"Nyet, Lishka, this one also is nearly hollow." With a concentrated grunt, the Dragonborn heaved the beam that he was inspecting about eight feet away from himself to the discard pile that was slowly mounting.
"Bert's beard, I'm just no use at all, am I?" Amilie commented jokingly, returning her gaze and concentration to her careful stonework. "It's amazing you two keep me hanging about."
"This is not true," Aleksei huffed, freezing with the beam that he was about to inspect held over his head. "I do not know the spirits that you know, and your eyes are much softer than Udalka's eyes. This is why you are good with making the sacred space in the garden. If you are leaving such work to blood spiller like me or to stonemason like Udalka, we are making big mess, and the spirits will be angry, yes? Then there will be no blessing in the garden, and there will be no food from it. Who will save us?"
"Well, then you go to the market, is what you do," Amilie laughed, putting both hands on the ground and looking over at Aleksei without lifting her head all the way up. "You'd have to stop throwing the pitiful coppers that Nithraz deigns to give you into your ale, and you'd eat gruel for a season, that's all."
"Maybe if it is yourself and Udala, you will survive," Aleksei suggested sheepishly, bringing the beam down to look at it. "This one is good."
"Oh, finally- now, cut it in half, then split the halves in half, then split each half into two more halves, then bring all eight pieces over here," Amilie enthused. "Then we can wet them with the mixture. The smell of it will keep the pests away."
"You are very much like Mamoshka in these sayings," Aleksei reflected as he prepared to chop the beam in half. "When I am much younger, having maybe four years, she is trying to teach me how to encourage the elk to give birth."
"Oh no, she was teaching you animal husbandry?" Amilie laughed, imagining a smaller version of the Dragonborn fidgeting while a beautiful blue-eyed female tried to point out the finer details of coupling livestock.
"My father is saying to her, 'Stonecrushers do not put their hands to these things,' but she is saying, 'You are in Ice-eyes lands, Petya, and there is neither stone to shape nor prey to hunt. Our sons must learn these ways or starve.' "
Amilie turned around and sat to mix the foul smelling mixture and watch Aleksei split the wood. "And who was right?"
Aleksei laughed after he recovered both halves of the beam and prepared to split each half into another half. "They are both. The Stonecrusher boys are no good at this husbandry, and not one is remaining alive in the Ice-eyes lands. Kristov is joining war to quiet empire's demand when Mamoshka will not let Utets go. In little time, we are hearing that he is lost. Georgiy is running from war, but in few weeks, the soldiers are finding him and dragging him with them, which is bringing much shame. When soldiers are coming back second time for Utets, they also are taking me, leaving Mamoshka alone. Arkhosia is making her widow and barren all at once, but she is waving goodbye, not crying, when we are leaving her."
Amilie put her hands in her lap and pursed her lips, her eyes misting slightly. "That's- really brave of her. She was a very good woman- who has at least one good son left to her name."
And Aleksei, who easily split the second half of the beam into two even pieces, merely chuckled. In the male who was usually full of joy, Amilie perceived a wistful bitterness that she genuinely wished she could erase- or at least soothe.
"It's a shame, as well," she continued quickly, walking over to pick up one of the quartered pieces. "A shame to throw her children away on a war already lost. I mean, I don't mean to disrespect the Empire-"
"This saying is not disrespect," Aleksei replied, putting down the axe and gathering the rest of the quartered pieces.
"-but I would think that after Vor Kragal disappeared, or even when the Golden Boy- is that what he's called?- well, after he died... you would have thought that both sides would have called it quits," Amilie commented. "But no- still pulling sons out of their mother's houses for so long afterward- that's just a damned shame."
"It is, yes," Aleksei agreed, watching the woman rub the split wood pieces with a rag soaked in the foul mixture. "This is why the Empire is destroyed. When one is pursuing great things, always they must remember to be careful of the little ones. It is problems that seem small at first that will consume like great beasts in just a little while. Even the Turathi Empire is not doing to their children what we are doing to our own."
"Oh, never fear those wicked old nobles forgetting their details- Asmodeus is nothing if not the champion of every lawyer's small print," Amilie counseled as she set the first soaked bit of wood into its designated place. "If the other gods had wanted to prevent him from gaining the power he has this very day, all they would have had to do is read his contracts fully, then argue for a better negotiation. And a great deal of those gods' followers consciously make the exact same mistake, then burn you if you won't. My mother always told me that smart, reading women will always be perceived as Amodeus's daughters."
"Yes, you are saying this to me before-" Aleksei reflected quietly. "We are speaking of dragon cult, and you are saying how they are burning your grandmother because she is taking their writing to the leader of Daerlun to prove that they are still buying the leaders there."
"Turns out she was talking straight to a bought fop, yes," Amilie sighed, taking up another piece of wood. "It was amazing- the Cormites clear out the Netherese, only to find that the dragon worshipers were still underneath, still pulling strings and buying favors, courting dracoliches and the like. These pattycake princesses throw up their hands and go back across the border, saying, 'You deal with them, you're a free state.' A free state, indeed! What happens? Those damned bone rattlers treated us just as badly as the Netherese ever did, and hand anyone who's any good at magic or alchemy right over to Semmite raiders every time they want a bit of gold, or a political favor."
"And this is why you are leaving, yes? Why your mother is sending you away?" Aleksei prompted. "You are not telling me what is happening to her."
Amilie shrugged sadly. "That's because I don't know. I wish I did. Even if there was nothing left to do but put a marker on a mass grave, it's better than not knowing at all."
"This cult, their sin will find them, I promise you this," Aleksei counseled, laying the wood down for a moment. "Power that others are gaining by oppressing others is its own curse; it does not last, and it is never sufficient. Those who are content to control themselves and to love and respect others, these are the ones that peace follows, all the days of their lives."
"Talon!"
"Oh no, you've told her about that a thousand times." Amilie, her hands reeking with her work, was stranded with the desire to hug the Dragonborn, who sighed deeply. "I reminded her not to call you that just last night, but seems like she forgot- again."
With a patient, wordless shrug, Aleksei moved off, and after a few moments, Amilie followed him into the gaping maw of the broken down shack that they were working on improving. Udala, who had focused on strengthening the foundation of the place and creating a small cellar, was easily found sitting, panting heavily with a large stone rolled to the side of the area that she had not yet reinforced with fresh support beams and stone. It seemed as though in her effort to move the stone, she had crushed part of her foot, which was now swelling dramatically. Amilie dug filthy fingers into her various pouches for some strips of cloth, then for some pins.
"There's- there's a- phew- a whole big lot of space," Udala breathed, leaning on one hand while pointing with her other. "Stone was a right beast."
"Looks like someone was hiding something here," Amilie commented as she got to work on Udala's foot. "Hold still, can't you?"
"Don't touch me; you reek of- mint and- ugh, piss," Udala spat. "You bathe in Talon's chamberpot today?"
"Very funny- please sit still!"
"Well, in the forests of-"
"You're not in a forest, Udala, you are in a city, and there is absolutely no reason- please! Hold still!"
Aleksei, for his part, peeked into the large hole in the wall and immediately noticed small markings that he could not read just inside on the left. He looked up, and realized that it wasn't just a hole, but a tunnel of some sort. "Lishka, I am much needing you to read this love note for me."
Amilie, who was still fighting Udala to get a bandage on the foot that was rapidly turning purple, huffed in frustration. "Would you PLEASE hold STILL, Udala! I am NOT leaving this to heal on its own, like your forefathers would have done. You will wind up limping for the rest of your life if you don't let me set the bones, because gods knows you are just going to walk, and stand, and do work, and all manner of other foolishness on a nearly broken foot until you are irreparably lame! Would you please- look, please- BY ALL THE GODS EXTANT, YOU BLASTED STUBBORN HALFPINT, YOU HOLD STILL THIS INSTANT OR I WILL SCREAM YOU DEAF!"
Both Udala and Aleksei, completely stunned, could only stare at Amilie, who took a deep breath and began re-bandaging the foot for the fourth time- in silence, and completely uncontested.
"And- while I have your attention, please don't call Aleksei 'Talon.' It- reminds me of the cult, and- I... am... very, very sorry for screaming. I'm so sorry."
"No, no," Udala admitted quietly, still well shocked. "I damn well ought to have held still."
After the hideously awkward silence in which Amilie finished setting Udala's foot and put the rest of her supplies back into their various pouches around her waist, she got up gingerly, rubbed the stiffness out of her hands, and went to have a look at the "love note" that had Aleksei stumped. He couldn't read a letter, and while Udala could tell her own name and the laws on the tavern doors, she didn't read if she didn't have to. Amilie, on the other hand, could recite entire scriptures of various spiritual paths from memory alone, having read them so many times in her youth that they were tattooed into her soul. She squinted at the scrawl on the inside of the tunnel curiously, then grunted to herself.
"There are two sets of notations here," she reported with a frown. "This one uses Draconic lettering- it's Netherese- but the other- I just don't know. I've never seen letters like this before."
"Is it bad or good?" Aleksei asked gently, peeking in to have a look at the lettering again.
"This Netherese- it's low Netherese, not Loross- it makes no sense," Amilie shrugged. "It just says, 'Southwest panel: five.' Maybe this is a secret storage space for the family that used to live here?"
"Let's seal it up and have nothing to do with it," Udala said strongly. "The more we know, the greater risk we run of being deported to Sembia, hung as traitors, or put to work for the Merchant Council's Mercenaries."
Aleksei walked a few steps into the tunnel and watched it descend to a turn past which he could not see. It had been shaped some time ago, based on the stale smell of the air and the tough, packed dirt which now may as well have been a stone floor. "No, this is old tunnel, and is not seeing anyone's feet for much time."
"Okay, so perhaps someone was trading or shipping illegally- perhaps it's even a slave route!" Amilie enthused. "Some blessed Netherese women and children could have taken their first breath of free air right here."
"Or their last," Udala said sourly. "I tell you, let's seal it up and cover it with a heavy bookcase or something. I can feel the eyes of that weird pierced and tattooed woman on me already- she'll know we're messing about, and she'll have us drug in to the Council to be sentenced to swing."
"Alek just said it hasn't been used in some time," Amilie argued, crossing her arms. "For Ntoru to be upset enough to have the lot of us hung over it, she'd have to be intending to use it, or to know someone else who was. And if that were the case, we'd have a good reason to tell the Council that they'd better not do what she says."
Aleksei walked up the stairs, pulled his sword out of the blanket that Amilie had covered it in, found the leather strap and sheath on the other side of the stuffed skirt that had been serving as his pillow, and threw it over himself. He didn't bother to put on the chainmail that had been given him by the town guard, figuring that he would be released from service shortly anyway. With a sigh, he slid the kilij into his sheath and walked back down the stairs. The two women had come to a lull in their argument, and Amilie was inspecting Udala's foot on her knees, since the Halfling had somehow decided to try to stand.
"I'll make a crutch, then," Udala was saying quietly, looking down at her foot and the top of Amilie's head. "I'll stay off it, I promise you, but we do have to get this cellar done before the frost, and-"
Aleksei walked past them and started into the tunnel as calmly as if he were merely going down to the market to buy eggs or milk.
"Where are you going, Ta- um-" Udala managed.
"Lyosha," Aleksei smiled gratefully. "I am going to other side of tunnel, to see what love note is waiting there."
Udala could only stare at him, but Amilie turned around and sat on her behind with her arms resting on her knees. "If there are any slaves, you will try to free them. I know you, now."
"You are having much more faith in me than Nithraz," the Dragonborn laughed. "I tell you this, for your safety. If I am not coming back in one day, you cannot risk to leave this place open like this. In one day, if I am not coming back, please to do as Udalka asks and seal this place. Maybe pray to the sun for me, yes?"
"Wait-" Amilie breathed, hopping to her feet. "You were right."
"Eh?" Aleksei asked, confused.
"Those prayers to the sun- to Pelor, really. The sun doesn't shine here, and I don't believe in Pelor. Stay with us here for just a little while, please?"
Aleksei knelt, assuming that she would say some old spell over him. Instead, she too knelt to get to his level, then pressed her body against him as tightly as she could. Behind her, Udala closed her eyes, and said nothing. Silence reigned for a few minutes, during which time an unexpected breeze began blowing down the stairs, carrying with it the distant scent of rain. Amilie's skin cooled a great deal, causing it to burst into goosebumps. Aleksei, whose eyes were open, noticed this and embraced her with the intention of warming her. He was instantly filled with an unexplained calm so profound that it astounded him. A few more moments of silence passed before Amilie took a deep breath and let Aleksei go.
"I am feeling much more quietly, maybe will make little wiser choices than before. You will be good partner here, much help to Udalka. Believe this," the Dragonborn noted, kissing the Human on the forehead. He got up slowly and moved toward the Halfling.
"Be careful," Udala said stoutly without opening her eyes.
"I cannot promise that careful will save my life," Aleksei joked, giving her a kiss as well. "I will do what seems the best chance of someone returning alive." With a short chuckle, he headed into the tunnel at last, leaving the two women alone in the cellar.
Udala, who realized that her foot was much too sore to stand on any more, sat down on a pile of the stones that she had been working with before. Beyond her, a mouse scurried around, confused, since she had plugged his home up with a poison-soaked rag some hours before and covered it with a stone.
"Git," she hissed, kicking dirt at it with her good foot. The mouse, terrified, scampered down the tunnel. "May you meet danger before Talon does."
"Lyosha," Amilie corrected quietly, her hands resting in her lap.
"Lyosha, that's right. Look, I- didn't mean to bring up the past. Any of our pasts. But, I seem to be good at it. Should've been a bloody loremaster."
"Don't say that," Amilie counseled, getting up. "You learned to call him Talon before; now you'll just learn to call him Lyosha instead. I'll bring you some clean wood so you can get started on that crutch. I'll tie my good ribbons around it, make it pretty."
Udala snorted with a wince, but decided to humor Amilie. "Sure."
" 'Daughter of the High Forest, lend thy aid, lest thy dear child be yonder laid-' "
"What kind of song is that?" Udala immediately demanded. "Who sings prancing ballads at a time like this? The male could die down there, or be hung when he comes out!"
"It's a spell, really," Amilie replied, turning sideways on the stairs. "My mother taught it to me as a spell, but I couldn't learn it until my grandmother walked through the house singing it. She called it 'The Hymn of the Never-closing eye.' "
"You'd fool the registrars, you know," Udala smirked. "Anybody'd take you for some hag-in-training, when you do such things. Singing your spells and cooking urine soup- it's hideous. You'd expect it of some burned and rusty wild woman, not a pale-skinned courtesan."
"Hallo! Hallo in there! By the gods, what a stench-"
"Pelor's dress, it's the bloody Elf," Amilie whispered fiercely, nearly throwing herself back down the steps. "What do we say?"
"Hallo yourself, you kindling stick," Udala called back. "We're down here."
Trelwynen thumped around upstairs for a little while longer, then descended into the cellar. "And where in blazes is Voyonov, then?"
"How should I know?" Udala crabbed. "I've been down here since morning, and he was off on the chase, then."
"Oh, so?" the Sylvan sneered, holding up a piece of the discarded chainmail. "Without anything to protect him?"
"Where he's going? Do you wear your codpiece to bed?"
"Why should he? He has not a soul to defend himself against," Amilie snickered, unable to resist.
"Oh, laugh, laugh, yuk it up, then," Trelwynen growled fiercely, throwing the chainmail to the ground. "I'll have the pair of ye stoned for the aberration- it's fair and square, and the damned leatherface is gone trolling about somewheres else, leaving ye two to rightful fates."
"Oh please," Udala groaned. "The woman's good with patching, and you see I have need of it. I moved a heavy stone by myself, thank you, and I crushed my foot. Damned if I know how to set a crushed foot, so I just sat down and screamed. If you forgot, the lady there works the streets just on the other side of the alley way, and I suppose I screamed loud enough for her to have got her dreadful little unguents and mixtures and tinctures and whatnot to come down and see what in bloody Baator was the matter. Now, do you want me to set that to parchment for your goddamned files, too?"
"A common tart? Knows how to set crushed bones?" Trelwynen asked Amilie, who was rightfully insulted.
"I do," she replied caustically, motioning to the multiple pouches about her waist and the pockets in her muddy apron. "Though I'll now think twice about splinting the broken arm the Halfling may decide to give you when she can walk unaided again."
"And you've not seen the Dragonborn all day?"
"If you think that our one wonderful night of revelry has kept him warming one of our beds, you're wrong," Udala spat. "I'm surprised that you're reacting this way. You've never, in all your hundreds of years, met a male that just goes where his belly and his loins lead him?"
And without another word, the Sylvan turned and left, his thundering footsteps resounding on the loose planks above.
"He could have looked right down that hole," Amilie breathed. "Thank the goddess for that fast mouth of yours- I could kiss it."
"Oh, threaten me all day, will you?" Udala said offhandedly, thinking about what she could do without standing for too long. When she turned, she found that Amilie had put herself right in front of her.
"I'd touch your face, but my hands-"
"To Baator with the excuses," Udala demanded. "If you're going to touch me, or hold me, or kiss me, then do it. Now."
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