Closed Constructing Acquaintanceships [Shai]

[Gideon]

47th of Fall, 514 AV

The lazy afternoon sunlight crept in through the soot stained windows of The Drunken Fish and filled its atmosphere with a torpid haze of succoring warmth. The conversations among its clientele were dull and listless, dispensed on rum quenched tongues while Father Manowar occupied his time by cleaning several clay mugs with a grime soaked towel in anticipation of the evening rush. It was, rather inexplicably, one of the few places in all Sunberth that Gideon felt safe--at least in the waxing bells before the debauchery of the night began.

Motes of dust were captured in the dim rays of light as the desert dweller sat midst a thrall of empty tables and chairs, legs raised above his pelvis with boots planted firmly atop the woodwork before him. His chair was tilted on two legs with spine slouched into the crooked curvature of the backrest, thumbs twiddling above his abdomen as he gazed ponderously across the table.

On the other side sat a...mixed breed of some sort, if Gideon’s summation of the man was indeed correct, his eyes carefully measuring small bits of character to later remember him by should his services be required again in the future. He was a short stalk of a man with coffee stained eyes and sand colored hair, an old scar no more than a feathering of white just above his left brow. His vestments were in shambles, and he equipped a dagger along a frayed length of rope that served as a belt.

He seemed nervous of the world around him, but Gideon could hardly fault him in that. They were in the city of chaos after all, and the mob had an agenda all its own when it came to rabble rousing. It seemed these days were more volatile than those past, but it did not take a sleuth to figure out the reason behind it. Power shifts in leadership often created gaps which needed to be paved...often in blood.

“So you can tell me where he is?” Gideon’s left eyebrow curled along his forehead, healthily dubious of the integrity of the man sitting before him.

“Well, ah, in a fashion, yes.” The other shifted uneasily in his seat, as if expecting a murderous glare in response.

Gideon’s expression fell quiet, tangling briefly with percipience before a deep sigh was filtered through his nose. “So me coming here pointless.”

Lifting his legs from the table, he set them back onto the floor of the tavern with a dull thump, leaning forward in order to stand when the other’s voice squeaked in dismay. “No! What I mean to say is, I don’t know where he is, but…”

Gideon pushed himself to his feet.

“But I know someone who does!” the other snapped, jumping up from his chair and reaching across the table to rest his hand atop Gideon’s own.

Realizing all too late of the mistake that was made, the desert dweller’s other hand had already come to intervene, grabbing the informant’s arm by the wrist and pulling it back towards him. Stout legs, unable to extend his reach beyond the middle of the table, came toppling forward with the rest of his torso. The resulting crack of chin bone connecting with the wooden surface of the table stirred the curiosity of those around him, Father Manowar already growling in protest.

“The Quay House! The Quay Hou--!” the smaller statured man hissed, feeling his arm bending back as Gideon rounded the table and applied pressure to the other’s shoulder while drawing back on the arm. “Sunset Quarters. They can find anyone. Anyone!” he whined, eyes brimming with fear and lips twisted by pain.

Looking up to find that their little encounter had earned them a sizable audience from the drunken patrons couched around the bar, Gideon released his grip and watched the imprisoned arm fall sorely to the other’s side. Grabbing the informant by the scrag of his belt, he lifted him back to his feet and gazed down upon him. “You hard enough to track down to begin, friend. But, I come to find you loading ears with that fool fish again, I take arm with me, savvy?...Buy stiff drink. It help ease pain.”

Fishing into his pouch, Gideon withdrew a silver and slapped it atop the table with a ringing thrum, his steeled blue eyed gaze analyzing the rest of the tavern for signs of retaliation. But seeing as there was to be no exchange in blood, many grew bored quickly and returned to their drinks and banter. Even Father Manowar had stepped down to the other end of the bar and was in the process of replenishing another’s empty mug. The southerner turned and ambled his way out into the street.

***

It did not take long for him to find The Quay House, it’s exterior one of the scant few constructed of stone in this beggared part of town along the coast. Surprised to find that it contained a gatehouse, Gideon was relieved when he saw the door leading in was left invitingly open, its portcullis drawn. The sound of hammer and saw filled the early evening air, the scent of spruce wafting on the coastal breeze and setting the southerner’s mind to a more restful state.

Looking beyond the gate and into the complex itself, Gideon could see men milling about diligently, dragging timber to various locations and cutting planks to size with toothed blades. He still found it odd to be in a land enriched by a resource that was grievously absent in The Burning Lands. Yet these people used it for practically everything. Easier to move than stone, he speculated, though not as promisingly sturdy.

Sliding past the threshold to the inner grounds when he found no one to greet him, Gideon’s curiosity took him past the main building to where the construction was taking place instead. Resting his left hand atop the pommel of his sword sheathed along his side, his right settled onto the hitch of his hip, elbow bending out away from him. Child like awe fell upon him as he watched the men work, noting the foreign tools they used to carve and cut the wood, as well as the expediency with which every task was conducted. He had never seen anything like it.

[Shai]

In the north wall’s shadow cast by Syna’s waning light, stood, upon one foot, Shai. Her other foot resting against her planted leg, like a dancer’s pose. In one hand was a fully extended fan, silver and blue war fan. The weapon was a fully half again as large as a fan meant to abate heat, and heavier still but still a compact weapon by anyone’s estimation except perhaps a Pycon.

The woman who held it was glaringly pale even out of the sun’s immediate notice. She could almost pass for a sickly human at a distance, her horribly slender frame would be considered emaciated though.

Slowly to increase precision, the spider’s muscles coiled and released. Her form moved fluidly, the perched foot twisting to reach ahead of her, knee bent. As her pose froze, her wrist flicked, drawing up the fan into a single band of rectangular metal. The strange slow dance continued. She made the balancing and twisting look easy, but the muscle strength required to hold each pose was its own strain.

After long chimes, the spider folded down into a squat. With a loud clack the fan whipped open and she used it for its more mundane purpose; fighting the evening heat. She was spending her days here in the Quay, watching her home go up. The process had begun two days past and already there were a sturdy skeleton of a building growing in the stone Quay.

The men were rank and her brow furrowed, but it wasn’t enough to put her off observation. The walls would begin going up in a day or two, perhaps then the spider would find some much needed sleep. The daylight hours didn’t agree with her eyes, it tended to result in a terrible headache. As of yet there were no needles in her temple, but there was still sunlight left.

There was a steadily growing stack of boards accruing beside her as more materials were brought through the gates. Slowly giving her a more secure hiding place with every ringing chime.

Shai closed her eyes, trying to bring her thoughts inward. Chell watch for me? I am going to practice. The Irylid familiar hung as a blue crystal from a chain around her neck, keeping lookout for his Mistress. The spider pushed out sounds first, thinking instead of her life and what it meant to be. This was not her first tapping of Djed, not even her second, still she was novitiate at best.

Originally there had been a bone chilling fear in the spider of being found out as a mage. Years ago there had been rabid witch hunts throughout the city taking down mostly non-mages in the process. Since then she had realized no one could see her shields, and Chell was only in danger of another mage. Anyone outing her, outed themselves.

There it was, the feeling of security she needed. The thief’s image of djed was that of a locked chest. It was all a mental game, Antar had told her that. The Djed Chest was a crutch, but one that she needed for now. The lock clicked open and she wrangled with the tendrils of her identity. Slowly she wove a net out of the threads and cast it around her left hand. Each strand of the net widened and flattened until it made it flat covering across the back of her hand.

Eyelashes flicked open, the invisible shield dissolved. The reluctant mage had forgotten to task it. She huffed and was preparing to try again with Chell chimed in, Shai, there’s… an oddity

Only now realizing that the stack of boards had shrunk as the workmen applied each to the building. Sweeping the Quay grounds with lavender eyes she spotted him, and his sword. With surety she announced over the commotion, “It is not for sale.”

[Gideon]

In the calm of his motionless gaze, Gideon wondered as to the destined intent of the structure, his mind carefully crafting rooms and fixtures out of the skeleton into a completed work of art. It made him wonder how such frail things had survived the djed storm two years past, remnants of his own memory still echoing crisply in his mind and sending a tremor of unsettling cold through him. It took but a flash for his eyes to fall away, the screams of terror filling acquainted ears once again. A small crack quavered through his composure.

Yet mercy stretched its absolving hand when her voice broke through the din, momentarily startling him as his gray cloak shivered all the way down from his shoulders. Immediately his pupils became level again, measuring before what he had thought a statue, now a waif draped in black. The shadow enveloping her came from the gray stone of The Quay’s boundary wall, something about it telling him that she had chosen the area specifically.

Her skin reminded him of the porcelain dinnerware used by the East Winds in Ahnatep to entertain their guests; a thought occurring that with enough force, she might in fact shatter against the wall her back was turned towards. It seemed impossible a creature could be so pale, his own flesh the color of unfinished copper. But hers was that of milk instead, seemingly untouched by a single ray of Syna’s light since her birthing.

The expression proceeding her statement had shown neither a wrinkle of amusement nor seed of mischief, which in turn made her all the more a perplexing creature. Because of that, it took him a moment to gauge how best to proceed, casually pacing towards her with little more than an air of stoicism wreathing his countenance. “Is that your purpose?” he asked with but the slightest bend to the left corner of his lip. “Tell men who stand there it not for sale? Seem a strange thing to waste time with.”

Four walls and an absence of prying ears favored Gideon with the security of not having to stifle his accent, flowing like warm mead from his tongue despite a fragmentation in speech. Upon closer inspection, he took note of the woman’s tastes, far refined from his own and with violet eyes to accompany them. Never before had he seen such a specimen in his life, a sense of fear for the unknown crawling beneath his skin, no more than a whisper.

“You own The Quayuh?” Not the question he wished to ask in that moment of curiosity, but the one whose answer he had come to seek.

His gaze held fast to hers, strangely unwavering and with but a hint of hope that he may have found the source to the next step towards his final solution.

[Shai]

“It is no more or less my purpose than it is yours to ask meaningless questions.” Her voice rang clear and free of agitation, if anything she as curious. Shai’s eyes narrowed in the sun, pupils constricting minutely as she stepped from her shadow. In the way of truly pale individuals her skin seemed to radiate the light back up at the sun.

Here in this place of walls and hearth, the thief had chosen to wear her light shirt and black pants. Her armor no where in sight. Her indigo fan was employed to block the sun from directly hitting her gaze, the drastic change in light would take away her chance to get a look at this stranger. “No I do not own the Quay.” She replied speculatively. Humans had a way of implying questions without actually asking them, and Shai had the feeling this was one of those moments. Still she read the situation utterly wrong, assuming he had actually meant to ask about the owners, rather than the strange little woman who sauntered towards him.

“The owners live in the stone building.” She waved her fan towards the Quay house. Coming to an languid halt a few yards from him, roughly far enough that only the most desperate lunge would see that sword anywhere near her, Shai gave him a once over. “I do not know that they are in yet.” The more she spoke the more apparent the Symenos accent became. There were chameleons that could lose their native accents and sound like a true ‘Berther, Shai was not one of those people. If she had great practice with specific phrases the thief could pull off a few moments of native speech. She made no such attempt now.


Shai turned and stalked a half circle around this foreign human. She had done less in reason weeks to hide her inhumanity. The workers had seen her, the Scars had seen her, and now this man. Part of her thought this laziness was too much, and perhaps it was time to begin culling that list starting with the stranger. Then again she was going to try and make a honest business, people would learn of her heritage soon enough. He could live. After a full circle the spider regarded her skeletal house, like a corset without the fabric. Soon it would be something to be proud of though.

“What do you need with the Quay owners, boy?” Shai rarely carried messages but Zandelia was her friend and Bitzer an extension of that. It would be unneighborly not to let them know a dusky swordsman had been looking for them. If it came out that he was foe and not friend, she had taken good stock of the boy and would be able to find him again. Shai would take care of the deed for her friends. Mentally she shrugged, only being neighborly.

[Gideon]

The barest trace of white broke through a fine seam in his lips, the crows feet circling his eyes given a gentle delineation as she responded in like fashion. Relaxing, he removed his hand from the pommel of his sword, hooking his thumbs through the top portion of his belt and rocking lightly on the balls of his feet. “Perhaps we have very good meaning-full meaning-less conversation, then,” he chuckled.

She had the sort of ethereal allure that commanded an unintentional payment of recognition, capturing the perusal of his eyes despite a strong desire to find answers to the matter of personal interest he’d come searching for. It by no means inspired such fanciful ideas as lust or infatuation--on the contrary. But rather, it became a source of intrigue by which to appraise. Like a thought-provoking piece of artwork perhaps, or the savor of a fine wine.

Gideon remained distant from such forms of assessment however, relying mostly on his former line of work to find value in her idiosyncrasies. His gaze followed the candid gesture towards the building to his right, but not without keeping her within the periphery of a watchful eye as she approached. Trust was a gift not so easily granted in the city of secrets, but he found the misgiving to have left a bitter taste on his tongue. It was merely a natural apprehension for the unknown, and a strong compulsion to keep his skin intact.

A dispirited sigh left him when she disclosed the answer he’d been dreading. She was indeed not the help he’d come looking for. But he remained one step closer to direction at least, and that seemed satisfactory enough.

He felt on display as she circled him, in truth not much to look at in his current condition. His clothes were roughened by frayed ends of uncoupled threads, stained with all manner of grime that no amount of soap and water had been able to get rid of. His cloak was in like condition, too long for his stature as it dragged the cobbled grounds. His sword was the only weapon apparent,, dragged along by his left hip in a simple black scabbard.

Gideon’s features resembled that of a starved animal, thinning along the cheeks and discolored by old smudges of dirt. It allowed for the beryl of his eyes to remain crisp, glimmering with more life than befit his age. The dark mop of black hair circling his scalp was poorly kept, managed only by a hand he absentmindedly brushed it with when she came full circle. Looking down at his feet briefly, he found himself strangely self conscious. Unworthy perhaps.

The manner in which she called him ‘boy’ brought him back however, smile returning effortlessly as he shook his head. “More meaning-full than meaning-less talk I think, girl.” The final word skittered off his tongue with only as much bite as he dared, staring into her amethyst eyes. “I think I wait here for while. Enjoy more this...useless purpose of yours.”

His hands folded behind him then, turning his entire body to gaze upon the wooden structure itself. “My prediction be this yours soon enough?” It seemed a reasonable enough assertion to make, her initial response to him somewhat telling in that manner. Of course, it still remained anyone’s guess, eyes gauging hers briefly for some telling of truth.

He paced towards it and casually looked up, boots clicking gently against the stone until he came to a single support beam, thicker than most of the others. Against this, his palm came from behind the folds of his cloak to rest upon the wide surface of cut timber, patting it with some force as he tested its structural moxie. “Stronger than look. In sacred land, they use stone. Hides for my people, but they move cross great desert. Must be swift, you know? Follow waters.”

[Shai]

The sea breeze tugged at the tendrils of black hair, escaping her bun. Shai’s eyes gaze narrowed momentarily. He smiled and called her girl, in his strange jumbled Common. A brazenness that Shai found at first annoying but slowly disarming. Not many people were willing to call down the spider’s taunts with a laugh. It was always fear or fighting; her approach had clearly meant to counter either. Lowering her stance the barefoot woman dropped to the soles of her feet. Still the distance was greater than would be comfortably conversation. “Why would you waste more-time on then less-purposeful conversation?”

Unconsciously, the woman had a stalking grace about her gate as she followed the human toward the building. Before there had been intent to intimidate, now it was merely instinct. The Symenestra had learned to dance to a rhythm of dripping water and murmuring shadows since birth and it made them painfully obvious amongst the surface dweller. “Stone is what .my homeland makes houses from too. And silk.” She smiled distantly, a note of mistaken regret for all that had once been the truth of her life. “We made the roads from silk and walked on them like Gods out of reach of the horrors the shadows hid.” Shai’s travels had taken her across two continents but never further south than Riverfall, she had no way to understand the desolate world of the south. No way to even picture it. “Trees are unusual in your home? Kalea has more trees than animals and people. I have never seen a tree-less place, except the Sea of Grass.”

The dim-lit recess of the thief’s psyche screamed to deny his assumption. This was not her home, she could not be found there. Then her reason shoved it aside; this was a place of safety. Zandelia and BItzer were here, there were walls and a gate. Shai had to be open about her home, someday she wanted to live without thievery to open a store and invite people in to examine her wares. “Yes, it is mine.” She promised quietly to whatever small spirit lived on the wind to hear whispers. Shai waved the fan to banish the spirit. “Someday I will have that roof and owe answers to no one.” The spider answered more boldly, if she was to be in the open she would do so without trepidation.

Raising an eyebrow the thief realized a question had gone unanswered. “You never said why you want the Quay House owners… They are my neighbors, perhaps I may help, if I feel that it does not harm my purposeless task. ”

[Gideon]

Gideon’s smile briefly unbuttoned when her eyes became constricted, sobering just long enough to discern a boundary whose line he had gracelessly footed. Struggling with such nuances his entire life, it had been a father’s way of protecting him from the cultural exile of the Tatsuwaat at a younger age. Having been emboldened by more autonomous habits, he was able to push the world away with but a soft coaxing of will. It had served its purpose to him in those days, but could not be discounted for hobbling him at present.

Turning to face her, his easeful expression gently rekindled. His back came to rest against the construct with but the lightest pressure, threads from his long cloak snagging thin splinters of wood that took no real effort to detach from. His arms folded just beneath the ridge of his chest, dragging his clammy hands along the sides of his shirt.

To hear her speak of home inspired a more speculative demeanor, thumb and forefinger thoughtfully rubbing a single fold of cottony fabric from his shirt at the mention of silk and its various uses. To think that a structure could be made from the substance befuddled any sense of logic he seemed to possess, eyes narrowing as he carefully reevaluated what he knew of the world.

There were questions he wished to ask, but everything about the girl’s mien now taught him to tread carefully. It was not fear coursing the rich blood of his veins. That, he believed, was not her intent. He had however, wandered onto a land that was not his own, surrounded by four walls of stone whose purpose was obvious. And he a stranger, having revealed so little of his motives.

“I would like to see this home of yours, I think,” he jawed, watching her with no small fraction of interest. “It sound....made of legend.”

Her quip to his intent left him illuminated once more, teeth clicking as he laughed breathily. Strange though she was, he was easily charmed by her odd methods. Relaxing his shoulders, his expression softened enough to speak to her with some sincerity since their conversation had begun. “I am looking for one with four arm and missing ear. I was told come to The Quayuh for help in this matter. Little I know I meet pale skin lady who follow me like cat to mouse, no?”

His brow narrowed into a more astute tinge of sculpted flesh, lips coming together as he found himself amused and intrigued all at once. “Answering to person only illusion, I think. Sunberth good for breaking this illusion. May ask what it is you do for work, my cat?”

The scent of brine stirred his memory as it wafted lazily in the breeze, the sound of a boat rocking along deep waters, the restriction of fetters which had held him fast to a chair. None of that had been an illusion, his wrists absently burning from where he'd drawn blood trying to break the ropes that had bound him. He had answered to someone, then. But he truly believed it was only because he had made the choice to do so, weakened though he had been.

[Shai]

“Sometimes that home, is more like legend than memory.” She replied, the remorse for leaving had faded years past. Shai would not change her decisions which made bitterness a waste of time. “But it is not a bad place to visit for a short time.” A shrug and a nod to past lives and expired naivete.

“Four arms?” Shai repeated, almost certain she had heard wrong. “Surely not many humans are born so wrong. I have never seen one that is.” The spider twisted out of the way as two laborers brought in another short stack of boards to be added to the floor. Slipping off to the side, she continued. “Bitzer is the one that you want, she and her partner find people.” When that bit of information found her ears, it had been a hard task to stifle the laugh. They were finders of people and solvers of problems, they had invited a spider who was a procurer of the unsold. It was an odd bunch that began to call the Quay home.

As the construction continued, saw dust wafting down in the inerrant rays of Syna, Shai ran her eyes over the men on ladders. All of the second floor required ladders because she had specified that there be no stairway. “They are good women that you seek, true to their words…My mouse.” A cheeky curl to her lips vanished just as swiftly as it appeared.

His musing on Illusions though, made her look hard at him. It wasn’t his features for finding that she sought, it was what had been missed. As though by further scrutinization a new understanding might birth itself. “There is always a person to answer to,” She said cautiously, unsure if a language barrier was the issue. “Always. It is hard when the person has locks or ropes. Sometimes it is harder when the person’s only weapon is a mirror, that is the worst answers someone owes.” That was the true lesson of Sunberth, freedom from fetters by in the dark, alone there was still a task master. For her slavery had been brief and annoying. The tinkling of lock and collar had lasted less than two days. The spider would first accept death than servitude. Death was what that man found. She drew back from the intensity of the moment, “I will not say sorry, but it was rude of me to mention.”

“As for myself, for now, I take things. Sometimes I am taking back things that were stolen but usually I am the thief. But…” A hand traced the young grains of a supporting timber. “I will soon take up as a tailor.” There was more that went unsaid, but the gist was true. “A thief never grows old, but a tailor does.” She rolled her shoulders, not old yet but mortality had become a companion and threat. Thieving was the art of youth. “Are you a sword for hire like the Scars?” She asked neutrally. After confessing to burglary, a mercenary was no real shame.

[Gideon]

He shook himself free of the post to give passage to the workers hustling by, realizing his manner was all too nonchalant for a locale he had only recently been introduced to. Straightening the lazy hook in his spine, his cerulean eyes matched hers with a suddenly cold severity. “Not human. Eypharian. A dark skin monster from desert who honorless dog. I work for his employer, but then cast away; like broken tool, or bastard child. This Eypharian bring me here...torture many good people," his face twisting in pain at memories that tore at his heart. "I...lucky to escape, but he must pay for his sin in blood. Him--and every one that work for him.”

The intensity of his eyes slowly ebbed, his fingers having unconsciously twisted into balls of white knuckled enmity along his sides. He had never spoken of his purpose in such a way, never felt it safe to divulge the rancor boiling inside of him. Why he had done so now perplexed him, cheeks glowing with the tint of blood having lost his composure. He fell back with a single hesitant step, and took a worrying measure of her expression. “I...apologize. This Bitzer. This name familiar to me. I think we have met before. Maybe.”

He sighed, lifting an unraveling hand up to his chin as he stroked the dark stubble attentively, eyes magnetized to the ground where her bare feet settled deftly. It made him wonder again how one could be so bereft of color, nigh bloodless, his musings shaken only when she placed a jesting ownership over him. A rueful smile tainted the austerity of his lips, curiously walking away from the framework to see if she might follow. Some piece of his undefined honor thought it best to return her to the shade.

In a not so distant past, in a disparate land, he might have been paid to track the likes of her, the thought entertained long enough to cause his features to crackle and break in recognition of the irony. His shoulders bounced with a snort that chafed the back of his throat, head shaking in disbelief. Now he lived among their kind, no more than a shadow, standing in the presence of one in particular who was steadily gaining his favor. The world worked in mysterious ways, indeed.

“I don’t like man in mirror,” he said with just a touch of humor, revisiting a point he found to be worth his study. “He a real prick. But a tailor! Ah, this good and honest. Shame for you, really,” he hinted with a sly grin, chin turning over his shoulder. “I thought you wise enough know you never truly escape your past.”

Looking beyond the wall, an errant breath of seawind caught him square in the face, pulling at the loose strands of dusken hair that appeared as long tendrils of ink. He shuttered his eyelids and smiled to its presence, feeling a pang of his youth slide ardently through him. “I was once mercenary, yes. But now? We starve, so I hunt in forest. No different really. Bloodshed little more innocent this time. But you... I have need of this little tailor, I think,” opening his view of the world once more to tug woefully at the sorry state of his tattered shirt with a scarred hand, gesturing suggestively for any insult she might deem worthy with a waggle of his brow. “But,” his hand slackening back to his side, “I think I need something else too. You familiar with archery?”

[Shai]

“It is right, for men to know the pain they caused.” Amethyst eyes followed the swordsman’s form, as he stepped away. Her pride said not to follow a man, but the errant thought was followed by the understanding that the action only held significance to her. There was a tick’s worth of hesitation before Shai followed a few paces behind him. As the sun shone unimpeded over them again, the spider came to realize just how dirty her acquaintance was. Although she found him amusing, it would be a dip in the bay before he entered the shop once completed. It was too easy to crush dirt into weaves and inturn difficult to remove.

No chuckle or snort, but an outright laugh rolled free from the little spider. The tapping of toes muffled by years of experience going unseen quickened, closing the cautious distance. Perhaps it wasn’t the lash of sword but the bite of his words that Shai had to worry for. Sounding entirely too wounded, she replied “You go too far human, to accuse me of honesty. You only met me chimes ago.”

“But, if I was wise enough not to try, I would be wise enough to escape this city first.” She took up a place against the wall leaning leisurely. “Sunberth is as much a haven as a trap.”

Clicking ebony nails together, the thief spent careful moments banishing the thoughts she held near archery. The state of his clothing, even from this distance, likely would be irreparable. She couldn’t say for sure, but if the fabric was fraying too badly a needle and thread would only be a stop-gap. Shai would need to examine it closer to be certain, and even then that certainty was based on poor tailoring skills. No matter the humour it inspired, the Symenestra would not be asking for a look at his pants. “Yes, I know of it, but it is not a weapon I fight with. I would be more help with your hem than your arrow.” Though she was sincere, it may not be entirely true. Her ability to pick a mark was what made the thief prosperous.

In a moment's reprieve, when an ambitious little cloud dared to deface Syna, Chell spoke up telepathically. Why are you standing so close Shai? He could reach out and grab you. I will feel your pain when he breaks your bones.

The admonishment stung, her own paranoia had been intentionally abated but Chell was right. Men broke things, especially Sunberthian men. Her eyes momentarily widened, assessing the proximity, she was rarely so careless. “Mouse, you speak of tailors and archery. Is there something you would ask of me?” She turned towards him, but in a backwards way. The twist was unnatural for an uncalculated movement, turning outwards rather than in, so that when she faced him anew it was another pace away. The cold-edge of her voice strictly business.

A thief’s intelligent gaze marked off the distance between them, now more than acceptable for her to escape all but the most skilled attackers. A porcelain brow wrinkled, the strain of suspicion returning in full. The elusive woman’s laugh fading with the Autumn.