to you. You always seem so...sad I guess and I didn't think you'd want...I mean.... I'm sorry. It was wrong of me."

Adrianna stared at him for a moment, a large bite of cheese stuffed into her cheek. She swallowed forcefully, coughed, and waved a hand at him as she tried to think of how to respond to that.

"No, that—I mean, don't apologize. You don't know me, why would you have stopped to talk to me?" she laughed, a little nervously. "I just sell flowers on the corner, I'm nobody."

She shifted her weight between her feet awkwardly and tugged the hem of one sleeve down a little further over her wrist. "But, I mean...I'm glad you talked to me today, I guess..." She cleared her throat, feeling spectacularly off balance.

He blinked up at her at a loss for words, "Well..er...isn't that what normal people do? Talk? I'm stuck here a lot or working with animals and I just don't really do the whole conversation talky...thing. But you're really awesome and you know how to do stuff. Like right proper stuff. I just bang on some hot metal and hope for the best."

Speaking about metal brought him back to the task at hand and he jumped to his feet before shoving a hand in a thick leather glove and opening the forge to retrieve the mold. He brought it out and laid it on the anvil so he could open it up and hopefully see something good happening inside. Once he was able to create the design on the metal, he'd be able to chip away at small pieces to begin working on the petals.

"This is gonna get kinda loud." He warned.

Adri snorted. "Do I seem like I'm the sort of person who's overly concerned with what normal people do?" she asked wryly around a half-grin. Shrugging, she added, "Besides, I spend my whole day talking to people--you aren't missing much."

She moved back a bit when he started messing with the forge itself and moving things around. She didn't know a lot about metal work, but she knew two things: loud and hot.

Once she'd backed up to what seemed like a reasonable distance, she called lightly, "Go for it," before clapping her hands over her ears.

With her permission, he proceeded to begin the next steps of the process. Much to his delight, the mixed metals in the mold had fused together exactly how he had wanted it, and he was able to position it with a pair of long tongs before picking up a heavy hammer with a large flathead and began to smash it into the bar. Sparks began to fly and a large leather apron protected his core. He had tossed on a pair of protective eyewear for his eyes and he continued.

The metal began to flatten and elongate on the anvil. It was a slow process, and he was forced to move the piece back into the forge often to ensure it didn't cool too much. If all went according to plan, he would be able to fold the piece in on itself to disperse the different steels and single vein of copper to create intricate swirls into the piece. It would give dimmension to the flower. People paid a lot of money for this kind of work, mostly for heirloom or ceremonial type blades, but he wanted to take that kind of beauty and transform it into art.

So he worked. Head down. Obvious of time and space as the metal slowly continued to flatten and the copper swirls became more and more whisp-like within the sheet.

Adrianna found herself watching wordlessly as Idris worked, fascinated by the process. Despite the noise and the heat, she drifted closer, as close as she dared, peering over his shoulder curiously.

As time passed and he continued to work, she abruptly remembered what he'd said about sometimes forgetting to eat when he got like this. She glanced outside, checking the angle of the sunlight, then nodded to herself before slipping away.

She was gone nearly an hour, but when she returned she held an armful of gently steaming hand pies from her favorite vendor a few streets further into the bustle of the city. She waited for what seemed like a break in the smith's process, then cleared her throat.

"Thought you might need sommat to eat," she noted, lifting her armload slightly.

By the time Adri had returned, Idris had managed to cut away about two dozen tiny circles if flat metal from the sheet he had veen flattening and were sitting on the work table. They were cool already, and the design he had rolled into the metal was beginning to show on the very rough templates. A few were smoother than others and the dark grey and copper veining looked like whisps of smoke meandering through the metal. It would become more noticeable when he continued to work them smooth and then used the jewelry grinders and polishers to create a mirror-like finish. For now, they were small disks almost lile coins.

He had also put some more metal into a crucible and onto the coals where they would spend hours melting down to a liquid. That would really be the most dangerous part. He would use the molten metals to connect each petal to the flower's underlying structure.

When Adri put the pies down, the smell immediately infiltrated his senses. His stomach growled loudly and his mouth watered.

"Oh!" He was surprised by her generosity and thoughtfulness. How had he overlooked her for so long? Who else had he just dismissed in his life who was actually a delightful person?

He put down his hammer and wiped his hands on his apron, "Thank you. That's....that's  super thoughtful."

Adri's cheeks colored, pink slightly hidden by a fall of lavender hair as she shook her head. "I—it's no big deal," she replied quickly. "Courtesy of Milady herself, anyway." She shrugged, then gestured widely to the pies. "Just—y'know. Eat. If you want, I guess."

She took a step back, rubbing awkwardly at the back of her neck. She wasn't used to praise in general, and Idris seemed inclined to just...dole it out for what seemed—to her—like very little reason.

Were people like this? Since she'd gotten old enough to fend for herself, not relying on her gang, she'd really been...on her own. She interacted with people all the time, but actually hanging around anyone specifically never happened.

She certainly hadn't been expecting her day to go this way.

He grinned at her and eagerly accepted the pie. It was still quite warm and he regretted the big bite he ended up taking as he was forced to open his mouth in an awkward attempt to release some of the heat that was scalding his mouth. It was delicious. Probably one of the more delicious meals he'd had in awhile. The gravy was flavorful and the pastry buttery and flakey.

"Wow." He muttered through a mouthful. Thankfully he had enough manners to cover his mouth with his hands before speaking, but it was abundantly clear he wasn't exactly the most well-versed in etiquette.  "This is delicious."

He took another bite and caught some runaway filling before it fell to the floor. "I usually just stick to cured meats and cheese and...where did you get this?"

"Hamond." She nodded over her shoulder toward the door and the street beyond. "His stall isn't far. We...grew up together, I suppose you could say, though he's a few years older than me so he aged out before me—"

She cleared her throat and shook her head quickly. "Ah, never mind. Pie's good though, yeah?" She smiled, trying to move on quickly.

Damn. He was too easy to talk to—maybe it had something to do with the kinship she'd started to feel with him from how much emotion he'd shared with her.

For possibly the first time in awhile, and at least with the only other person besides Marigold, Idris was actively listening to Adri. So much so that he noticed the quick change in subject and, though he was curious to know what she meant by "aging out," he wasn't going to make her uncomfortable by asking. At least not now.

"Real good." He admitted, licking his fingers where remnants of the pastry remained. "I'll have to treat myself more often if this is what I've been missing. You know some interesting people, Adri." All he knew were his customers, the farmers mostly, and his craft.

"Oh I know everybody," Adri replied with a laugh and a roll of her eyes. "Everybody worth knowing, anyhow."

It was true enough: urchins had a network like that. The ones that lived king enough to make one, anyway.

She gave her head another little shake and leaned around him to look at how much his project had progressed while she was off getting food.

At the sight of the carefully cut metal petals, she whistled low, impressed. "You were busy, huh?"

"Mmmm." He hummed, grabbing another pie and practically shoving it in his mouth. Savoring food wasn't really something he did, it was more fuel than anything else and, despite loving the pies themselves, habits were hard to break. "I guess I didn't land on that list then, eh?" His voice was light and he clearly didn't harbor any ill will. He had pretty much ignored her forever until she decided to be kind to him.

He leaned down and picked up one of the petals with his forefinger and thumb and flipped it around a few times. "This part was easy. The rest could take days....it's a pretty intricate flower."

"Well, I know you now," Adri pointed out with a little laugh. "Like I said, I know everyone worth knowing—just sometimes it takes me a while."

She grinned, dark eyes shimmering, then shrugged. "And I mean, you're not in any rush to finish these, right? It was just an idea; I can pay you for this first batch—" with some of Marigold's stolen coin— "but I dunno how much we can really make off these."

Idris found himself smiling, "Well, this first one is for you. Other flowers will be easier - like roses. And I can get some crystal to make dew drops and then people will really see them which will hopefully bring more people to see you and..." his grin got bigger as he started planning out everything in his head, "I think it might actually work, ya know?"

He placed the small petal onto a metal placemat of sorts and pulled out a small jeweler's hammer and began tapping it to thin out the edges until they began to look almost life-like in their delicateness. Then he tapped a gentle vein into the middle and used a round tapered rod to curve the edges. Then he pulled out a series of clothes of varying roughness to begin the process of polishing. After a few minutes of going back and forth between polishing and adjusting the shape, he laid down the single finished petal where it shone in the sunlight that filtered into the open-air forge.

"One down!" He exclaimed, "This really isn't a quick process." He added, "And I know you probably have other things you need to do. You can stay if you want, but you also can leave." He hesitated before adding, "But I would like it if you...ya know....checked in a bit?"

"I can't just not pay you for your work!" Adrianna started to protest, but she let it drop quickly, deciding that they could argue about it properly when he was actually done with the flower.

She almost protested again, that she could stay while he worked--but then she realized how silly that was, and how...well, not like her it would be. She did have things she needed to be doing: selling enough flowers to keep herself fed, both mundanely and magically, for a start.

"Okay," she relented with a nod. "But I'll come by when I can--you said Herald's usually out this time of day, yeah? I'll try to stop in when he's not here."

She smiled at Idris and gently pushed the last hand pie across the work table. "Don't forget to eat that," she told him, lightly teasing, before she slipped easily back out of the forge and onto the street.

---

A late spring cold snap hit just the next day, persisting through the better part of a week, but at first Adri was good on her word.

The first three days, she stopped by the forge every day just after noon, when she was usually stopping in to one of her little hidden gardens to refill her basket anyway. She made sure to bring food with her, and usually popped herself up on the work table to munch away at her own small meals while she chatted and laughed brightly--asking questions about Idris' work, his apprenticeship, telling stories of customers she'd had, both the ridiculous and the charming. By her third visit she seemed perhaps a bit tired, but nothing too noticeable. 

The fourth day, she was a little more...subdued. She still smiled, but the laughter was a little less frequent, and there was a weariness around the edges of her lips and eyes.

The fifth day she was late, moving slower than usual--not just walking, but everything, as though her body was stuck in a thick layer of molasses. The smiles were there, but they were forced and thin. Her eyes still shimmered with admiration when she saw the progress he'd made on the flowers, she still praised the work and seemed genuinely impressed...but it was like she hadn't slept in days, all her excitement hidden under a veil of exhaustion.

The sixth day, she barely spoke. She didn't stay long, and she forgot to bring pies.

The seventh day, she didn't come.

Or the eighth.

Or the ninth.

While Adri was off living her own life, Idris worked. And he worked. And he didn't stop working. By the end of the third day he had finished the hydrangea and displayed it proudly in a vase in the corner of the forge. It would eventually go to Adri, but he liked to keep his work for a bit to sit on it before deciding it was truly finished. Sometimes the mental break allowed him to notice mistakes that he hadn't caught the first time. More that sometimes, if he was being completely honest. It also gave him time to think about different recipes that he could do for the next time. Who knew, the second or third attempt would probably be even better and that would be the one he'd want to give her.

The rest of the days he began fashioning easier flowers and soon had a dozen roses in varying metals - some much more expensive and flashy than others. He was experimenting with attaching small dew-drop-like crystals on the petals and had even managed to adhere some small sand-like ones that he was able to infuse causing the flowers to just....glow softly.

And he really enjoyed Adri's company. He couldn't remember the last time he had actually had someone in his life that he felt so easy with. She was genuine, kind, and was as fascinating to him as he appeared to be to her. It was nice to just...exist.

When she showed up, he found himself genuinely excited. When she left, there was always that feeling of disappointment, but that was short lived because she was so consistent that he knew she'd come back.

Until she didn't.

The first day she didn't arrive, Idris began walking through all of their interactions under the assumption that he had done something to drive her away. The more he studied them, the more it dawned on him that she had not been herself for a few days at least. She had almost reverted back to the street vendor he remembered from before they had officially met. It was concerning. She was distant, sad even, and looked absolutely exhausted. He told himself that he would make sure she was ok when she came the next day. Because she would, right? She would come the next day.

But she didn't.

He couldn't contain the dread that filled his chest as he waited. The sun moved steadily across the sky and even smithing couldn't distract him from his worry and all of the pieces he attempted ended in some kind of mistake. First he overheated the metal and had to scrap it. Then he worked on one too long without re-heating and it ended up cracking. Then he dropped an entire container of clear crystals and spent far too long hunting them down; he couldn't afford to lose them.

The sun was going down and she still hadn't appeared.

Idris couldn't take it anymore. Something was wrong. He just knew something terrible had happened. It had been cold the last few days and living the way she did came with some terrible risks. What if someone had attacked her? What if she had been dead for the past two days and he was only just going to look for her? What if she was hurt and freezing and...no. He needed to find her.

The forge was hot, but he knew the cold outside would creep in quickly, so he threw a well-worn cloak, laced up his boots, and went out to search.

With the sun going down, most people were finishing up their day and making their way back home. Adri wasn't on her usual street corner and the few people he stopped to ask had not seen her for at least a day, perhaps longer. That made his worry grow even more. It was all consuming.

Where was she?

In a moment of panic, he practically ran back to the forge and pulled a short sword from the collection and threw it around his waist. He wasn't a swordsman by any stretch, but he would use it if he had to. If someone was hurting her, he'd make sure that they'd pay.

And then he was back to his searching. He had also grabbed an oil lamp to help chase away the shadows that grew by the second. He had one more place to check before going to see the pie man - she had said they were childhood friends so maybe he would know more. But for now, he made his way to the little garden where the flowers grew that kept her business afloat. The same place she had brought him after Marigold had shamed him publicly.

"Adri?" he called. It was dark. So dark. She couldn't possibly be there could she? "Adri are you in here?"

He held his lantern in front of his face and scanned the area but couldn't see anything other than wilted flowers that huddled against the unseasonably cold weather. His heart sank. If she was here...if she was ok...she would have answered right? Which meant she was either not here or....

He drew the sword. Comically. His hand shook at the thought of using it, but if something was here....

The light washed over something that was clearly not a flower and was certainly not any kind of plant he had ever seen. It was roughly human size, like a mound of dirt. A mound of dirt with light lavendar colored hair.

A cry ripped from Idris' throat as he dashed forward and fell to his knees beside his friend, instantly dropping the sword without a care, "Adri? Adri! Can you hear me?" He scooped her up in his arms and pulled her close feeling her cheeks and checking her neck for a pulse. She was so cold. How long had she been here?

"Hey, open your eyes. Look at me, ok? You're going to be ok. I need to get you help. Back to the forge will be warmer. Hey, please open your eyes? Please?" he pulled the cloak off of his shoulders and wrapped her in it before lifting her up to bring her back to the forge. It would be warmer there. He needed to get her warm. And water. Warmth and water.

With her in his arms, he practically ran from the garden leaving the oil lamp and sword on the ground.

Cold.

Cold cold cold.

Always cold.

Adrianna honestly wasn't sure how much time had passed; it turned out there was a downside to drinking as much emotion as she had when she first met Idris—when she ran low of it, it happened fast, and it happened hard.

She'd spent so long, so many years surviving off sips, that she hadn't been able to pinpoint the signs she was fading as clearly as she normally would have. And once she did, she'd figured, no big deal, she'd just go back to sipping.

But the cold snap. And suddenly everyone was wearing gloves, heavy cloaks, and she was fading fast, too fast...

It was scary. Terrifying, actually. The last time something like this had happened to her, she'd been so young that the memory now was fuzzy and faded. She knew she had to be somewhere, had to do something, but it was getting harder and harder to remember why that was so important.

And the less she felt, the less she cared, the less it seemed to matter if she actually drank.

Can I die from this? She'd had the thought before, of course. She'd been starving before—though rarely like this. She didn't think this could kill her. If it could, surely it would have done so already?

But then what did that mean? Would she just be this—a listless ghost inhabiting her own shuffling body—until she stopped properly eating or didn't care enough to drink and just...wasted away?

Wait.

How long had it been since she'd eaten?

She couldn't remember, couldn't make herself care enough to remember. She didn't feel hungry, she just felt...

Cold.

"...Adri!..."

It was so, so hard to open her eyes. She tried, she really did, recognizing his voice. Just go away, she wanted to tell him. It's not worth it...

Then she was bundled up, scooped into someone's arms—Idris' arms—and a quiet gasp actually slipped from her at what felt to her freezing extremities like an influx of burning heat.

She drew in another breath and managed to force her eyes open to look up at him, fuzzy and unfocused. She opened her mouth, couldn't make herself care enough to find any actual words to say, and let herself curl tighter into his arms, burrowing toward the warmth of his body.

"...Sorry," she managed to force the whisper from her throat as he started running. "Forgot to...come by..."

Idris ran. He ran as fast as his legs could take him and was immediately thankful for his line of work. She was so light in his arms and he was able to move quickly through the darkness without so much as breaking a sweat. At least not breaking a sweat due to exertion. Worry and anxiety however, that was an entirely different story altogether.

His heart jumped into his throat when her whispers reached him. Thank Kia she was still alive! But based on her voice and how she just curled into herself in his arms, how much longer did she have?

"Shh. Don't talk." He told her as they moved, "We'll get you warm soon. Just hold on, ok? Just hold on."

Before long the forge was in sight and it gave speed to his feet he didn't realize he had. Then they were there.

And so was Herald.

The man simply gaped as Idris moved to lay Adri on the floor as close to the forge as he dared and kept his cloak wrapped tightly around her. He pulled his pillow down from the loft where he slept and gently lifted her head to place it there. He didn't care about the dirt floor. He didn't care about anything other than her.

"What are you doing, boy?" Herald practically bellowed, eyes still bugging out from his head in surprise.

"She needs water." Idris told him, making sure she was comfortable.

"What?" came the curt reply.

Idris turned on him, anger curling around him, "Wa-ter." he snapped, "She needs it. And I need you to get off your lazy ass and help me for once!"

Herald didn't really know what to do, but to his credit he quietly turned and poured a cup of water to place on the floor next to Idris. He had some unsavory vices, but he really wasn't a bad person. Not really.

Idris nodded in thanks and then grabbed Adri's hands to help warm her faster.

Adrianna whimpered as she was laid down next to the forge and the heat all but scalded her. It was wonderful and she needed it desperately and it hurt.

"I'm...okay," she tried to protest weakly, hearing the panic in Idris' voice and--despite her drained apathy--a part of her wanting to soothe it. Or rather, wanting to want to.

Then he took her hands and she gasped quietly, feeling that ravenous emptiness in her core yawning desperately, wanting to drink and drink and drink until either there was nothing left or she was full.

And she could never be full.

"Don't." She tried to pull her hands back. "I c-can't...I'm so...hungry, I can't..."

Idris held her hands tighter, the panic still rising in him as he tried so desperately to warm her. No one could survive the cold this long. If he didn't get her temperature up she wouldn't make it. So he kept rubbing her hands with his own to chase away the chill; to try and make her better.

"We'll get you something. It's ok. You're going to be ok." He tried to console her and looked over his shoulder ar Herald, "Can you get the crackers?" The anger at the man had fizzled, but the anxiety and worried practically oozed from his pores. Herald didn't even hesitate and soon return with a small plate from their storeroom.

Idris leaned forward and brushed Adri's hair from her face, while still gently rubbing her frozen fingers with his other hand, "I have some water here. I need you to try and drink some, ok?"

She needed to be ok. That was all the mattered. He would do anything and everything to make sure she was ok.

"N-no." Adri tugged at her hands in his again weakly. "Not—you don't understand. It..."

She closed her eyes, weaving slightly in place. She had to explain. She had to explain, and she could drink. She couldn't drink until he knew why.

That was very important. Important enough that it gradually began to pieced her veil of exhaustion and apathy.

"Like before," she tried to tell him, desperately forcing the yawning hunger in her not to reach up and flow into him. "When—when we first met. The feeling, the shame. I...took it away."

She swallowed, licked her lips. "I'm so... hungry for it. I can't...you have to let go..."

Idris refused to let her hand go. He knew she was stubborn, and smart, and funny, but mostly stubborn and he wasn't about to let that stubbornness keep her from getting better. She was one of the few people in his life he felt was genuinely a friend and it was far too soon to lose that. She hadn't even gotten to the point where she was tired of him yet.

"What?" He was initially confused by her explanation because he hadn't put together the idea that this is what hunger meant to her. That this wasn't just something she could do, but something she had to do. "Y...you need more?"

He looked around desperately like he would find shame lying around or something, but all he found was that Herald had left them alone after bringing the food and definitely zero sign of a big pot of shame cooking in a corner.

"I don't know where to find that!" He looked back at her desperately. Kia, he needed to help her! "Just...just get better, please? Whatever you need to do, I want to help."

"Yes..." It was half groan and half sigh, her lashes brushing her cheeks for too long as it took an inordinate amount of effort for her to open her eyes again. "Yes. I need...more."

He was confused. She couldn't blame him, she wasn't saying this right. She didn't know how to say it right, and—in her current state—didn't much care either.

Except she did. That was always the worst of it; no, she couldn't feel when she was like this, but she knew what she should have felt, would have felt, if she had not been so drained. And it was so, so hard, so heavy, a tiny voice screaming at her to just feel it feel it feel it!

But she couldn't.

"I can..." She licked her lips, which were dry and cracked from nearly a day not being able to care enough to make herself drink, and struggled to focus. "You're...scared. I can take that. I can make it lighter. And that...will help me..."

She swallowed, all of the energy she wasn't putting into finding words used to keep that awful hunger from swamping into him. "It would be...like before. Like when I did it before."

"What? That's... you can just take any?" Comprehension seemed to have dawned on him, though he knew he'd have plenty of questions one she was back and feeling better. For now, though, he would have given her his leg if it would keep her from dying.

"Then take it. Get better. Please." And he grabbed her hand tightly between both of his rough, calloused palms

Adri whimpered again, struggling not to take take take in one massive, jarring gulp.

She finally allowed the contact of their hands to open that bridge, just a bit. As small as she could manage. First one "sip", then another. Another.

Fear. Worry. Helplessness. Guilt?

Her brow furrowed and she clenched her eyes shut as the emotions swirled into her. She was so hungry, so desperate, that her control wasn't as clean as when she'd first drank from him. That lulling calm that came in the wake of her feeding would be more sudden.

Her hands began to warm in his. The tired lines around her eyes and mouth gradually smoothed away. When she opened her eyes again, she looked almost...normal.

Suddenly having the energy—and the feeling—for it, she leaned forward to wrap her arms around his shoulders.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, hugging tight. "I'm sorry I scared you..."

Time seemed to slow down in those moments she took to recover. He could feel her hands warming but with each incremental rise in temperature, he found himself suddenly....fine. Of course she was going to be ok, how had he even thought for a moment that she was in danger? And it certainly couldn't have been his fault for not looking for her sooner.

He frowned. Confusion taking the place of worry, doubt, fear, and guilt. But he wasn't worried. At all. Not anymore.

But he had been. He remembered just how scared he'd been. He remembered how scared he should be.

But he wasn't.

Then she hugged him and apologized and he struggled to comprehend what was happening. Whatever she'd done this time was nothing like what had happened between them before and he wasn't sure he liked it. In fact, he wasn't sure what he felt. He didn't even really feel relieved when she started responding again because he wasn't worried.

"I...don't feel scared." His hands rose instinctually to embrace her back, but it felt forced on his end. He didn't know what he was supposed to do.

Oh no.

Oh no no no no no.

Adri pulled back quickly, taking his face between her hands and looking him over with a frantic energy that she certainly hadn't had before.

Had she taken too much? Or--too fast. Damnit.

"I'm sorry," she whispered again, guilt clenching tight in her stomach. But there was relief at simply being able to feel the guilt--which of course made the guilt worse, because this wasn't a good thing, and--gods. She hated this. She hated it.

But even the hatred was a relief from that endless, yawning nothing.

Adrianna's eyes shimmered, and the smiling, teasing, friendly young woman she once more resembled disappeared. She sniffed, blinking a few tears down her cheeks. "I'm sorry," she repeated, voice thick. "I'm so sorry, Idris, I--I didn't mean to--it should pass soon, I'm so sorry."

Because she knew how it felt, to know you should be scared and to realize you weren't, and then to know you should be even more scared because you weren't, and--

"I know it's awful, but it'll pass soon," she whispered, releasing him with one hand so she could swipe at her eyes. "I never meant--I never wanted you to feel like this. Not feel like this, I guess. I--I'm so sorry..."

It was all she could say.

He tried shaking his head as if the movement would help bring back what he'd lost, but of course that didn't work. That never worked in these situations and yet people still did it, every time. He knew he should be scared, or worried, but he just wasn't. There was like a...void...were all of it should be.

"How?" He asked. At least he could feel confused. And he was wholly, completely confused, "Why are you sorry? Why do I...not care about you?" That wasn't true of course, he did care about her, but he didn't know how else to express it. If you weren't worried about someone, that meant you didn't care, right?

"I'm s—"

Stop. She needed to explain, not keep apologizing.

She sighed and her shoulders slumped a bit as she shook her head, drawing her bottom lip between her teeth.

"It's still there," she whispered. "Like...the shame, from the first time. That discomfort and embarrassment...it came back, remember? I just sort of...took the edge off for a while, so when it did fill back up, it wasn't so overwhelming." She took a breath, unable to meet his eyes. "This time, when I—I took the edge off, I did it too fast. You're not used to it, and it...well, it will feel like you don't feel the way you should."

Gods. Did that make any sense? It barely made sense when she tried to explain it to herself, and she lived it.

She swallowed thickly and shook her head. "I should've had more control," she whispered. "But it—it gets so hard, when I'm like that. And that was the worst it's been in a long time, I didn't realize—I didn't know how hard it would be to smooth out the edges slowly."

She finally risked meeting her eyes, her own still wet and red-rimmed. "It shouldn't last long. Maybe a few more minutes, and you'll start to feel panicky again. But I'm so sorry, I...I know how awful it is, the not-feeling. You have to believe me, I never wanted that for you."

He listened to her explanation and, while it still didn't really make sense, he was starting to have a general understanding. And he was surprised when he could fully and completely feel surprise and understanding.

That was good at least.

Maybe if he had felt scared or worried, he might not have reached for her hands again so soon, but he did and he held them and marveled, for a moment, just how big they were compared to hers. She was so slight and yet had this much power hidden inside of herself.

"It'll come back, though." He gave her hands a squeeze, "And you're back. And...I might not really understand it all, it's all new and I feel like I probably should be worried about it, worried about you, but...if It'll come back then...then I think it's ok."

"But it's not," Adri sobbed, and even though she hated herself for it a little bit, she fell forward into him in another desperate hug. "It's not okay. I tried to explain, but I didn't--it's so hard to even think properly when I'm like that, I couldn't...I'm just so sorry, Idris."

She sniffled, forcing herself to pull back and swiping at her eyes again. And gods the guilt from how relieved she was even for the bad feelings was nearly overwhelming.

For the first time in a very long time--perhaps ever--Adrianna found herself to be an emotional mess in front of someone calm and together.

"I-It'll come back," she confirmed through another hiccupping little sob. "Should be any m-minute now. I just didn't mean to, and I'm sorry." She sniffled, scrubbed a hand over her face, then mumbled with her eyes downcast, "Whatever questions you have...I'll answer as best I can."

It was the least she could do.

"Hey." He really wasn't sure what to do in this situation. She was clearly very upset about what she did. Like really upset and he was still struggling to understand why. He got that she had done something unintentional but he wasn't hurt or dying and she had been so...

"It's ok, ok? You said you couldn't control it, right? That it's hard to not do...whatever it is you do...and you were dying." He gave her an actual hug back this time.

"Next time it gets this bad talk to me, ok? I've been told I have too many feelings so I can spare some. Any are good for you? Not just...all the bad ones?"

Adri sniffled again, looking positively miserable, and nodded dully. "Yeah. Anything works. As long as it's...strong. So usually that's either the really bad stuff, or the really good stuff."

She shrugged, shifting a little in place. This was...odd. She didn't talk about this. "I don't--It's never been that bad before. I get sorta tired, and then listless, and that usually lasts days before it starts getting to the point where I know it's gonna be bad. This time it just...sorta hit me all of the sudden."

She glanced sidelong at him, just waiting for the worry and panic to return and for him to properly be furious with her when it did. "How are you not--I mean, I know you must still be feeling--or not-feeling--kinda weird, but how are you, just...okay with this?" She shook her head slowly. "I'm a freak. How are you so ready to just...want to help me?"

He cocked his head to the side and pushed her gently away but kept his hands firmly on her shoulders. The muscles he'd built from years in the forge rippled, not that he needed much strength to move her around.

"We're all freaks, though, aren't we? I mean....you properly met me on possibly the worst day of my life. I was an idiot who thought a noblewoman was going to forsake her whole heritage to be with an apprentice. Not even a full Master, but just with me." while she was waiting for fury, Idris didn't even feel even the flutter of anger. He could feel the start of worry bubbling beneath the surface again, but never anger.

"Just....look at this." He reached behind them onto the work table and pulled down the last rose he had completed. It was one of the more expensive attempts with a mix of sterling, copper, and a few small veins of gold and he had managed to polish some crystal to near perfectly look like drops of water along the outermost edges.

He pointed to the crystals, "Would you consider these crystals weird or freakish because they're empty?" He breathed light into them so they glowed faintly, "Are the more of a freak now?" He pushed even more light until they were practically blinding and he could feel the edges of their container at its bursting point, "What about now?

"When they eventually fade, will they be any different than they are now? Would you judge them harshly because, in order to shine, they need help?"

"That..."

Adrianna stared down at the rose, wanting to protest instinctively but finding that the words died on her lips. She stared for a long, quiet moment before reaching up to trace her fingertips along the petal-thin, curved edge of the metal.

It felt soft. Cold, of course, it was still metal, but soft. It was thin enough to cut, but he'd folded and curled it so delicately that it just...couldn't.

How could he even think to compare them? He made things, made something so beautiful, and all she did was take.

Her eyes welled up again as his words seemed to pass over her like a spring breeze, and she clenched them shut against the tears. "It's not...the same," she rasped quietly. "She made you think that. You gave those crystals their light. I just...take things." She shook her head quickly, pressing both hands over her mouth as she struggled to control her breathing.

Gods. She hadn't felt this in...a long time. When she fed, she usually only took enough to keep herself passing for "normal", and it was so much easier to do that when she allowed the emotion she drained to fuel her own curiosity, joy, contentment. She hadn't let herself feel something this painful since she was a child. Especially not so strongly.

She sniffed again and let her hands fall down into her lap. "A crystal can't hurt, either," she whispered, still looking at the rose. "When the light leaves them, they don't feel it. They don't become this--this empty, broken thing, shuffling about like it has the right to walk among people who don't need to draw from others like a damned parasite just to feel."

Idris didn't know what to do with this kind of meltdown. He knew how to smelt metals and bang things until they turned into the shape he envisioned, but he didn't know people. He didn't understand what was happening let alone how to fix it. And he didn't have the right words to say, in fact he didn't have any words. He just stare at her with his mouth gaping like a fool and he occasionally licked his lips to try and say something but no words formed and he ended up just looking like a fish.

And she was crying. No. Sobbing. He had said something so wrong that she was now reduced to...to...this.

And he felt guilt rising in him. It was slow and sluggish, but it was there.

"Hey." He reached for her hand a gulped audibly in an awkward attempt to chase away the dryness in his mouth, "I'm sorry. I...I don't do people. I don't know what to say. You aren't a parasite. Who told you that you were? What....what can I do? And you're not an 'it' you're you. And I like you. I like you just the way you are."

Oh gods. Now he was apologizing, and she knew it was because she was just a mess and wasn't explaining herself properly and of course now he thought the whole thing was his fault and—

"N-no." She sniffled and shook her head, wiping repeatedly at her eyes as she struggled to get ahold of herself. "No, don't...nothing about this is y-your fault, don't apologize."

She looked down at his hand holding hers and sniffed again. Then she slowly, carefully, turned her hand so she could lace her fingers through his. "I've never—" Her throat was tight. She took a shaky breath, then tried again, "I've never...talked to someone about this. About why I...do what I do. About what I am."

Her eyes moved up to his face, damp and red-rimmed. "...Thank you. For everything. But mostly for...coming to look for me..."

"Of course I was coming to look for you. I knew something was wrong and I'm just...I should have looked for you sooner and then maybe you wouldn't have been so...bad."

He didn't know what to do when she laced her fingers through his. It wasn't something he'd ever done before and it felt...weird. Not bad, just different and his fingers were stretched in a way that felt almost unnatural. But her hand felt warm again so that was good. Maybe she still felt cold and this was helping. He wasn't going to pull away if it was something she needed.

"Um. So. You're better now?" He asked with a genuine, but awkward, curiosity.

"...I am. For now." Adri gave him a small, wan smile. Though she was no longer freezing and starving—in one sense—she still hadn't eaten normally in probably the better part of two days.

But she didn't want to ask for anything else, take anything else from him.

She squeezed his fingers in her hers briefly before she started to draw her hand back. She still couldn't believe he wasn't angry with her, and a part of her was just waiting for that particular shoe to drop. "It wasn't your fault. I think...you might be the only person who would have bothered to look for me, anyway."

Idris let her take her hand hand away, assuming that she had gotten everything she needed. And the he just kind of sat there uncomfortably not knowing how to respond to her confession. It made him sad that she thought that. And sadder still that it might actually be true.

"So... as long as you want me to... I'll look for you, ok?" He finally said, hoping it wasn't too weird or anything. And then he shifted uncomfortably and then scrambled to his feet to collect all of the flowers he'd made over the past two weeks.

There were a dozen completed roses and three hydrangeas.

"So, this is what I've been able to finish.  Do you think they're good enough?"

As long as you want me to...I'll look for you.

He said that. Just said it, like it wasn't the most profound thing anyone had ever said to her.

Adrianna found herself gaping at him, but he was already bustling off to collect the flowers and present them to her.

"Good enough?" she repeated, incredulous. "Idris, they're beautiful. I've never seen anything like this..."

The hydrangeas especially--she knew she was biased because it was one of her favorites, but the detail, each tiny petal formed so perfectly to fit against all the others, it was just incredible.

Idris blushed so deeply at the praise even his ears turned red. He wasn't used to this. To any of this. No one complimented his work so eagerly and sincerely before and he could practically feel the sincerity dripping from her tongue but all he could see were the mistakes. The petal that refused to curl properly, the color mixing that didn't go the way he had envisioned, the setting for the crytal that felt clunky but was necessary for security.

"Oh. Uh. I mean. If you...if you think so. Um....one of these Hydrangeas are for you. Whichever one you like best."

One was the first attempt with a mix of two steels and copper, another was straight silver polished so brightly it almost looked blue, and the final was a combination of gold and bronze that created a fun movement of light between the two colors that were almost the same, but not quite. He didn't care which one she picked, she deserved it.

"Oh!" Adri looked between him and the flowers. She wanted to protest, but he was looking at her so earnestly, and...

She looked more closely at the flowers, tracing a fingertip along the edges of the petals and over the stems. She was tempted to choose the second--it looked to her most like a living hydrangea, the silver polished to the point where it almost had the right color of the real petals.

But her hand kept going back to the first on, that first piece he'd made while she sat on the worktable and brought him pies. She closed her fingers around the top of the stem, where the bunch of flowers themselves began, and drew it in to her chest.

"Thank you." She looked up at Idris with a small smile. "It's beautiful."

He nodded and ducked his head down to keep from meeting her eyes. They were okay, but he had so much more he could do with them as he continued to create. Adri had opened a new world to him with her suggestion to make flowers. No one had ever done this before, at least in Selevea, and he was certain the nobles especially would lose their minds over the idea of presenting flowers to their lovers that would never wilt or fade.

And he could continue to make some that were truly spectacular and costly once there was an income to support the materials.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, Herald returned.

"Idris." His voice was deep and commanding and Idris immediately looked up and stood when the Master Smith jerked his head to the side to summon him. Normally he'd be frustrated, but this time it helped him escape the awkwardness he felt over Adri and her love of his work.

Idris stood next to Herald and waited.

"I've been holding onto this." Herald said gruffly, "For awhile now. You've always had the skills of a master, but never the head for business. I didn't want to set you loose to just see you fail spending your life chasing dreams in the clouds and then that lady showed up and proved it all to me."

Herald placed a heavy pewter seal onto the table along with a set of deep blue sealing wax and a silver pin. Idris stared at it in disbelief. The seal had his name intertwined with Heralds to show his training, almost like a signature of approval, and in the middle was the a carving of an ingot mixed with a flower.

"She changed my mind." He said jerking his head in Adri's direction. "I've watched you both. She's got a good head and you listen to her. If you can do that with others, you'll be great. But." He hadn't lifted his hand from the Masters Seals just yet, "I want you to stay here, in this forge, at least for a bit. As partners."

Idris didn't know what to say. His jaw dropped in surprise and without really thinking about it he nodded in agreement. Herald's face broken into a grin and he shook Idris' hand firmly before placing the gifts into his hands.

"I'll have the new sign hung tomorrow." Then he turned and pointed to Adri, "He's gonna need you."

And then he said his goodnights and left for home leaving Idris to stare, dumbfounded, at the very thing he'd been craving for years.

Adrianna glanced up when Herald entered--and actually had enough emotion in her now to be thoroughly embarrassed about how she'd been brought to the forge. Her face flushed, and she was all too happy to duck her head to examine the hydrangea more closely in order to give herself something to do so she wouldn't have to look the smith in the eye.

She could still hear them though--the forge wasn't that big, and Herald didn't seem to be trying overmuch to keep his voice down.

Her head snapped up when she heard the phrase "skills of a master", and she blinked owlishly as the two men spoke, Herald with his hand on the table over...a seal?

A seal!

She could do little but stare, then nodded quickly, like a scolded schoolchild, when Herald pointed to her.

She was silent and staring still as he left the forge, and it took nearly a full minute before she could manage to whisper, "Oh my gods." She looked at Idris, eyes still wide. "Oh my gods!"

She tried to stand, before her body abruptly reminded her that she hadn't eaten or drunk anything other than Idris' panic in the better part of two days, and she was forced to sit back down or collapse. Still, she exclaimed quietly, "That--Idris, that's amazing! Isn't it?"

Idris was so stunned that he couldn't speak and only Adri's sudden half-collapse-half-sit broke him out of his stupor. Within a second the seal was back on the work bench and he was down next to her like a mother hen clucking after a newborn chick.

"Are you ok?" The worry had returned in full force by this point and he had already forgotten the whole incident before. He reached clumsily for the cup of water and food Herald had so kindly supplied and practically shoved them into her hands.

"You must be starving. Please eat, ok? And I'll get you whatever you need."

Adri didn't have the wherewithal to refuse food--she accepted it gladly, though she made sure to pace herself so she wouldn't scarf it all down on her chronically empty stomach and make herself sick.

"I'm alright," she assured him between bites. "Just haven't eaten in a bit. Standing up that quick made me lightheaded." She took a sip of the water, then beamed at him. "But that's incredible! He just gave you your seal, didn't he?"

She reached up to clap him on the shoulder. "How do you feel, master smith?"

He was glad when she started eating. He still didn't know how long she had been like that, but considering she hadn't come to the forge for three days, it seemed safe to assume she hadn't eaten for days.

He waived her question off, feeling embarassed, "Foolish." He admitted surprising even himself at his candor, "I thought he didn't want to give it to me because I brought him money....I blamed him for it....a lot....but, I wasn't given my seal because of me." He let his long bangs that usually framed his face fall across his eyes in an attempt to hide.

"Hey."

Adri smiled faintly and reached over to place a hand gently on his arm for a moment. "Look, I...just met the man, really, but he seems the type to...not be great at voicing his thoughts, let's say." She shrugged, pulling her hand back. "You said it yourself; it seemed like he was only interested in having you around for grunt work, and he never bothered to tell you anything different. You can't blame yourself for being worried about it."

Smiling again, though this one with a hint of teasing to it, she added, "Though it wouldn't hurt you to maybe talk to him about your concerns, next time."

"I've known him for years." He told her, lifting his head slightly to see her better, "He's like a gruffer....less approachable father figure. Not sure I'm going to be sitting and sharing secrets with him. Though...if we're partners...I'll probably need to do better, that's true."

He looked down at the plate of food and noticed Herald had grabbed some fruit as well, "Don't forget your fruit, too."

He stood up to collect the seal and pin and brought it back to show Adri, a bit of excitement finally building up inside of him. "I think he made it with you in mind." He admitted, showing her the wax stamp with the ingot and flower, as well as the pin that he would be able to attach onto the straps of his apron. Once his status was secured in the community, he'd only need it if he were to move locations or travel to shows, or seek recipes from the guild.

"Adri....I don't know how much you know about all of this but...this opens the whole world for me. I can do so much more now."

With a small chuckle and a roll of her eyes, Adri's picked up a slice of apple. "Yes, mum," she teased lightly—but there was a softness in her dark eyes that betrayed how much she appreciated his hovering.

No one had ever...taken care of her before. When she was kid, with the other urchins, they'd all looked after each other as best they could, but...well, they were all kids. They did their best, but it wasn't quite the same feeling.

To get that sort of care now, and an adult, was...odd. Almost unsettling, except Idris was so sincere about it.

She leaned a little closer to examine the stamp when he showed it to her, and her breath caught a bit when she saw the flower. She shook her head slowly. "I can't believe...I mean, what does he think I'll be able to do for you?" She looked up at him with a slightly sheepish smile. "I don't know much about how all this works, but aren't you, y'know...you're established now, right? You don't need me and my flowers."

Idris just shook his head, "No, not really. Getting the Masters Seal allows you to practice within guild territories and it gives buyers peace of mind, but it doesn't mean I'm any closer to being established than I was before. It just means people can now trust me. Oh, and I can legally practice by myself and travel and I'll be able to go to the guild tomorrow to sign the book and stamp it with, with this." He pointed to the pewter stamp and the deep blue wax.

He reached forward, allowing joy and wonder and surprise to bubble to the surface, and squeezed her hand, "He's right, you know. I told you I don't do people. I don't...I get metal. I hit it and it changes. That doesn't really work on people. You get people. And I think these flowers are going to be amazing."

Adri smiled at him, both because his excitement was catching and because there was a not-insignificant part of her that was just so relieved he was able to be excited. She hadn't expected his apathetic lull to last long, but she did still feel guilty about it.

She squeezed his hand back. "I don't think you're giving yourself enough credit," she noted quietly. "You...maybe you don't feel like you get people, but from what I've seen that's just because you want to believe the best of them. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing."

It certainly wasn't the way she lived her life, but she didn't think it was bad. Not if you could afford it.

"The flowers are already amazing," she added firmly. "And they're going to just keep getting more amazing the more you make. But you don't need me for that." Her smile turned a little wry and self-deprecating. "People can trust you now. You don't need to be snuggling out your wares through some street-corner flower girl."

Idris shook his head. She was wrong. She was so wrong. She had a head for business, she understood so much more than an artist trapped in the studio.

"Then let's not make it smuggling. Let's....let's..." he wracked his brain for an idea, for something that would make this all work. Make her stay. She made him better and she was so smart, "Work for me. Uh...work with me. But properly. I'm not an apprentice anymore so I can hire people, er, hire you."

Adri stared at him, struggling to comprehend what he'd said for a few moments. Then:

"You...want me to work...with you?" She blinked. "Like—like...partners?"

That was...she couldn't even wrap her head around that. It wouldn't just be an amazing opportunity, it would be the opportunity. It would mean she wasn't just a flower seller, or a courier for the smith, she'd be...

She'd be able to be. Without worrying day-to-day where he next meal might come from, or if she had enough coin to keep a place at a lodging house or if she'd be on the street in the cold.

It would change everything.

"Yes." He almost cried, panic that was once lost beginning to rise again, "Yes, like partners. I want us to be like partners and I know it's so different than what you're used to but I know you'll be great and you'll be perfect and...and...there's food! So much food. And you'll be paid a wage and I can offer you a bed, too, it won't be much but it'll be something and..." he took a shaky breath, "This is stupid isn't it. You don't want to work with me, you couldn't possibly want to give up the life you've built and I'm an idiot."

He dropped his head in his hands.

"Idris—Idris!"

She laughed, a little breathless, and reached over to clasp his shoulders gently. "Hey, look at me." She ducked her head closer to his so she could catch his eye and smiled a bit. "You're not an idiot. I was just...surprised, is all."

She bit her lip, caught between the instinct to just tell him yes, the desperation to find something better, and her instinctive wariness of an offer that seemed too good to be true.

"I...think I would like that," she murmured slowly after a few moments. "But—I mean, won't you be partners with Herald for a while? I doubt he'd be thrill to have me shoehorned in with the two of you."

His head jerked up and he was immediately shaking his head. "Oh. No no. It doesn't work like that. Not really. We're partners, but we still make commission on our own work and set our own prices. So...so you'd be with me and I'd pay you."

His thumbs ran anxiously around each other, hoping against hope that she would say yes.

She wanted to say yes. She really, truly wanted to say yes.

But she just...it wasn't her instinct to trust. Even with all he'd done for her, she struggled against that wariness that so many years on her own had instilled in her.

"I--" She took a breath, wanting to explain her hesitation in a way that he wouldn't feel was his fault. Because it wasn't, it really wasn't. "That sounds...really nice, Idris. It does. But I...part of why I make coin the way I do is because I don't have to rely on someone else to pay me. I give someone flowers, they give me coin, that's the end of it."

She bit her lip and glanced up at him. "I don't...it's not like I don't trust you, but I...I've spent so long just relying on myself, it would be...different."

Idris visibly wilted when she gave her answer and he wanted to try and change her mind but...it wouldn't make a difference would it? She thought she was the broken one, but he didn't have an excuse for the way he was like she did. She needed those emotions to be ok, but that wasn't her personality, that was just a weird quirk. Him, though? He had been denied Master status for years because he just wasn't good enough. He was stupid and lost in the clouds with stupid dreams and stupid aspirations that never brought him anything by misery.

So instead of saying anything, he just nodded and silently began picking up the now-empty plate from the floor and slipped the seal into his pocket.

"Want any more to eat?" He asked, not making eye contact and doing his best to keep the rock in his throat from messing with his voice. "I'll get you some." He continued without waiting for a response and disappeared into the larder.

"Wait--Idris, wait!"

She scrambled to her feet and chased after him, keeping the cloak he'd given her to use as a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She swayed a bit, still unsteady on her feet, but moved as quickly as she could.

"Idris, just stop," she pleaded as she caught up to him, reaching out to take his arm. "Please, this--it's not you, I promise. Really. I just--you're offering me something incredible, and you have no idea how badly I want to just say yes, but it...I..."

Gods. She was shit at this. She didn't know how to explain it.

He felt her grab his arm, but he continued to put some more crackers, cheese, and some dried meats onto the little pewter plate. If he had something to do, it helped take the edge off the general discord that raged inside of him.

But she just kept talking and trying to explain but it didn't make sense to him, any of it.

"It has to be, though." He muttered, trying to keep himself steady, still refusing to meet her eyes, "What do you do when the flowers die? Or when people walk past you and you don't sell anything that day? I....I don't want you to...to be uncomfortable or stuck or...I...it's..." he took a shaky breath and finally looked up with a forced smile, "It's ok. You like your life and...and I don't want to change that."

"Idris, I fucking hate my life," Adrianna told him bluntly. "I'm tired, I'm cold, I'm hungry all the time. What you're offering sounds like a godsend."

She stepped around in front of him and reached up to place her hands on his shoulders. "The problem is I like you. A lot. You're—you're probably the best friend I've got these days, and you've already done a lot for me. More than anyone else ever has. If I—if I let you do this for me, I'd owe you forever. I'll never be able to pay that debt back to you, and I don't want..."

She sighed, dropping her eyes. "I don't want that to become...letting you give me a job would make my life so much better, in so many ways. But I'm afraid that...then you'd be my boss, and..." She swallowed, and her voice lowered. "I like having you as my friend..."

He just gaped at her for a few seconds, completely floored by what he was hearing. She thought he was doing her a favor? That she'd need to pay him back?

"W...what?" He finally forced out, "No. No no. You have it all wrong. I'm... I'm not asking you because I'm doing you a favor. And I...I don't want to be your boss. I...I want you to be mine. But...not really but...I..." he groaned and rubbed his hands across his face, "I can't say anything right. I don't know how to do this. I need help. And I know you can do it and have good ideas and I don't want you to sit with me and give me these ideas and do work for free."

"Oh." She blinked, stared at him. "Oh. Oh!"

Another moment of staring, then a startled, vaguely hysterical laugh bubbled up in her chest and she had to clap her hands over her mouth to keep it from escaping.

"Oh gods." She groaned and dragged her hands down her face. "Well, I feel like ten kinds of fool. You--Idris, of course. Yes, of course I want to work with you! You're brilliant, I'd be an idiot not to take the opportunity. I just thought..." She sighed and shook her head. "I was looking at it like--like I'd spend the rest of my life paying you back for getting me off the street. I didn't realize you actually...wanted my help."

It was Idris' turn to laugh, but it was more of an axious chuckle in response to Adri's full on glee.

"No. I'm not some savior or saint going around trying to fix people. I can't even fix myself. I just...I value your opinions a lot." He took a breath and handed her the newly loaded plate of food, "You can stop whenever you want to. If you don't like the work, or you ever feel like I'm awful or...we're awful together or...you're not stuck. That's all."

Adri took the plate, but shifted it to one hand so she could reach up with the other to squeeze his shoulder again.

"Thank you," she told him softly, sincerely. "That's...all I can ask, really."

She smiled at him, then tugged gently to pull him down to her in a slightly awkward, one-armed hug.

On a whim, Idris wrapped his arms around his friend, his dear, dear friend, and picked her fully off the ground and spun around once before putting her down again. He hadn't given any thought to the food in her hand when he had spun and certainly didn't think about it when he put her down.

"Thank you." He breathed, "For saving me from myself that day and for showing me there are good people in this world. You are good people..."

Adri squeaked in surprise as she was lifted off the ground, just barely managing to throw her arm out so the plate in her hand at least didn't scatter food onto them when he spun her around.

She laughed a bit when he put her down, still rather startled from the whole thing, but not necessarily in a bad way. "You don't have to thank me," she told him with a smile. Expression tightening a bit, she added in a slightly softer tone, "And I don't know about me being good, but...thanks."

"I think you should stay here tonight." He told her, oblivious to the shift in her demeanor, "Not with me!" He added quickly, "but it's just that it's cold and the forge keeps the whole place warm and you've been out in the cold for so long."

His eyebrows raised slightly, "how...how long were you there? Before I found you, I mean?"

Adri's eyebrows arched up a bit further at the offer, then she smirked at the fumbling that quickly followed. She was a little tempted to tease him about it—but decided that there had been enough misunderstanding for one evening.

Later, maybe.

"That...would be really nice," she admitted with a small sigh. Her brow furrowed a bit as she tried to actually remember the answer to his question. "I think...nearly two days? I don't really remember how long it was, but I'm pretty sure it was getting dark when I got in there..."

She trailed off, then gave herself a little shake. "Well, anyway. Doesn't really matter, I suppose."

"It does matter." He argued, concern growing that not only did she not remember, but that it very well could have been the full three days just lying there without food or water.

He turned and grabbed a clay pitcher which he then filled at the well spigot and then turned to hand it to her.

"Drink all of this. Not some. I didn't say some. All." he might not be the best with people or social interactions at all, but one thing he took seriously was hydration. When you worked in an environment like a forge with the amount of effort each piece took, dehydration could kill faster than fire. "Slowly."

"Alright, alright!" Adrianna took the water from him, rolling her eyes to cover the slight pang in her chest. There was that feeling again, being cared for and truly not knowing how to respond to it.

There was a part of her that was almost...angry. How had she lived so much her life afraid and alone when there were people out there who cared, who would be kind? What was she supposed to do with that?

She settled for snark.

"Mother hen," she accused Idris between sips of water, though there was no real ire in her voice.

The months passed and the flowers sold better than Idris could have enen imagined. Herald, too, was shocked at just how many people come by demanding more and more and it was clear early on just how much of an asset Idris' particular skill set would be for the shop. But it wasn't just Idris, because behind his creations was the masterful work of Adri who truly did know everyone worth knowing in the area. With her connections, business boomed.

Even Herald began requesting her assistance in certain matters and paid her accordingly - sometimes more than accordingly.

They were doing so well they were able to expand the forge to include two fully stocked work spaces and even a small apartment for Adri. Idris continued to sleep in the loft above the forge - honestly he wasn't sure he wanted to live anywhere else. It felt safe and was always cozy and, more importantly, allowed him to work whenever inspiration struck.

Which happened to be close to midnight on this particular night. He never did the really loud stuff for fear of waking Adri - her apartment was close enough to cause issues - but the evenings were especially great for the finer skills he needed for jewelry making. He was currently finishing another bracelet like the one he had gifted to Adri whaf felt like a lifetime ago. This time, however, he was setting sapphires into platinum for an extravagant commission a Lady requested upon seeing the one Adri wore. This piece alone would cover all overhead costs and more for the next year.

Having a bed was an adjustment. A pleasant one, certainly, but an adjustment nonetheless. The first few weeks, Adri had actually had a hard time sleeping through the night; her back and shoulders were so used to cold stone or the occasional cheap boarding house or tavern bed that having a real, comfortable place to rest was surprisingly uncomfortable until her body adjusted to it.

Despite Idris and Herald's assurances to the contrary, she still spent what felt like at least half her time feeling as though she didn't really do anything around the forge. She'd set up a small garden in the plot of soft earth just behind the extension to the building where they'd placed her new apartment, and that took some work—and she still visited most of her little tucked-away flower patches a few times a week, using those days as an excuse to sneak about and leave coin and good where she knew the new kids in her old gang would find it.

The real flowers were something of a draw themselves—a signature, in a sense—and she often experimented with different arrangements to help Idris work on design ideas without having to make dozens of the metal ones that he might not use. But other than that and greeting customers, she didn't think she really contributed all that much.

It seemed insane to her that she was paid a more than decent wage simply to introduce people—the farmer that Herald and Idris often shoed horses for had a daughter who bought bouquets from Adri every spring, and that girl had a young man in the inner city who had connections to the mining moguls, it was easy to tug on those threads and match them all up so Herald and Idris could work out a contract with the Alitanis merchants for a steady supply of rarer metals.

But apparently she was the only one who thought that, because they just kept giving her things: coin, a bed, a home.

A friend.

Adri huffed as she rolled over in bed, having one of those nights where she was almost afraid to fall asleep for fear she'd wake and find this had all be a dream.

After a solid hour of tossing and turning, she admitted defeat and decided to get up for a quick stroll about the forge grounds. It was nearly midsummer now, and the balmy night air would hopefully help lull her somewhat.

She padded from her bed across the small room to the door that led out into her little garden—when she caught a glimmer of light shining from under the other door that led into the forge proper.

A scowl crossed her face and she changed direction, opening the door quietly and peeking out to see—

Of course. Idris.

Sighing, she walked into the forge and let the door swing shut behind her with a soft creak to announce her presence.

"Have you any idea what time it is?"

Idris sat at the work table with a sheet of velvet rolled out to contain the delicate pieces of his work. He had an odd contraption strapped around his head that held a magnifying glass, mini telescope almost, up to his eye and he had rigged another piece to it which contained of illuminated crystal that shone down on the fine details of the piece in his hands.

Thanks to the creak of the door, he was spared a frightened jump that might had sent tiny links flying in all directions. Instead, he was able to pause for a moment to glance over at Adri who stood almost menacingly in the doorway.

"Late, I know." He sighed and turned back to the bracelet, "I had an idea for the links that could make it stronger and I didn't want it to wait until morning."

He grinned at her broadly before turning his little magnifying light back onto the metal in his hands. "This piece will cover almost the entire cost of keeping this place running for the next year. I need to make sure it's perfect."

The tiny tweezers in his hand moved steadily to connect another link which he then closed using padded pliers. His back ached and his eyes were straining, but he loved it.

"I see you're up, too." He pointed out, "everything ok?"

"See, that right there—you didn't wantto wait until morning—means you should have been in bed hours ago," Adri said sternly. She'd caught him up laboring late before, and had gotten quite good at being able to tell the difference between "shit if I don't get this done now the piece won't turn out right" and "I'm an obsessed artist and if someone doesn't bodily move me to my bed I will work for two weeks straight".

They were clearly in the territory of the latter. She huffed a bit and moved closer to look at the bracelet over his shoulder.

She hummed a bit and shrugged at his pointing out that she was also up late. "Just...one of those nights. Couldn't sleep. But I was attempting to remedy the situation with a quick walk so I will actually get some sleep tonight," she said pointedly.

As her eyes moved over the piece he was working on, she couldn't help but reach for the similar bracelet on her own wrist. It had become a habit, to twist the thing back and forth, a sort of self-soothing gesture.

This new one was beautiful.

She still liked hers better.

He glanced up at her again and stuck out his tongue in her direction, "I'm remedying it, too. By doing some intricate work for a client who you found by the way."

He sighed and put the bracelet down for a moment before turning to her and resting his head on his hand in a show of exhaustion and stress, "It's a really big order, Adri, like...the biggest we've had yet and it has to be perfect and I won't be able to sleep until it is..."

Wasn't exactly a lie, but he was definitely making more out of it on purpose. It had been a day or so since he'd last offered for her to take some emotions and he knew she wouldn't tell him or even ask for more if he didn't regularly offer. He was going to wait until the following day, but since they were both awake now was as good a time as any.

"Do you...could you....maybe....?" He never directly asked, not trying to draw too much attention to it since it made her uncomfortable overall.

Her expression softened a bit when he finally turned from his project to properly look at her, and she reached out to lay a hand on his shoulder gently.

Her brow furrowed a bit when she caught onto what he was getting at—which didn't take long, the poor man seemed to be asking her to alleviate his anxiety every other day lately.

"You sure?" She tilted her head at him, biting her bottom lip for a moment. "I mean...if it'll help you sleep..."

He nodded a little too quickly, "Very." He remarked, "Sure I mean. I mean, yes I'm sure."

He lifted his hand and placed it overtop of hers where it rested on her shoulder. She wouldn't ask for it and he wasn't about to let her get anywhere near the state she had been in that one time. And he caught on quickly that she only agreed when she thought she was helping. So...he just....made a lot of excuses the needed help.

Her brow crinkled a bit, just a little suspicious of that quick nod. Usually when he was stressed enough to need her help his movements were a little more distracted.

Still, he said he was sure, so...

She turned her hand under his, moving her gentle grip from his shoulder to instead clasp his hand lightly.

She'd been so well-fed lately—both physically and emotionally—that she had pinpoint control of that little gap of hunger deep in her core. Even in her best days selling flowers on the street it was always just there, and it made everything so difficult; those tiny "sips", just enough to sustain herself without draining anything noticeable from her customer, had taken all of her self-control.

Now, with how often Idris had been asking her to help alleviate his anxiety, there could be whole swaths of time when she didn't even really notice that niggling prick of hunger, and it made it much easier for her to fine-tune how she drank. She didn't even need to "sip" anymore, skimming off the top of the strongest emotions a person was feeling. She could actively seek out what it was specifically that Idris wanted her to drain and only sip at that.

Which she started to do—until she noticed that...there really wasn't all that much there. It was something she likely never would have been able to tell in her constantly-hungry state, but now...

Her eyebrows shot up and she abruptly pulled her hand back. "Idris Lemaeal." She scowled. "Have you—are you playing me?!"

Idris jumped at the sudden accusation and quick release of his hand. He was confused, she had never reacted this way before and he'd done exactly this loads of time and it had been fine. And she had been happy.

"I...I don't... I'm not playing you." He stuttered, completely flummoxed on what to do, "what are you talking about? Why....?"

"I can feel it, Idris," she snapped back. "I couldn't before, when I was always so hungry, but I can now. I can feel how much there is of any given emotion I could take, and there is not enough in you right now to mean you need my help."

She raised an eyebrow in a manner that could only be described as "menacing disappointment". "So. Allow me to amend the question: how long have you been playing me?"

Idris leaned into the lie for only a few more seconds before he realized it wasn't going to do any good. She was angrier than he had ever seen her and he knew the game was up - there was no hiding it anymore but maybe, just maybe, he could convince her that what he had been doing was right. He wilted slightly under her fiery gaze, but met her eyes sheepishly.

"I....awhile." he sighed, "Ever since I found you that night?" He tucked his hands under his arms, "You wouldn't take it any other way. You just...just...let yourself fade and you said it happened so quickly the last time you didn't realize until it was too late and...but don't you feel better?"

Awhile? He called that awhile? That was months!

"You--That--I--Do I feel better?" She gaped at him. "That is not the issue! I can't believe you--why would you--?!"

She made a wordless sound that was oddly reminiscent of an irritated cat and whirled away from him to pace to the door of the forge and back. She made that trek a few times before coming to a stop in front of him again, glaring with her hands on her hips.

"Damnit," she said succinctly. "Damnit, Idris! After everything you've already given me, you want me to take more?"

"B...but you not taking anything!" he argued, "I'm giving it to you. You need it and that's ok! That's fine! But I know you don't like it and you think you're broken or something ridiculous but you just need something extra. That's all. And...and..."

He held is hands out in an attempt to find the words, or implore her to understand, or maybe a mixture of both. Maybe he shouldn't have done what he did, maybe it was a breach of trust, but she was so stubborn and without it she hurt.

"Don't you feel better?" He tried again, pleadingly.

Adri groaned and suddenly leaned heavily against the side of the work table, dragging one hand down her face.

"Of course I fucking feel better," she snapped, but there was a bit less bite and a bit more weariness in her voice. "But I don't... It's not..."

She sighed and scrubbed her hands over her face again. "Damnit, Idris," she repeated quietly. "I can't be--I don't want to be your charity case, especially not for this. For this thing that's wrong with me, and you just..."

She sank down slowly until she was sitting on the floor, head bowed and shoulders slightly hunched. She looked...smaller than she was. And she really was quite small to begin with.

Sometimes she thought she a little bit hated having full access to her emotions all the time these days. She'd fallen out of the habit of masking anything she might actually be feeling--or not feeling--behind a bland, pleasant mask. Her eyes burned and she swiped at them angrily.

But of course then there was that; she was actually capable of being sad, angry, irritated, and that was frankly amazing.

And it was because of him.

"Fuck." She dropped her head forward onto her knees. "Fuck."

Idris watched her pace and felt guilt gnawing deep within himself. He had been helping her, right? It had been the right thing to do....right? But she was so upset now and that was his fault. He had caused all of these feelings because he had decided what was right for her.

He pulled the magnifying headpiece off and dropped it unceremoniously on the work bench before making his way over to where she sat and kneeled by her. He wanted to hold her hands, or pull her into a hug, but he also didn't want to intrude or make things worse. He'd done enough of that, hadn't he?

"Adri...Adri, I'm sorry." he whispered, blinking back his own tears of shame, "I didn't...I never wanted to hurt you. You're not a charity case. You've never been a charity case. But you're stubborn and feisty and opinionated and the last time I almost lost you." the words were out of his mouth before he could even think about their implications, "I can't lose you."

"...I know," she sighed, lifting her head slightly to look at him. "I know you just wanted to help--I just wish you'd been honest with me--"

She cut herself off. Because she was at least self-aware enough to know that if he had been, she would have refused his help. Now that she lived a life where being comfortable was actually a baseline rather than an exception, she could start to understand where he was coming from. Start, at least. But she knew she would have told him no, even if it meant she went back to regularly starving.

But wasn't that...what she was supposed to do? She was something so unnatural, surely she couldn't just...take what she needed without paying for it somehow. When she'd thought she was more helping Idris than he was her she'd been able to justify it to herself, but now...

She sighed heavily and reached up to cup her palm against his cheek. Very, very slowly, a wry, tired smile started to tug at one side of her mouth.

"...I'm feisty, hm?" She supposed she was, now that she consistently had the energy for it.

Without really thinking about what she was doing, she let her thumb stroke over the line of his cheekbone. He was a good friend. She wished he'd been honest with her, but she could see why he hadn't, and still he was a good friend. Probably the best she'd ever had.

"You won't lose me," she told him quietly, and with a soft certainty that surprised even her. "I promise, Idris. I--I'll work on this. I will. On...letting you help me. But I need you to be honest with me about it from now on, okay?"

She swallowed, thumb stroking over his cheek again. He'd forgotten the to shave again, and the stubble was rough against the pad of her thumb. "Idris..." She licked her lips, unsure. "Idris, I--"

There was a knock on the forge door.

It was so unexpected Adri nearly jumped out of her skin, whipping her head around toward the sound with wide eyes.

Who in all hells was here at this hour?

Idris found himself nodding to her terms, "Yes....I...I know it was wrong on some level but...as long as you promise to let me help. If it helps, when you just kinda...skim off the top like the cream off of milk, I don't feel it. Not like...like that one time." He didn't like bringing it up because it made her upset. He hadn't much enjoyed the experience either, but it bothered him a lot less because of how easily it had righted itself afterwards. Maybe this would be the argument that convinced her.

Probably not.

He found himself blushing when her hand touched his cheek and waited to hear what she was going to say - probably mention his lack of shaving - but she never got the chance to finish when the knock at the door kicked his ghost out of his body.

"Wait here." He told her firmly before standing up and grabbing one of the large hammers used for bigger pieces and swung it effortlessly across his shoulder. Not odd for a blacksmith to carry, but also not not a threat.

He opened the door.

"Wait here my ass," Adri hissed back, climbing quickly to her feet behind him. She was relieved he'd promised her so easily--not that she'd really expected he wouldn't now that they'd had a proper conversation about it. Maybe he had been a sneak about feeding her the last few months, but she knew he wasn't a naturally deceitful person.

Of course, she didn't exactly have much time to dwell on any of that. Idris had snatched up the hammer and she crept along behind him as he moved to the door.

Sure, she wasn't a "wait here" kind of person, but she also wasn't stupid; she knew if it was something dangerous, the blacksmith had a hell of a better shot of scaring it off than the five-foot flower seller.

When the door swung open, it revealed a strangely lopsided silhouette, shadow-on-shadow in the dim street lights at the end of the path that led to the forge. Then the figure moved, and she realized it looked lopsided because whoever it was had hunched over to keep one arm pressed in tight to their opposite side. Like they were hurt.

"I need--" He coughed, and Adri caught her breath as she thought she recognized the voice. "I need to see...the flower girl."

He swayed, and she darted around Idris to catch him under the arms when his legs buckled. "Hamond! What--who did this?" She looked back at Idris, eyes wide. "Quick, help me get him inside, he's bleeding!"

Idris didn't know what he was seeing when the door opened. It almost seemed like a wraith waiting for some unsuspecting passerby, but then the wraith spoke and Adri practically jumped out of the shadows to get to him.

For it was a him and she knew him, too.

Without a second thought, the hammer was on the floor and Idris had his arm around Hamond and was practically carrying him into the forge to place him on a mat by the fire in almost the exact same place Adri had been all those months ago.

He left them to find bandages and food and water. Hamond would need all three by the night's end.

Adri helped as best she could to get Hamond into the forge, but it was honestly a job that Idris handled much more efficiently. She murmured a quick, heartfelt thanks when they laid Hamond down on the mat and he left to get supplies.

Her eyes flickered over the injured man frantically, trying to pinpoint what was most in need of aid. The arm he was clutching to his side seemed to be from at least one—but probably several—broken ribs, and the left side of his face was essentially one massive bruise. His bottom lip was bleeding, as was a clear knife wound in his right shoulder.

"Gods above," she breathed. "Hamond, what happened?"

Her old friend smirked at her through the bruises, though she could see the pain in his eyes. "The Triple Dagger happened."

Adri caught her breath, feeling her blood run cold.

This was so, so bad.

Idris returned quickly, first with a cast iron kettle of water that he hung over the forge itself. Wasn't really what it should be used for, but it would heat a hell of a lot faster than having to build a cooking fire. The pot wouldn't melt...probably...if he was careful. It was a pretty tough kettle.

Sure enough, it was already whistling away by the time he came back with water to drink and some bread and cheese. Taking care of people was something he was particularly good at, it would seem.

He took a clean cloth and dipped it into the boiling water and then handed it to Adri so she could start administering first aid. He had a a stack of clean ones waiting and a bowl for the used. Then he sat back on his heels and waited to be useful.

"What's the Tripple Dagger?" He asked quietly, knowing that he would regret the answer.

Despite her faint lingering irritation with him, Adri had perhaps never been so glad to have Idris as a friend— well, save for him...saving her life. Of course.

He was just so good at this, at being helpful in a crisis: he didn't make her spell anything out, didn't make himself a nuisance, just brought what he thought would help and then waited for the next task. The solid presence of him near helped her to ground herself.

At least, until he asked about the Triple Dagger.

Which of course he did. What else could he have done, faced with this situation?

Adrianna took a careful breath as she started dabbing at Hamond's bruised face with the warm water on a rag. He hissed, but held still; it wasn't the first time she'd patched him up, or vice versa.

"It's...what Selevea's branch of the Thieves' Guild call themselves," she sighed after a moment. "We—we've dealt with them before. When we were kids."

Hamond tried to sit up, she made a sharp, discouraging sound at him, and he fell back with a pained huff. "That's the problem, Adri," he hissed. "The kids."

She sucked in a sharp breath. "No. No, they wouldn't—they're kids!"

The didn't make sense to him, her explanation. He knew he should leave and let them have there moment, but he had a sinking feeling in his gut that told him this was bigger, so much bigger, that Adri's off handed remark made it appear.

"Why...why would the thieve's guild need kids..." he started asking, feeling stupid, when they both continued talking and that lump in his stomach got heavier.

He closed his mouth and let them talk. He became a silent observer and continued to had over whatever they needed.

Hamond shook his head at her. "You've made yourself noticeable, Adri. You're doing more than the rest of us now, more than getting by--the food and coin you leave for the little 'uns is enough to get them proper board, these days. They don't need the Dagger's coin anymore, and the Dagger don't much care for it."

Adrianna had started to breathe raggedly, her mind racing. Of the kids she'd grown up with, she really only kept in touch with Hamond--two years her senior--and a girl closer to her age called Tressa, who last she'd heard was working for a seamstress near the city center.

The reason there were only three who kept in touch out of the close to a dozen that had been her "gang" was that the rest had either died--or fallen in with the Dagger. But if the street kids didn't need to turn to thieving...

Oh gods. How had she not thought of that? She'd just been so happy, feeling like she could finally truly look out for the younger set, really give them something, and now...

"But--why did they come after you?"

He shrugged. "They wanted to know if we'd kept in touch. I told them no. They didn't believe me."

Adri swallowed thickly, guilt twisting in her stomach. "Gods, Hamond, I--I'm so sorry..."

He shook his head. "S'not me I'm worried about. Dagger won't be stupid enough to go after the kids direct--that's just offing potential agents. They'll try to stop you. However they can."

His eyes drifted toward Idris, and his mouth twisted. "I mean it. However they can."

As every word came out of Hamond's mouth, Idris found his gut twisting with anxiety. He had known Adri had spent most of her life on the streets and he knew what that usually meant - one of two things tended to happen. He had always been secretly glad that thieving had been the hooks that got her instead of the alternative, but now he wasn't sure he had the right of it at all.

She was out now. She had made something of herself but that wasn't enough that they were now going to punish her and her friends because of it? No...not because of making something of her own life but...but...because she was helping others.

It made him feel both sick and angry all at the same time.

And then Hamond pointed looked his way and Idris instinctively looked behind himself half expecting there to be something else the man must be looking at.

"Wait...what....me?" Realization dawned on him, "They wouldn't come after the forge, though." He argued, "The Smith's Guild spans all of Serendipity, they'd be starting a war they couldn't win."

Right?

Hamond choked on a laugh, and Adri quickly passed him the water Idris had brought before she turned to her business partner. Her expression was grave, and probably more scared than he would have ever had opportunity to see it.

"The Thieves' Guild spans all of Le'ranna," she replied softly, voice shaking just a bit. "They don't care about kingdoms and countries. And while they don't usually deal in death...they will if they think they've got to."

She swallowed thickly, shaking her head. "Gods. I--I have to leave, don't I?"

Hamond, propping himself up on his good arm, gave her a sympathetic look even as she turned to start bandaging his shoulder. "I know someone who could get you to Arca safe enough," he offered quietly.

Adris squeezed her eyes shut, feeling tears burning and her throat go tight. Damnit. Damnit!

All of Le'ranna.

Surely not all. That was...that was impossible. No one could have an empire that vast with that many moving parts. It was a bedtime story parents told their children to make them behave. It couldn't possibly be true.

But their eyes, his wounds, and Adri's sudden fear told a different story. Idris had been sheltered, protected, from this life by becoming attached to the Smith. His parents had died when he was young and he'd been passed back and forth between aunts and distant relatives until he began his apprenticeship. Her life could have easily been his if the die had been cast differently.

"What?" He started when she mentioned leaving, "No! You...you can't! This is your home, there's got to be something else? Something different? You can't leave."

"I don't want to leave." She turned to look at him, misery plain in her expression. "But, Idris--they'd kill you. They'd destroy the forge, I don't even know what they'd do to Herald, it..."

She swallowed and looked away again, setting her jaw determinedly against the threat of a proper sob. "The Smiths' Guild will only offer so much protection--I've made us just enough of a threat to draw their attention, but not so much that they'll actually hesitate to attack us."

Idris sat there for a few moments taking the time to do his best to digest it all - and it was a lot. He believed her, that they would kill him, and he wasn't nearly enough of a saint to claim he would die to keep her safe. He didn't want to get murdered. No one wanted to get murdered. But he didn't want her to leave or get hurt either. He wanted them all to be safe....he wanted to keep everything they'd built! Their customers, their daily  habits, the long nights by the forge, the constant nagging to go to sleep and take care of himself.

If she left she'd just starve again and he had only just convinced her to, maybe, continue using his emotions to stay complete and happy and her.

"A patron." He looked up suddenly, "I can get a patron. A true Gods honest piece of nobility to offer protection."

But who? Who was big enough, would offer enough, that this thieves guild would back off? Would leave them alone?

The only person he actually had a relationship with outside of the forge was Marigold, but he wouldn't really call it a good or healthy one. And her family was wealthy, but not nearly the wealthiest or most influential. If he wanted to make a stir he'd need....

Oh Gods. He knew. He knew. It was like a veil was suddenly lifted from his Gods Awful Sheltered eyes. The answer was right in front of him.

"Adri." He leaned forward and grabbed her hands with both of his, "don't leave. Not yet. Give me a day. Tomorrow. I....I have an idea but I need you to trust me. It might not work out but at least let me try."

A patron?

"That...could work," Adri said slowly, turning the idea over in her head. The Triple Dagger were thieves, after all, not assassins or mercenaries. If they made themselves more effort than they were worth to silence, the Dagger would have to just cut their losses and back off.

She started a bit when Idris took her hands, and found herself meeting his suddenly earnest expression with befuddled worry. He was suddenly so severe, she'd never really seen him like this.

"I..." She licked her lips. She didn't want to leave, but... "I can't put you in danger..."

Hamond put in, abruptly reminding her of their audience, "It'd probably take a few days to arrange safe passage out of the city anyway."

That was true. Adri looked between him and Idris, chewing in her lower lip, before she settled on Idris' eyes and squeezed his hands.

"Alright," she whispered. "I trust you. But—whatever you're planning, promise me you'll be careful?"

Hamond quirked an eyebrow as he watched them, but Adri didn't seem to notice, her attention focused on her friend and partner.

She just wanted him to be safe. She'd wanted the kids to be safe, she just wanted them all to be safe. Was it truly so much to ask?

Idris nodded and released her hands before practically leaping to his feet and bustling about the forge. He began almost frantically getting out supplies, but in an extremely controlled sense with a familiarity that only came with years of training. First the piece he had been working on earlier got gently folded in the velvet cloth and stored in a large safe, then more pieces were removed and laid out on the work table in a meticulous order.

If anyone tried to move his work around he'd likely bite their hand.

He tossed a scoop of coal into the forge and used the bellows to coax the heat - so much heat. Sparks flew, but they were his family and he welcomed them.

"I won't be sleeping tonight." He informed them without straying from his task, "Please, stay, Hamond. Eat, drink, rest. You can have my bed up on the loft if you'd like. Unless Adri would rather you stay with her." There was no undertone to his words, no hidden joke or assumption at suggesting the two sleep together, simply matter-of-fact statements from an otherwise extremely preoccupied master smith.

Hamond chuckled shortly. "Oh, no. I've spent enough cold nights curled up next to an even colder Adri, thanks. I'll take the loft if that's alright."

Adrianna rolled her eyes at her old friend, but moved to help him up into the loft where Idris normally slept. Once she was sure he was settled, and she had popped down and then back up to place the water and food Idris had fetched close by, she slid back down into the forge proper and shifted slightly to peer at what Idris was doing.

"...I don't suppose you'd be willing to tell me what it is you're working on?"

Idris shook his head, completely lost in his work as he cut off chunks of gold to place into a crucible and then used long tongs to place directly onto the coals.

"I know I'm asking a lot," he muttered, "But please trust me. I don't want to get your hopes up if it fails." And he also didn't necessarily want to tell her who he was going to see. He wasn't exactly sure why, but it almost felt like a betrayal, what he was planning to do, and he didn't want Adri to be hurt or angry or simply refuse his plan.

Right now he just needed to work and complete a duplicate bracelet that was around Adri's wrist in record time.

She stared at him for a moment longer, then sighed and nodded once. "Okay," she murmured. "Okay..." It wasn't in her nature to simply trust, but she would try. For him, she would try.

She placed a hand on his shoulder, hesitated a moment, then gave it a quick squeeze before moving passed him toward the door that led to her small apartments. She hesitated again with her hand on the doorframe, and cast a half-glance back over her shoulder.

"Just...promise me that whatever you're planning--if it goes wrong, you'll let me help. Okay?"

Idris nodded absently and gave a wave as she left the forge. And then he worked. He worked until his eyes were red from concentration and ash. He worked until his back ached and his fingers were raw from the fine details. He worked until the sun came up and he found himself dozing with his head in one hand and the jeweler tools in the other.

But before the world woke from slumber, he had finished and wrapped up a bracelet with glowing crystals and small blue topaz chips that reflected the light so they glittered like the ocean among woven chains of white gold.

He packaged it in a small blue box affixed with his seal and his name and placed it carefully into the safe.

Then he began preparing himself. First a shower in the large rain barrel outside the shop, then some time in the mirror to take care of the stubble that had started forming across his face. On a whim he decided to leave it thinking it made him appear older, more prestigious, but the edges were sharp and meticulous. His hair had gotten long over the last months and he did a single, thick plait that then tied with a black ribbon that nearly matched the darkness of his hair. The small mirror revealed someone very different than the person he actually was. He looked....refined almost, if that was even possible. Even his hands had been scrubbed until they gleamed and the forge had been purged from his skin.

Forgetting there was company, he bustled through the newly built shop side of the forge in just a towel to find his chest of drawers where he kept his more dignified wardrobe. He was slender and his clothes often hid his actual physique, but practically naked revealed  rippling muscles along every inch of the smith. It was not a job for the weak and even the simple act of opening a chest made his back and arms buldge.

A quick step behind a partition provided a little privacy and he pulled on a crisp azure tunic and pair of trousers that tucked into the more sensible boots - he only had the one pair - and he was buckling an embossed leather belt when he stepped out.

It would have to do.

Adri didn't sleep much, dropping in and out of unconsciousness multiple times through the rest of the night. So by the time dawn had finally started to creep over the edge of the horizon, she had actually just managed to properly drift off.

Hamond seemed to have no such issues, thoroughly passed out in Idris' loft even when the smith began puttering about preparing himself for the day. At least, for the most part; he did start to blink himself awake just about the time Idris had reappeared from behind the partition.

"Well. Don't you clean up nice," he noted from the loft, then winced as his batter body protested his attempt to sit upright. "Damn. Ahem. Don't suppose all that--" he gestured to the fancy get-up-- "has anything to do with the whole plan you were telling Ree to trust you about?"

Idris jumped when Hamond spoke, having already forgotten about his guest in the bustle of the day and quick work during the night. What was more confusing was the other man seemed almost annoyed with him, like he'd done something wrong.

His first instinct wasn't to ask about Hamond's tone, however, not after the visible wincing that occurred. No surprise, really, considering his injuries.

Instead, Idris shuffled in a low cabinet for half a second before pulling out a small vile of powder which he proceeded to mix into a small glass of water. He then nimbly climbed up and placed it next to him.

"Time's the only thing that'll really do much for you, but this should help with the pain." He paused and then realized he might need more of an explanation as to what exactly he had been given, "Willow bark." He clarified with a nod.

"And yes. It does." His face fell into a line as he contemplated his next words, "She has her connections and I have mine. But if she knew where I was going she'd...worry. Or worse yet come. I have to do this without her."

"Cheers, mate." The pie seller flashed a quick smile at him as he gratefully excepted the painkillers, but the expression still held a hint of wariness.

Adrianna trusted Idris, and clearly that spoke volumes to Hamond—but he still didn't really know the smith.

"You sure she shouldn't?" he asked as he settled back, deliberately casual. "Go with you, I mean. That for your sake, or for hers?"

Idris frowned at the question. He didn't want her there for the obvious reasons of hurt pride - he didn't want to go back, he had made so much progress away from who he had been before but....

He also knew what her life had been. He was sheltered and saw the best in people but he had ears and he did listen on occassion even if things didn't click until way way way way later.

"A little bit of both." He admitted. Adri had been correct in her assessment that he was not a deceitful person by nature. Idris would always rather be honest if it didn't cause anyone to be hurt in the process. He chewed on the inside of his lip. Should he tell him? At least so someone knew where he was if things didn't go as planned? He didn't think it would end badly but the family connection....

"Don't tell her, please. If it works out, great, but if it doesn't... just make sure she makes it out safely, ok?" he climbed down to the main level and clipped a short sword on his belt before pulling the box from the safe. Only a fool would travel unarmed with valubles.

He paused at the door and looked back at Hamond, "I know Lord Illuvieau's niece."

And then he slipped out into the street.

Hamond bolted upright, heedless of his injuries this time. Despite not having heard that name in nigh on a decade, it still set his heart racing.

Lord Illy? Shit.

The smith had a death wish.

And Hamond knew he was right, that Adri would follow him—so when she came stumbling out of her rooms a few minutes later, yawning and still in her nightclothes, and asked where Idris had gone, he just shrugged.

"Out on his secret plan, I guess. You just missed him, think he was heading into the city proper."

"Mmm." Adri yawned again and nodded. "How're you feelin'?"

"Been worse."

"Liar." She shot a quick smirk at him. "I'll get you some water, sit tight."

She barely bothered to get proper shoes on before she slipped out to fetch water from the small public well at just at the edge of the street; the forge was set far enough away from the busiest parts of the city that there was rarely anyone about at this early hour.

She thought she saw a glimpse of a familiar waistcoat turning a corner. Any sleepiness bled from her in a second and she shot up straight, trying to get a better look.

The glimpse of a shape was heading down High Street. The same direction Idris would have gone.

Fuck. Fuck!

She whirled around and ran back into the forge, grabbing a a spare walking coat Idris had left near the door and throwing it over her nightdress.

"Adri, what—?"

"He has a tail." She threw Hamond the briefest apologetic look. "I—I'm sorry, I've gotta go. Call for Herald, tell him where I went, he'll help you."

"No, wait—!"

"I'm sorry."

She ducked back out and onto the street, once more nothing more than the flower seller on the street in an oversized coat.

Idris walked towards the city in a bit of a daze. He hadn't exactly concocted a masterful plan since last night and only had a handful of figurative threads grasped in his hands. Would an apology he didn't mean be enough? Would the bracelet look rushed? Would she reject it outright? Was this even a good idea to begin with?

He ran a hand across his face, keeping the box tucked tightly under his nondominant arm so he could use the blade if he needed. That was something Herald had started pushing ever since they became partners. Idris liked making expensive things and expensive things drew unwanted attention. If anyone caught wind that they were unprotected, it wouldn't matter what they did - they'd always be a target.

So, three times a week, Idris played the faithful serf and went to training. He wasn't particularly good. His muscles just didn't work like that, but he was certainly getting better. Swinging a hammer around always felt better than a sword. Too bad carrying a hammer around town for protection made people uncomfortable. It was also just....heavy.

He made sure to walk the main roads today. Part of the idea was to be seen. His reputation had grown enough that people either knew him by sight or by the crest prominently displayed on the hilt of his sword. He had a wait list of commissions that felt impossible to complete. It made him uncomfortable to admit that people truly loved his work and Marigold should be no different seeing as she had loved it before he bloomed.

Being seen would make it difficult for her to turn him down. The nobility would want to know why and she would have to lie and hope they believed her or tell the truth. Both came with risks and, well, she wasn't a person who took risks.

Idris stopped in front of the gates to her estate far sooner than he wished as well as far later in the day than he'd hoped. People were already bustling about and he could hear his name on their lips.

Knowing the rumor mill, they probably already knew he was there.

A servant at the gate bowed, "Master Lemaeal." Ironic that it should be the very same servant who had come to the forge that day to collect the bracelet.

"Good morning, sir," he used every ounce of poise he'd practiced when dealing with the uppercrust, "I would like to see Lady Marigold if she would agree to it."

The servants eyes widened, "Lady Marigold?" He asked almost disbelieving.

"Yes, sir. There is a wrong I wish to reconcile with her. "

The servant bowed ever so slightly and disappeared into the gate leaving Idris to wait in the street.

The one good thing about a tail was that they very rarely checked to see if they were being followed--at least, the mediocre ones didn't. And seeing as Idris himself probably didn't register as much of a threat to the Triple Dagger, Adri was willing to bet it was a mediocre agent on his trail. 

Not to say that she wasn't careful, because of course she was. She couldn't even see Idris himself, just barely keeping that familiar waistcoat in sight.

Familiar because she'd been the one to help filch it off the laundry line nearly a decade ago. She would have hoped it wasn't really Torin under it, that her old friend might have given it to another member of the Dagger once he joined up...but she recognized the mop of green-streaked brown hair, like moss on bark.

Damnit.

The streets changed around them, getting cleaner, wider, nicer. She didn't travel this part of the city often--more in the last few months, but still not frequently. If she hadn't been following someone, she didn't think she could have confidently made her way around on her own.

Torin stopped just at the end of a street--probably a block or two behind Idris himself--and she cursed silently as she was forced to duck into a narrow, decorative alcove carved into the side of a building to keep herself out of sight as he looked around and leaned casually back against a lamppost.

It was both a blessing and a curse that it was still so early, not many folks out on the street yet. A blessing because there was only a handful of people who had been giving her sidelong looks--unkempt, wary-eyed, nightdress-clad her in a too-big coat--but a curse because that meant there weren't really crowds that she could hide in. She had to rely on the architecture.

Idris waited impatiently and did his best not to shift uncomfortably back and forth between his feet. There was always the chance that Marigold would turn him away and he wouldn't even get the chance to talk with her, but he hoped just showing up would pique her interest enough to, at the very least, chat.

But there was always a chance....and each minute that passed by made him question whether or not this was just a stupid idea. Then the servant returned and bowed slightly lower than before and gestured for Idris to enter through the gates.

With a heavy sigh, not realizing he had been holding his breath, Idris entered and hear the latch click behind him. The walkway cut through perfectly manicured topiaries and a series of statues that had been enchanted to glow softly like they were kissed with moonlight. The path ahead cut around a large fountain that was a conglomeration of different kinds of fae all laughing together while water spilled from pitchers in their hands or the wings on their backs. Everything was kept in pristine condition, was expensive, and made his fanciest attire look like a cheap costume.

The servant didn't lead him into the house, but rather continued to follow an offshoot of the walkway into a garden overflowing with freshly bloomed flowers and trees that had just started to bear fruit. Butterflies, whether real or enchanted he couldn't tell, swarmed around his head in a brilliant display of color. The whole garden was an experience that took his breath away.

"Idris." A soft, melodic voice reached his ears and Marigold stood from where she had been sitting on a stone bench amongst the blooms and trees. Her gold and silver hair was held up by pearl clips and tendrils fell gracefully across bare shoulders onto an ivory dress that near perfectly matched the iridescent nature of the pearls themselves. She was breathtaking. She always had been.

"Oh, Idris, it is so lovely to see you." She extended her hand which he took, bowed, and raised to his lips as was expected. "Master status has clearly been treating you well. You must tell me everything." She pulled him aside and onto the bench next to her before waving the servant off who left silently with a stiff bow.

The friendliness with which Marigold spoke made Idris immediately uncomfortable. It was hard to distinguish whether her words were genuine or lies after everything that had happened between them – which wasn't much to be fair, just false promises and broken dreams. But she seemed so earnest that it was easy to be swept up in it again if he wasn't careful. No, he wasn't here for pleasantries and gossip, he was here for one reason and that was all.

He cleared his throat, "My Lady, I'm here because I'm afraid I treated you poorly. I promised you a commission and then allowed my own foolishness to cloud my judgement. Part of becoming a Master Smith means that I am now allowed to complete work for patrons. I've had a few requests but I've been putting them off because of my own failings towards you." He stood and held the box out to her with a bow, "If it pleases you, and I hope you don't find me too forward, I would like to offer my sincerest apologies."

She gaped for a few minutes, but recovered and graciously took the box from his hands. Upon opening it she found the bracelet he had worked all night to complete. The stones were shining brilliantly and, even without looking at her, he heard the intake of breath that accompanied its opening.

"Idris..." she breathed, "This is...why...this..."

"I have had the time to perfect this particular style since we last spoke. It is currently the only one of its kind and I would like to offer you and your family an exclusive contract for these. I can adjust for necklaces, earrings, hair clips...any metals of your choice—"

"Yes!" she interrupted, "Oh Idris, yes!" her eyes were sparkling with greed, "Oh! The other houses will just die." she grasped the bracelet firmly in her hands and stood, "I will need to discuss with my mother and father of course, it is their house and their reputation after all, but I have been telling my mother to leave you be as I wasn't sure if we, you and I, were reconciled after that unfortunate outburst in the streets. Please," she held out her hand and it took all his power to not make a face. Unfortunate outburst indeed....

But he took her hand and she lead him through the gardens and back to the front gate where the servant once more opened the doors and stepped aside.

"Assuming my family is in agreement, our clerk will be by later today to finalize the contract." He stepped out into the streets and bowed once more. She hesitated for a moment before stepping forward and placing a strategic kiss on his cheek, "Thank you."

She turned and the gate closed sharply behind her and Idris let out a relieved sigh.

This should work. It had to work.

Adri did her best to keep herself hidden while still keeping Torin in sight; she'd managed to duck out of her little alcove when his attention was on the estate gates--and she was still maddeningly curious about just what exactly this estate was, she hadn't thought Idris would just up and decided to petition nobility directly--and skittered across the street to tuck herself in against the lip of a building's facade.

With the borrowed coat collar turned up to block most of her face, she was able to keep a sidelong eye on Torin as he hovered around the gate...and then suddenly seemed to come to a decision, shaking his head and turning to make his way back the way he'd come.

Adri started to lean out of her hiding place, frowning. Was he going for reinforcements? Why would he need them?

Did he know this place?

She wasn't foolhardy enough to follow him again; wherever he was going, she was sure there would be more Dagger agents waiting, and she was just...herself. One person.

But she didn't want to go back to the forge yet. If Torin had been going to get reinforcements, she wasn't about to leave Idris to face them on his own.

She caught the way a woman across the street was looking at her--her in her too-big coat on a too-warm day, shoes barely laced properly. She knew if anyone scrutinized her too closely, they were bound to see the tell-tale hem of a nightdress peeking out from the folds of the coat.

She needed to get out of here. More and more people were out and about, and she was becoming too obvious.

C'mon, Idris, where are you...?

He appeared at the gate and she felt a breath of relief catch in her throat, just as she recognized the figure accompanying him.

...What?!

Idris stepped back into the road and absently rubbed the cheek Marigold had kissed, but not in an affectionate way, rather a hard, scrubbing way like he was trying to rub off a smear of dirt. Just a few short months ago he would have skipped through the streets at any sign of affection, but now? Even in that exchange her entire excitement had centered around the prestige his work would bring her. "The other houses will die!"

No....he had been a fool and a complete and utter fool at that. She was a beautiful young woman, but she would never be for him and he was glad for it.

He glanced up to ensure he wouldn't run into any of the people strolling down the street when he spotted it. His coat. His coat standing up on its own. Not on its own, no, but on the very slight figure of someone he knew extremely well.

"Adri?" He gaped at her, trying to understand just what he was seeing.

...

Ohhhhhhh shit.

She was in so much trouble...

There was actually a brief moment where she debated simply making a run for it--but that wouldn't actually do any good. It would just make her look guilty, and it wasn't like he didn't know where she lived. She'd just be prolonging the inevitable.

So she shrugged away from the wall and smiled at him sheepishly, adding a tiny wave.

That felt stupid.

Fuck.

"Um...hey."

He was frozen for a good fifteen seconds just staring at her from Marigold's front steps. Why was she here? How had she known where to be? Why was she here?

Then there was panic.

He found his feet again and they swiftly took him across the road until he was next to her and looped his arm around hers and found he was practically dragging her away from the estate. He was angry, but also scared, and a little bit embarrassed. So many things could have gone wrong if she had been seen. Marigold would never have agreed if she thought there was competition, that much he knew for certain. Then there was the question about Lord Illuvieau - did he know her? Of course he did if he was as influential as Idris believed him to be...if things had fallen apart she would have had to leave!

"What are you doing?" he hissed. In all their time together these past months he had never felt like this - especially towards her, "You shouldn't be here. Why are you here?"

Adrianna automatically flinched back when he looped his arm through hers and started tugging her along. She quickly jerked herself free, but kept moving with him, keeping pace as best she could.

"You were being followed," she hissed back in answer. Then, realizing how that sounded, she added quickly, "I mean, by someone else. I went out to get water and I saw—"

This sounded like an excuse. She gritted her teeth. "What are you doing here? Was this your plan?!"

"Followed?" he let her pull free. It was never in his nature to be aggressive and even now his actions were more to get her away than they were to punish or hurt, "What does that even mean? Did Hamond tell you where I was?"

He ran a hand down his face and shook his head forcefully.

"Not here. Not now. Back at the forge, ok? Separately."

Adrianna never thought for a moment that Idris would have actually intended to harm her—it actually part of why she felt safe enough to pull away from him. But it was still definitely not typical behavior from him, and her own years living on her own in the streets had instilled a very particular set of instincts.

"...Okay," she agreed after a moment, nodding quickly. "Back at the forge. I'll take the west side streets and loop around." She hesitated, then muttered. "Can I...keep the coat? I was in a rush, I'm sorta...still in my nightdress."

"Fine, sure, I don't need it." He said hastily. "Be careful."

And he didn't look back as he made his way back through town doing his best to look casual but knowing he was stiff and uncomfortable and every nerve in his body was on fire. Small things made him jump. A bump on the shoulder was a would-be-assassin. A cough was the woosh of a blade.

Adri had mentioned a tail. He believed it.

And that was terrifying.

How fast did news spread in this thieves circle? Was having a meeting enough? There was no contract yet and any kind of accident could still happen.....

But he managed to make it back without a scratch and he slipped inside.

Adrianna had more experience than she would have necessarily liked with making sure she wasn't being followed. Of course, she supposed there really wasn't much point--it wasn't like the Dagger didn't know where her home base was, these days. They'd set a tail on Idris practically from the forge doors, for gods' sakes.

---

By the time Idris returned, Hamond had been helped down from the loft--likely by Herald, although there was a chance he was stubborn enough to have managed it himself--and had settled himself by the all-but-dead coals of the forge itself. With proper bandaging, and some rudimentary stitching in his shoulder, he actually seemed to be doing much better.

"So." He quirked an eyebrow when Idris entered, looking rather frazzled. "How did it go?"

Idris hung the sword back on the wall and sat down on a nearby chair with a heavy thump. Now that the excitement was over, the adrenaline was fading and exhaustion was creeping in.

"Good. Probably. I mean, we'll see for sure if the clerk actually shows up, but I think it's good."

He glanced around the forge and then back at the front door, clearly anxious.

"She's not back yet?" Adri was taking a longer route so it made sense, but he wouldn't feel at ease until she walked in and he laid eyes on her in that ridiculously large coat.

"Nope." Hamond popped the "p". "Not surprised you caught her--she's probably out of practice. And she did tear out of here with her shoes barely on."

He tilted his head slightly at Idris before plucking up a piece of bread off the tray from the previous night. "So. She get your tail, at least?"

Idris shook his head, "I didn't see anyone. She told me there was one, but I don't think they were there when I saw her."

He stood suddenly and went to pull open the main door and look out at the road, hoping to see her aproaching.

"She's taking a long time." He felt breathless, "Don't you think she's taking too long?" Gods, where was she? He prayed to Kia that she was just being extra careful or that her short legs just made her slower. He hadn't been that much faster than her, right?

"She's fine," Hamond replied with a roll of his eyes. "She's tougher than half the Dagger put together."

It wasn't entirely clear if that was something the pie seller was saying because he truly believed it, or because he was trying to convince himself of it.

Clearly trying to keep Idris distracted from worry, he asked bluntly, "So. You two. That's...a thing?"

Idris stood motionless in the doorway as if his presence there would make the difference between Adri coming home or not. He bit the inside of his cheek anxiously and continuously tapping his index finger on the wood frame. There wasn't a time in his life that he could remember ever feeling this restless, this consumed with worry. Even the night he found her nearly frozen and starved to death didn't compare to these minutes that ticked by excruciatingly slowly. That night he had been able to do something, but now? Here, on the threshold? All he could do was wait.

"Huh? Adri and I?" He asked, only half listening, "I mean sure. She's done a lot for the forge and Herald and I wouldn't be nearly as successful without her. She's incredible, really."

His eyes never left the dirt path leading up to the forge. Please show up. Please.

"Uh-huh..." Hamond replied in a low drawl, clearly trying to coax out more information. When none was forthcoming, he rolled his eyes and whistled quickly.

"Oi. Muscles. You staring isn't gonna get her home any faster." He arched an eyebrow at Idris' back. "Besides, you can't go looking for her—we're probably in more danger here than she is out there, if it makes you feel any better," he added dryly.

Idris lingered in the doorway for a few more seconds before sighing and letting it close behind him before turning back to Hamond.

"Don't call me that." he found himself saying with more bite than he expected. He was tired, worried, and wasn't in the mood of joviality or games, but Hamond wasn't wrong - standing at the door wasn't going to magically summon her back.

"Why can't I go looking for her?" he asked quietly, unable to stop fidgeting with his belt now that he wasn't actively staring down the road. Sitting and doing nothing was awful. The whole situation was awful. "How are you so calm?"

Hamond raised his hands at the admonition and said easily, "Right, mate, noted. Sorry."

He sighed and picked at the lady of the food for a few moments before offering any sort of answer to Idris' question. "You can't go looking for her because they'll have someone watching her. If she's hurt, how you react to that will tell them if she means more to you than your business. If she's not hurt, going after her is just going to draw more attention, which is exactly why it would be taking her so long to get back—she's trying to get rid of the attention."

He continued picking at the food, but didn't actually eat any. After another long moment, he said quietly, "I'm not calm, mate. I'm scared stiff. I've just got more practice with this sorta thing." He shook his head, frowning at nothing. "Adri's one of the oldest friends I've got, and she's a good lass—she doesn't deserve the heat on her just for wantin' to help the little'uns."

He exhaled slowly, and finally lit a bit of food into his mouth. "She's also clever. Sure, I'm worried, 'cause that's what mates do, but I know she'll keep herself safe."

He couldn't consider another option.

He ran another hand down his face and it lingered on his mouth while he tried to process everything Hamond was saying. He wasn't familiar with this life, he'd never had to be. It was becoming more and more clear just how different things had been for Adrianna growing up and even well after she was grown.

"This is what it's been like for you? Both of you?" Idris asked still standing with his hand over his mouth, "Constantly worried someone just might not come back?" How ignorant must he look to them? To both of them?

He was a fool. A Gods forsaken fool.

He took a breath and both hands fell down to rest on his hips while his eyes stared at his boots.

"How long do you wait?" Idris finally raised his eyes to meet Hamond's once more, "How long is...is too long? When you know something must've happened?"

"Well...yeah." Hamond shrugged, then winced as the motion pulled at his wounded shoulder. "It's awful, sure, but...ya sorta have to get used to it. Granted, I thought we were out of this sorta thing by now, but..."

He shrugged again, more carefully this time. "There's a reason it's mostly just me and Adri who keep in touch, from when we were kids. The others either...well, there's three options: they end up like us, finding the sorta job that can make ends meet and maybe help the young'uns out a bit, they join up with the Dagger, or they don't make it."

He went quiet for a few moments, unable to stop his own eyes from flicking toward the door. "Honestly, with something like this--we should give her until nightfall. It shouldn't take her that long, but if she's hurt, it might. And if she's caught, or..."

Dead.

"If she's caught," he repeated firmly, "it'll be to send a message. The Dagger will want to make sure we got the message. So we'll know by then either way."

Once again the hand swiped down his face; a nervous tick he couldn't control. This couldn't be happening. Why hadn't the Dagger just told them to stop? Why the sudden jump to tailing and possibly....

No. This was the warning, wasn't it? If they wanted them dead, Idris was fairly certain, they would already be dead. Hamond wouldn't have gotten away to come warn them and the forge would be burnt to a crisp. That was the easiest way to get rid of a smith...no one questioned a fire when it was such an important part of your livelihood.

Unbeknownst to himself, Idris had actually begun pacing and a line was quickly appearing in the dirt floor as he walked. He had made half a dozen passes when the back door opened and Herald marched in with a barrel of coals to replenish the ones they'd both used the previous day.

"Boy." Herald growled, dropping the barrel with a loud smack. Idris jumped and looked up in surprise, "Ruining the floor ain't gonna do nothing about anything."

The older smith marched over and roughly grabbed Idris's shoulders and turned him towards his loft, "Get out of that noble-wannabe-shit and make yourself busy. I don't care if you're tired, you've got work."

Idris wilted and silently climbed to his loft to change. Even with a seal he still defaulted to apprentice. It took a lot longer than a few months to break out of years of habits.

Once out of sight, Herald glanced at Hamond.

"I've asked about." He told the young man gruffly, making sure he wasn't loud enough to be overheard, "No news. Probably better that way."

Hamond watch Idris all but sulk up into the loft with a small smirk before turning his attention to Herald.

He nodded slowly, briefly worrying at his lower lip--a habit very similar to Adri's, actually. "Probably," he agreed quietly. Shaking his head, he made a low sound of frustration and reached up with his good arm to drag his fingers back through his hair. "Damn the girl. I would have stopped her going after him, but I..."

He gestured vaguely, frustrated, to his injuries.

Herald laid a gentle hand on Hamond's shoulder before heading towards the door, "None of us could've stopped that girl. Now we just have to pray she'll come back."

He slipped out the door and headed out to the second forge where he did most of his own work.

---

It hadn't taken Idris long to change, and before long he had come back down in his usual brown cotton trousers and loose undyed shirt. A leather apron that covered him neck to knees finished the look and he got right to work shoveling coals into the forge and continuing with the long list of projects.

Usually he defaulted to the jewelry side of the business, but today he didn't have the mind for intricate work. Instead, he pulled out large pieces of metal and began the exhausting work of pounding out horseshoes. Even now it was about fifty percent of their business though Idris' work continued to rise and would soon surpass it.

Soon the shop was filled with a heat so intense the windows and doors had to be opened and his hammer fell with all the anxiety, fear, and anger he had to keep welled up inside of him.

He worked. And worked. And refused to take breaks until a presence appeared just outside of the forge.

Hamond seemed to sense that there would be no use trying to talk to Idris; the man was completely absorbed in his work, and the only point of conversation at this point would have been to distract him from worry. Smithing served well enough in that regard.

So he was the first one to notice a figure approaching the forge. A finely dressed figure, far too finely dressed for this part of town, at this time of day. The nobility who did visit the craftsman down these streets usually sent servants, or if they had to come themselves did it in the early hours, before their "social obligations".

Hamond whistled softly in Idris' direction. "Hey. Think we've got company." He squinted, trying to make out details from a distance, caught between hoping it was who he thought...and hoping it wasn't.

Idris stopped midswing when Hamond's whistle reached his ears. It was almost like coming out of a trance and he stretched his still back and aching muscles in a long arch before wiping his brow with the back of his arm.

His hair was still mostly held back, but a few strands had fallen from the plait and were hastily pushed behind an ear. He was breathing heavily and soaked in sweat but it was such a common existence for him he didn't even notice until he spotted the figure approaching. That was when he felt the cold plunge of dread - he was a far cry from the petitioning smith he had become that morning.

"Oh Kia," he breathed, "That's....Hamond, that's Lord Illuvieau. That's not a clerk that's actually him."

He had only seen the man once or twice, but the family resemblance between him and his niece was indisputable.

"Fuck," Hamond said softly, almost reverently--not with the reverence that Idris had invoked Kia, but with the sort of terrified awe that a worshiper of a death-dealing god--or demon-- might fall back on.

He shot Idris a quick look, with more clear anxiety in his expression than he'd yet shown. He could hide his worry for Adrianna, but the kind of fear this one nobleman inspired was ingrained too deep.

The nobleman in question reached the open forge doors and paused. "I would knock," he said in a voice that dripped condescension, "but there does not appear to be much point."

He looked from Hamond to Idris and back; the ex-urchin felt ice trickle down his spine under that cool gaze.

"I was told that an Idris Lamaeal came to seek an audience with my niece this morning."

Idris had a moment where he didn't know what to do and he couldn't get himself to move. He had expected a clerk. He never would have changed out of the fancy garb if he even thought for a moment it would have been anyone but another servant or employee of Marigold's house.

He didn't have time to mentally prepare himself for this. He didn't have the poise or the words or the ingenuity to do this kind of thing on a whim, that was Adri's skill set. That was one of the reasons they had been so successful.

But none of that mattered. He didn't have a choice. He had to be better at it now. He had to be the person who could pull off working closely with a highly influential noble family or it wouldn't matter and they'd all end up dead.

So the moment Lord Illuvieau stepped up to the door, Idris had already gathered himself enough to give him a low bow befitting someone of his station and someone of his...reputation.

"Yes, My Lord." He responded while his eyes still faced the floor. Then, upon standing, "I wished to rectify a wrong and brought a gift by way of apology.

"I must apologize for the state you've found me. I was not prepared to accept a visit from someone of your esteem. Please, forgive me." He gave another bow.

Illuvieau waved a hand briskly. "Yes, yes, you are forgiven."

He looked back and further between Hamond and the smith again. The pie seller had to force himself not to shrink back into the forge itself.

Suddenly seeming to come to some sort of decision, he nodded briskly and slid his hands into the pockets of his impeccably tailored, knee-length coat. His posture didn't change, exactly, but something about his presence moved from "out-of-place lord" to "imposing and inscrutable figure".

"Gentlemen," he said in a clipped tone, "let us not play games, shall we? I find I don't have the taste for it that I once did in my youth. You, Master Lameael, made a bid this morning—a bid for your safety, and the safety of your business." He arched an eyebrow. "I highly doubt you sought out my sister's household for patronage purely by coincidence."

Idris wasn't born to this life and although he had little knowledge or experience with organizations like the Dagger, he did have more experience with dealing with nobles. Unfortunately, What experience he did have very rarely went the way of honesty.

He had a choice to make. It went against his nature to lie, but would telling the truth do anything but make everything worse?

There wasn't time! He had to make a choice now.

"You're right." He found himself saying to his own horror and surprise, "I'm no good at them anyways. But I was a fool when it came to Lady Marigold and I did owe her an apology. My Lord...your niece requested a commission from me long before I had any right to accept it. I went to see her because she saw the value of my work before anyone else.....and because I wanted to save the life I've built. Your sister and her daughter deserve the patronage I offered today more than the other ten requests I've been ignoring."

Maybe it was too much, maybe it wouldn't matter anyways, but he would never win at this man's games so truth had to do.

"Oh, your skills are not in doubt, Master Lameael," Lord Illuvieau replied easily. He gestured to a shelf set into the wall of the forge just beneath the front window, where Adrianna had taken to arranging the flower pieces that Idris deemed "not good enough" to actually sell but she thought were still lovely. "These...this trend, I suppose. This is you, yes?" He moved toward the shelf, dragging his fingers consideringly over the metal petals.

Hamond caught Idris' eye behind the nobleman's back, looking caught somewhere between baffled and terrified.

"Remarkable." Illuvieau drew one of the flowers from its simple tin vase, twisting it back and forth in his hand. It was a monkshood bloom--another favorite of Adri's, as it happened, who said she liked the bell shape they formed in full bloom. "And this. Quite ingenious." He plucked up another one--a zinnia, this time--and observed the two side-by-side for a moment before looking up at Idris again. "As I said, the value of your work is hardly in question. But as you say, you've...what, a dozen commissions at a time? Each, no doubt, from a household who would happily offer you their official sponsorship." He shrugged. "Of course, not every name carries the same weight--you have every right to court a patron who most benefits you. So my question is...

He turned back to the flowers, head tilted as he considered them. "Why did you choose my family?" He picked up a third flower: a marigold.

Idris suppressed a shudder and forced himself to stand tall; stand still. Lord Illy, as Hamond had so lovingly called him earlier, was clearly using this time to assert his dominance and instill fear, but Idris knew better than to let him know it was working.

Especially when he started selecting certain flowers Idris had made at Adri's request...two of her favorites that hadn't met his meticulous standards and, he remembered, had darker meanings that didn't sell well with the nobility hoping for good luck. At first he assumed their selection was coincidence, but then....the moment the Marigold left its vase he knew this was a threat. He couldn't remember exactly what the flowers themselves meant - he was always terrible at that - but Illuvieau was sending a message that much was clear.

"The work is mine, yes, but the design is from our shop manager." And then, in response to his question, Idris met the Lord's gaze unwaveringly and crossed his arms in front of his chest, "I should think that is obvious."

"Your shop manager." The nobleman chuckled, and Hamond felt his hackles raise at the sound. Despite his ingrained fear of the man he couldn't help getting defensive against the disdain in his voice--like Adri could have never been something so "respectable".

"Your shop manager perhaps has a better sense of what exactly you've just walked into than you do," Illuvieau said after a moment. "It was a bold move, going to my sister's household. I commend you for it. You'll serve her well." He smiled slowly. "You'll serve us well. Do you understand?" He plucked up yet another manufactured flower. Belladonna, this time.

Hamond swallowed. Damn. Damn! Fucking Illy--half the street urchins of Selevea would have said you couldn't tell if he was more in the Dagger's pocket, or if they were in his.

Ultimately, it didn't matter; Idris had gained a patron, which took their heads off the chopping block. But Illuvieau was clearly pissed by the boldness of his play--and now he was going to make them pay for it.

"I see you understand, at least, young man," the lord noted, nodding almost jovially in Hamond's direction. He had to bite down on the torrent of curses that he wanted to throw in the other man's direction.

"Ah! Now this is truly remarkable," Illuvieau said as he picked his final flower. It was a rose, a simple enough shape as far as Idris' creations went, but what was "remarkable" about it was the color--deepest crimson, formed of expertly combining copper with a dusky red ore unique to the Altanian mines. The lord smiled at them both as he added it to the growing bouquet in his hands. "It's been a pleasure, gentlemen," he said with a nod. "I do believe I can see myself out."

As he passed the worktable, he laid each flower out in a line: monkshood, zinnia, marigold, belladonna, and that "remarkable" dark crimson rose.

And then, beside the rose, Adrianna's bracelet.

Idris said nothing as Illuvieau held himself to more of the flowers and made their role more than perfectly clear. He made it at clear a bird could fly straight into it without realizing it was there.

He realized that he had saved them, yes, but at what cost? Was any of it worth it if they were just a cog in their machine? In one idiotic move he felt as if he had undone all of the good Adri had done for those children. Would it have been better to just be killed while maintaining the moral high ground?

Then the flowers were laid neatly in a row and without knowing their meaning on sight, Idris didn't need Adri's bracelet to know it was a message: a threat.

But that bracelet hitting the table took all of the air from his lungs and the color from his cheeks. None of this would be worth it if Adri was the cost. None of it.

"Shit." He said through clenched teeth the moment Illuvieau had left, "Fuck."

Cursing was unusual for him, but he didn't have any other words that could accurately convey his feelings.

Then he practically ran to the shelf with the flowers and pulled out a small book of flowers and their meanings that Adrianna herself had taken the time to create for him, complete with pictures. He never remembered their language and she knew it so she had...made it for him. The thought of it made a lump rise in his throat and ge immediately shook it from his mind.

Not now. He couldn't lose himself now.

The message. He needed to know what the message was.

He flipped through the pages and spoke them out loud one by one.

"Beware. Absent Friend. Cruelty. Silence...." he looked up at Hamond, unable to control his panic and his voice shook as he spoke the final word, "Mourning."

"The flowers," Hamond was stammering out when Illuvieau was barely out the door. "Ree, she said—they mean things, right? It..."

Ah. Idris was already ahead of him, snatching up a handmade dictionary of sorts—

Wait.

Adrianna had made that for him?

It was a startling enough realization that Hamond was briefly knocked from his anxious and limped pacing to stare at the smith holding the little book. Well, I'll be damned.

He'd never known Adrianna to do something like that. She wasn't an uncaring person—despite how she may protest otherwise—but her life had simply been too fraught for her to worry about little things like that. It was hard to think of friendly gestures when you weren't sure where your next meal was coming from. He knew that better than anyone.

And yet she'd made Idris a little book of flowers.

That, more than anything else, made him like the smith. Because obviously his old friend's life had changed, this place gave her security—or at least it had—but it was still hard to break habits and ways of living that were decades in the making.

Or maybe...maybe he'd just never known her quite as well as he thought he did...

He snapped out of it when Idris started reading out the flowers' message.

Beware. Absent friend. Cruelty. Silence. Mourning.

"It's...it's a warning," he muttered, voice raspy. "That's why he started with beware. He's telling you not to do something—silence." He met Idris' eyes, working through his thoughts aloud. "His family doesn't know—his sister, his niece, Marigold, they don't know how deep he's in with the Dagger. They might not know any of it. He's telling you to keep your mouth shut. Or..."

He swallowed, his eyes drifting down to Adri's bracelet beside that bruise-dark rose.

Damnit, why had she gone after him that morning?!

He hissed and abruptly slammed his hand into the wall, then winced as his injuries protested. Loudly. "I should've stopped her," he muttered. "Cuts and bruises be damned, I should've—I never should have let her go after you."

"Why did she come after me?" Idris asked, unable to hide the accusatory undertones, "You didn't tell her what I was doing, right?"

Both hands ran down his face now, the book still clenched in his hand. Kia, what were they going to do?

"This is my fault. I...I shouldn't have gone. I did this."

"I didn't!" Hamond protested, bristling at the unspoken accusation.

He deflated a bit when Idris started blaming himself--he knew that feeling. "No," he sighed. "It was a good plan--you scared him."

He glanced at the message written in flowers sprawled out across the work table. "He wouldn't have bothered coming himself if you hadn't scared him. It was a good idea...if Adri had just stayed back, we might actually have more leverage than him."

He growled quietly and started to pace the forge. "Damnit. Damn her. I mean, they have to be keeping her a-alive, or they lose their advantage."

It was too much for Idris. His life hadn't prepared him for this. For any of this. He was a smith. He understood metals and ore and how to work it with a hammer to make it beautiful. He didn't know how to do threats and kidnappings. He didn't know how to handle his own emotions on a regular day and now....this....

Without realizing what he was doing he found himself leaning against the wall and slowly slid down before dropping his head onto his knees and lacing his fingers behind his head.

"Is there anything we can do?" he asked after a few moments of silence, "What's the point of any of this if they have her."

"I..." Hamond trailed off, his eyes drifting toward the window. "I don't know," he murmured. "I don't know what to do..."

Illuvieau had made his threat clear; now they just had to hope that he wasn't willing to risk his leverage over the forge--over Idris--by doing away with Adrianna.

---

It was nearly nightfall by the time there was another figure at the forge door. Most of the daily customers, those not seeking specific commissions from Idris, went to Herald's part of the property. The ones who did come to Idris most often went to the shop itself--usually where Adri would deal with them, unless they had specific requests or she was making her rounds on the streets.

Needless to say, there wasn't a lot of that happening since Illuvieau's visit.

So when the sun started to sink, near touching the horizon, and there was a hesitant knock on the forge door, Hamond nearly jumped out of his skin.

He looked to his host frantically. "Idris," he hissed, flicking his eyes toward the door meaningfully; the smith's customers would expect either him or Adri, not a wounded pie seller from down the road.

The knock again, followed by a soft, tired voice that made his heart jump up into his throat.

"It's...it's me."

The hours went by slowly, but Idris didn't move from his spot against the wall. He let the forge go cold and didn't even move when the air became cool, maybe even chilly, but he kept his head against his knees and just existed in his misery.

He didn't care that it was an accident and that it seemed that Adri had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, he felt, in his bones, that this was his fault. It was his fault for being ignorant. His fault for telling her to come back to the forge separately in order to keep Marigold from sussing out their connection. If they had just come back together none of this would have happened, would it?

That was his decision.

He sent her off into Lord Illuvieau's clutches and straight into the Dagger's teeth.

At some point exhaustion took over, but he couldn't be sure when or for how long. All he knew was whatever sleep existed was neither welcome nor restful. Minutes crept by at the speed of a glacier and he played the events over and over again in his head...things he could have done differently, things he could have said, things he should have done. But none of it made a difference. How could it? He didn't have the power to go back in time and change events.

Then Hamond's hiss startled him awake more than the knock on the door. When had that closed? He couldn't remember. Had it been closed since Illuvieau left? Had Hamond closed it? Had he?

He had to move. It was his shop and he was the Master here, Hamond couldn't open it. So he uncurled himself with a wince as dormant muscles screamed and his spine creaked like a derelict building waiting for a good gust of wind to knock it down. There was no rush. He didn't care about customers today.

Then a second knock.

Then a voice.

Her voice.

Nothing could have held him back in that moment. It could have been a trap and he would have run headlong into the blade without a second thought. It was her. It was her.

The door was opened so forcefully it nearly ripped from its hinges and Idris reached out into the twilight to scoop Adrianna up in his muscled arms to hold her tenderly, but firmly. A quiet shuddering cry escaped him.

She was alive.

Thank Kia she was alive!

The shrinking figure outside the door flinched slightly as it was ripped open, but when Idris swept her up int an embrace she accepted it easily, eagerly, wrapping her arms around his neck in return and pressing her face into his shoulder.

"Gods..." Adri shuddered, clinging to him like a burr. She curled her left hand into his hair, clutching so hard that nails scraped at skin. A tiny, half-sobbed sound made it passed her lips and she shivered in his hold for a few moments, unable to do anything but hug him back.

Finally, she drew in a shaky breath and managed to gasp out, "M'sorry." She pressed her nose into the curve of his neck and shoulder, just breathing in the smell of the forge, of the place that had so quickly become her home.

Of him.

"I'm sorry," she repeated. "I'm so sorry..."

He held her close and didn't even feel her nails along his skin. All that mattered was that she was here, that she was alive! Everything else could wait. For now, he just let himself envelope her with his arms in a desperate attempt to keep her safe from the past that he had no control over. But he was going to try anyways.

While she clung to him, and he to her, he pulled her inside and let the door close loudly behind him. Eventually he gently pushed her back and brushed her hair out of her face with his hands to just look her over.

"Are you ok? Are you hurt? Kia, I'm so glad you're here. We waited all day...when you didn't coming home we thought...we didn't know...I'm so sorry. I'm so so sorry. I shouldn't have sent you home by yourself."

Aside from the yellowed beginnings of a bruise along the right side of her jaw, Adrianna seemed remarkably unhurt. There were tired lines around her eyes and mouth, and she was perhaps a bit paler than normal, but all things considered she had clearly fared rather well despite being held hostage for the better part of a day.

She was still dressed in her nightgown, with Idris' oversized coat hanging limply off her frame...though she sported a new accessory: a braided silver cord set just above her collar bones. For a jeweler like Idris, it would be easy to spot that the choker had no clasp or seam--which meant it had been put on her by magical means, and would likely need to be removed the same way. On closer inspection, though, there was a faint red line just beneath the necklace. As though it had burned her, or...tightened.

Still, she smiled, relief plain in her expression as Idris fussed over her and she leaned easily into the comfort of touch. "I'm okay," she assured him softly. It might have been a lie, but she didn't even know herself, or care. She was back, and that meant she was okay. For a moment, at least.

When he started blaming himself--because of course he did--she reached up and pressed two fingers against his lips. "Hush," she told him, gently but firmly. "This wasn't your fault. You had good instincts--it was just bad luck. Wrong place, wrong time."

She glanced around him at Hamond, who was standing to the side and practically vibrating with tension. She smiled at him tiredly. "Still here, then?"

Hamond huffed a half-laugh and the tension started to bleed from his shoulders. "Ah, just wanted to hang about until you got home safe."

Idris continued to look her over like a mother hen preening her chicks after a walk. He checked her arms, he inspected the bruise on her cheek with a wince, he looked at every bit of skin that wasn't covered by clothes and then his eyes settled on her neck with a hiss. It didn't take much to tell that something was off about it, firstly because it hadn't been on her before, but he had also noticed its lack of clasp while intently checking her for injuries.

"What is that?" he asked, pain and anger flashing across his features. The red line underneath told him everything he needed to know about it - he was a jeweler after all and a mage who specialized in putting light into things. He might not have much use besides making things sparkle, but he understood the basics. That chain around her neck was more than met the eye; much much more.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and brought her closer to the forge while pulling a chair out for her to sit. He'd light the fires again in a little while, but first he needed to know.

He knelt in front of her, "What did they do to you?"

Adri easily allowed him to fuss and usher her into a chair, not even offering up a token protest that she could handle herself--which was probably more indicative than anything she could have said of exactly how shaken she was.

She managed to summon up a wan smile when he knelt in front of her, and found herself reaching out to smooth one hand absently over his hair. "They didn't really...do anything," she sighed after a long moment.

Hamond, who had cautiously approached with a cup of water, made a vague noise of disbelief as he offered the drink. Adri glanced up at him and accepted it with a grateful smile before saying, "No, really. I mean...the one who grabbed me knocked me out, but with some sort of...I dunno, smelling salt or something. I got this when I fell." Her free hand fluttered up to the forming bruise on her cheek and jaw.

She took a sip of the water, then shook her head, a faint line forming on her brow. "I expected--I mean, I was scared it was gonna be a lot worse. Actually, it might've been, but Torin--er, the guy who was tailing you," she added for Idris' benefit, even as Hamond drew in a quick breath in recognition at the name. "He actually...spoke up. I mean, I was blindfolded for most of it, but I know his voice. He said something about Illy being pissed if they "damaged his leverage"."

Her shoulders lifted in a faint half-shrug, and she didn't seem to realize that she'd started to tremble lightly. "It was mostly that, for a while. Just...listening to them talk in the dark. And then...I dunno, maybe a little over an hour ago, there was this new voice, and she said Illuvieau had changed the plan, and he wanted me back here. Working." She swallowed thickly, and the braided choker shifted subtly against her throat. "But they, um--they want insurance. To make sure we--well you, Idris, will...will do as you're told. So they..."

Her hand lifted to brush her fingertips against the choker. "It's magicked," she muttered dully.

And finally, finally, she stared to feel emotion bleed back in. She'd been worried--in a vague sort of way--that the stress of the encounter had "drained" her, even though such a thing had never happened before, because she'd been feeling so dull. Disconnected.

Seemed that was in fact just garden-variety shock; now that she was home, was safe, her body was starting to accept and process the reactions she'd been suppressing as a survival reflex.

She blinked, tears finally starting to well up and a few spilling over onto her cheeks, and the trembling grew more intense. "It, um..." She sniffed and swallowed. "It...tightens. They made sure I knew how it worked, so I--I'd believe them. If Illy catches wind of something he doesn't like, he can give the order and..."

The feelings of horror, of disbelief, grew in Idris' chest as she spoke. He agreed with Hamond that it seemed unlikely that she wouldn't have been hurt, but here she was in front of him with just the one bruise assumably from the initial abduction.

And of course the necklace. The necklace that would kill her if Idris stepped out of line. No, not a necklace, a noose. A silver noose that would allow the Dagger to ask Idris to do whatever the hell they wanted.

He didn't realize that he had laced his fingers through one of her hands as she spoke. Nothing else existed except her in that moment and, because of it, he felt her body begin to react to the trauma. First a few tremors, then her words became choked at her eyes glassy.

"It's ok." He reached up and placed his hand along side her face while his thumb brushed away tears, "You're ok now. Your safe. You're here. Shhh." Without thinking he lifted himself as high as he could go from a kneeling position and pulled her into a firm embrace. His fingers wove through her hair and he shushed her softly while murmuring assurances under his breath.

"It's going to be ok. We'll figure it out. It's going to be ok."

A half-choked sob lodged in her throat and she pressed her face into his shoulder, all but collapsing forward into the embrace. She managed to stifle most of the tears, but her whole body shook and she was forced to gulp in careful breaths in order to avoid bursting into proper sobs.

She felt so stupid. She'd been worried about Idris getting hurt, and then she went and--gods, like it was her first day on the streets! She should have known better, done better, and then none of them would be in this situation.

But even stronger than the anger at herself was the relief to be back, to be home. Safe. And that was a whole different thing to feel guilty about, almost properly ashamed. This was all her fault, and yet Idris was holding her and telling her everything would be okay when she knew that it wouldn't but she didn't even care. She didn't care about anything except the comfort he was offering and how damned good it felt.

Gradually, the shivers began to die down, and she forced herself to pull back slightly. Swiping at her eyes, she glanced up...and abruptly chuckled, though the sound was decidedly damp.

"Alright there, Min?"

Hamond scrunched his face at her, having been hovering awkwardly to the side of her chair. She knew he wasn't overly good with intense displays of emotions at the best of times, and had to be feeling uncomfortable.

"You hush," he muttered. "I'll, ah--see if Herald can tell me where to get some food. You haven't eaten all day."

Idris just held her. He didn't care how long it took. She was here and she was safe and he would do anything he could to make sure she felt secure and felt loved and wanted. Not that he thought she could ever feel truly safe now with that death sentence around her neck, but he was going to make sure it never had a reason to go off. He didn't know what the Dagger wanted with him, all he did was make pretty things, but they had done the one thing that would truly ensure his compliance.

"I'm not going to let anything happen to you." he whispered into her hair, "You're safe. You're home."

And then the shivers began to settle and pulled away. He let her, of course, and didn't even mind the dampness that had become a part of his clothes. Clothes that he was sure smelled of old sweat and fear. Her chuckle sent waves of relief coursing through him. He knew things weren't ok, but for now at least, they felt like they were getting better. He could handle that. And Gods did he love hearing her laugh no matter how reserved.

"Right back there is the larder." Idris turned and gestured to the door towards the back of the forge, "Mostly non-perishable kinds of things, but you'll also find bread and cheese and a few wine skins. I think there's still dried fruit and meats but..." he looked guiltily at Adri, "I....don't actually know what's left. You always make sure it's stocked."

She smiled at him, thin and tired, but genuine. "I've only been gone a day, Idris, don't tell me the place fell apart that quickly without me."

Hamond huffed a quiet laugh and ruffled her hair lightly as he moved passed them to make his way to the larder. "Back in a snap," he said over his shoulder before slipping through the indicated door. He seemed to be moving much more fluidly than he had been that morning, so either his injuries were feeling better, or the relief of having Adri back safe was working as a kind of palliative.

Adrianna slumped a bit in the chair once he'd left; she hadn't even realized she was trying to hold herself up straighter in his presence, to maintain even that last shred of a mask. It wasn't that she didn't trust Hamond--she trusted him as much as anybody. But there was just something...different. Something she couldn't put a name to that she and Idris had built between them over the last few months, something that meant she could be wholly and entirely herself around him.

She drew one leg up onto the chair and rested her chin on it, arm wrapped around her shin. With her other hand, she reached out to brush an errant strand of hair back from Idris' brow.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her eyes on his. "You were worried..."

"What? Why?" Idris asked truly startled, "You didn't do anything wrong. I was stupid...I should have told you I was going to see Marigold but I thought you would follow me and...I was...embarrassed and worried it wouldn't work out but I just put you in danger. You might have taken better precautions if I'd said something." He shook his head.

"I didn't know what I was getting into, Adri. I just thought...with her uncle...having her as a patron would protect us but I was wrong." He rubbed his hands over his face. It was still odd to feel the facial hair there, but he wasn't sure he hated it. It was definitely a lot easier to just let it grow than to shave it constantly, "I don't know this life. I need to know this life. I need you. You wouldn't have done something so stupid...and I'm just...I'm so sorry."

"No, no." She quickly refolded her leg to the side so she could reach out and take his face between her hands. "It's okay. It was a good plan, really--making us noticeable enough not to mess with. Illy--Illuvieau would've made himself a pain in our arses sooner or later, but you would have bought us time." She sighed and shook her head. "I was stupid. I was worried about you, and I let it cloud my judgement. If I'd been thinking, I wouldn't have run off after you half-cocked like that, I would've planned."

She dropped her eyes, lips pursed Too late now--what was done was done, they just had to...figure out what to do next.

"...How did you know?" she found herself asking quietly, then amended, "I guess I mean...how much do you know? About Illuvieau? What he does with the Dagger..."

He reached up and took her hands in his to pull them away from his face. He let them drop to her knees but held them there gently.

"I didn't. Not until Hamond mentioned the children. And when you were talking about it and...Marigold mentioned her uncle a lot when she was here before...before I stopped being stupid. She never really mentioned what he did, just that he was really passionate about helping the children and he owned an orphanage and it just clicked. He has unrivaled wealth that doesn't make sense for what is actually known about him. He advertises publicly the amount of money that goes into running it and the nobility love him. It didn't make sense. And Kia, I've lived my whole life in this forge and I feel so stupid for not looking outside of my own front door and realizing what's happening in the world around us."

He shook his head, "I wasn't sure I was right until...right before I left to see her...I mentioned Illuvieau's name to Hamond and his face confirmed it."

Adri nodded slowly as he explained. That all made sense; Illuvieau was a pillar of the community, after all. Why would anyone suspect him of anything untoward.

She smiled a little shakily and gave his hands a quick squeeze in her lap. "Honestly, I'm impressed," she murmured. "You figured it out quick--most folks in your position probably wouldn't have thought twice about him."

But of course Idris had--because no matter what he said about not being good with people, he noticed things. He noticed the tiny details, could fit them together in his mind like puzzle pieces. She didn't know if that was what made him such a talented artist, or if it was a skill he'd developed from his art, but it was enviable either way.

"The orphanage is the only place to go," she said softy, looking down at their hands. "When you're cold, and hungry, and hurting...eventually you give up. The streets get too hard. And they promise a warm bed, a full meal...and then you're stuck." She shrugged. "We all knew it, just...sometimes that's the deal you make. Just to survive. We know the Dagger picks their agents young, start them training in that place, when their only options are them or the streets again--and no one who goes in there would choose to go back on the streets."

She didn't say it with any malice; she didn't blame any of the kids who'd wound up in that place. Some had been at the "philanthropy" of well-meaning citizens, of course, but others chose it. Chose it because they just couldn't take one more night on cold, rough stone. And she couldn't judge them for that, or blame them for what had come next. She was sure every kid who went into Illy's orphanage told themselves "Not me. It won't happen to me. I'll find another way out."

None of them did.

"It's just three of us," she found herself whispering. "Me, Min, and Tressa. We're all that's left from our set in the gang. Moira and Adan...gods, it was so cold that night, and none of us had eaten in days, they just..." She swallowed. "Linna went to the Dagger. Went right to them, didn't even bother with Illy. I dunno what happened to her after that. Derek and Drax got scooped up by some well-meaning noblewoman, she brought them right to their doorstep. And Torin..." she trailed off, eyes going a little glassy again, then shook herself slightly. "Well. He made his choice. Said he'd find another way out of that place, but..."

She lifted her eyes to Idris, expression wan and tired. She shrugged helplessly. "I just...wanted to help the younger ones. The ones who still have a chance. I didn't mean to--I didn't think."

He gave her hands a supportive squeeze, "I know that...that we're in a....position because of it but," he paused and met her eyes with childlike sincerity, "You did the right thing. I'll gladly be in the Dagger's pocket if it meant having helped save some of them.

"You're a good person, Adri. Always have been. You look out for others before yourself and as much as I wish you'd care about yourself as much as you do them....you're a good person." He finished lamely.

He wasn't one for speeches and this was bordering on a full on speech.

She smiled tiredly at him and extracted one of her hands from his so she could reach up and brush the backs of her fingers over his cheek.

"...Thanks, Idris."

She might have said more, but Hamond returned from the larder saying, "You should probably stick to the bread and some water for now. Shock can do weird things to your stomach," as he held out a small plate of food.

Adrianna gave him a grateful look as she accepted it, murmuring her thanks.

Hamond waited until she had the plate in her lap before saying in a tone that was gentle but still final, "Now you're back, I'll be heading out."

With half a piece of bread in her mouth, Adri gave him a quick, puzzled look, already starting to shake her head. He held up his hand. "No, really. I shouldn't have stayed all day today--I just wanted to make sure you got back alright." He shrugged. "I'm healing up fine, so I should be off. I'll check in on Tressa, maybe, make sure she's...stayed out of all this."

Idris stood and walked towards Hamond with an extended hand.

"Thank you. Sincerely." He murmured, "You're always welcome. I'll make sure to bring your stand business when I can." He winced slightly at his own awkwardness. He wasn't good at this....

"Cheers, mate." Hamond gave him a quick grin and clapped him on the shoulder. "I'll—try to check in with you two when I can. But if y'need help or sommat, look me up."

Adri smiled faintly at him and nodded. "Still lodging at Mistress Linden's?"

"Yep." He flashed her a quick grin. "Til the day she finally boots me out, anyway." Adri chuckled a bit, and his expression sobered slightly. "Take care of yourself, Ree."

"You too. Give Tressa my best."

Hammond nodded to her, then to Idris, then gave them both a quick wave as he slipped back out the forge's main door.

Adri sagged a bit in her chair, nibbling at her piece of bread. She knew they still had so much to figure out, but gods she was just so tired...

Hamonds shoulder clap actually made Idris stumble slightly because he wasn't expecting it and he looked away for a moment feeling embarassed at his lack of balance or...maybe Hamond was just really strong for a pie seller. Which made sense if his life was constantly dodging people and things trying to kill you.

Then, after he was gone, Idris turned to relight the forge with a few scoops of coal and a quick light from a firestarter. It didn't take long for the whole thing to begun blazing and warmth began seeping back into the long-cold space.

Upon turning, his eyes fell on the exhausted form of his friend and he was by her side in an instant.

"Hey." He placed his hands on her shoulder in preparation to scoop her up and get her to bed, "You should sleep. It'll be warmer in here with the forge if you want the loft. I don't mind."

Adri looked up at him when she felt his hand on her shoulder. Her brow furrowed slightly when he offered the loft. She couldn't deny the idea of sleeping near the warmth of the forge was appealing, but...

"What about you?" She frowned at him. "Idris, you stayed up all last night, you can't be planning to do that again," she said sternly, worried that he was planning to work through the night again.

He shook his head, "I'll be fine. I'll find a place. But you need it more." He brushed her hair from her face, "I'll make sure you're safe and the forge will keep you warm."

She met his eyes, and any scrap of pride she'd been holding onto vanished into thin air.

"Sleep with me?" she asked quietly. There was no innuendo in the request—and that almost felt more embarrassing.

She just...didn't want to be alone.

His first instinct was the decline, but then he saw her eyes and sensed the fear that must be there after the day she had. Kia, he felt the same way.

So instead, he nodded and scooped her up against his chest, his muscles rippling around her but she wasn't heavy compared to his usual daily activities. If anything she felt far lighter than any person should. He'd make sure she ate more in the morning.

"I've got you." He assured her and planted a gentle reasuring kiss on her head, "You're safe. I'll keep you safe."

He was able to continue holding onto her and ascend to the loft without difficulty and laid her down on his sparse bedding. He didn't need much and rarely spent money on himself. His whole loft was just a sensible mattress pad and a few thin spun blankets - the heat from the forge took care of the rest even during the winter months. He laid her down gently and made her she had the pillow before sliding next to her and laying his head on his arm.

"Are you comfortable?"

Safe.

She almost hated how comforting it was just to hear that. Even with the damned collar around her neck, she believed him.

Adri didn't protest that she could move herself when he carried her up into the loft, like she hadn't protested when he brought her to the chair. She only moved to snuggle herself more securely under the blankets, and nodded sleepily in answer to his question about her comfort.

"Thank you," she murmured as he slid in next to her. She pressed a little closer to his warmth, eyes already drifting closed. "Thank you..."

She was asleep in moments.

He ran his hand rhythmically through her hair as she slipped off to sleep, constantly tracing the same path just over her ear. She was so cold, and no wonder, what with everything that happened. The forge would continue to spill out heat and the loft would house most of it as it rose.

Even still, he reached down to cover her with another blanket and then softly wove his arm around her waist. All he could feel was cold. Gods had she anyways been this cold? Was she sick or was it shock? He didn't really know. It wasn't like they spent a lot of time in close proximity like this and he imagined it wouldn't be a common occurrence.

Exhaustion crept in and he found his eyes drooping with the weight of an elephant until he couldn't pry them open again.  The soft rise and fall of her chest was like a lullaby and his last thought before slipping into darkness was that her upper shoulder was starting to warm up. She'd be ok. The rest would follow.

Her dreams were fragmented and confusing: flashes that felt simultaneously like memory and like something entirely from her own imagination. Or perhaps...not her imagination, but someone else's.

There was cold. No surprise, that was a common feature in her dreams. And Illuvieau, but when he spoke his voice was...different. A voice she'd never actually heard before, with an accent she couldn't quite place. Northern Serenian, but as though he'd learned Common as a second language.

Then there was a light, a clear, bright light from a single silver star, and she reached for it but it stayed just out of her grasp until—

It wasn't a star. It was Idris.

---

She came awake slowly, groggily, and for a moment couldn't figure out why her room looked so strange.

Oh. Right. The loft, not her room. Which meant the arm around her waist and the presence at her back was Idris. She sighed softly and let herself curve back into him a bit more, letting her smaller frame slot into place against his front.

Assuming he would have woken before her—he usually did, when they were left to their own devices and didn't need to get up on a schedule—she murmured, "Wh'time issit?"

Idris woke up naturally just around dawn. Adri had been so tired that she didn't even stir when he untangled himself from her to start the less noisy chores needed to be done around the forge. Besides seeing Marigold and a few horseshoes he hadn't done a damn thing the day prior and he needed to get things done.

Before slipping down the ladder, he pulled the covers up around her and frowned as his hand brushed her skin.

Cold.

How was she still cold? He pulled up a third blanket that was musky and never used, but she needed to get warm and could deal with it. He tucked it around her gently and then got to work.

---

The necessary organization and order lists were done just as the sun fully rose into the sky and Idris hit the point where there wasn't much else he could do without making a ton of noise. He made sure the forge was at the proper temperature one last time before heading back up to check on Adri.

She was still asleep and still cold.

He frowned again, slipped off his shirt in an attempt to get more warmth to her, and the  wiggled back under the covers to pull her close. Here, with no fabric in the way, he could feel the warmth permeating from her shoulder but nowhere else. What in Kia's name was wrong with her?

He held her there for some time, contemplating, before she stirred.

"A few hours after dawn." He replied softly, "You can sleep as long as you need it's just going to get a bit....a....loud." he brushed her hair behind her ear, "How are you feeling? You were so cold last night, but the blankets don't seen to be helping. Are you... are you sick?"

"Sick?" She frowned slightly, confused why he would think that, before she started to wake up a bit more and managed to process. "Oh. Oh, no. I'm fine."

She shifted and wriggled under the blankets—the weight and warmth of them did feel nice, even if her skin was still a little cool to the touch—and she managed to keep herself mostly cocooned even as she turned to face him properly.

The moment her back was no longer pressed to him, that heat from her shoulder would be gone. She did smile faintly at him as she assured, "I'm...just sort of always cold. The other kids used to complain about it—guess you wouldn't have really noticed, not like we spend a lot of nights huddled on a stoop together," she chuckled wryly.

Idris wasn't convinced, "Are you sure? We can go see a healer, just to make sure. You went through a lot..."

He pushed himself up into a seated position and hugged a single knee to his bare chest. She did seem ok. At least as ok as someone would be after the day she had. Maybe he was just being overly cautious....

"Your shoulder got warm." He blurted out, then blushed because what the hell was he even saying? "I mean...I could tell since we were sleeping and...uh...."

Well now he was properly embarassed.

"If...if you're sure you're ok."

She hadn't really noticed his half-dressed state until he pulled his knee into his chest, the movement drawing her eye, and then she found herself quickly looking away again. It wasn't as though she'd never seen him with his shirt off--smithing was hot, hard work, and far be it from her to tell him he couldn't be comfortable while he did it. Still, after having spent the night together, even in the most platonic sense possible, it felt a little...different.

"My shoulder?" she repeated, grateful to have something else to focus on. And then immediately regretting that gratitude. "Ah. Right. My shoulder."

She sighed and sat up slowly, drawing one of the blankets up with her. "It's...that's normal," she mumbled, not quite looking him in the eye. "I mean, it's always been that way. It's like a--a weird birthmark or something, it..."

She glanced up at him, sighed again, then shrugged. "Fuck it. Guess it's easier to just show you."

He knew everything else about her by now. Why not this?

She half twisted so she could look back at him over her right shoulder--her marked shoulder--and pulled the neck of her nightdress down far enough to bare the faintest glow from the handprint on her shoulder blade.

"...The heat is from that."

Idris hadn't given any thought to his shirtless status until he noticed Adri's expression. If he had been embarrassed before, he was even more embarrassed now and quickly slipped his shirt back on while she spoke. He hoped that she didn't think he was being inappropriate, but he wasn't sure bring further attention to it would do more harm than good. Maybe it would be best to just...ignore it unless she asked about it? Or it became an issue in the future?

Kia, help him....he didn't know what to do.

Then she was pulling down her nightdress and his heart nearly stopped before he realized what she was actually showing him. Instinctually he started to reach forward, but caught himself and let his hand drop without getting close enough to actually touch her.

"What...what is that?" He breathed, more concerned now than he had been when he thought she had just been sick, "That doesn't look like a birthmark, Adri...It's...glowing. Like glowing, glowing." He got ever so slightly closer to examine it, but he was no mage and had no schooling in any kinds of magics that might help identify it.

Because he was certain it was magic in origin.

Adrianna sighed and pulled her nightdress back up. It wasn't until the fabric was back in place that it actually occurred to her how that might have looked—but, well, it was Idris, right? He'd be the last person she'd be worried about jumping to the wrong conclusion.

Although he had bothered to put a shirt on when she turned around to face him properly again.

"Yeah," she sighed when he pointed out that the handprint was glowing. "Yeah it is." She sighed again and crossed her legs, pulling her feet in toward her body. "I guess... No, it's not a birthmark. But I don't know what else to call it." She shrugged. "I've had it as long as I can remember." She glanced down at her own shoulder, then shrugged with another quiet little sigh. "I mean, I sorta assume it's...part of why I am the way that I am. But I don't know what it's from. I don't know how I got it. I just remember..."

She closed her eyes, brow furrowed. "I remember it...hurting. Burning. It's the first thing I remember, actually. Just this—this bright, hot flash of pain."

Idris frowned. None of what she was saying resembled anything remotely relatable in terms of the human experience. In fact, it felt almost like torture from what she was saying. And maybe that's what it was? He'd heard that people often blocked out that kind of thing but...Adri didn't seem like the kind of person who would just forget difficult things, after all her entire life had been one difficulty after the other.

"And it always glows? Does it ever stop glowing?"

She shrugged. "It gets...dimmer, I guess. When I'm hungry. Y'know, like...not normal hungry." She sighed and dragged a hand back through her hair. "I don't know. I don't know—it's not like it's in a spot where I can see it all the time!"

She winced as her voice rose in volume; that wasn't fair to him, she was just frustrated. She was always frustrated about her "birthmark", mystery of it. She knew it didn't make any sense, but she didn't have any other explanation for it.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled, looking away. "I—I didn't mean to yell. I just..."

She sighed and shook her head slowly. "Anyway. It's always been there, so...you don't need to worry about it. I'm not sick."

He didn't take offense to her frustration - he understood that feeling all too well from the previous day just waiting and knowing there was nothing he could do to make things better. Just the sight of that chain around her neck reminded him how powerless he was and now this? He understood...

"Hey." He reached forward to touch her non-branded shoulder gently, "It's ok. Thank you for telling me. I'm...I'm glad you're not sick."

And he was, of course, but being sick was something he could fix. This...handprint nonsense? He didn't know anything that could help. All he did was put light into things, but he didn't know how to do that in a person - that and he was sure whatever magic had created it was far more advanced than anything he could do anyways. They'd need a proper mage to sort this out, not some Master Smith who was now tethered to a giant criminal organization.

"You hungry? I can bring you some food?"

Both shoulders slumped a bit, and Adri gave him a grateful look. "I'm...okay," she murmured. "I mean--I can get myself something. I'm sure you've got other things to be worrying about besides me."

The Dagger not being least among those "other things"

She gave her head a quick shake to try to put the thought from her mind and reached up to cover his hand on her shoulder with her own. "I'll get some food ready. I'm...not sure I'll be up for manning the shop today, so least I can do is make sure you're properly fed and whatnot."

She smiled and squeezed his fingers lightly before starting to pull away. Then she paused, wavering between turning back to him and moving to get down from the loft.

"Idris..." She hesitated a moment longer, bit her lip, then murmured, "Thanks. For...letting me stay, last night. I wasn't--I didn't--well, just...thanks."

"You're welcome." He said instantly, "You needed it and I'm sorry...I was...you were cold and I was trying to keep you warm and I won't do it again." he blurted out with a blush before nearly bolting down the ladder and into the forge.

Kia, what was wrong with him? She had to have known that he would never...that it wasn't like he thought of her like...Gods he just wanted to keep her warm but now that he knew she hadn't even needed him to do that and he could have kept his shirt on....

But why was she like that? It was a puzzle that he needed to figure out. He needed to help her but...how?

And could he even do anything, really? The last time he had tried to help he had just gotten them stuck further into a debt they didn't want.

He stepped off the ladder and went to the forge when he noticed the letter on the table with the seal from Marigold's house - Marigold's, not Illuvieau's. The official paperwork for their patronage.

"Idris--"

He was already climbing back down the ladder before she could finish the thought. She huffed quietly, smiling to herself and shaking her head. "Silly creature," she murmured, pausing only long enough to make sure the lightest of the blankets was wrapped securely around her shoulders before she followed him down.

Just because her constant chill didn't actually put her in danger didn't mean she liked being cold.

"Idris, I know you would never do anything untoward," she huffed as her feet touched the floor of the forge. "You were just trying to keep me warm--I appreciate the thought..."

She trailed off when she turned around and saw the letter on the table. She blinked at it. "Is that... Well. Huh. That was quick..."

Herald poked his head into the side door when he heard them and pointed at the letter, "That came for you." He said gruffly, "Didn't want to wake you."

Then he gave a warm smile towarda Adri, "Glad you're back."

It took all of Idris' strength not to roll his eyes. Herald always had an eye for pretty girls and, in his head, that was the only reason for the warmth he showed Adri. Well, and maybe the fact that she had almost singlehandedly turned the place into a luxury artisan shop.

Huh...well...that was the first time he'd thought of Herald in any other way...that made more sense than his own biased opinion of him...

Interesting.

"So...uh...do you think Herald is...odd?" He asked, fishing for information to confirm or debunk his inner turmoil while picking up the letter and breaking the seal. Sure enough it was a full contract outlining payment and exclusivity rights to the style of bracelet he had made for her the day prior. He had specifically made it differently than Adri's bracelet so she wouldn't have to stop wearing it. Unless she wanted to, of course.

There was another paper inside: a request for a matching necklace and two pairs of earrings by the end of the week. Plus the total amount for payment for his work.

His eyes bulged.

That...that was a lot of money.

She smiled and nodded at Herald before he disappeared again. She'd always been almost instinctively wary of anyone in any sort of position of authority--and living here had taught her that Idris' complaints that the elder smith spent too much coin on drink weren't entirely unfounded--but she was starting to warm up to the man these days. And it was...nice of him to check in now that she was back

"Odd?" Adri repeated, cocking her head at Idris. "How do you mean?"

She tried not to bounce on her heels to look at the letter, but her curiosity was palpable. Her hand drifted toward her wrist in what had become an idle habit--and she caught herself sharply as she remembered they'd taken her bracelet yesterday.

She glanced down at the empty place on her wrist with a small frown and a soft sigh, shoulders slumping a bit.

"Dunno...like...nevermind." he said distractedly as he re-read the letter again. It took him a few moments before he  realized she was clearly trying to look at the letter and he offered it to her after his third read-through.

"I have a lot of work to do but...Adri I still don't believe that number....that's...is that the kind of thing I've been sitting on by not responding to the ten patron requests I already have? Not that...I mean...turns out that helped us...kinda...but still."

He couldn't believe it. That people were willing to pay that much for his work was mind boggling. He really wasn't anything special. Any other smith could have figured out what he did, it was just a matter of time.

"Oh, you idiot," Adri chuckled affectionately and rolled her eyes. "People are willing to pay what your work is worth. Which happens to be quite a lot—"

Her voice choked off as she glanced down at the letter and realized exactly how much "quite a lot was". She gaped for a few moments, then shook herself quickly and cleared her throat.

"Well! Far be it from me to keep the master from his work. I'll just..." She cast her eyes around the forge, trying to think of something she could do to be useful that wouldn't involve manning the shop itself. She didn't think she was up for that much human interaction just yet.

Her gaze landed on the work table and she made a soft, excited sound before rushing forward to snatch up her bracelet. She had no idea how it had gotten there, but was surprised herself by how relieved she was to have it back. She slipped it on quickly and clutched her wrist to the center of her chest for a moment, just breathing in and out.

He hadn't taken it.

Idris smiled fondly when she spotted the bracelet and felt a warmth spread through his chest. Hers was really the only approval he needed and to see how much she like his first attempt....well...it kind of made it all worth it. She had believed in him, not his profession, before anyone else - including Herald!

Well...he supposed Herald just hadn't believed in him either based on what he said the night he'd turned over the master's seal.

But Adrianna did, and she still did despite everything. Idris wasn't so self-absorbed to think he wasn't a difficult person to be around. He got lost in his work, was quick to jump to conclusions, and couldn't see anything past the forge doors. Hell, she even had to remind him to eat and sleep most days.

"Adri?" He asked, shuffling his feet, "Thank you. For believing in me. And...stuff..."

Adrianna held the bracelet to her chest for a few moments longer before she let her hand fall back to her side, just a bit more conscious than she would have been normally of the slight weight and pressure of metal against her skin.

"Mm?" She glanced up at Idris when he said her name--and then paused, taking in his stilted words. Her head tipped fractionally to one side, and she smiled gently.

"...You're welcome." It didn't matter if she thought that she hadn't done all that much; it clearly meant something to him, and she felt like if she didn't acknowledge that it would be dismissive of what he was trying to tell her. She took a step closer and ducked her head slightly to catch his eye--he had a habit of casting his gaze downward when he was unsure of himself.

"And thank you," she said softly after a moment. "For...everything. For finding me that night. For facing Marigold again to try to keep us safe. For waiting for me to come back..."

Idris stared at her for a few moments, processing everything. It was crazy to him that she thought he wouldn't have gone to find her, but a moment of true introspection reminded him that she hadn't grown up the way he did. Sure, his life hadn't been easy – smithing was hard work and he was expected to do a lot from a young age – but he'd never had to worry about if he would be fed, or if he'd have a place to sleep. There wasn't really any concern for his overall health and safety and, he assumed, if he'd gone missing Herald would have looked for him.

But that wasn't Adri's life. She was thanking him for something so seemingly simply that it made him wonder if she ever had someone who would have looked for her before. Hamond would have, right? He seemed the type. But...their life had been truly hard.

"You're welcome." It was his turn to respond.

Kia, weren't they a pair.

"So...." He cleared his throat and turned around to pull out some charcoal and clean paper before starting to sketch, "I have a week to make a matching necklace and two sets of earrings for the bracelet I made Marigold the other night." As he spoke, he let the pencil slide across the page in quick, skilled strokes to create phantom images of what he was planning to do. The necklace would be easy – the bigger the better for those types of showstoppers. The earrings? He wanted to be crafty.

"I'm thinking simple...but with the same interlocking chains...just...this time I'll curve them to create a bit of a spiral that will give the illusion of spinning in the right light." He stepped back and bit his lip, "Do you think I should give them the same gems, or keep them all lighted crystal? The necklace will have a good number of gems and I don't want them to pair poorly."

Adrianna fell easily back into the familiarity of brainstorming with him--it was certainly more comfortable to think about than anything else that could be occupying her mind.

She tilted her head to observe the sketch he was making and "hmmm"ed quietly. "Is it too much to do both?" she wondered aloud. "I mean, if the necklace has gems and the bracelet the lit crystals, maybe...keep the focus on the gems, but add one small light-infused crystal at the end of the spiral?" She pointed to the sketch. "There, maybe?"

He nodded. She voiced exactly what he was feeling and knowing they were in agreement gave him a much needed confidence boost. To be as sure as possible, he sketched out  the necklace he'd mapped out in his head and then drew the earrings above with the changes.

The gems would be tiny and rain down to support the clear crystal at the bottom. That would be less expensive, if not more tedius, for him to make. Small stones were a beast, but they did really help with the overall appeal of the piece.

"Like this." He stepped back and pulled out a box of small clear crystal.

"I've been trying something. I think....I think I might be able to make them twinkle." He pulled out a stone and held it up to the light between his thumb and index finger.

Adrianna had intended to step back and let him work--he was getting that look that meant he had an idea he wanted to try. But she was intrigued when he mentioned what it was that he wanted to try, and drifted a little closer.

"Twinkle?" she repeated, cocking her head as she pressed in close to his side so she could look at the crystal from the same angle he was. "Like...make the light flicker? Or get brighter and dimmer? How?"

For all Idris protested that his magical gift was nothing special, Adri was fascinated by it and how it worked.

"Like flicker." He clarified, still rifling through the box for the correct sized stone. "Ever since you asked me months ago if I could make the glow start after a time instead of instant, I've been practicing different things." He blushed a bit. He didn't know why he felt silly about it, but it felt so superfluous compared to everything else. That and the fact that he'd purposefully only been working when she wasn't around.

Honestly, most of the time he ended up frustrated and feeling stupid. It was only recently that he'd come to realize he could control the light with his breath. He could withdrawal and place like by breathing and, well, once he realized that he'd been able to do small things like making the light pulse.

"Hold this." He handed to her, "Like this - between your thumb and finger so most of the stone is touching air."

Adri's eyes brightened a bit--she'd been wondering if he would think about that after she'd said it. Not because she had any real knowledge of magic, but because she'd seen the way his eyes had narrowed when she'd brought it up, and now after months of knowing him could relate that expression to the one he got when he was puzzling through something.

"Okay." She took the crystal easily and carefully held it up, trying to keep her grip as light as possible without dropping the thing. "Just...hold it?" She lifted it a little higher in an effort to compensate for their difference in height.

"Yeah." He nodded and then rolled his sleeves up, like it would make a difference, but it did make him feel a little more confident and a little less silly.

"Just....don't....laugh. It's kinda weird."

He closed his eyes and breathed slowly in through his nose while tapping into the part of himself that housed his connection to the river of magic around them. He wasn't really sure if it was magic or if he was actively channeling light. Either way, it felt like a constant flow that he could just...scoop from when he needed it.

Then he held onto it, connecting the stream to his breath and silently weaving them together. This was new. When the light just flowed, it was constant, but when he intermingled the two he found he had a level of control.

Once he was confident the two would break apart - a challenge he'd faced only until recently - he let the air pass through his lips in a quiet, whistle-like trill. Sound, silence, sound, silence, back and forth in quick succession and directed into the stone Adri held.

Adri waited patiently while he prepared himself for--well, whatever it was he was going to do. He'd tried to explain to her once before what channeling his power felt like to him, but she wasn't entirely sure she understood it. Of course, she wasn't sure she could properly explain how her abilities worked either.

She cocked her head a bit when he started to seemingly begin a breathing exercise of some sort, but then he started whistling and she could feel the magic--or light, or whatever it was exactly--flowing into the small crystal.

Her breath caught at the faint buzz of sensation against the pads of her thumb and forefinger, and she watched in awe as that familiar glow started to settle into the stone, then flicker. Properly flicker, matching the rhythm of sound and silence that Idris had created with his whistling. Lips curving up, she started to enthuse, "That's incredible--!"

Something cut her off. That buzz against her fingertips, it was...familiar. Not like she'd felt it before, but like she'd felt something similar, like--like...

She stared at the crystal, brows starting to draw together when the flickering began to slow and fall out of sync with Idris' whistling as she just sort of lightly tugged and--

"Oh!"

She dropped the crystal, staggering back a step and pressing the hand that had been holding the small stone to the center of her chest. She blinked rapidly, breath coming faster than usual as a brief surge of warmth and energy rushed through her head to toe.

At Adri's exclamation, Idris openned his eyes and found the dead crystal on the floor. He frowned, disappointment clear on his face and in his shoulders. Then he noticed her posture and panicked.

"Oh, Kia, did I hurt you!?" He exclaimed, rushing to her side, "that's never happened before. Usually I at least get some light in it even if it doesn't do anything. I've never had anyone hold it! Gods, I'm so sorry!"

For a few moments, she couldn't speak, could only shake her head woodenly. "I...I'm fine... It was working, but then I..."

She suddenly burst forward, snatching the crystal up from the floor and spinning to face him with it held out like an offering. "Do it again," she begged, eyes suddenly fierce and...hopeful. "Please, Idris, do it again!"

"W...what?" He stuttered, completely caught off guard by her reaction. First she seemed hurt but now she wanted more?

"But...but it didn't work!" He argued, "there's no light in it. It failed!" But she was so earnest and demanding and...he found himself drawing in a breath and scooping from the stream again before he could talk himself out of it. His failure was embarrassing and he didn't want to do it again until he had more time to practice!

But the whistles were leaving his lips and the mingled breath and magic left him and traveled towards the stone she held.

With more awareness of what she was doing this time, Adri waited until the crystal had just barely started to flicker with light, then allowed herself to sip at it--exactly the way she would have if she was skimming off the top of a deep well of emotion.

For the briefest moment, she could feel everything. The flow of magic from the air around them into Idris and then through him to the crystal and through that into her.

And it worked. Since she'd denied Idris' offer of emotion two nights before, she hadn't had anything to sustain her metaphysical hunger. Two days wasn't all that much, in the grand scheme, but it was just enough that she could feel the edges of that not-quite-normal weariness dragging at her.

Except now it wasn't. While Idris whistled, the crystal flickered, and she could drink it. The light, or the magic, or whatever it was--she could take it!

She laughed, clapping her free hand over her mouth and bouncing in place on her toes. "Oh gods," she whispered through her fingers. "Oh my gods--oh Kia preserve me, it works!"

Idris opened his eyes again to a very much not twinkling gem and couldn't for the life of him figure out why Adri was celebrating. If she had been any other person he would think she was making fun of him but...she was Adrianna, she wasn't Marigold and that kind of personality just wasn't who she was.

"What worked?" He asked exasperatedly while waving at the gem in frustration, "there isn't anything there."

"But there was!" Adrianna laughed—she couldn't help it—and dropped the crystal onto the work table so she could grab his hands. "Idris, it worked! There was light—it was flickering, you did that!—and I could...I could..."

Her throat started to close up, and she had to swallow hard twice. "Idris, I could drink it. That's why it's not glowing, I—I drank...the magic..."

The tears gathering in the corners of her eyes began to spill over as the reality of that hit her properly. "I could take it...it worked... It worked the same as emotion, it worked..."

He blinked at her a few times while her words marinated; slow realization dawning over him. First, it had worked? The flickering had worked? Then, she could utilize it like she did emotions?

"Oh, Kia....!" He exclaimed once the gravity finally sunk in, "You could...! You just....!"

He couldn't contain himself. He wrapped his arms around her and gave her a single, whooping spin before placing her back down.

"So that means....that you....that this....but how!?"

"I don't know!" She laughed, though tears were still coursing down her cheeks. "I don't know, and I don't care! It worked, Idris, it worked, it...I can..."

She pressed both hands over her mouth, breath shuddering. She didn't understand what was happening--she'd held plenty of Idris' light-filled creations, why was it only working now? Why had she never noticed that feeling before?

What if it...stopped working?

No. No, she wouldn't think about that now. She couldn't think about that now.

With a sound that was caught between a laugh and a sob, she threw her arms around Idris' neck and squeezed tight. "It worked..."

Idris held her a for a few moments, reveling in her excitement and sharing in her joy. This could change everything for her. No, it did change everything!

"So...so you'll let me help you now? Because it's the magic not the emotions? You'll let me keep you healthy and you won't fight me anymore?" He didn't want to assume anything at this point and the last time he'd tried to trick her into taking care of herself she'd seen it as a betrayal and...well...he didn't want to repeat that mistake. He'd still fight her on it if she chose to be stubborn, but he'd keep her full with her consent.

"Why now?" He pushed her away gently and cocked his head to the side, "You've been wearing that bracelet for months, shouldn't it have been noticeable all this time?"

She laughed, shaking her head at him, but not in denial. "Yes," she half-sighed, letting her head drop onto his shoulder and nuzzling in. "Yes, you can help..."

She took a breath, then forced herself to step back from him and looked down at the bracelet on her wrist. "I...I don't know. I've never felt that--that buzzing before when I touch any of your other pieces either." A slight frown tugged at her brows and she traced her fingers over the links of the bracelet. "Nothing," she murmured, shaking her head. "I don't understand--I mean, I've met my share of mages, you'd think I would have noticed..."

Her eyes widened and her hand sudden flew up to the choker around her neck. "I--I felt it," she whispered in realization, staring vaguely over Idris' shoulder. "When they...I felt it, but only when they were activating the spell. I thought it was part of the--the way it tightened, but it was the same. I could feel them using the magic..."

Idris thought about that for a moment, chewing on the implications, on the possibilities...

"How does that necklace work?" He finally decided to ask, "Is it something latent? Pre-spelled? How do they make it...you know...the...thing it does?"

It would be too good to be true, right? If she could...if this was the answer to...no...it would be too easy...

"I--I'm not entirely sure," Adri responded slowly. "When they...gave their little demonstration, it was activated with a word, but I saw their mage casting. Like...the word made it start, but the mage was pouring power into this medallion thing--same metal as the collar--to keep it going..."

She looked up at Idris, something that didn't quite dare to be hope shining behind her eyes. "Do you...do you think...?"

Idris frowned in response to her question, realization dawning on him at what testing the theory out actually meant. And he didn't like it. He didn't like it at all.

"But you can't feel it now?" He asked slowly, fitting the puzzle together in his head, "and you can't feel the light once it's in the crystal? So...if we wanted to test this theory..."

He shook his head, he wouldn't do it.

"No. It's too risky. We can't do that."

"Idris." She shook her head slowly. The idea was terrifying, she wouldn't pretend otherwise, but... "We may not have much of a choice."

She was quiet a moment, then shook her head briskly. "Well. Regardless, it doesn't matter much right now. Illuvieau hasn't actually asked anything specific of you yet. And even if he did, and you did disobey, he'd have to have some way of relaying that to the guy who had the medallion--oh shit, or maybe he has it... We'd have to be right in front of him to make sure that was what was triggering it..."

She trailed off, trepidation warring with consideration. If she was being pragmatic...honestly, this could be it. This could be how they got out of this.

If she was being honest--well, she hadn't gotten as far as she had in life without a healthy sense of self-preservation. The idea was terrifying.

Idris shook his head again but more fervently this time, "No. absolutely not. Adri, you can't. We'll have to figure out another way. If you're wrong you'll die and...and...I won't let you do it."

Kia why was this so complicated? He didn't want to be indebted to the Dagger, but he cared more about Adri's life than his own freedom. But...where was her freedom? With that collar around her neck she was in constant fear of dying anyway...

Why couldn't they just continue the way they always had? Why did things have to change? Why did they have to be like this!?

"...Okay." She nodded at him slowly. "Okay, we'll...try to figure something else out first."

She felt a little guilty, but she wasn't lying to him; she would rather prefer to figure out another solution to their current predicament.

But she also knew if they couldn't figure something else out...they'd have to try. She would have to try.

Even if that meant she had to do it on her own. She didn't want to force him into a position where he felt like he was risking her life.

Before he knew what he wa doing, he took a step forward and encompassed her in a tight embrace while letting his fingers intertwine with her hair. He held her like that for a few moments, reminding himself that all of this was for her - to keep her safe. To keep them both safe.

"We'll figure it out. We'll experiment with different things. We'll figure it out. We will." Maybe if he repeated it enough it would actually be true.

He didn't want to think about what they would have to do if it all failed. She couldn't keep it around her neck...he knew that...and he also knew he probably wouldn't have a choice.

Adri's eyes widened a bit, and she was still in his arms for a moment before she began to return the embrace.

And then once her arms were wound around his shoulders, she suddenly realized how much she'd needed that. Needed him. The night before he'd been so attentive, and she was so grateful for it, but she hadn't been truly feeling it, still partially in shock from everything that had happened.

Now, with a night of sleep between her and that awful day, it was all she could feel. She went from hugging to clinging, and a bubble of emotion rose up in her throat. When she tried to swallow it back, it escaped as a choked sobbing sound.

She held him a little tighter and buried her face into the curve of his shoulder. "I've never been that scared," she confessed in a gasping whisper. "Kia help me, I thought...I thought—"

She gulped, breaths shuddered, then managed to choke out, "I didn't know if I'd ever see you again..."

The fervor in which she gripped him was surprising at first, but then he hears the tremor in her voice and felt the weight of her ordeal come crashing down upon them both. So he held her tighter and longer than he'd ever held anyone before. He let her take what strength he could offer and supported her as much as he could - and it didn't feel like much from his vantage point. If they had come back to the forge together, maybe everything would have been fine.

Or maybe Illuvieau would have plucked her up the next time she was running errands by herself. Maybe none of it mattered. They were evil people doing awful things to stay in power. Dammit, they were using children to do their dirty work! Putting a death sentence around the neck of the woman who was hindering their supply of bodies was nothing in comparison.

"You're safe now. I've got you. I'm here. You're here. Everything is going to be okay..."

For nearly a minute, she couldn't do anything but cling to him and shake, gulping air in an effort to swallow back the burning in her eyes.

Gods. Was this was consistent emotion did to regular people? Did people feel like this all the time? It was exhausting.

Eventually, she managed to wrestle herself back under some semblance of control and started to pull back, sniffling and wiping at her eyes. "Th-thanks," she whispered, finding herself abruptly unable to look him in the eye. She wasn't embarrassed, exactly, but... Hells. She didn't know what she was.

She swallowed and shook her head briskly. "Sorry. I--You have work to do. I've been enough of a distraction already."

"Hey." He cut her off and reached forward to turn her head enough that she could stop averting her gaze, "Hey. Stop. You aren't a distraction. None of this matters without you. None of this would exist without you.

"You're one of us. You belong here. This is your home and you will always come first. Do you understand that? I would have come after you the moment we realized you were gone if Hamond hadn't stopped me and spoken sense...but I wanted to, Adri. I wanted to find you like I did that night...not knowing if you were safe or hurt or..."

He took a deep shuddering breath, "It was awful."

He let her chin go quickly as he suddenly realized it was still against his hand and blushed, "So...ah...you being here isn't a distraction. It's good."

Adri found herself staring at him for several long moments, speechless. She didn't even know why, exactly—after all the time they'd spent together, she rather thought she knew how much they meant to one another. Hearing him express it plainly shouldn't be surprising.

And yet it was.

"...Idris."

She grabbed his hand before he could pull it away entirely. She stared at him, mouth slightly open. Gods. She had to just say it.

"I love you."

She took a shaky breath. She didn't want to put any expectation on it—but she realized she'd needed to say it out loud. She honestly couldn't even say herself how she loved him, she just knew that she did.

Idris felt every cell in his body just freeze as the words left her mouth. It was like nothing and everything existed all at once and it left him paralyzed with confusion, indecision, and more than a lot of simple surprise.

They had grown closer over these past months to the point he would easily admit she was his best friend. She didn't mince her words, she helped him come out of his artist shell when he forgot he was actually a human who needed human things. Because he did need human things. He found he enjoyed life so much more when he had them...when he had her.

But he didn't know how to love. He didn't know anything. He had only just realized what it meant to have a friend!

"I..." he licked his lips, "Ok."

And he just stared at her, completely lost for words or even basic functions, for what must have felt like forever to her.

"But , why?"

Adrianna's breath left her in a sharp, startled huff. She wasn't sure what she'd expected as a reaction, but it wasn't that.

"I--" She laughed a little breathlessly and shook her head, dragging one hand back through her hair. "I don't even--what do you mean, why? You're my friend, you loon," she laughed awkwardly, cheeks coloring a bit. "I've never had a friend like you. I've never known anyone like you. And I don't..."

She frowned, folding her arms tight across her chest and glancing down and away. "I don't even know...I don't think I'm in love with you, Idris, but I guess I could be. Someday. It's not like that, though, it just--"

She huffed again and shook her head briskly. "Fuck. I don't know, I just do."

He shook his head with confusion. He didn't understand what she was saying. She was saying a lot of things, a lot of words, but...was he being dense again? He must be being dense. That was the only explanation.

"I'm sorry I don't...this is new and I don't understand and I don't want things to get ruined and I don't want you to feel uncomfortable and...and...what do I do? What do we do now? Are we supposed to kiss or...or hug?"

He shook his head, completely embarrassed and flustered, "I'm making things weird. I'm being weird. I'm making this uncomfortable."

"Oh Kia."

Adri groaned and dropped her head into her hands, but she was quick to shake herself and rush to assure him, "You're not—I mean not really—gods, this whole thing is so awkward."

She sighed and looked up at him with a small, almost shy smile. "And that's my fault. I'm sorry, I didn't... I wasn't very clear." She coughed lightly and scuffed one toe against the floor before taking a breath and continuing carefully, "I don't...know if ah, kisses is exactly what I was...meaning. And more importantly, I would only be interested in that if you wanted to, not just...felt like you should."

Eyes on the floor between them, she shifted her weight from foot to foot and murmured, "I've...never had anybody like you in my life before. Someone I could count on, who I cared about...someone like family."

The gang was the closest she's ever been to that, but it was just different. They'd all cared for one another, but there was a certain barrier you had to keep around your heart when you lived that kind of life, or the life itself would just...break you.

She didn't have to do that with Idris. It was new and exhilarating and terrifying.

"That's what I meant," she said quietly. "You're not just the best friend I've ever had, you're...you're the closest thing I've got to family, and I love you." She shrugged. "I just...wanted you to know that."

"Oh." He hadn't thought about love in that way before. In fact, he really only considered love as something people fell into and then were together. This love that Adri was talking about, he felt the same way about her as she did about him, just never thought of it as love.

He stepped forward and scooped her into an awkward hug again, hoping she wasn't so uncomfortable with him that she'd pull away.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know what you meant and I misinterpreted it and...I'm sorry." He gave her a gentle squeeze.

"I suppose I love you, too, then." He pulled back and frowned, chewing on what he was about to say and trying to decide if he was ready to be as vulnerable as it would make him feel.

"I've only ever had Herald. He took me on as an apprentice when I was 6 after my aunt couldn't afford to keep me anymore and my uncle, who I'm told is in Adela, never returned any letters. I've never been...wanted..."

Adri hugged him back with a relieved sigh, glad that what she'd said had apparently made any amount of sense and things weren't weird now. Well. No weirder than they usually were.

"Don't apologize," she laughed lightly, squeezing him back before they pulled apart. "I didn't...say it very well."

She smiled at him, but the expression shrank and softened a bit when he talked about how young he'd been left with no family--she couldn't empathize with that, exactly, but she could imagine how difficult it must have been. In way, she wondered if she was lucky to have never had a family to miss.

"I want you," she told him firmly. "And Herald wants you, doesn't he? He wouldn't have taken you in if he didn't."

Idris just chuckled at that, "I mean, I'm sure he wanted my help more than me. And now he'll probably just want the business I bring."

He smiled broadly at her, feeling a sense of giddiness and belonging he'd never actually felt before.

"Thanks for saving me that day. For keeping me from doing something stupid over someone stupid. And for staying...I don't want a life without you in it, ok?" And then he was embarrassed again and immediately threw himself into his work and pulling out the tiny intricate gold chains he had spent days, no, weeks creating so he could just start weaving his creations to life without necessarily needing the forge.

Earrings first, he decided.

Adri stared at him as he set to work as though he hadn't just tilted her world on its axis slightly with those words. Then she huffed a quiet half-laugh and moved forward to place a hand on his shoulder and gave it a quick squeeze.

"Me too," she told him softly, with a small, warm smile.

They would figure out this mess with Illuvieau. They would. And then things could go back to normal.

Gods, she hadn't realized before how much she loved their version of normal.

She gave Idris' shoulder another quick squeeze before moving away. "I'll fetch some breakfast."

Idris nodded absently as he placed the magnifying contraption on his head and got to work. He would need to create some intricate prongs and casings to hold the tiny stones he was planning to place, but first he wanted to get the main design - and he wanted to practice with cheap metals.

The aluminum and nickel wires would work well enough for the bones. He wouldn't be able to sell them, of course, since these would be designed explicitly for Marigold's family, but he didn't want to waste precious materials if he was going to make mistakes.

Adri would act as his model as he worked and he would constantly call her over to hold the practice pieces up to her ear to gauge size. Hours would pass and without her urging he wouldn't eat, wouldn't take a break, and would just exist in the metal itself.

Of course that would hurt him later. This kind of work was rough on his shoulders and his back. This kind of work used completely different muscles than the big hammers and fire that most people imagined when thinking of smiths.

By the end of a few hours he would have three different options laid out on the table.

Adrianna fell into the by now familiar rhythm of Idris' work, approaching the worktable when he called for her but for the most part leaving him to his own devices--save for the couple of times she vanished into the larder and then reappeared with small plates of food that she would leave on the table beside his project. A few times she had to nudge it toward him pointedly, but it was usually enough to ensure he at least got a few bites in between tasks.

This was normally when she would have been going on deliveries, tending her gardens, or manning the main shop. She didn't quite feel up to any of those things after the previous day, but she didn't like to feel useless either. She found herself drifting to arranging and rearranging the clusters of metal flowers that dotted the windowsill of the forge, just needing to do something with her hands.

Every once in a while, her fingertips would brush over the gently lit crystals that decorated one metal bloom or another, and she found herself hoping for that feeling, that gentle buzz of energy--of magic.

It was never there. It really must only happen when the magic was actively being channeled.

Her hand drifted up to flutter nervously around the collar on her neck.

Eventually, Idris seemed to have reached a pausing point in his work and she drifted over to the table again. She smiled at him--just a little distant--and cocked her head slightly.

"They're all lovely, you know," she chuckled quietly. "As usual."

"I don't know..." he held his chin in his hand while the other sat across his chest. "Maybe I should have started with the necklace?"

He reached forward and picked up the first practice piece and held it up to the light. This one was longer and the spirals that twisted with movements were looser. Then he grabbed the second which he had made the spirals tighter. The third had a combination of the two, but with two separate spirals that spun around each other. The looser spiral was thinner and he planned to place the glowing crystals all along it.

He held the first up to Adri's ear, then shook his head and held up the second. It was so hard to tell because Marigold was taller, as were most of her family, but perhaps they were just not the right proportions for Adri?

Then he held up the third.

"Can you hold this?" He asked, moving her hand up to hold the hook without stopping to actually get an answer, then he was on the other side of the forge scrutinizing.

He groaned and threw up his hands, "I just don't know! You pick!"

Adri couldn't help chuckling a bit to herself at his indecisiveness, but she made sure to keep the reaction quiet.

She held up the different pieces when he asked, then laid them all out next to each other on the worktable. She considered them for a moment, head tilted. "Either the first or the third," she decided after some consideration.

Glancing up at Idris, she started thinking aloud slowly, "I mean...you could make both, and offer them to her as a choice. Make her feel like it's more personalized that way. And then whichever one she doesn't pick is your design--we can sell them in the shop to whoever we like, right?"

He frowned and tapped his finger on his chin. It wasn't a bad idea but he was worried it would show a weakness in his own abilities if he couldn't style them perfectly and with confidence.

"I'll need to make both in full pieces..." he said slowly, staring at the two options, "and then hope someone else with that kind of money could afford it...we'd be eating the costs up front..."

Whatever he said about his own lack of abilities with other humans and the business side of the forge, he didn't do things impulsively and always had six plans for everything. Adri brought that side out of him - the side that could look a little bit further than his own nose and into the minds of others.

"Do you think it would be worth it? They wouldn't hold it against me? Against us?" His was a double ended question. If he didn't dazzle Marigold and her family then...

Adri pursed her lips as she considered that before answering. "Well, as far as I can see, there are a few ways it could go." She started ticking options off on her fingers. "Marigold picks her piece, sees another noble's daughter somewhere wearing the design she didn't pick, gets huffy about it and wants to withdraw her patronage." She shrugged. "Which means her uncle has to step in and either explain why they can't do that, which he most certainly does not want to do—or he buys the rights to the second design as well to get her to stop bitching." She quirked an eyebrow. "It's your work. You promised them one design, they have no say over what you do with the rest."

She ticked off another finger. "Option two: nobody cares. Like I said, it's your design, you're not breaking any part of a patronage contract by selling the one she doesn't pick."

Her brow furrowed a bit and she slowly lifted another finger. "Option three...Illy sees it as a challenge. And he decides to make a point with us." Her hand drifted up to the collar at her throat. "Which I guess—I guess means we have an opportunity to test some theories."

He nodded, taking a breath to settle his nerves while letting the practicality of Adri's personality wash over him. She was perfect. Everything she touched turned to gold. If she thought it would be ok, then it would be.

It had to be.

"Ok." He let the breath out, "I'll need to go see the gem merchant and hope there is enough in stock to use for these pieces. The quick turn around might change what I can actually do."

Adri nodded briskly, quickly dropping her hand from the collar. "Right. Okay then."

Good. If they focused on the logistics, it would keep either of them from obsessing too much over maybes.

She hesitated a moment, then offered in a softer, more hesitant tone, "Do you...want me to come with you?"

She wasn't entirely sure herself if she was asking more for his sake or for hers. She knew he was entirely capable of visiting the merchant on his own, but tended to seem more confident when she was there--even when she wasn't actually doing anything but offering moral support.

And on the other hand, while she didn't exactly relish the idea of going out and being around people just yet...she also didn't want to be in the forge by herself.

"Yes." He said a little too quickly. He didn't like shopping for these things alone. There wasn't a rhyme or reason for it, but there were always so many choices and he wasn't that great at identifying rocks versus shaping and guiding metal. He had meant what he'd said to Adri before about rocks being clunky and completely different than his own craft. They were like....sprinkles on top of a cupcake for him. At the end of the day they didn't actually make it taste better, just made it look a bit more appealing to buyers.

"You're better at knowing if someone is being dishonest and those gem folks always seem to be dishonest...." He smiled at her sheepishly and then realization dawned, "I mean...if you want. You said you didn't want to work today and I'll be an adult if you'd rather stay home. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to forget and...please don't feel pressured, ok?"

Adri smiled, her shoulders relaxing a bit from the tension she hadn't even realized she'd started to hold. She nodded quickly. "Yeah. I mean, yeah, I'll go--I wouldn't have offered if I wasn't okay with it."

She shrugged and scuffed one foot back and forth over the floor for a moment. "I just...working the front of the shop would be different, I guess. More people. Talking to merchants is easier, more one-on-one. And, ah..." She coughed and glanced away. "I um...don't really want to...be by myself. Right now."

He nodded, reaching for her hand and giving it a gentle squeeze.

"Thank you." He smiled. She made him feel so much more confident. Herald was right when he made the choice to withhold the master seal from Idris - without Adri he would have just floundered and probably spent all of his time shoeing horses because it was what he knew. She allowed him to do what he loved.

"Hey! Maybe we can stop by and get some of the city's finest pies!" He exclaimed with sudden enthusiasm, "It's on the way!"

She grinned, the expression tired but genuine, and squeezed his hand back. "We can certainly see if he's in," she chuckled, "but if he went to see Tressa, he might be, ah...busy."

Her grin turned into a smirk for a moment before her expression sobered a bit again. "Tress's shop isn't all that far from the upper city market, actually...if we have time, maybe we could check on them both?"

She didn't really think the Dagger would have bothered to go after either of her old friends--Tressa's position was too stable, too noticeable, and they'd already made their statement with Hamond. Still, she couldn't help worrying a bit.

Idris smiled down at Adri, his heart welling in his chest just knowing that she was here before him, that she was safe. He didn't know when he became so attached to her, or when he began to think of her as a kind of life-long companion, a best friend if you will, but here he was. The past few days had taught him that her safety was more important than his own and the dagger had really chosen well in picking a good bartering point. Or blackmail. He trusted her. He respected her. He wanted to make sure she had a good life, whatever that looked like for her.

For now, though? That looked like pie. That looked like walking out into the world together and acting like everything was normal. That looked like spending time with friends who cared about her, while also helping support their business. That looked like some fun before work.

"Let's go then, yes?" he held out his arm to her as if offering it to a Lady.

And he might as well be. Adri was more a Lady to him than any noblewoman he'd ever met.

Something about the way he looked at her then made Adri's chest go tight. She blinked at his offered arm, momentarily startled by it, then took it with a slowly starting smile of her own.

"Let's," she agreed happily, tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow. Her eyes softened a bit as she glanced up at him and she squeezed his arm gently as she pressed into his side for a brief moment.

"And...thanks, Idris."

He felt a warmth spread through him as she took his arm and he couldn't help the slightly goofy smile that hinted at the edge of his lips. Despite everything, it felt like a good morning. She was alive and she was safe - for now, but he wasn't going to dwell on that just yet. He was acutely aware of her hand on his arm as they made their way into town.

"So...try Hamish first? And if he's not there we can go to the gem merchant before trying Tressa?" He was definitely someone who loved, and needed, a well thought out plan.

It didn't really matter which way they ended up going. All that really mattered was the bit of normalcy that this brought him. He could forget about everything.

For a time.

Adri nodded with a small chuckle. "Sounds like a plan," she assured him, well familiar with his particular idiosyncrasies around this sort of thing. "Hmmmm, I wonder if Hamond might have someone running the stall even if he's not there... Never as good as the fresh-made pies, but it's still something."

As they exited the forge and started off down the street, she tipped her head toward him slightly and asked, "So, the gem merchant-- were you thinking the usual guy, or that pricier toff that Herald recommended. And if we do wanna try that, what do we know about 'em?"

It was just a bit forced, but on any other day, in any other circumstances, she would have been trying to gather as much information about a potential supplier as possible. So that's what she did now, trying to ignore all the things that were not normal about their current situation.

"Hmmm...." Idris thought about Adri's question and was honestly torn as to what he wanted to do. On the one hand he trusted the cheaper merchant more, probably because Adri did, but this particular job called for something extravagant and something that carried some more weight behind it. If he went to the normal place, he'd be able to find something decent he was sure of it, would definitely be able to complete the earrings, but the necklace? He was envisioning larger, grander. They were paying him a lot and it honestly felt like a test.

No, it was a test, but not in the way that normal jewelers would experience. This was a test from The Dagger. If he didn't make himself completely and utterly invaluable to Marigold and her family, he would ultimately just be a loose end.

"Let's go to the new one. I know they're pricier, but they have larger and rarer items that might work better for the necklace. We can always get the smaller stones from our normal place." He chewed on his lip as they continued to walk, getting closer to Hamond's stall but still more than a few minutes away with their current pace, "I....honestly don't know much about the place. I kinda wrote it off when you said you knew someplace cheaper." He chuckled a little at himself for that one. Maybe not the smartest business move, but....he trusted Adrianna. He trusted her more than he had ever trusted anyone in his entire life.

Adri chuckled a bit herself, both amused at the memory of Idris' quick change of mind at touched anew by his trust in her.

"Good idea," she said anyway, wanting to reassure him that she trusted his instincts too--even when he might not. "And not knowing much about it just means this is a good opportunity to learn, right? I'll poke about a bit while you do the actual business thing." She scrunched her nose up in dramatic distaste, trying to get something of a rise out of him.

Maybe it was overcompensating a bit, but she'd certainly take the vaguely forced joviality over actually dwelling on any of the problems currently facing them.

They were nearing Hamond's stall by this point, and it did rather look like the young man behind it was not, in fact, Adri's childhood friend.

Idris shifted uncomfortably, not knowing how to take her comments because they were certainly wrong. Adri was the natural businessman in their relationship. She knew how to assess people while Idris knew how to assess product.

Usually.

"Maybe we should get into the jewel business and just cut out the middleman." He had already begun walking towards the gem shop, completely forgetting to pick up a pie since Hamond wasn't there. "Then we won't need to talk to people at all except for traders and stuff."

Because that would be easier than talking to jewelers...

"And I guess I'd need to figure out how to cut gems." He frowned, was that something he could manage?

"Idris." Chuckling and rolling her eyes, Adri put her hand on his arm to draw his attention back to the present moment. "I meant you can ask all the appropriate questions about product quality and pricing and whatnot--y'know, the stuff that you're exceptionally good at? That sort of business stuff?"

She smiled crookedly at him, trying to nudge him back toward a sense of lightness. "I can probably get what I need to know just from watching and listening--it's how I do most of my part of things anyway. Plus, I'd have no idea how to assess the quality of precious stones."

Idris shrugged at that. He ran a good shop, that was true, but he wouldn't necessarily say he was good at the business side. He was a creative! He liked to look at different materials and figure out how he could manipulate it in such a way as to create something new and exciting. But more than that, he liked the puzzle of it all. Sometimes things didn't like to do as they were told and figuring out what it could do or if he could get it to listen....that was joy.

Business was stressful.

"It's a few blocks away, anyways." He absently told her, missing the attempt to shift the tone of the conversation, "So I guess there's time to figure it all out in my head. I need a really big stone. I know it's going to be expensive and need to be careful not to toss everything we earn at it, but the necklace needs to be grand. It needs to draw eyes like moths."

He bit his lip and looked down at her sideways, "I need to learn more about gems, you know...I kinda just make it up."

"Better you than me," Adri chuckled wryly. "I can barely keep all that stuff you told me about different grades of ores and ingots straight." She shrugged again. "Ah, well. I'm good at being able to tell when someone's trying to cheat me, even if I can't assess stone quality--I'm sure we'll do alright."

She glanced up at him sidelong, then bumped her hip into his gently. "Hey," she said in a slightly softer voice. "You've got this. I'm right here, okay?"

Idris stumbled awkwardly at the hip bump, but smiled at the playfulness despite feeling a bit like a fool. He never really expected to be touched – it wasn't exactly a typical thing when you grew up in a forge where that kind of playfulness could land you in the fire. Literally. Also, Herald wasn't exactly the kind of man who goofed off like that like....ever. If they had free time, he was drinking or sleeping. No, correction, they never had free time and Idris was always working while Herald disappeared for hours to leave him to it.

Though....was that even fair anymore? Since becoming partners and working on their own separate projects, it seemed like Herald really did have some kind of work ethic. Or maybe he always did but now he didn't have Idris' overzealous-self doing most of the work.

Huh.

And just like that, they had crossed the last few blocks in silence as Idris just relived half his life in his own brain. What must Adri think of him in these moments? If she had tried to strike up a conversation he hadn't hear it.

"Oh, uh, I guess we're here."

He found himself standing taller and adjusted his tunic and belt, making sure his Master's Seal was prominent and visible. They'd know him, of course, at least by name, but he didn't want there to be any question since it was his first time in this kind of shop. He took a deep, steadying breath, tipped his head at Adri, and walked through the door.

After all the time they'd spent together, Adri liked to think she'd gotten fairly good at being able to tell when Idris was sunk into his own world--there were different levels of it, that she'd noticed. Sometimes she could draw him back out, but others he was just too deep in rumination.

This seemed to be one of the latter moments--rather than futilely attempt to draw him back out into conversation, she huffed, rolled her eyes fondly, and devoted the rest of her energy to making sure he didn't stray off path or walk into anyone else passing them on the street. It was something she'd gotten quite proficient at, and required sort of "herding" the smith without actually touching him.

Then they reached the shop, and he seemed to come back to himself abruptly. "I guess we are," she chuckled lightly. With a dip of her head, she extended a hand. "After you."

She found herself watching fondly as he fussed with his clothes--maybe she should have been more concerned about her own appearance, but honestly she was still just too tired from the last few days to care overmuch. Since starting to live with Idris at the forge, she at least had taken to wearing modestly flattering dresses, rather than the thread-worn and ragged affairs that had been the best she could do as a street-corner flower-seller.

She followed him into the shop, looking around curiously as a tiny silver bell tinkled cheerfully to announce their arrival.

Idris didn't understand how Adri could have so much faith in him. Didn't she understand that he was just making it up as they went? If he were being completely honest with himself, the only reason he did anything was because she was there pushing him forward. So, by that logic, he was only good at anything because of her. At least by way of business. Up until this point in his life he ignored the numbers and just wanted to create for creation's sake. Now he needed to make her proud. He needed to make sure she was taken care of and knowing those numbers was the only way that was going to happen.

He refused to see her nearly dead in the middle of an abandoned house filled with wildflowers. No, never again. Wasn't going to happen.

So he ignored every part of his that screamed to run away and he stepped over the threshold and into an incredibly well lit storefront. It was quite possibly the prettiest store he had ever seen! There were counters that looked to be mahogany, but he couldn't be sure since he wasn't exactly a tree expert. Regardless, they were shining with proper care and were topped with exquisite glass cases that were filled with different stones in varying sizes and variety. One side had a sign that read "magic infused," while another stated, "Rough cut." It was nothing like the exchanges he'd had before and it was clear that this store brought in a lot of money.

Idris was equally surprised to see a number of noble men and women perusing the stones when he knew perfectly well they didn't know how to do any kind of smithing that would make owning the gems worth their time. Perhaps they just liked to source their own things? Or own pretty trinkets to display for guests? That seemed weird, but nobles were weird. Besides, it wasn't like there were that many jewelers in the area. Maybe six at most not including Idris.

Weird. The whole thing was odd.

But that probably meant he just wasn't used to seeing what successful merchants looked like or were able to achieve. One day perhaps he would be able to have an entire storefront that looked just like this that were covered in glass baubles infused with his light magics instead of the lamps that lit this place.

"Can I help you, sir?" A warm feminine voice reached his ears and caused him to swivel his head around to see the source. As he moved, others in the store began to notice him and started murmuring to each other – that was him, the young Master Smith who was taking the town by storm. That was the artisan who made jewelry unlike any other jeweler in town! That is Idris – he just accepted a patronage from one of the more prestigious families in the area.

"Oh! Forgive me, Master Idris, I didn't recognize you. It's been so long! Last time I saw you in this shop you were just barely of age and were still learning from Master Herald. What can I help you with today?"

She was very pretty. Her dark hair was swept up in a sensible braid that twisted around her head while a few loose tendrils framed her face. Her eyes were so green they almost glowed of their own accord, but that was probably just a trick of the light. When he met her eyes he noticed her face grew pink and he wondering if she was feeling alright. If she was sick and the actual owner of the store made her work, what did that say about the man as a person? Hmm....already he was disappointed that he was here and not with his usual merchant, now he was just feeling less and less comfortable giving this shop his business.

"Ah...ahem...yes. I am working on a project that needs a very specific kind of stone. Would you please show me your sapphire selection?"

Her eyes brightened even more, how was that possible?!

"Absolutely, Master, this way." And she swept past him with a soft giggle and her fingertips brushed his shoulders gently. He glanced down where she touched him and frowned. That seemed unnecessary. But perhaps being overly friendly helped them get customers. Maybe that made the difference between this shop and others?

He shrugged to himself and followed after, making sure to keep his back straight and his face passive so not to show any wonder when she pulled out a tray of glittering deeply rich, blue stones. There was a box of sapphires as small as a pin tip and one that was as big as his fist. He didn't even want to know the price on that one and was honestly surprised they even had it out in the open. That seemed like the kind of stone they'd keep under lock and key.

She stood on the other side of the counter and smiled warmly at him and then held out her hand, "I'll need your wrist, please, Master Idris. A security measure to keep our inventory safe, you understand."

Idris held out his wrist and she gently tied a rope around it. Her fingers brushed against his skin and he noticed her cheeks were growing pink again. Gods, this woman needed to go home and rest...

She turned towards Adri and waved her over, "You, too." She said quickly, the smile gone from her lips.

Oh. 

Oh no.

Adri found herself suddenly burning with a protectiveness that under most circumstance she would have thought wasn't entirely warranted, but after the last two days she wasn't about to question. 

It started slowly, when the people browsing the gems started to take notice of them--well, of Idris, not of her--and began whispering behind their hands. It burst into a fierce intensity, however, when the woman behind the counter practically fell over herself in her excitement to assist Idris. And then she kept finding excuses to touch him, and Adri had to bite back a churlish comment about it. 

Not my business, not my business, I'm just here to observe, if Idris minded he would say something... Well. She hoped he would say something. He might feel too awkward or uncomfortable though...

She quirked an eyebrow when the woman waved her over for this "security measure". She approached easily, extending her own wrist. "I'd rather wondered if I'd suddenly turned invisible," she noted, tone joking with just a bit of a sting in the tail. 

Shit. She hadn't actually meant to say that. 

The woman was all business with Adri, and was finished in half the time with her as she was with Idris. In fact, her fingers hadn't even touched Adri's wrist where they had almost lingered over Idris's skin. Which, of course, he hadn't noticed.

Honestly, he hardly noticed anything besides the stones that sat in front of them and his fingers itched with anticipation. He wouldn't know if it was the right one until he was able to actually hold them and feel them. 

"If you try and take anything from the store, this will tighten without stopping." The shopkeep told Adri specifically, "Even just putting a stone in a pocket will trigger it. You've been warned. We had some urchin lose a hand a few weeks back."

Then her attention was back on Idris and she began arranging the stones in order of clarity and size - so basically by price which wasn't lost on him. Naturally she spent most of her time talking up the stones that cost the most and was giggling and sighing an awful lot when his attention was on those specifically.

She felt disingenuous so Idris blocked out her voice and carefully picked up one of the medium sized sapphires cut into a square with facets that were more geometric and square than the rest. It felt...not right. Then he picked up another and, once again, just wasn't it.

He was probably standing there, picking up stones and putting them down with a frown, for a good ten minutes, possibly more.

"—came from the eastern coast of Ler'aana where the earth creates a very unique color for these stones. But their characteristics are still sapphires so we keep them together."

Idris lifted it, still frowning slightly, and turned towards Adri - only just speaking for the first time.

"Doesn't our usual merchant had stones like this? She never charged us more because the color was a bit off, does she?" It was a pointed question, and one that caused the shopkeeper to pale, but Idris had been watching Adri these past months and he had been learning, even if he didn't realize it much himself.