4:8: Cedar and stone.

Midday hung suspended over Eagle Peak no longer than it did over Marsember or Suzail, but it often felt like it.  Instead of being filled with the bustle of city crowds, the training of soldiers, or the calling of fishermen's families, it was only gently caressed by dry, empty winds, the screeing of the marsh insects, and the working of the herders, farmers, and loggers. 

Few of the sons of Eagle Peak ever knew any life outside of the small settlement, but Finn MacCreigh- youngest of four siblings- had been different.  He was the unfortunate strong-and-quiet type that attracted giggling girls to himself like an open flame attracts moths, but never bought into their flighty affections.  Since his elder brothers split the logging business between themselves, and his father gave his elder sister the herding business as a wedding present, Finn decided to make his own fortune by joining caravans.  He traveled the length and breadth of Cormyr for a few years, then brought home a small sum of hard earned starting capitol for his own delivery business.  When he did, along with him came a tall, strong, slate grey-eyed city woman who seemed to rarely speak.  It had come as a great surprise to everyone- his family included- when he introduced the strange city woman as his wife.

The woman seemed to show no affection or emotion at all in public.  While she waved and nodded respectfully to all who spoke to her, it seemed physically difficult for her to even smile, let alone actually speak.  But over time, her work spoke for her.  Her tapestries were wonders to behold.  She repaired any broken furniture that other townsfolk brought to her, worked hard at harvest time, urged the temple ministers to teach the town children to read and write, and helped to forge a tenuous peace between the town, Orcs, and Lizardfolk through her consistent trade.  And as the years passed, the insular people of Eagle Peak came to accept the woman- Ielena MacCreigh- as though she had been born among them.  So when her manners all pointed toward an extended period of some sort of discomfort, the entire town openly prayed for the resolution of whatever the situation could have been without asking a single question. 

Erma, who had told Ielena firmly that she would gladly walk the mile to sit and do her mending work with her three times a week, shared the noontime peace of the hearth room.  Ielena sat straight and tall in the firm ladder back chair, working on a new wall covering for a neighbor whose home had been damaged by fire, and Erma sat in the rocker, pushing at the floor slowly with her one natural foot as she worked on a mending customer's good temple-going shirt.

This midday, Pelor was about the business of answering prayer.

"Hey-o, Mum!"

The sound of the elder of the Ielena's boys, a sharp cry to rival a crow's, stuck fast and firm, like an arrow in her heart.  The grey-eyed woman looked up immediately.

Finn?  Ori?

The dark haired boy slammed into the hearth room, closely followed by his sandy brown haired little brother. 

"From Suzail!" the smaller of the two boys whooped.

"Little Schrisa run it to Da, from the big mile-mark!" his elder brother added.  "On all fours, like I never seen!"

No...

And the woman arose, concern weighting her look.  Her first son stopped his mad rush, and his little brother, oblivious to the look on his mother's face, nearly slammed into him.

"Here, Mum-"

"Hah, Rhen; thee has me proper puckled," a deeper, richer version of the elder boy's voice called.  Moments later, Finn puffed his way into the house and snatched the letter that his first son was holding out of his little hands.  The woman lifted her eyes from it to her husband, then past him toward some other point on the wall.  "Ye're a lion due."

"Nae the whole; Ori were after me," the boy smiled slyly, thumping down to the floor.

"The birthday'll do thee both, eh?  A roar a piece." Finn replied as he scrubbed his hand through the first boy's hair first, then the younger brother's.  That done, he turned around and hung his axe on a set of four wooden tongues above the fireplace.  He looked across at his wife, who stood at an attention worthy of the Purple Dragons, then began reading, doing his best to imitate a delicate city-born woman's tone.

" 'My sweet sister,

The healing warmth of Pelor be upon you, and the comforting protection of Mother Chauntea guide you.  I pray daily for you, for Finn, and for your precious babies, who must by now be nearly grown men.' "

Finn paused and looked down at his sons, who had both sat down on the floor to listen with grins on their faces.  The elder of the two had gathered his younger brother to himself in his arms to keep him from bopping up and down.  With a smile of his own, their father looked back to the letter and continued.

" 'This day is dreary, and the heavens hurl down punishment upon the earth in the form of small stones that have, together with the cold rain, driven all but the judges and the criminals indoors.  As we are none of these, we, together with the retired Battlemage Ranclyffe, are bundled inside.  The honorably retired battlemage had been studying a companion of the other suspected accomplices, and his gracious wife, being full of mercy, brought that woman down to the Pillars to hear the judgement in person.  When the weather became too harsh for his soul to bear with his dear heart being outside in the chill and wet, the battlemage commissioned a messenger to collect her, along with her companion, and to bring word of the judgement, once rendered.  

Now, let it not be said that Battlemage Ranclyffe is without the brave spirit of a true husband, for in the messenger's delay, he did go out and collect his wife himself.  Being unable to withstand the weather, they did all three make their way to our home, which stands closer to the Pillars than does the College and its adjoining properties.  Some hours after their arrival, with a Dragon shield above his head to keep the weather off, the young child followed the trail of neighborly hearsay from the battlemage's home to ours.' "

Finn paused again, and looked up briefly at his wife, who was still standing at attention, as motionless as though she had been turned into a statue.  Off to her left, Erma had folded her hands tightly and pressed her lips together.

" 'To our joy, the glory of Lathander, and the great surprise of Iordyn himself, he is absolved, and nearly in higher standing than before.  The oversword has gone so far as to put his epithet, 'the Virtuous,' in writing, publicly crediting him with what we all hope is the start of that other wayward young woman's path toward righteous living.  While he is outwardly of good cheer, I sense that some distemper is gnawing at his inward being, and I therefore enjoin you to keep him in your prayers.

I will tax your spirit no further with flowery prose, but wish you and your household continued health and strength.  Do come, I earnestly pray you, and bring your 'prattling boys' with you; we are awash with visitors, but not so flooded that we could not brook four more.  Our children are well, and should see their dear cousins before they are apprenticed away.  Stephen claims that he will send you a print of a hot hammerhead burned into cloth, but I know he will not have any of my linen to do that!

Your loving sister,

Suze.' "

Erma gave a long, but quiet sigh of relief.  Finn looked up when he heard it, and saw that his wife's grey eyed gaze still rested on the blank wall over the wash basin.  Rhen, visible out of the corner of his eye, was rocking Ori from side to side with the weight of his own body.

"Rhen?"

"Aye, Da?" the boy replied, holding himself and his brother still again.

"Be a good lad and hae the priests to ring the high bells, for the answerin' of prayer, eh?"

The gleeful 'Aye, Da!' that echoed back to Finn's ears was scarce heard over the thundering of Rhen's rushing feet.

"And I, Da?  What do I, eh?" Ori enthused, getting to his feet.

"Hmm," Finn mused playfully.  " 'Twill take muscle."

"I's yer boy!" the little boy replied, jumping up and down.

"Ah-hah, so thee are!" Finn enthused, scrubbing the boy's light ringlets.  "Haul the wood o' the circuit for me, quick as foxes."

"Aye, Da!  Mum, bye!"

Ori surged forward and fearlessly hugged his mother around the waist.  Slowly, much more slowly than normal, Ielena picked up her hand and laid it on her son's back.  Her eyes never moved from their distant stare.  Ori, who didn't notice, grunted and purred his unbridled happiness before turning to run off the way his brother had done.  Finn nodded once, slowly, and Erma began to carefully get to her feet.

"I'll tak air, so I will.  Me puir bones're achin' me sore, wicked witches'  toys that they are," she said gently, beginning to gather her things.

"Dinnae be takin' yer stitchin', Ermie."

Erma nodded to Finn, briefly lifted the bottom of her skirt to check whether her wooden leg were fitting straight underneath her or not, then gave a nod to the still-staring Ielena and Finn before she left, closing the door quietly behind her.

Finn took his time folding the letter- three times, two times- and fitting it into the palm of his right hand.  In the tower of the small chapel at the center of town, a set of three high pitched bells began pealing.  The logger stretched out his hand to his wife, with the letter still in the palm, as though he were inviting her to dance.  Slowly, as though she were a golem whose enchantment were nearly insufficient to move her, Ielena raised her left hand and placed it in his hand.

"Real?" she whispered.

"Aye," Finn answered firmly, but gently.  "That we are."

"All?"

"The boys, the house- 'tis thee built the half of it."  Finn stepped slowly toward the empty rocking chair, took Ielena's right hand, and placed it on the back of it, pulling it back gently to rock it with her.

"Thee were married to me on a hillside, at night.  An auld priest travelling with me caravan done it.  He were drunk, at the time, and he wouldn't marry us, 'till thee agreed to take three drams of me stout.  That were the only time I ever seen thee drink at all."

"Finn," Ielena whispered as she looked down at the rocking chair, her tone still distant.  "My Finn."

"Aye, that I am.  Last o' four.  Nae a cent o' inheritance.  Thee gave me all o' thine, and twa strappin' laddies, too.  First's-"

"Rhen.  Midwinter.  Ori, early harvest.  Early, early harvest.  But it snowed the month after- didn't it?  Didn't it?"

Finn stepped closer to Ielena and turned her around, so that he could speak gently into her ear and let her feel the warmth of his body.  Outside, the bells of the chapel continued ringing, filling the air.  Ielena struggled to hear the bells as they were- high, clear, rapidly rung- instead of the low, pulsing bells of mourning that surged to her mind.  She shut her eyes.

No.  Not those.

"It did snow, me dearie; aye, that it did," Finn encouraged, bringing his cheek close to hers.  "Were the nastiest winter to me memory, though me pap yarns me of a worse, some ten odd years afore I were born.  I'm real.  Solid as a cedar."

"The bells," Ielena managed.

"Joy bells," Finn smiled.  "Good news; here's the letter of it between us.  Between thee and me, right here, in our hands."

For a few moments, Ielena simply allowed herself to feel Finn's heartbeat, thudding behind her shoulder blade.  She breathed evenly and purposefully, repeating Finn's words in her mind.  He waited in silence at first, but then began a very quiet hum- an strange and delicate air that sounded as though it should have some foreign words fitted to it.  But Ielena, having faithfully attended temple services since arriving at Eagle Peak, recognized it and began singing along quietly at once.

"Ah, wandring maiden,
Shining pure,
That guides the wheel
And keeps it sure;
Attend my way,
Be my guide,
And set my path by thine."

Ielena picked her right hand up off the back of the rocker, which had Finn's right hand on top of it.  Finn, in response, curled those fingers to hold his wife's hand, then wrapped their joined arms around her.  As though he were singing a love song to her instead of a prayer hymn to Tymora, he quietly finished where Ielena left off.  His gently crooning tenor soaked into the marrow of her bones, deepened her breathing and calmed her heart, and she closed her eyes to lose herself in it.

"All that there be,
Begged or bought,
Be thine, else it come to naught;
Though to thy child's naethin' due,
I pray thee for thy boon."

For a few blissful moments, there was quietness, and Ielena thought back to how it had been at the beginning.  When the two of them were alone, sleeping huddled together under the sky on the staked ground.  The cabin had been nothing but a shared dream between a young country man with more hope than inheritance and an intelligent city woman whose spirit had nearly been crushed completely.  The boys were imaginations, often spoken of with fondness, but not yet given flesh.  Yet even in those heady, youthful days, Ielena had often bolted straight up from sleep, accidentally let entire dinners fall heedlessly from her hands, or mindlessly sawed straight through a chosen piece of lumber, a icy fear suddenly crushing her lungs like the claws of a dragon.

Is it real?  Is this real?

Aye, that I am, Finn had always answered.  Solid as a cedar.

"I'll never understand why you won't sing at temple," Ielena whispered, her eyelids stinging.  "The rest of the congregation bumbles and warbles its way miserably through that tune, without you."

"Thee shepherds 'em close to't," Finn said sheepishly.  "They've no need o' me."

A few more quiet moments between the man and wife rewarded them with the echoes of the neighbors encouraging Ori and Rhen.  Finn couldn't suppress a proud father's smile, but quickly reigned himself back in to the most immediate issue.

"Me auld mates're takin' the road in a fortnight.  Shall I tell 'em that I were only funnin' 'em about the ride south?"

Ielena opened her eyes, and truly looked out of the window.  In the distance, she saw that Rhen had caught up with Ori, and the two had split Finn's last few deliveries between themselves.

"I was looking forward to seeing Stephen again... and Iordyn of course, but..."

Finn wrapped his other arm, still holding the letter between his hand and Ielena's, around her waist. "But we can write 'em, and keep home a mickle more."

4:7 Any mirror.

Out in the open air, immediately in front of the still-closed leather sheet that separated the open side of the smithy below the Raibeart home from the Suzailian street beyond, one grey-clad Shadar-kai had her arms sweetly wrapped around the waist of a slightly-shorter Tiefling.  They had been standing that way for some time- it had been the dark of early morning when they first came out, but the sun was climbing its way over the city's buildings with determination.

"Again," Silveredge said with quiet glee.

Obediently, Mi'ishaen gave her a quick and gentle peck on the lips.  Niku, just as excited about the repeated interaction as Silveredge was, turned useless circles while panting out thin, high whinnies.

"You'll get it from them, if they care whether or not you make it over there by a certain dial position," Mi'ishaen joked.  "I could do this all day."

"There is no time, in the hells- or so I've heard," Silveredge smiled.  "Endless torture- and no sun, no dial, no hour glass to measure it by."

Mi'ishaen snorted ungraciously and rolled her eyes.  "Asmodeus should rethink that.  He should have an hour glass with sand that falls through the spindle at the rate of one grain per hundred years."

"Oooh, what if he attached an hour glass of blood to his victims, and when it fills and it's time to flip it, he just... doesn't?" Silveredge suggested as she squeezed Mi'ishaen just slightly tighter for a moment.  "What if he makes the blood disappear from the bottom bulb, then lets it fill with fresh stock?"

For a near half minute, the two stood, hips to hips, their fingers laced behind each other's backs, contemplating Silveredge's idea in silence.

"That bottom bulb would get really dirty, after a while," Mi'ishaen finally said.  "Maybe a blood dial, where the blood inches all the way around the disc as slowly as possible before spilling out on the ground.  You pull the supply every so often.  Clean the groove."

"How clean is anything, though, in the hells?"

Mi'ishaen shrugged.  "When I get there, my space will be clean.  'Outside mess, inner stress,' my brother always said."

Silveredge's eyebrows arched upward incredulously.  "You intend to manage a stress-free space in the hells?  How?"

"Well, the first step is keeping it clean."

Silveredge laughed freely, a sound that brought a warm and genuine smile to Mi'ishaen's face.  Niku padded back and forth for a few moments, then actually gave a sharp, solid bark.  When the two women looked down at him, he got extra excited, and began bouncing around like a much-smaller puppy.

"Did you notice that he got a bit taller?" Silveredge asked off handedly, after she'd recovered herself.  "His nose used to meet the middle of my thigh, but now it is nearly to my hip."

"Must be why he was so tired coming over here," Mi'ishaen sighed as she leaned her head on Silveredge's shoulder.  "Doing two inches worth of growing takes a lot out of you."

Niku took advantage of the fact that Silveredge was wearing her wide, permissive training slacks, and nipped a bit of the cloth in order to gently tug at her.

"Mo luran, eh?  Mo luran," Silveredge said quietly as she looked down and scratched the backs of his ears.  "Tha mi còmhla riut, mo laochain."

 Niku let go of Silveredge's slacks and bounced a few steps away, then began running a few sideways steps back and forth, as though he were trying to outmaneuver some invisible prey.

 "So you're making him learn your mother's language too?" Mi'ishaen said with a playful groan.  "Dog, you're gonna be smarter than me, soon.  Take care of her while you're gone, or I'll make a coin purse out of you."

 "Oh!" Silveredge exclaimed as she let Mi'ishaen go completely to put her hands over her mouth.

 Niku gave a few whimpers, but laid the front of his body close to the ground while valiantly trying to wag his stump of a tail.  Mi'ishaen let Silveredge go and took a half step backward, so that Silveredge could more comfortably decide to follow him.

 "He knows I don't mean it," she joked, squatting down to his level.  Niku, clearly overjoyed by the prospect of Mi'ishaen being within tackling distance, did just that, slamming himself into her with a force that provoked a few frustrated puffs from her.

 "With you, you might," Silveredge replied, taking her hands away to reveal that she was smiling.

 "Oh, go on; get out of here," Mi'ishaen said with a dramatic huff as she struggled against Niku's weight.  "That prancing almost-elf will have you on your knees for hours, if you don't hurry up."

 "No, he won't," Silveredge corrected, suddenly serious.

Even Niku realized the change of tone.  He hopped off Mi'ishaen at once, and she sat up.

 "I was planning to simply be quiet, as I have been at other times that I've been owned.  But the heat of your rage...I felt it so strongly, it was as though you'd been right behind me.  So I let my memories punish him.  If he ever goes to the marketplace, I know you will delight in robbing or harming him, but while he is closer to me than he is to you, I will haunt his mind with every wound I have ever suffered at the slavers' hands- and they were many."

 Mi'ishaen nodded, satisfied, but speechless.  Silveredge leaned down and gave her one final peck on the lips.

 "I'll return."

 And off she went, playfully hopping over Niku, who bounced up and chased her into a full run down the street.  A few neighbors who had been minding their own business gave short yelps of alarm as they raced, since Niku was somehow less nimble than his two-legged mistress.  His claws scraped and scrabbled on the street's cobblestones.

 Mi'ishaen watched the two hurry down the mostly empty street with a long, clear sigh.  Behind the buildings, the sun gained greater and greater dominance in the sky with each passing moment.  As she gazed at the moving shadows on the ground, she noticed a large figure out of the corner of her eye.

"Morning, Lyosha.  Really early morning- why are you awake?"

 "Dark sky, dark liquor.  This makes for the sleeping.  Clear sky, clear liquor.  This makes for the waking up.  It is a good morning, is it not?"

 "Well, it's a morning, at least.  You can't really tell whether or not a morning's going to be good until it's almost noon."

 Down the street, somewhere on the other side of some other houses, children began screaming and splashing water, likely wasting the supply with which they were supposed to be washing their hands and faces.

 "Off to join the city guard?" Mi'ishaen teased, looking over her right shoulder at the Dragonborn.

 Aleksei scoffed and sat down next to Mi'ishaen.  He laid his sheath-less kilij over his knees, and Mi'ishaen raised an eyebrow at him.

 "They're gonna get you, these people, for not having the ribbon on that," she noted.

 "They maybe are not putting the ribbon in the right place," Aleksei replied with a non-plussed tone.  "Is it the fighting they are wishing to prevent, or simply the weapon leaving the sheath?"

 "Who knows," Mi'ishaen sighed, taking her weight off her arms so that she could lay all the way down on her back.  Once she did so, she closed her eyes.  "They prevent knife fights, but not tavern brawls, which can kill a body just as fast.  You gonna show 'em how it's done?"

 "I am now so long not moving, that I must now find desire to move," Aleksei laughed.  "Every liquor will make the one that kisses it maybe a little lazy."

 "Pfft, that's the first bad story you've ever told.  Call it what it is.  You don't like that pack of thieving assholes."

 Aleksei laughed even harder.  "How is it that you are angry at the guard for doing something that you also are doing?"

 "Oh no, no way," Mi'ishaen retorted immediately, turning her head so that she could look at Aleksei momentarily.  "When I steal something, there's skill involved.  Those good for nothing plate armored prancers just take things and then conveniently forget to give them back.  Not the same."

 "Then maybe it is that we are both angry at the guard," Aleksei relented, "but each for our own reason."

 "I heard they took somebody's prayer book," Mi'ishaen continued as she turned her head straight again.  "That's filthy.  You know I wouldn't do that, right?"

 "I do know that," Aleksei nodded gravely.  "In this, you are honorable, like a true warrior."

 "Me?" Mi'ishaen laughed half-heartedly, turning her head so she could look at Aleksei again.  "A warrior?  Out to the fields and graze, with that."

 "Oh?" Aleksei asked, ducking his head down slightly.  Mi'ishaen found herself wondering why he bothered, since it wasn't possible to see her on his left side. 

 "Who is this woman then, who when I was in chains, even while struggling against poison in the air, is killing others so that I may live?  This is not that same one?"

 "They were attacking everybody, Lyosha," Mi'ishaen answered, lifting her head and laying it back down straight.  The sky had melted down from the fiery oranges and reds of early morning toward a calm, but cloudy blue.  "If I'd have ran, they'd have killed me; why would I let that happen?"

 "Another person might let attackers take them or kill them," Aleksei reasoned.  "Letting someone do these things to you is strange to you, because you are warrior.  Maybe a little quieter warrior than I, but not by much."

 In the house behind them, some rustlings, rattlings, and thumps made it clear that the Raibeart children were being awakened, either by their mother or by their matronly eldest sister.

 "Do you have family somewhere?" Mi'ishaen asked suddenly, turning her head to look at Aleksei again.  "Still living?"

 "You are blade daughter, and Rasha is chain daughter.  This is enough for me," Aleksei replied without a moment's hesitation.

 "No, really," Mi'ishaen insisted, sitting up and crossing her legs so that she could comfortably lean forward to see the other side of Aleksei's face.  "Aunts and uncles?  Brothers, sisters?  Anybody?"

 He had blissfully closed his other eye, as though he were in prayer or meditation.

 "You really are my blade daughter; I believe this.  You are protecting me, and also things that I am owning, as though they are your own.  I have no other reason for this, but that we are kin."

 And despite her hesitancy to claim kinship, Mi'ishaen found that she had no more reasonable explanation for her actions toward Aleksei either.  She laid back down on her back without speaking for a few moments, listening to the conversations sparking up and down the streets, the sounds of doors and windows opening and closing, and the banging of marketplace stalls as they were being put together and set up for the day.

 "You are feeling well?" Aleksei asked calmly.

 "No," Mi'ishaen admitted.  "I feel like a cart full of shit.  No feed, no straw.  Just shit.  What kind of liquor works for that?"

 Aleksei smiled a very slow, faintly uncomfortable smile.  " 'Any mirror will reflect your image.' "

Mi'ishaen turned her head toward Aleksei again, and noted that he was still in a position of meditation.  " 'Any mirror wi-'... wait... any mirror?  Does liquor even count?"

 " 'Be still,' my staff father is once telling me," Aleksei replied, " 'and you will see your reflection even in a stone.' "

 Mi'ishaen thought better of making a smart remark, and sat up.  As soon as she did, Aleksei opened his eye, picked his kilij up off his knees, and laid it across her lap.  Mi'ishaen noted the weight first, of course, but kept quiet about it.  She took her time simply gazing down at the kilij's side, which shone with the effort Aleksei had put into cold hammering, sharpening, and buffing it some days before.

 Sarai had walked around the house to get to the outside of the shop, whose front flap was still closed, but stopped cold when Aleksei held up a single scaled finger to slow her advance.  He remembered that she was terrified of his half green-scaled right hand only after he watched her tear back around the house like a frightened rabbit.

 "I can't do all this meditation stuff," Mi'ishaen replied simply, looking up from the sword.  "But thank you- maybe I'll at least understand, one day.  How do I give this back properly?  Is there some sort of ceremonial way?"

 "Da, but managing not to cut yourself while you lift her is ceremony enough," Aleksei said smilingly, twisting himself to reach his clawed hands over to her.

 The Tiefling considered her reflection one last time as she carefully positioned her fingers under the flat of the blade and its hilt. Aleksei, with both his palms turned upward as though he were going to beg alms, put his hands next to hers and took the weight of the weapon away from her before lifting it completely to his lap.

 "It is a good piece, I'll tell you that," Mi'ishaen commented as she laid back down on her back, somehow wanting to console Aleksei for what seemed to be a failed attempt at guidance.  "When we first made it to Urmlaspyr and you were just taking the heads and arms off those rat folk-"

Sylvester ambled, slowly and discontentedly, around the side of the house.  The sound of his sandal soles sliding and scraping on cobblestone stopped Mi'ishaen's words in her mouth.  The young boy loped directly up to Aleksei and plopped down on his other side.

 "Mama set out all the places for breakfast and won't serve, since you two are missing.  Sent Sarai, but of course she came back running, and- ugh, I just didn't want to listen to them anymore.  I just left.  Papa'll have my hide, but the sound of them makes me want to- to just- I don't even know; I just hate it, that's all.  I wish I could just tell them both to shut up."

 "So then do that," Mi'ishaen sighed, vaguely irritated by the child's interruption.  "If you've got breath to complain, you've got breath to do something useful.  Go in there and tell them that they sound like a pair of cuckolded fishwives."

 Sylvester leaned forward to stare with amazement at the Tiefling.

 Aleksei got up, letting out a gusty sigh as he did, as though it took him a great deal of effort to rise.  "You are seeing your reflection after all," he stated without looking back at Mi'ishaen.  "Come, little quill brother; we will go inside.  Mishka is maybe having little more repairing to do here."

 "Mama's not going to serve without her," Sylvester warned, looking up at Aleksei.

 "I am remembering that blacksmiths with the blessing of your rulers are not able to say, 'I will not work this day,' " Aleksei explained as he put his green and silver scaled hand on Sylvester's narrow shoulder.  The child got up immediately, as if commanded to do so.  "Already others are readying their wares for the selling.  I am very much doubting that your father will open his shop without eating, so I am also very much doubting that your mother will continue to refuse him food."

 Mi'ishaen watched them walk back around the house with a dry, half-hearted chuckle stuck in her throat.  Surely enough, just as Aleksei had said, the absence of their conversation left the sounds of the awakening marketplace ringing up the streets.  The Tiefling watched the sky pale from its orangy red glory into a calm, but cloudy blue.

 "Gods, I thought you'd never be rid of that lizard."

 Peace drained out of Mi'ishaen instantly.

 "Let Greyscale hear that," she spat without even turning her head.  "He'll choke you to within an inch of your life."

 "No, he won't," the Gnome replied as she leaned on the support beam that was off to Mi'ishaen's left.  "He's only ever done that to you.  And you damn sure deserved it."

Because I'm an actual challenge.  Maybe even a threat, Mi'ishaen thought.  Where she lay, only the wrinkling of her nose indicated the disgust that Cloud's words had incited.

 "What do you want?" the Tiefling finally asked, when she could manage to keep herself from snarling.

Cloud sighed before she answered, but at least attempted to sound amiable.  "The only way I can get rid of your assignment is to get you back on it, so here I am, again.  In person.  To ask you to pretty, pretty please come back and do your job."

 "No."

 "Come on, it's a quiet job."

 "I said no."

 "I could use the help, is that what you want to hear?  I almost blighted; it was this close."

 The sound that forced itself out of Mi'ishaen was quite close to a genuine laugh- she had to admit to herself that was genuinely amused at the prospect of the second best high-flier nearly getting caught at what she'd just marketed as a 'quiet' job.   "Be more careful, I guess."

 "Nothing will happen to you.  You won't be jumping around like before."

 "So how'd you almost get spotted, if it's that easy a job?"

 "You know, if I were Greyscale, I'd have fired you by now," the Gnome burst, unable to contain her frustration any longer.  "It's been weeks, and you-"

 "Almost died, I thank m'lady so very, very kindly," Mi'ishaen hissed, instantly furious.  "I played a stacked game dealt for three with just one hand.  You don't get to bitch to me about me not doing my job when you not doing your job almost cost me my fucking life."

 "You act like you're the only one who's ever gone to jail!" Cloud snorted.  "Guess what, princess?  You're not.  And- oooh, surprise, surprise!- there'll be more after you."

 "So go take your turn," Mi'ishaen snapped back, finally sitting up.  "Go vomit up half-rotted food and mossy water.  Alone, in silence, and darkness, until time stops making sense, and you're actually grateful when a jailer shows up."

 "Oh, boo-hoo-hoo!" Cloud moaned in a mockingly sorrowful voice, turning around the pillar so that she could look at Mi'ishaen's radiant ruby eyes.  "Look, I'm sorry you went to the lockup, I am, but being jail shy doesn't get you out of doing your job!"

 "Was yours before it was mine," Mi'ishaen said scornfully as she laid back down as though the confrontation were over.  "So you do it.  Bye.  Scat.  Go on."

 "Ugh!  You're a waste of time," Cloud frowned.  "Lying on your back and whining like a child, while living in somebody else's house, on your girlfriend's coin."

Mi'ishaen turned her head as she laid on the ground, and took a moment to simply look at the Gnome in front of her.

In a stone.  Got it.

She turned her head straight and closed her eyes, taking one deep breath.

"You want me back?"

The Gnome turned her head slightly and raised an eyebrow.  "Cypher does; I don't give a shit.  Who knows what Grey-"

Mi'ishaen slammed both hands on the ground and sprung up with a single beautiful surge of energy.  Cloud ducked the Tiefling's right hand, but not her followup strike, and in the moment that it took to right herself after the duck, Mi'ishaen had enough time to crack her bare left hoof into the Gnome's jaw.  Cloud staggered, and Mi'ishaen caught her in the nose with a vicious left handed straight punch.  Predictably, the smaller creature twisted and fell to the ground face-first.  When she did, Mi'ishaen put one hoof on the other side of the Gnome's prostrated body, scooted both her arms close to her sides, then picked up her tail and slammed herself down.  She listened to the guttering gasps that Cloud offered for a few seconds, then leaned forward so that she could whisper calmly into Cloud's ear.

"Listen very closely, because I want you to take this back to Greyscale word for word.  I was told that both the operations I got accidentally drafted into were the culmination of at least a solid year of chess mastering, so I had to be careful.  I sat and watched while the 'girlfriend' of whom you so blithely speak suffered.  I couldn't speak to her, send her a note, even, but for everybody thinking I was gonna blow the job.  You said you were gonna run recon on the Dragons, but you didn't.  No one even knew the confiscation chest that I found, by accident, even fucking existed.  Go-time rolled around in the market square, and you ran, like the weakshit, useless bitch you know you are.  So go tell Greyscale that if I ever, ever, have to work with you again, I will finish the job first, and then I will kill you, in the absolute coldest of blood.  There will not be a spell, not a choke hold, not a single fucking prayer in the deepest of Baator that can stop me.  Not.  One."

When Mi'ishaen got up and turned around, she found a visibly stunned Iordyn staring at her with astonished eyes.

"I know, I know; she doesn't want to serve until we're all there," she crabbed, flapping a hand as though she were waving away a fly as she walked past him.  "That conversation just took longer than I thought it would."

"Polite conversations don't leave people face down in the ground," Iordyn countered, unsure of whether to follow Mi'ishaen or check if the Gnome were alright.

"How many polite conversations with pickpockets have you had?" Mi'ishaen asked, suddenly stopping her advance.  Iordyn turned to look at her, but was cut off before he could answer.

"If the answer is 'none,' do your purse a favor and leave her right where she is.  Your sister sent you to get me, and I'm coming.  Don't make her have to send somebody else to come get you."

When Iordyn turned around to look back at the figure on the ground, he found that they had gone- disappeared as though they had never been there.  He sighed and shook his head as he turned to follow Mi'ishaen, feeling that something wasn't quite right, and suspecting that he would have to get used to that feeling.

4:6 Cracking the rock.

Suzail streets could never be truly described as "peaceful," yet the smithy sat, quietly and calmly, on a short wooden stool between his bellows and his anvil.

While he was working, the cracking of the forge's flame and the high pitched cry of metal on grindstone always drowned out the pressing haggling, chatter, and laughter that came from the marketplace and bustling streets.  Even when he wasn't working, the more gentle, natural sounds of the area- birds, insects, or the arguments that one neighbor's pet might have with another in the street- were hard for him to truly notice, simply because over time, they had all become familiar.  So, it had become his practice, strangely enough, after the noontime tolling of the large bell in the towers of Tymora, to sit calmly in his shop with his back to the street and try to pick out as many different sounds of the city as he could.  Aleksei, upon hearing of this custom the first time, told Stephen that focusing his attentions carefully on each sound was a practice close akin to meditation, and refused to remain in the shop while it was done.

On this particular day, Stephen had spent two or three calm moments alone before noticing the uncertain advance of someone coming toward the shop.  Slow to come out of his reverie, he decided to pretend he didn't hear it, hoping that whoever it was would simply think him unavailable to be spoken with.

No such luck.

"Ser Raibeart?" a male voice growled.  There was some effort to it, as though the speaker were either old, ill, or had been somehow made unused to sounding its voice.  Stephen looked over his shoulder, and saw a robed and hooded figure.  The hood and heavy robe made it impossible to tell who the person was, so the blacksmith turned all the way around, in case he were being addressed by someone important.

"There's more than one by that name," he joked affably, trying to seem more pleasant than he felt.  "Which do you seek?"

"You, friend; unless some junior now commands the forge," the hooded figure replied.  "I want a two handed sword."

"A greatsword, a claymore, or a bastard sword?" Stephen asked, biting back his skepticism.  As he expected, the hooded figure paused to think.  When the person did finally speak, however, there was no uncertain wavering to the given answer.

"A greatsword."

"Single blade, or dual?"

"Dual," came the firm reply, much faster and surer than the first.

"That's masterwork," Stephen replied, looking the figure up and down carefully.  "Come back in a week."

"A week?" the figure asked.  It was impossible to tell, without seeing the person's face, whether the question had been a joke or not.  "I believed that I was sent to the commissioned blacksmith, not to some cheap farrier."

Something in what was left of the speaker's natural voice sparked a suspicion in his hearer.

"With all the respect that's due you, father," Stephen countered slowly, "had you sought the farrier, you'd not buy her work cheaply, and she'd tell you the same as I have.  What I wonder is what good a weapon made by either one of us will do a monk."

"The piece is not to be mine," the figure stated.  "I'm on errand."

"On errand?" Stephen scoffed, now sure of the identity of the speaker.  "You're going to have to try harder than that... Father Firehammer."

The figure gave a single, short puff that could be mistaken for a chuckle.  "How sorely have I earned that name," he said, pulling his hood back at last.  Both eyes, once clear and greenish-brown, had been cast over with what appeared to be grey film.  He'd lost all his hair, even from his eyelids and brows, and his face was so blotched, scabbed, and bloated that at first, all Stephen could do was stare at him.

"Some wicked pack of Semmites, feigning themselves an escort, took us from the 'dangerous' eastern isles toward open water.  When they discovered that we were hauling no valuable cargo, and that we could not in any way pay our way out of their embrace, they shot flaming arrows into our sails and left us to die."

"No secure transports?" Stephen said, still marveling at Iona's appearance.

"No Cormyrean vessels of any kind sail past the Pirate Isles," Iona replied, his damage-graveled voice made even more harsh by mocking.  "Especially not for poor brothers.  We sailed out and returned with the coin of good-will alone, so I'm sorry to have repaid the captain that agreed to take us with the loss of his ship.  He'll be out of work at least a month.  Longer, if he commissions a ship anywhere near as good as the one he lost."

Stephen grunted, then consciously uncrossed his arms, opting instead to smooth his hands on his thighs.  "His healer isn't worth any coin at all," he huffed.  "Can you still see?"

"Dimly," Iona replied.  "The captain's healer was lost- jumped ship on first sight of the arrows.  Another boat, captained by a woman called 'Lord Hawke,' came upon us at sundown, because they had seen smoke-now, she commanded an alchemist.  Sailors from Urmlaspyr believe that magic workers on ships are 'bad luck'- I dared not say then that Cormyrians believe the same of women, obviously."

"Obviously," Stephen parroted with a quiet laugh.  "Rough dealing, selling religion in the Pirate Isles."

"So wrote the abbott when he recalled us.  If your son has time, or even your wife or daughters, I need one of them to write to Marsember, and see if the brothers are waiting for my return."

"I'll have Sly see to you," Stephen said firmly.  "Think of as many 'M' words as you can- that's been his fixation, lately."

Iona's face pulled very painfully into what should have been a smile.  "I'll see what I can do, Papa Raibeart."

Completely oblivious to his brother's company, Iordyn thundered downstairs with a quarterstaff that smelled of sap.  "Stephen, Saul just m-"

"Iordi?" Iona asked at once, fruitlessly trying to peer across the room.  "Is that you?"

"Iona!" Iordyn exclaimed breathlessly, as stunned by his brother's actual presence as he was by his words.

Stephen watched quietly as Iona stretched his swollen, cracking hands out toward his youngest brother.  Iordyn put Saul's staff down entirely, and almost ran to the other side of the shop.  Seeing the burn damage, however, he delicately put his hands under his brother's, and allowed the latter to determine how he could and should be embraced.

"Thank the gods," Iona breathed, squeezing his nearly useless eyes shut as he hugged Iordyn as hard as he could stand.  "Word of the charges against you reached the Isles after I'd left.  It caught up with me at Urmlaspyr, but was nearly a month old.  I'd thought that by the time I arrived-"

"Does this hurt?" Iordyn murmured, closing his own eyes and enjoying the hug as much as he could.  "What happened?"

"That I may hurt, boy, when I thought you dead?" Iona rasped, truly incredulous and joyfully joking all at once.  "Tell me- how did you win such a case?"

Iordyn looked as far over his shoulder as he could, and saw that Stephen had put one hand over his face.

"I... didn't," he answered, a bit bewildered.  "I was enlisted to help the Dragons get to the bottom of a suspected Sembian plot, but the suing widow lost right of claim owing to being guilty of treason, so I got an exemption.  Shortest enlistment time of all of us, wasn't it?"

"I wasn't enlisted at all," Iona smirked.  "Not for lack of trying.  Does the commissioned blacksmith count?"

Iordyn listened to Stephen's quiet, muffled grunt before speaking again.  "I say he does, and I think Susanna would agree- say, you didn't go up to see Suze, have you?  She's heavy and weary with the baby, but glowing brighter and brighter every day."

"I didn't want to inflict my visage upon her," Iona joked bitterly, finally standing back from Iordyn.  "Might her husband carry her my quiet reguards?"

"No," Stephen rumbled, his face still under his hand.  "And don't leave without saluting her."

"No ser," Iona said, looking toward the shadowy figure that he knew was Stephen.

Stephen only grunted in response, and Iordyn cast a mildly confused gaze at the blacksmith himself.

"Heard you made quite an impression in Marsember," Iordyn said slowly, very gently running a finger over the puffy flesh and flaky skin.  "Suze said Papa's letter nearly burned the fingers off her hands, for how furious he was."

"Same old short temper," Iona sighed.  "I don't know what happened at the hall, but when I made it to the border here, I was warned to behave myself."

"You... uh... told the entire congregation of Morningmist Hall that if they didn't repent as soon as possible, the temple would fall in on them and kill them," Iordyn said meekly, as though he were admitting to something that he wished he hadn't done.  "People ran from the place as though they'd been attacked- screaming and crying."

"Ha?" Iona breathed, with a touch of amusement.  "That's certainly worthy of a soldier's caution, yes.  I wish I could have more knowledgeably promised my consent to his behest."

For a few moments, no one was sure what to say.  The sounds that Stephen normally had to work so hard to notice became suddenly too loud for him not to notice, in the absence of his brother's voices.  Iordyn looked from one to the other while shifting his stance, feeling very much as cotton-wrapped and ignorant as he had been in his youth.

"You... also said that Mama's useless prayers were making Lathander's ears bleed," he finally said.  The words fell thickly out of his mouth, as though they'd been made of lead.

"That's well-deserved," Iona scoffed bitterly.  "I wish I'd seen her face."

Iordyn stared at Iona strangely.  "You didn't...?"

"No," Iona replied before Iordyn could finish his question.  "Once I crossed the threshold of that temple, I was not my own.  I heard and saw nothing until the soldier spoke to me, here."

Iordyn took a deep breath, then asked, "Was it... like that... when your intended died?"

Iona pursed his lips and gave one slow, small nod, as though the admission were physically painful.

"What was her name?" Iordyn suddenly asked, consumed by curiosity.

Iona looked at his younger brother quizzically.

"Stephen said he didn't remember it, when he told the tale to myself and Aleksei- he's... eh... he's a guest here right now.  Of how you went into ministry in the first place."

"I went into ministry because I'd been called, albeit years before," Iona answered firmly.  "I selfishly tried to use the marriage as a pitiful attempt to escape the mandate of Tyr on my life- and for that, I was severely punished."

Iordyn hummed his agreement, and Iona looked past him to see what he could of his elder brother, who still had his hand over his face as though he were physically tired.  "Stephen, why didn't-"

"I never used it," came the solid reply, before Iona could finish the question.  "You know I never used it."

A cough-like laugh escaped the incredulous Iona.  "That's true enough, but not because you forgot it.  You'll never forget it- knowing you, you wish you could.  Why didn't you tell him the whole story?"

"He said he did," Iordyn cut in, mildly hurt.

"But you left out her name?" Iona scoffed.  "You couldn't bear to say it, is what you should have said.  At least that would have been nearer the truth."

Again, Stephen only emitted a low, short grunt.

"Finish the story, Stephen," Iona dared, stepping forward with confidence and the beginnings of a rumble in his voice.  "Who carried the body back to the family?  Who paid for the burial?  Who treated that woman like a person, not like an achievement trophy, a monument to normalcy, a barricade against the will of a god-"

Stephen turned away from Iona, who responded by surging forward and grabbing the blacksmith's thick, muscular upper arm as tightly as he could.  Stephen whirled around sharply, but suddenly stopped, as though he'd been hit with a basin full of ice water.

"At least say her name," Iona encouraged.  "I shouldn't; you know that."

"Renurielle," Stephen said very quietly, so that Iordyn could hardly hear him at all.

"The abbot must have dragged hours of confession out of me, full of regret, anger, and bitterness."  Iona waited a few moments before reaching out to place his hand on his eldest brother's upper arm again.  "And I... anyway, I... I found your old master.  He said you broke that anvil in two and buried it."

"Yeah," Stephen answered quietly, looking down at Iona's hand.

"Wouldn't tell me where."

Stephen gave a very small, sharp nod of satisfaction.  "Good."

Iona laughed bitterly, and let his elder brother go.

"You told that story like you didn't care," Iordyn suddenly piped up.  "Why'd you pretend like you didn't care?"

"He can't afford feelings," Iona replied simply.  "Not when he makes a habit of standing like a stone wall between that which'll hurt and that what'll hurt it."

"Shut that up," Stephen muttered, turning away from both of his younger brothers again.

"But we're safe, now.  You can talk; you can tell the truth," Iona pressed.

"Hush," was all Stephen would say.

"What do you mean, 'safe'?" Iordyn asked quietly, his concern printing itself plainly on his face.  "Safe from what?"

"You're fine," Stephen interrupted, fighting back the sensation of wanting to spit.

"Bullshit, Stephen," Iona shot back.

"The past is the past," Stephen interjected, cutting Iona off with a short, sharp wave.  "Things have ch-"

"Ignore the past, and it returns as the future," Iona charged.  "You know more than Leena, and Ronny, and I put together.  You saw it all; comforted the crying-"

"Listen, there's no need to dredge this stuff up like-"

"-took the brunt of Papa's battlefield madness, most of the blame-"

"-it's still happening; we ought to just move on, and let them try to-"

"-for drawing the irrational anger, tried fruitlessly to explain to Mama-"

"-move on themselves, because they're old.  They don't have that much longer, and-"

"-why we had to get as far as we could, fast as we could!  Like senseless animals, fleeing a wildfire!"

"Iona!  Shut it!" Stephen finally hollered, shouting his brother into stillness.

"Don't you tell your brother to shut it," Susanna called from across the room.  "You'd be growling like a bear, if you heard Saul say such a thing to Sly."

"Lady Raibeart-" Iona began, struggling to find the source of her voice.

"And you, with this 'lady, lady,' as though I hadn't been family for years now," Susanna frowned.  "The absolute least you could do for the lady is come to her front door, and greet her properly, instead of sneaking down to the shop to have your brothers call out your name, like a pair of town square news criers.  If not for that, I'd not have known you were even here."

"Oof, no prisoners this day," Iona replied, pretending to have been physically winded by Susanna's words.

"Nor closeted skeletons neither," Susanna said sternly, crossing her arms as firmly as she could.  "Now, Elder Brother Raibeart, I'm going to go back upstairs now, to set the evening table for eleven.  That will, as anyone might imagine, take me a while.  I expect that you will have settled whatever it is that has you snarling and snapping at your younger brothers by the time I send Sarai to call you all."

Silence.

"Thank you, Mama Raibeart," Stephen replied after a full minute had gone by.  "I will."

More silence while all three men watched Susanna move determinedly up the stairs, grasping the banister that Stephen had newly built as though it were the arm of a trusted friend.

"Taricia owes a lot to Susanna, I think," Iona commented with a smirk after the three of them listened to the opening and closing of the door at the top of the stairs.  "Quite a lot indeed."

Stephen gave a wordless, half-hearted shrug.

"She's been worried," Iona urged.  "Wrote to ask me back before the abbot did, to come speak to you.  I told her I might be just what you don't need, but she asked me to try anyway, for the sliver of hope that she has that you'll talk to me like a blood brother, if not a holy one.  No matter what it takes, though, she doesn't intend to just drum her fingers on her belly while your mind somehow becomes some distant foreign country from which you rarely, if ever, return."

Both brothers watched patiently as Stephen walked back over to his stool and sat down.  At first, he crossed his arms over his chest, patting one hand on the thick meat of his other arm.

"I don't know why it happens," he began quietly.  "I just- go cold.  When I... come back, I... it's embarrassing.  We have four- five children, soon.  If they lock me away, she'll starve."

"You'd have to be a nutter, for them to lock you away," Iona advised.  "Soldiers that have- no, wait, hear me out.  You didn't go to war, but you did fight our father almost every day.  He pulled no punches for you.  Literally.  And what has happened to the thousands of soldiers who came back from Sembia... that's what's happening to you."

Stephen patted his hand on his upper arm again- a slow, methodical smacking that Iordyn suddenly recognized.

"That," he proclaimed flatly, pointing to his brother's offending hand.  "You do that.  Almost all the time- is that part of it?"

Stephen stopped himself before hitting his arm again and rubbed both hands down his face with a deep sigh.  "Maybe.  I don't know.  But usually, Suze stops me, so she must think it's something."

"Talk," Iona reassured.  "To me, to Iordyn- to your wife, please.  But talk about it.  That's what the abbot did for me, what Taricia is doing for Ronny, and what Finn is doing for Leena.  These- cold spells, these absences?  They're like warnings.  Heed them, Stephen."

Stephen was quiet for a few moments.  He breathed slowly and deeply a few times, then nodded.  Iordyn wordlessly walked over to Stephen, and before he could even look all the way up, he found himself the recipient of a fierce hug.

"You have put on a bit of patience, in your advanced years," Iona joked.  "If I'd hugged you like that, back in the day, you'd have grabbed me by the hair to pull me off."

"He did that for something else; we can tell you the whole story upstairs," Iordyn smirked as he loosened his hug so that he could turn around to look at Iona.  "With some of the other participants in it, too.  Come on; come up, so that Suze doesn't have to send Sarai after us."

Stephen rose slowly, as though he were tired or sore, but managed a weak smile.  Iordyn let go entirely and moved off toward the stairs, but Iona only took a few tentative steps.

"How's your back?" Stephen asked quietly, with his head ducked down as though he intended to rest it on his brother's shoulder.

"Whole enough to be touched," Iona replied knowingly.  "The brothers tend to take that, or my elbow, to help me find my way."

"Good enough."

And with that, the blacksmith placed a gentle hand on the center of the monk's back, and began to slowly move toward the stairs up to the house.

4:5 To each her own.

Dale, whose youthful nubs had ever so subtly lengthened into more of a promise of her young adult horns, charged into the house with her arms filled with freshly cut flowers.  Some of the stems were more roughly hewn at their ends than others, and some stems were missing long strips of green from the attempts to remove the thorns.  Despite the clearly amateur attempts there, however, the actual flowers themselves were gloriously beautiful- luscious red roses, radiant purple asters, luminescent white orchids, and cheery orange chrysanthemums.  Just inside the house, on the right side, a rosewood brown Tiefling whose naturally wavy coppery-brown hair had freshly been sliced to the nape of her neck sat with various lengths of differently dyed strips of cloth, and her well-loved basket.

"So quickly today!" she commented sweetly as her little girl rushed in.  "Slow down; you know Buela Mara doesn't like you running everywhere."

Dale nodded seriously, and stopped her hurried advance at once.  Her sudden gravity didn't stop both household dogs from mimicking her previous haste, however, so Yellowsun nearly smashed into the back of her legs when she stopped short.  Briar wasn't quite as fast, and so had time to dodge off sideways before smacking into Yellowsun.  Behind her trundled Cephas, laden with his net and weights.

"I'm off, Dai," the swarthy Human man puffed, the chuckle for his daughter's sharp stop buried in the sound of his effort.

"May your nets strain without breaking, cielito," the Tiefling woman smiled immediately, tilting her head upward just slightly to offer a kiss.

"May the devils themselves be spellbound at the works of your hands, cuor'ai- mmmm." Cephas replied, passing by dog and child alike to kiss the waiting lips of his wife.  After he let himself audibly enjoy the moment, he managed to shift the burden in his arms just enough to be able to scrub the top of his daughter's head, ruffling her hair.  "And one day, Dilly-Dale, you'll make your own blessing- one that fits you just right."

Dale, who had laid the flowers on the bed beside her mother, reached up to give her bending father a kiss on the cheek.  He gave her two- one for each temple, then tilted his head and nickered for Briar.  The old dog hustled as best she was able, and Yellowsun followed them encouragingly to the door, sitting just inside of it when they left.

Daiirdra picked up a few flowers, then retrieved her knife from her night stand in order to cut the stems evenly.  "These are all very lovely blooms- here, bind these up together with the chamomile- use the satin, and please be careful of how tightly you wind it."

Dale turned the stems of the central rose, the surrounding marigolds, and the chamomile so that they were laying right in front of her, then prepared the strip of satin that had been indicated.  "M'lady Arlwynna asked after you so soon as even I got there," she noted as she tied the first anchor knot around the bottom of the stems.  "She still lives above her shop, but every day goes down to the Bone College with Ser Yasha and the Father Demon-"

"You mean the Master Inquisitor, Daelcita," Daiidra replied with a wistful smirk.  She laid aside her knife and began gathering another bunch for her daughter to bind.  "There are no Father Demons here; it's illegal."

"Okay," Dale replied, smiling at her mother's nickname for her.  "So how come you still have your offering dish?"

"Because anyone who comes into my hells-blessed living space to check whether I am keeping their frivolous law or not will do better to beware Rey Asmodeo than I would do to beware of them," Daiirdra answered with a shrug, as though breaking a law whose punishment was being stoned to death was no big deal.  "Now, if Mistress Arlwynna is spending a great deal of time in the Bone College, it is likely that she has a different title now.  Did she tell you what it was?"

"No," came the strangely sad reply.  "She doesn't like me being there either."

"It's only because you're very young yet," Daiirdra replied as she began sorting the third set of flowers whose stems she'd cut into their intended bouquet groupings.  "When you grow older, it will be easier for others to understand- or at least make peace with- the gift that the hells have given you.  Please pair the mums with the darker marigolds; we must save these other ones for the lilacs.  Did you tell Mistress Arlwynna that I've been walking, now-a-days?"

"I did!" Dale beamed, stopping to look up at her mother briefly.  "She was excited, but said to ask you to be careful.  I gave her the silver, like Papa said, but she wouldn't take it until I told her I'd get in trouble if I brought it back.  She said that if I didn't give you this extra bottle of medicine, that I'd get in trouble with her."

Daiirdra chuckled as she laid down a fourth bouquet grouping, then looked over at her daughter's hard work.  When the young girl came to a pausing point, the mother reached over and patted her hand gently.  "Well, one good lie deserves another.  We'll have to think of some other way to get her to take payment next time, I suppose.  I've never seen an apothecary so determined to be penniless.  Take the extra lavender and put it with that bunch there; that'll be for her.  No doubt she'll have need of calming baths and compresses, where she is."

"Will I need them too, when I go there?"

Although the mother had been trying to steel herself against such conversations, the simplicity of the situation in her daughter's mind still took her breath away.  "I don't know, Daelcita.  I certainly hope not, but if you do, then I will be happy to send you as many sprigs of lavender as I can lay my hands upon."

Dale finished tying the first bouquet and began to bind together the extra lavender around the orchid bunch as she had been instructed.  For a few moments, the two female Tieflings worked in silence- Dale slowly finished the tying of the second bouquet, and Daiirdra finished grouping all of the rest of the bouquets.  When Dale looked up to the spectral female Tiefling that had seated herself at the other side of the bed, she broke the quiet.

"Do you see Ta'buela right there?"

"Hmm?  Oh, no; I don't," Daiirdra replied, trying to keep herself as light and casual as possible.  Without even looking back, she selected one of the pieces of cloth and began binding the bouquet grouping that she had just laid down. "Wave to her for me, will you please?"

Dale was not to be so easily placated, and stopped binding the second bouquet.  "Mama, how come you don't see her?  Or Buelo, either?"

"I don't have your talent, tesorito," Daiirdra replied simply as she put a bow on the bouquet with which she'd been working.  "Please use the blue one with that third one, to pick up the blue of the aster spray.  They should go down in the bunch, as though they were stairs."

"But you have talent, Mama!" Dale objected immediately, dramatically picking her hands up off the bed to indicate that she didn't intend to do another second's worth of work until she'd been satisfied.  "Everything you make is pretty!  It's not fair that they won't let you see them!"

"Tesorito, it's not a matter of them letting me see them," Daiirdra relented, putting the flowers with which she was working down in her lap to take up her daughter's hands.  "It's that- you know I can't make alchemics like Lady Arlwynna, right?  I can cut and arrange lavender nicely, but I have no idea of how to grind and boil it so that it will give anyone peace- do you?"

Dale shook her head, but continued to pout.

"Or, think of your aunt- do you remember her?  Your Tia Rebeka, and how she built her house from nothing- just from the pieces of wood that her neighbors gave her?  I can't do that either.  And neither of them can do what I do, either.  It is not because the flowers don't like them, or because the wood or the alchemy formulas and recipes don't like me.  It is because we do not have each others' talents; we have our own.  We do the things that we can do very well, and it is enough for each of us.  It will be the same for you."

"I still wish you could see them," Dale huffed.  "I don't want to talk to them, since you can't."

Daiirdra laughed gently and softly, letting go of her daughter's hands in favor of finishing the aster bunch that her daughter refused to work upon.  "There will come days when you don't mind me and what I can or can't do so much, and days still after that when you won't like me very much at all.  Then, there will be a day when I can talk to Ta'buela and Buelo Keraaven again, because I will go where they are.  I will have to wait for all of that, and I don't know how long it will be.  You are very fortunate, tesorito, that you don't have to wait to see them, and that they can speak to you right now.  Sometimes, I envy you."

"I'll tell him you miss him, I'll tell him!" Dale enthused at once.  "I'll try really hard!  He's probably with Papa, but I'll try really hard to tell him as soon as he gets back!"

"When he will hear you, then tell him, but not before," Daiirdra soothed.  "Elders are to be respected at all times; it is no different in the land of the departed than it is in the land of the living.  It is as Ser Yasha said; you must respect them, and other spirits as well.  Bear the wait with patience; knowledge is come by quickly, but wisdom is hard won."

Dale thought for a few moments, focusing all her attention on memorizing that moment, and her mother's words.  She considered the bouquet that her mother had picked up and finished, and admired the way that she'd counter-wrapped the ribbon so that the cheery strip of bright orange colored fabric seemed to be winding up the stems toward the bow while the asters descended in the opposite direction.  When she looked up, she watched the spectral Tiefling spirit, who had sat down on the other side of Daiirdra, look longingly at her great-granddaughter's hands.

"What was Buela Aeniisha good at, Mama?"

Daiirdra continued working on the arrangement she had in her hands, knowing that the market would open shortly, and that Cephas would be concerned if he arrived there to sell his catch before Dale showed up with the bouquets.  "My mother was an artist.  She specialized in the painting of clay dolls, but she could do so much more.  The images she would draw, paint, and sew would bring tears to the eyes of the harshest tyrant- so it is fitting that Buelo Keraaven fell first in love with her beautiful, gifted hands, the virtues of which he praised until his death."

Dale, who watched the spectral Tiefling sigh deeply, at first scrunched up her nose with thought.  Daiirdra didn't disturb her, and instead began to bind together yet another bouquet of flowers- this time, with a bit more speed.  When she finished it and laid it in the basket with the other completed ones, Dale quickly caught her hands and shifted herself to lay her head on them.  Daiirdra,  reminding herself that time and finances meant absolutely nothing to her still-too-young daughter, forced herself to focus on the problem that loomed too large on Dale's mind to possibly allow work to interfere.

"Tesoro, I miss my mother and father very much, and think often of them," the mother soothed.  "I believe truly that if I work hard, and raise you well, then they will be honored.  Your strength, wisdom, and education will be the greatest gifts that I can give them."

With this said, Daiirdra leaned over and kissed her daughter's cheek- and then began tickling her.  Dale hooted and laughed, which started Yellowsun to barking from his place at the door.  His tail wagged manically, kicking up the dust that had entered from the streets outside.

"Keep it down, demonspit!" came the inevitable screech from the left side of the house.

"Ch'aimas!" Mara reproached sharply, from the other side of the house.  As her bedding area was much closer, her voice was much harsher, and made Dale jump a bit.

"How come Buela Mara and Tio James get to call us that when we don't get to call them child eaters?" Dale asked with a sigh, when she recovered.  She turned at last to her work, finding that there were only three more bunches of flowers to wrap.  Her mother finished the first and already had hands on the second before she managed to ask, "Are you going to tell them that Ta'buela never even made any pacts with any demons, one day?"

"There's no use in that, Daelcita- that ribbon goes with this bunch, not that one- even though Ta'buela never made any pacts, the lords around her did.  Unfortunately, sometimes we must pay for the poor decisions of others, even though we ourselves did nothing wrong.  Buela Mara is also paying for the poor decisions of others; be kind to her, and suffer whatever she says.  Okay, that does it- now, scurry off, tesorito.  Don't keep your father looking for you; he's got to concentrate on his stall, or his master will be hard on him."

Dale picked up the basket, now full of beautiful bouquets instead of loose flowers, and kissed her mother quickly before taking off running.  The door burst open before her and slammed shut behind her, drawing Yellowsun's sharp barks.

Mara, whose sleeping area was just on the other side of her daughter in law's, smoothed the worn arm rests of the rocking in which she sat.  She listened as the soft rustle of fabric and the clacking of hoof on stone indicated that Daiirdra had gotten up to move around.

"Come here, you," she commanded quietly, when she figured that the Tiefling was close enough to her to hear it.

There was a pause, then a few quiet clacks that were dampened when hoof met Mara's hand-made area rug.  Carefully, Daiirdra entered Mara's area and- with some clear difficulty- knelt down before the rocking chair.

"Yes, Mother?"

"Yesterday, your brat saw-" Mara began, with an unusual warbling quality straining her voice.  "I don't know.  But she looked at it a long time.  And then she looked at me.  And she did things that I hadn't asked for yet, all of a sudden, as though she knew what I was going to say."

Daiirdra was momentarily stranded between a desire to apologize and a sense of pride.  Her child could speak with the spirit world- or would speak with the spirits, one day.  These days, all she did with her budding talent was terrify her grandmother and infuriate her uncle.

The mother shook her head slowly.  "I don't know why she sees them, Mother.  She says that they are my great great great grandmother and my father, but they've both been passed away for many years.  So it... it's a little..."

"Scary," Mara finished firmly.  "Good."

Daiirdra firmed her lips, forcing a pained, Mona Lisa-like smirk that she knew couldn't possibly go unnoticed.  However, her fierce upbringing demanded that she at least try to respect the elder speaking to her.

"Ah, look," Mara spat bitterly, "It's bloody awful.  To have your brat say she sees people what're dead.  But she isn't making it up, and she can't ignore it, so... so I won't scream at her over it.  I won't do that anymore.  Whatever she sees... and I won't pretend it's not there.  I told Cephas before he left, and... that's all I wanted to say.  To you."

The quiet that rested uneasily between the two women, however, made the Tiefling feel that quite the opposite was true.

"Thank you, Mother Mara," she smiled, trying to force herself to sound more relaxed than she was.  "I appreciate that."

"Cephas couldn't deny his spawn if he tried," Mara scoffed, crossing her arms over her ample chest.  "Pig-headed- I heard her myself, not wanting to talk to them... things... because you can't."

"She has a very strong sense of fairness," Daiirdra replied smilingly.  "Of what is right and wrong; what ought to be done, and what oughtn't be.  She knows how to treat people, and when not to trust them."

Mara looked at Daiirdra with some strange and complicated dissonance of emotion reflecting in her clouded eyes.  "I wish I could just wave a wand, or something, and make you... right.  Her too."

"Ah, Mother," Daiirdra sighed, not bothering to keep her actual sense of hopelessness out of her voice.  "I wish I could wave a wand and make it so it didn't matter whether I were Human or not."

"Children," Mara added quietly, rubbing the arms of her rocking chair again.  "That's who gets the future.  All the tomorrows we worry about- we don't even get them.  We work hard, we cry, we fight, we bleed, and who gets the tomorrow?"

"Children who, if they are wise, at once begin to press fervently toward the next tomorrow," Daiirdra counseled, sensing some sort of additional conversation that she wasn't sure she could truly reach.  "It won't look like the one you gave them, but with the guidance of the gods and the elders, it will be a good, peaceful, and prosperous one- that's all anyone wants out of a tomorrow, isn't it?"

Mara closed her eyes with a deep sigh, and Daiirdra bit the backs of her lips for a few moments, then scooted forward on her knees so that she could lean her cheek on Mara's bare and filthy feet.

"What're you doing!?" the older woman screamed at once, squeezing her shut eyelids so that the skin around them pinched and stretched.  Her strong fists slammed the arms of the rocker with considerable force, and Daiirdra jumped back, startled, but not entirely caught by surprise.

"Who in the world comforts a body by putting her face on her feet!" Mara complained bitterly.  "I don't know why Cephas wedded himself to demonspawn, but you're his woman, so get up and act like it, curse you!"

With puffing and quiet grunts of effort, Daiirdra pushed herself to her feet.  "Sorry, Mother," she managed breathlessly.

"To the hells with sorry," Mara exclaimed, rising from the rocker herself.  She was a head and a half shorter than her Tiefling daughter in law, and had to look up to glare at her properly.  "I'm not blind or stupid; James will give me nothing but pain in my gut- the weakshit whiner.  I got nothing in this world to give that brat, and nobody else but her to give it to.  So when I'm dead- and you won't have long to wait- you don't let go of anything that's here.  Make sure she gets it.  Every stick.  You promise me that."

"By the blood in my flesh and the breath in my lungs, I swear to you that I will guard this place like the fiercest of baatezu," Daiirdra said seriously, not looking away from Mara's stormy eyes.  "Be it to me as a sin so heavy that my lungs are crushed, and my blood dries up wasted on the ground, if I do not utterly destroy anyone who would challenge this land, or its master."

"Believe in sin, do you?" Mara grunted.

"Absolutely," Daiirdra replied sincerely.  "Our deities are different, so our guiding religious laws are too, but the concept of sin is most definitely there.  The failure to honor a fair contract, whether written or verbal, is among one of the most grave, and thus one of the most severely punished.  In my village, one could earn themselves public death by stoning, for failing to give over a single laying hen that was promised to another person."

Mara huffed, then moved past Daiirdra without any explanation or apology.  The Tiefling, after looking briefly at the rocking chair, took a few steps out of Mara's sleeping area- just far enough to see the front door.

One could spit from the front to the back of this place, she thought wistfully.  But it's her birthright, now.  Really and truly.

"Shake a leg, would you?" Mara hollered from the kitchen.  "You're making sourmash soup."

"I-" Daiirdra began.  As soon as the open vowel left her mouth, she regretted it.

"You're gonna learn how, today!"

Ah, Cephas's mother- I suppose mine, now.  Always charming.  And sighing quietly, the Tiefling made her way back toward the kitchen area.

4:4 Pinpoints of silence.

Silveredge peeked around the dark, empty Raibeart family shrine room.  Quietly, she slipped inside the room's curtains and moved directly into the shadow of a tall shelf, disappearing into it.  Around the room, other shadows undulated- swelling and contracting as though they were water.

Seconds after the Shadar-kai entered, Sarai walked into the room.  For a moment, she paused just inside the curtain, looking around herself with a frown.  The afternoon sun flirted with the northern facing guestroom windows, not daring to come any farther in than it had to.  Sarai stepped up to one of the two sets and looked out, but seeing nothing out of the ordinary, she turned around and walked back out of the room.

Everything was still and quiet after the sound of her footsteps disappeared.  The occasional whooshing of the bellows, sucking and pushing the air, combined with the sound of metal being worked, blotted out the more natural sounds of birds, insects, the distant bustle of the marketplace.

"Where's dog?" an alto voice said calmly.

"Amadelle was sitting at the gate to meet us when we returned.  Seeing that he was tired, we walked to the docks together, and sat down for a while.  He will sit with her for lunch, but perhaps he will return to us for supper."

The sun slipped slyly through the sky, sending the shadows turning toward the eastern side of the house.  The alto voice hummed in understanding for a few moments before its owner spoke again.

"They worked you hard, then?"

"A bunch of thieves tried to take advantage of the last leg of the trip, but they were perhaps a bit overconfident.  My lord Kronmyr's archers saw them while they were still some distance away; they didn't surprise us as they wanted to."

The honeyed alto broke into a laugh that floated through the room.

"I didn't ask whether or not the rest of the Sunfire got worked, Edge!"

"Your handmaiden didn't work very hard," the delicate answering voice replied with the beginning of a chuckle warming her words.  "Niku charged into one of them before the archers even said anything to anyone else, and when your handmaiden's magic reached through her chain to embrace one of them, the rest of them ran screaming away."

"Good thinking, using your chain that way- and if dog keeps this up, he's gonna really prove that battle tattoo of his right."

"He enjoyed himself immensely- and so did the chain.  I wonder if it would be even happier if I took it to an arcanist and had it imbued with ice magic of its own."

"Nevermind that it might be happy about conducting cold because its coming from you, eh?  Did anybody else in the Catacomb Crazies have enchanted weaponry?"

A few moments of quiet thought went by, punctuated by the loud hiss of hot metal hitting cold water.  Aleksei's booming laugh overpowered the dying end of the hiss, and was joined by Stephen's, which was hardly any quieter.

"Only Elder Vhalan had an enchanted mace- or at least I suspect it was enchanted.  He would not let me touch it, so perhaps he feared it would do me harm."

"I thought you said he was attacking you when you were in his room that time."

"Well, that was immediately before-"

"Yeah, he probably didn't care much about the harm the weapon would do to you, if he attempted to do more harm with a different weapon."

"Elder Vhalan has a unique way of demonstrating his preoccupation for the handmaiden's welfare.  He punished my failure to speak of and for myself with the embrace of his chain."

The alto voice gave a voiced exhalation that was part exasperation and part fear.  "Gods, Edge, I don't know how you pretend that people who hurt you are nice people.  'Elder Vhalan' sounds like a proper asshole!"

"Some lessons are learned by force," the light, gentle voice replied.  "And such lessons are... unlearned, I suppose... with a force greater than the first... teacher... employed."

And silence stole through the room again, as the shadows on the eastern side of the room stretched across, avaricious of the other side.  A very distant bell announced the arrival of the first hour after noon, just barely making itself heard over the pounding of metal that echoed below.  Whispering steps brought the shorter, more slender Salone into the room.  Unlike her sister, she didn't bother looking around herself to check whether the recipients of her message were present or not.

"Mama says that she's held back some biscuits and tea water for you both," she said very quietly.  "She's lying down, but I'll be in the kitchen, if you want to come down for it."

The small girl turned around and left the room as calmly as she'd entered it, with as much certainty that her words had been heard as if she had seen their hearers.

"There's a bunch of your people here," the alto voice noted after the room had been left in peace for a few moments.  "About ten of them.  All taking orders- well, I guess nicely worded suggestions- from a very old Human woman- her name's Anubit, which doesn't sound native.  She said it differently than the others did, so, I think she's not from here originally.  They're all various shades of Humans- which I suppose isn't weird, around here.  They don't live in a burial ground, but they keep the house that they congregate in pretty funeral-worthy- grey and black sashes everywhere, couple of jars that look like they could be urns.  And they don't sing in the mornings.  They say the same thing as you do, but they just say it.  In this kind of flat monotone.  It's not as... um... pretty, I guess, and they're missing the old man's last phrase.  About if he dies, just carry on, blah-blah, -whatever-whatever.  That part's not even there."

Silveredge stepped away from the shadow that the family altar had been creating, leaving it smaller in her wake.  Spying a piece of paper on the makeshift bed that she hadn't noticed before, she knelt down briefly to recover it.

"You must have spent a lot of time looking over the place, to bring me back so much information about it," she noted as she picked the paper up.  "No doubt it took a bit of time away from whatever job you're working."

"I haven't gotten a job yet," the alto voice replied, its natural brashness somehow dimmed.  "I didn't... I don't think I'm up to it yet."

Silveredge allowed the surprise that she felt to surface on her face, for once.  "All this reconnaissance you ran on this coven... for me... and you don't think...?  Has anyone visited?"

"Well, Cloud visited twice, yes.  Left that, the second time.  Either it's for you, or somebody forgot that I can't read."

"Yet," Silveredge said firmly, turning around and looking up into the rafters of the room.  "Me riendo, Mi; I don't see you."

" 'Me rindo,' quieres decir," the alto voice replied.  "Infernal is tough.  You add one vowel, and it changes the whole word- 'riendo' is laughing."

"Me rindo," Silveredge corrected herself, still looking around.  "And some words in Elven are the same.  A misplaced consonant, and a common compliment becomes an unspeakably insulting curse."

Mi'ishaen stepped inside the still-open window and sat down on the wood-and-stone sill.  "Over here; I figured the rafters would be way too easy.  That first brat gave me a fright though; she was only about... I dunno... two or three feet away from me?  Good thing she's got all the the perception of her pop's hammer."

Silveredge crossed the room, letter still in hand, and sat next to Mi'ishaen, purposefully laying her hand on top of the crimson skinned one.  The two smiled at each other for a second, and Mi'ishaen very carefully placed her horned head on Silveredge's shoulder.

"I missed you.  Missed seeing you around.  Even when you were in the market or in the catacombs, you know, you were around.  You know?"

"I know."  Silveredge turned her head so that she could very delicately kiss Mi'ishaen's forehead.  "I gave it some thought, as you asked, and I think it would be most useful for you to learn Common first."

Mi'ishaen smiled, lifted her head, and waited for Silveredge to turn her head again.  The two made eye contact, and Mi'ishaen allowed herself to get closer.

"As slowly as you want," Silveredge encouraged.

The Tiefling did just that, cautiously approaching the Shadar-kai's lips, and closing her eyes when they met.  That first contact was brief, and the two parted smilingly.

"More?" Silveredge prompted when Mi'ishaen had opened her eyes again.  Mi'ishaen nodded without saying anything, her cheeks even redder than normal.  Silveredge shifted herself on the sill so that she could face Mi'ishaen a little more, then tilted her head just slightly as she leaned forward.  Mi'ishaen bit her lips with a twinge of excited anticipation, then leaned forward herself to give a longer kiss- one that pressed harder and ended with the playful nipping of lips.

"You're getting good at this," Silveredge encouraged, lifting the hand that Mi'ishaen wasn't holding and lightly tracing the largest curl of the Tiefling's horn.  "Will you show me when I do something that feels good, or that feels bad?  You don't have to say anything- only shake your head if it feels bad, and nod if it feels good.  That way, I'll learn what you like- okay?  I'm... I'm casing you- like the Hawke manse, hmm?"

And the two giggled together quietly, like those who share a secret sometimes do.