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.