Eunice shifted uncomfortably, shivering in an uncharacteristic chill for early evening in Suzail. Beside her on the cart, Druce patted the younger woman's knee without looking at her.
"Don't fidget, dear; they'll only be a few more minutes, I'm sure."
A consolation that would have been more effective, had it not been offered twenty minutes before. Eunice tried to smile gratefully, but a pitiful expression painted itself on her face instead. Druce, meanwhile, was busy trying to tolerate her scar's incessant burning, which had kicked up the moment the cart had gotten within ten feet of Eunice's cottage and refused to stop, even when Bahlzair's ward had been expertly undone. It had been useful in that Terezio insisted on entering the house with the Purple Dragon to ensure that no further wicked magic traps were in place, but based on how long it had taken both men to walk through a house that only cost Eunice herself twelve paces to cross all the way through, there had definitely been reason for the men to stop.
The traps that were in place were bad enough, Eunice assumed, but she wasn't nearly as worried about them, so much as what new, fresh horrors would be waiting for her whenever fellow students got tired of escorting her to class, or her tutor got tired of checking her house every evening. Bahlzair, a rueful Aleksei had warned everyone that morning, was the very soul of patience.
At last, Terezio appeared at Eunice's doorway with his glasses perched on top of his head. Druce, who was more aware of what this meant than Eunice could ever hope to be, bit her lips on her reproach. She simply got up and reached her hand over the cart, knowing that the motion itself would be enough to let him know where she was- and by extension, where he needed to go. The old mage, however, still considered himself on the job.
"Now, first in the morning, be sure to concentrate for at least an hour on your arcane factoring theorems before you get started on your combination homework," Terezio began, rubbing the bridge of his nose absent-mindedly as he moved toward what he knew to be his wife.
"Yes, Magister," Eunice said before she'd even thought twice.
Terezio managed to find Druce's hand, and the latter began guiding him around the cart toward the step that would allow him to get into it. "And don't buy the fire clover imported from Marsember; word is that the master alchemist there is still having problems with rats-"
"Yes, Magister."
"And don't use the mule pollen and the fire clover-"
"-at the same time; no, Magister, I won't," Eunice replied earnestly, standing up in the cart as Terezio neared it. "I'm still very sorry; I know you know that."
"Well... yes..." Terezio managed, realizing his mistake.
The Purple Dragon, a roughly tanned man who looked as though he could bodily throw Bahlzair out of the front door if need be, came out from behind Terezio to the back of the cart in order to offer his gloved hand to Eunice, who blushed fiercely.
"I suppose you've given sufficient assignments and warnings for the day, Rezi," Druce urged, half-jokingly as she gave her husband's hand a slight squeeze. Eunice turned a real, albeit fleeting, smile upon her, then gave her hand to the guard. Once she'd completed her graceful dismount, the guard offered an arm to get Terezio back onto the cart. The older man made a face, although he had to accept the help, and once he'd gotten onto the cart, his wife swatted at him with the same hand that had guided him just moments before.
"You could thank the man," she insisted sharply, bringing a bit of color to her husband's cheeks.
"Don't worry about it," the guard smiled, giving a small half salute with his right hand's first two fingers. "I know you would've preferred to get up there yourself. Get home safely, Battlemage Ranclyffe."
"Thank you, ser, and I hope you have a pleasant night," Druce inserted before Terezio could even manage to think of anything to say. "Pelor guard you both."
Eunice smiled again, even more faintly than she had before, and offered a wave as the cart drove off. She waited until she could no longer see the cart down the cobblestone street, then turned to open her door again. It was not until the door was stopped with an audible grunt of either surprise or effort that she realized that the Purple Dragon had not gone about his own patrol.
"I'm... supposed to stay," he explained sheepishly when she leveled a blank stare at him, standing in her doorway.
"Oh," Eunice said, suddenly bringing her hand up into her hair as though she'd just remembered that she hadn't combed it- which she had, that morning. "Um...well... then, come in. Please come in; I'm sorry."
The guard removed his helmet first, then entered the doorway, stepping to the side so that Eunice could close her own door. Eunice, at a loss for things to say, simply made her way toward her kitchen.
"Something to drink for you? I'm not much in the way of a cook, I'm afraid, or I would offer you something to eat as well," she said in a slightly higher, tighter voice than she'd spoken with before.
"I ate before I left the barracks," the guard replied, setting his helmet down just to the left of the door and swiftly following Eunice toward the kitchen. "Just a minute-"
"Huh?"
The guard had caught up with Eunice easily, and laid a heavy hand on her shoulder. She looked over her shoulder at it, and was just as surprised- for some reason- at how mottled and scarred the hands were as she was that he'd touched her at all. He, for his part, resisted the urge to feel self-conscious, although his cheeks grew just slightly ruddier.
"I'm supposed to check the kitchen before you go in," he offered. "I was told to beware of anything to do with fire, cooking, and sewing, as those seem to be things that the suspect prefers to manipulate."
Eunice nodded and stepped back, and as she did, the guard allowed his hand to drop from her shoulder.
"He completely rearranged my pantry," the apprentice admitted as the guard stepped past her. "Didn't touch a thing; he said it would ruin the flavor if he did, but not a single thing is where I normally put it. Took me ages to find the salt, I... don't have much of it, and... half my spices he threw out, because they were stale..."
"Here it is," the guard smiled, his head suddenly popping up from behind a counter. "You have about as much as I do, back at the barracks? Yeah, you have to have a pinch, to survive in there. What comes up from the mess hall- no flavor at all."
Eunice smirked, grateful for the momentary mirth. "Have I enough to give a bit of a push to the rice?"
"This and butter'll do you, sure," the guard nodded jovially as he stood up. "You want a hand with the water?"
"No, I brought it in before I left," Eunice sighed. "It's in the bucket with the cover on it, over there in the corner- I could make some tea?"
"If you promise not to make any strange pronouncements over the leaves when we're finished," the young man replied. "The kettle?"
"Oh, over here, let me-"
Eunice walked into the kitchen, which at once became too small, and picked up both the kettle and her soup pot from her cooking area, where the fire pit still sat cold. Handing off both vessels to the guard, she took up the two stones that sat on the nearby counter.
"Battlemage Ranclyffe checked those all over," the guard piped up. "Did something to them so that they glowed, then muttered and did something to make them stop glowing. I don't know if that meant something was wrong with them or not, and when I asked him, he just grunted at me."
"Oh, that's Terezio Ranclyffe for you," Eunice said, rolling her eyes as she briefly considered casting a sense magic spell herself. "He's astoundingly talented, but heinously curt, and rude."
"The way I'm told, he can hardly think his own thoughts but for hearing or sensing everybody else's," the guard noted with some strain of pity in his voice. "My commander said that once, during some kind of joint forces exam, he jumped up and hollered out 'Would you shut up, all of you?' But no one was saying a blessed word."
A few sparks caught the dry wood and allowed the most delicate sprigs of flame to begin eating into it. Eunice stood straight and began fanning at the wood with the bottom of her apron.
"That... that's very interesting," she mused, "I never thought his manners had anything to do with his resting aura perception overwhelming him."
" 'Resting aura perception'?" the guard echoed, looking around to find some way of getting the water out of the bucket that didn't include picking it up and pouring it, which would risk spilling it.
"Yes- on top of the- you found it," Eunice encouraged as she watched him discover the ladle. "Your resting aura perception is your natural ability to divine other people's thoughts and intentions without actually casting a spell. Most people's perception level is pretty high- meaning we have no idea what anybody's thinking or feeling- but his... I waste at least one sense spell per day just trying to figure out whether he's listening to what I'm saying or what I'm thinking."
"You can't just ask him though?" the guard shrugged. "Or would he take some sort of offence at that?"
Eunice chuckled to herself as she took the kettle and placed it next to the pot, which was already on top of the metal grate above the embers and flickers that were trying trying to be a fire. She fanned it a bit more with her apron, and the guard, taking a hint, knelt down to blow on it.
"There, that should do it," he sighed, sitting back on his ankles once the fire had gotten strong enough to satisfy him. "You know, I think if that murderer was tinkering around, moving your salt and throwing spices out, I should probably taste your food first no matter what, to check if it's poisoned."
"I... can't say I thought of that," Eunice admitted. "He's an alchemist... I should have thought of that."
The guard stood- not an easy task in a small space with chain mail armor- and smiled at Eunice without saying anything further.
"Um... may I... know your name?" Eunice asked timidly. "I mean, you know mine, and... I..."
"I'll be out tomorrow," the guard answered, instantly blushing again. "I might not come back."
"Well, how many men do they want to have cycling through my house, staying the night, and tasting my food?" Eunice retorted, her voice coming out much more harshly than she intended.
"They're not going to all come at once, take up all your space, make noise to distract your studies, or gobble up everything you have; I mean, we're trained to-"
And something, even though Eunice hadn't moved a muscle or made a sound, stopped the sentence in his mouth. For just a moment, the only noise in the room was the fire's crackling.
"Piettro."
"You don't have to-" Eunice began apologetically, her face melting from the mask it had become at once.
"No, no; you shouldn't feel as though you were in a flop house; I'm Piettro. Of House Xiarlethi, though that doesn't mean anything, outside of Skullwatch."
The apprentice blinked at the guard for a few moments. "What's a flop house?"
A noise that should have been a guffaw burst from Piettro's mouth, but stopped as soon as it hit the air, visibly startling Eunice.
"Never mind that," he said, blushing so hard that even the skin that disappeared under his hairline turned red. "The evening bells- do you- do you... um..."
"Nothing's even warm yet," Eunice chuckled gently, feeling guilty for being amused at Piettro's embarrassment. "But I did hear the dusk bell. Maybe about a half hour ago, while we were still on the cart. I don't imagine the lights out bell will sound for some hours, and- and we can figure out where- I mean, I suppose in the room, but-"
"We can set up some kind of signal-"
"We can talk about all that after dinner," Eunice suddenly decided firmly. "Come on; watched pots never boil, everyone knows that."
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