That angling of hips caught him off guard, prying an agonized moan out of him, stomach tensing. As if pinned to place he watched her come closer, her hands on the rise and fall of his chest, a shift of weight on his body and the sensation of her cunt clenching at his cock as muscles worked. He huffed a small, pathetic sound, staring up into her eyes as a drowning man does at the ripple of sunlight.

He didn’t want to answer anything anymore, not honestly. Lies would perhaps get him what his flesh wanted, but then— the conversation would be over. And when would they have it again? What would it require to get here and how exhausted would he have to be? How to manufacture that she should ask and listen as she seemed to of her own volition, right now?

A man torn, he reached a hand to the bulb of her breast, fingers kneading to the skin in an indulgent caress. Dipping his look down to it, he felt so endlessly worn, old and—

Hard. Damn it all.

“ If you do ask— “ He said, calm as a man with his rock hard cock actively inside the squeezing heat of someone could. “ I would be remiss to not seek giving them to you. Whichever way I can. “

Overly measured in tone for how he strained against the bonds of propriety. To not take what he wanted, all that pent-up drive for pleasure in the way his hand trailed down from breast to the curve of waist and still further to her hip where it settled. The wanting pressing down each fingertip.

“ In friendship. “
 
The wound of it landed soft— soft, like he'd said Farren needed.

She blinked slow, like animals did when they were deciding not to bite.

His verdict had been expected, yet that rejection still split her open at the sound of the gavel, tilting the earth to such a degree that she would need to learn how to stand on new ground again.

Friendship. Of course.

She'd wanted more. Always more, but more fool her for thinking her starved heart had mastered self-preservation in moderation. But she was not the kind of woman who would collapse at a closed door. Perhaps, it wasn't for forever.

Besides, she had committed to only take what he could give. And if that was his affections in friendship only, so be it. Still— she admired that doomed civility that Aarno clung to, like it might save him from the truth of his wanting.

There was an ache of her own tempered want, the wanting of more, curled low in her belly, colder than any water could reach. She let it settle there, folding the feeling like a pressed flower in a book she’d read later, alone. Blood between the pages and a tired acceptance in the ink.

In its place rose the desire to fall into the moment, to lose herself in the simple passion between two people and the easy pleasure they could give each other.

For she told herself this would be the last time. The last time she allowed for more than her eyes to capture the shape of his lips. Allowed the way he took up her air in a room. Or the last time the brush of his fingers drew her like a moth to flame. She was refusing to keep fucking a man who claimed it was friendship only that burned in the frayed gap of their shared breath, made him moan her name, and grip her like a drowning man.

But this? This night? She would savor the last taste of him on her parched tongue.

A shudder dripped down her spine at his wandering fingers. The hot sounds she wrung from him shocked her in bright thrills until her mind was a thick mess of desire. She felt feminine and bewitching, and it conjured wicked thoughts of seeing just how far she could drive him to the edge before he fell apart.

Humming appreciatively, her voice spilled low like simmering sweetness. "Mmm, then consider this me asking for what you can give." Kiss-bitten lips landed with molten greed against his mouth, praising his soft moans with the slow, milking pulses of her inner walls around him.

One of her hands dipped beneath the water to find the slick ache of herself, her thighs parting wider in offering. “I need you to feel me.” she panted between gasps, “All of me.”

The words rode the frenetic pulse of their air, one hand braced to his chest while the other worked herself in tortured rhythm to the drag and grind of her hips. She would welcome the thrill of his sensing, knowing he could feel the sparks of her chased pleasure building at the base of her spine. The twist of rising rapture threading tighter, brighter, wilder. She would bare herself, so that he might know the full shape of her longing one last time.

@Aarno
 
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No objection, not a word. Just that blink, slow, the only ripple on the still pond as something he’d thrown floated to the bottom and settled there. Was it dark, down where it’d gone?

The shift in her was uncanny, the way she seized charge and spoke rife with a strange kind of finality. It all bled away when she kissed him and moved on his cock, rekindling all that searing hot desire that’d burn away the stickiest dread. If she meant to kill him, any which way, that’d be a problem to the man a couple minutes from now. And he’d fight her, then.

Presently he couldn’t but fall into what she offered him, too eager to let go, too bent out of proper form by the absurdity of what they were doing. So he accepted it with both hands, the malleable of her warm flesh spilling past the taut mould of his fingers. Catching her rhythm he worked his hips to it, pulling himself closer that they might touch more skin. Heaving chest and quivering stomach to hers, cold water retreating from where it’d pooled betwixt.

And as bid, he’d feel her. All of her.

Hands caressed every inch, desperate in their clutch, and for how overwhelming the ache in the nethers and the chest he couldn’t decide whether it was just himself, or the shared sensation from the both of them. He pressed his eyes shut and drew breath in shallow bursts, burying his moans and keening exhales into the root of her neck.

A pressure gathered and rolled in the base of his cock, horrible for how it’d stall to mere raw agony. That something just out of reach. Though he couldn’t speak, the pleading was in the urging of his arms and the tension of his thighs when he’d rock deep into her.

Faster.
 
Farren came with a soft gasp. It crested with him, but pulsed dully on the surface— nothing that reached her marrow, for how the taste of it fell flat. Like eating when you weren’t hungry.

Whether it was dimmed by the cold water or doused by the placid commitment of his words. A paltry balm to the dazed and battered prize that was left of her spirit.

She closed her eyes to gather her breath and bask in the last fleeting warmth of their joining. The heat of his breath. The glimpse of moons that bled through her pale lashes— blurring that horizon between fireflies and stars. And the final strength of his embrace that lent her just enough tender will to feather his cheek with a lingering kiss.

Then she sighed— a breath’s worth of bone-deep exhaustion, one made only by the readiness to face whatever came next with a stoic resignation. She slid gingerly from his lap, the cold surging into every place his hot skin had touched, enough to wake her from the rest of her lust-driven stupor.

A casual, friendly smile lit her lips as she extended her hand to help him up. As comrades would.

“Can’t say I’m mad about fucking in a lake,” she drawled with crafted levity, “makes for much cleaner aftercare.”

She looked to the shore, finding her horse and the pack Aarno had brought her. The briefest grief smoothed her face like cold glass before cracking and vanishing, as if it had never been. She turned back to him with a sardonic laugh.

“I'm definitely feeling the weather, though." She jilted her shoulders to stave off the chill that gathered. "You said you brought my extra clothes?”

@Aarno
 
He couldn’t come. It’d been too long, too strained, too wet in the wrong way, the skin too raw that even the gentle throb of her cunt when she climaxed couldn’t get him there. And his cock was killing him for it.

This wasn’t the first time. But it was hideously proper that it should’ve come back to haunt him now. A groan hissed out through pressed teeth as she rose off him, but it wasn’t out of pleasure anymore, just pain. An oversensitive sting and burn to which the gentle caress of cold water was leagues above any other touch. And there he sat, a mix of dull frustration and slowly dawning relief upon his face. He wouldn’t take her hand, didn’t even see it, just closed his eyes and let himself sag in his seat, one hand working through his hair. Like adjusting it was going to redeem him.

He swallowed hard, trying to work the dryness of overwrought and ultimately unfulfilled lust from his mouth. Breathed out and willed some spirit into his look even as weariness crept back into every fiber. It was late and they’d yet have to— do so much. Or he would have to, as wasn’t it her who could just look for a cozy hollow for her slumber, in a pinch.

Ten thousand blazing Hells.

“ I did. It’s— “ He started, glancing past his shoulder at where he’d left their packs at the shore. The trail of his discarded clothes, which inspired a twist of distaste on his tired visage despite how much effort he’d extended to appear unaffected. Whether it was obvious to her, he couldn’t care less.

“ They’re there, if you packed them. “

With that he settled back to place, sweeping the water over his arms, then bending forward to splash his face as if he needed it. Stared over the surface of the lake for a fleeting second, with the wistful indecision of a man much too weary for a swim he felt the inclination for.

He wasn’t getting out of this damn puddle with a raging hard-on, that was for sure. Perhaps he would rather drown.

“ I’ll be up in a bit. “

And dive away he would, easing beneath the black surface and into the murk, kicking off from the shallow shore.
 
For a time, she watched the shape of Aarno slice through constellation-flecked water. Half-caught between admiring the view of the lengthening stretch of his back and rolling her eyes at the weakness of the flesh.

Get an absolute grip, Farren.

For once they left this lake, those carnal desires would be beyond the bite of her sharp teeth. It would be careful measures and cordial exchanges. Nothing more than Knights who shared oaths across the same Sanctum.

Just be his friend first.

And yet— she hovered at the water's edge, toes reluctant to seek dry land.

How easy it would be to live as a wraith who haunted this lake, watching the same man return every sunset to skip stones across her waters, never tossing the strange, pale one she knew he kept tucked in his pocket.

The calming snort of one of the horses broke her spell of twilight yearning, and without looking back, she stepped out and away from his influence. The witchling moonfire snuffed from her gaze, a sober grey once more.

Drawing on a thread of Shroud, that bit of clever Wyld she’d learned at the Monastery, she pulled the water from her body in a trickling current— gathered it into a nebulous orb that floated in the air before feeding it back to the earth.

When it vanished, she stood as dry as if she’d never swam to begin with.

She dressed quickly in her extra clothes, tying her characteristic braid, bells adorned with welcoming chimes.
And in an effort to pay him back for his fruitless trek through the woods, she gathered and folded Aarno’s discarded clothes and laid them near the shoreline, neat as an apology.

When he was ready, he could meet her by the horses.

There, she busied her hands checking the packs at their sides, searching for torn straps or missing tack that occurred in the blighted chaos. The motions were meditative in the way they brought her tangled and layered thoughts to heel. The buzzing in her head quieted as she took each blistering joy and tortured ache from words too callously thrown and withheld and sorted everything behind locked doors. Rebuilt her walls with torn fingers, blood mixed into the mortar like a warding.

If they left tonight, she wagered they’d be home in about three days, that is if her star-reading held true. And if they could survive each other in the meantime.

@Aarno
 
He took his time. And then some more.

But eventually the time comes for all men not made for water to return from it. When the cold and the exhaustion outmaneuver reluctance, the support of earth beneath ones feet inviting instead of heavy as the body that would need stand on it of its own accord again. Exposed to air and whoever else would breathe it where he surfaced.

The last, drifting loop saw him to shore, as close as he could get. And there he eased himself up in a gentle splash, silver hair plastered to skin, serpentine and streaming. Eyes down as he reached a hand to peel the strands into a bundle that he’d bring over one shoulder, to rest on the left of his chest. Squeezed the length dry on his way up to where his belongings lay. Unhurried, but not because he wanted to be.

As did gravity, so did the tiredness settle into every muscle and nerve in the calm of night, absolute. And he hated how weak it made him feel — fingers devoid of strength as he drew on strings and tied up his garments as if in a dream, the sluggish awareness as he accounted for his effects and the next couple steps, the haziness of a look that would’ve rather looked at nothing, than any of the things there were left.

The darkness of the woods was where he would rest his errant gaze and it was almost like shutting one’s eyes. Not really. Leather snapped as he tied up the end of his belt, that last yank that’d secure it to his waist. Words boiled and folded into one another, unable to come out, too obvious even as he pretended focus on fixing the thick wool of a cape about his shoulders. The silence was there. And it was deafening.

His face was drawn to an expression, something like a frown and a forlorn press to his mouth, but he wouldn’t know what for. Grief? The amorphous, indescribable mass that’d made home in the pit of his stomach, coiling and reaching out to eat up the last of one’s power of will. For patience, decorum, all the expectations and the civility that divided a man from a base urge. To just— lay down and not get up again. Who gives a shit?

He would. There was so much to do. He had a home to go back to. And if he delayed any more, he’d hear of it.

The vigour he mustered was none of the sort at all, but he managed to pick up his pack and sling it over his shoulder in a way perhaps resembling determination. He certainly made an effort to sound decisive, all of it in the feigned steadiness of his tone and step as he turned on heel. To regard Farren, properly, for the first time since they’d parted not many steps from here, but all too many minutes ago.

This doesn’t have to be complicated. Or awkward — it’d only be as meaningful as anyone would let it be.

“ The next village isn’t far from here, if memory serves. “ He begun, approaching Svala and taking it by the reins. Inspected them for where bark had abraded the leather, that residue of terror that’d linger in the tack far longer than it did upon whom wore it.

“ We’ll have to ride through the night, but it’ll be safer. “ His hands worked to secure the pack to the straps at the back of the saddle. He barely noticed they were shaking with the effort.

“ And we’ll get proper damn beds and warm rooms to sleep in, hmh? “
 
Farren watched his approach from over the wither of her gelding, fingers stroking absently at the animal’s mane as Aarno secured his pack. Lips thinning as she noted the faint tremor in his hands. But there was nothing to be done about it, except to acquiesce to his urgency and swing up into her saddle with the familiar creak of leather.

A pat of approval to his arched neck, and an approving hum at Aarno's words. “Yes. I think we’ve more than earned our rest, Syr Latva.”

A shift of her weight and a squeezing of a knee sent her gelding wheeling in the general direction of the village he mentioned.

The rhythm of hooves taking up the silence.


The moons were well on their slow climb across the sky by the time they crested the rise into the village. A pocket of gold light spilling in the hollow between dark hills, the smell of resin and pine thick in the air as woodsmoke curled above peaked thatched rooftops. Yet even at this hour, the single tavern was warm with laughter, people still drinking and singing from the doorways.

This was a place that specialized in lumber, so it didn't surprise her that the single inn gathered every lumberer with just enough prosperity to afford comfort after a hard day's work.

A scrawny hostler no taller than her chest came scrambling out of a line of side stalls that hugged the building, his hair a hay-bent mess, and cheeks ruddy from sleep. And while the stalls may have been weathered and slanting, there were enough planks left in their structure to provide adequate shelter for their tired mounts until the morrow.

Farren slid from her horse in one smooth motion and met the boy with a bright, respectful smile to offset any awkwardness for the strange hour of their arrival. “Merry meet, good sir. Or nearly morning, I suppose.”

She passed coin enough for both horses and her reins to his care, untying saddle bags while she gave instructions to Acorn's quirks and slid the rest of her packs to her shoulder.

Farren turned, eyes flicking briefly to Aarno. Her weight shifted, readying to stride over and unburden him before he could stubbornly deny needing the help, since she had strength left still for the both of them.

But that closed door met her, and she was too worried by half that she might tread where her meddling was no longer wanted. And so she stayed back, listening to a stray chord of fiddle bleed from the inn door, the promise of a warm meal to unwind the weight of the silence between them.

@Aarno
 
Syr Latva.

The knifepoint of it was sudden, if obvious, and for all his weariness he wasn’t immune to the sting. It lodged betwixt the ribs, stuck to the bones and willed an irritation to every inhale. But what was such a little thing, two words, next to the worse things they’d exchanged not long before. Add it to the fucking pile, at this point.

And as they traveled to the tentative rising of the sun, the wounds festered on and filled with worms, too deep for his thinned out temperance to cleanse. He figured he’d be about ripe and ready to perish by the time they could finally steer off the road, exploding as a corpse bloated with rot and bile at the faintest probe upon tender flesh.

By some grace Farren had it in her to take initiative upon their arrival, saying all the things he hadn’t in him to give. Pleasantries, the shits. He must’ve appeared a proper thrice-shot-in-the-arse troll next to her, saying nothing and sparing mere glares to whomever would pass his field of vision. The way she hovered in his periphery as he finally dismounted was not lost on him, but he made a pretense of not noticing it.

Not right away, anyway. Damn her eyes.

“ I’ll manage, Farren. “ He spoke without looking, a steady monotone amids the click of buckles and creak of leather as he struggled through the ties about his belongings with cold fingers. The saddlebags were slid off and shouldered sluggishly therein, mainly for his fear of dropping them had he done it any faster.

“ Should check if they have room, first. Then board. “ Slung his pack on his other shoulder and yielded his horse in a nod to the anxious boy of a stablehand standing by. Upon his turning for the door and that blasted music coming past its seams, he hazarded a look at his company.

“ If you’ve an appetite, that is? “
 
Rumination was a dangerous bedfellow to idleness. And idleness was all she knew as they rode to Orren.

Despite her best efforts, Farren kept replaying the last few days in her head, picking them all apart in fetid layers. And fed up with her own predatory thoughts, she decided she was refusing to suffer through the rest of the trip home like that, especially with Aarno by her side. And with no small effort, she sorted back through and wrangled the worst of her feelings, folding them away into some distant part of herself.

Folded away from the sting of rejection, from the heat of embarrassment over mistakes she'd made, and even the wounds unanswered for— tucked away until she was pleasantly numb and could watch her body from a distance go through the motions. To say the right things, move the right way, and for all intents and purposes, appear present and whole, while the core piece of her consciousness peered out, safe and unaffected.

Aarno said:
“ I’ll manage, Farren. “
Click to expand...

So it was easy enough to rock back on her heels and placate him with acquiescence and widespread hands—"I know you can." Because it didn't matter anymore. Her mask finally falling so well into place before following his lead and nodding toward the building with its rattling seams. "Actually, I'll wager luck will find us easy enough on this one. It's a small logging town, ye? Odds are most of the regulars have houses nearby, so what rooms they have will probably be for us travelers.”

She dared a sidelong glance as they neared the door, inspired by a strange levitous humor, her brow slanted and mouth curled with the ghost of a smile.

“Considering all of my strenuous activity today? Ha, yes, I'd say I had an appetite.” She clapped him casually on the shoulder, that smile solidifying into a sharper illusion. "But cheer up! You get a hot meal and a bed all to yourself, my treat."

She said no more on the subject of blight-fighting and lake-fucking, for they were swallowed up the next moment when they stepped inside The Copper Axe.

The interior was warm and rowdy with a low pulse of casual unwinding. It was a low-ceilinged establishment with mahogany beams and walls stained with years of pipe smoke. One man near the hearth was asleep upright, arms crossed, while another beside him swayed perilously with a tankard in hand, mid-story. A kerchiefed woman with windburnt cheeks threw dice into a leather cup with one hand and gripped her lover’s collar with the other. And above it all, a single fiddler sawed away in the corner, and a man with a harmonica perched atop a barrel, where his boot tapped in time against the wood.

Behind the bar stood a man built like a chopping block: short, wide, and dense. His forearms crisscrossed with scars and black hairs curled from stove heat. He looked up as they approached, eyes keen despite the late hour.

Farren led the way, weaving through the small crowd until she stood before the counter and gave him her most disarming smile. "Good evening! We're looking for two rooms, please, and I suppose at this point, more of an early breakfast?"

The barkeep didn't answer right away— he was too busy eyeing the shape of Fell tattoos on her cheeks and the silver bells hanging over one shoulder. He grunted with some unnamed emotion, and the two proceeded to haggle and exchange coins.

Eventually, Farren stepped back to victoriously wave two copper-colored keys in Aarno's face. "He's bringing us our meals so we can eat while he gets our rooms ready."

She settled into an empty stretch of one of the long tables near them and sat with a tired droop of her shoulders.

The relief came from the absence of a horse beneath her, the dull throb of her back easing once the motion stopped.

She exhaled in one long breath and let her head tip back slightly.

“Well fucccckk,” she muttered, eyes half-lidded as she stared at the rafters. “I'd say we also earned a drink.”

@Aarno
 
The tension relented some on their way, for how having to keep on forced that two exchange words. A civility and strand of communication despite themselves, all business and, ultimately, emotional distance. He felt it woven to every sentence, easy and efficient as they were. The cheer she assumed was almost insulting for how sourly tender he yet felt.

My treat, for fucks’ sake. And yet, what was the alternative — mutual sulking? Hellish.

He chose gradually to make an effort at taking her cue, to mimic the approach of pleasantries as if nothing had happened, to bend and to bow into a shape that was at least halfway presentable. Suppose he could do this, assume the motions that’d get the fuck out of here with as little friction as possible. Or, at least, to bed until the moment came when he’d be ready to get up again. Recovered and hopefully mellowed out.

Properly like, none of this numbed out bullshit that cozied up as Farren lead their way first to accommodations, then to a table. The two of them would be just fine ultimately, lived through the lot and then some — and even the finest dust settles eventually. He had to hope.

He’d followed in her immediate wake as a mute ghost, not daring to open his mouth until they were perfectly sat down. Side by side, as sitting across at the broad, long tables in a crowded room was both inpractical and inconsiderate. He sagged on his seat, leaning against both elbows that he’d propped on the table, palms on his face and exhales dull against them. Cavernous huffs, too far gone. The warm of the indoors was slamming him like an overloaded timbercart.

A drink? Fuck.

“ Sure. “ He arrived back to the realm in a flop of hands like a man reluctantly resurrected and with about as much spirit, glancing at the bar. “ Sure, why the fuck not. “ Continued on, tone hiking up with determination as he swung one long leg over the bench and levered himself up.

“ Hold the spot, will you. “

With a tap on the table, he beelined for the bar. The grim personality manning it met his eye with about as much interest as he had towards anything at present, which was none. He could sympathize with it.

“ Drink for me and my friend. Whatever’s stronger than water. “ There was no list, so he had to imagine there was but the one item. Ale or something, usually. The man didn’t ask clarification, merely lurched to motion while himself rifled through coin on his palm. Counted what he imagined was fair and put it down on the counter. It was never disputed, the lot disappearing beneath a palm as they were slid over to the other side in exchange for two pewter tankards. He picked them up.

“ My thanks. “ And turned on heel.

He’d look at Farren in just a glance as he slid her share over, a hollow scrape on the rough-hewn table, before planting himself down beside her. Tankard dangling by its ear in his grip, he brought it to click against the rim of hers.

“ Cheers. “
 
By the time Aarno returned, Farren had her arms sprawled across the table in a mimic of ease, one elbow bent lazily as she tilted her head faintly toward the din of the tavern. She accepted the tankard with a wan smile, already longing for the golden taste of Fellwine, but she was grateful for even this watered-down ale, or any brew that dulled the edge and carried her away.

Her gaze found him, and she lifted her drink to meet his, the rim of her tankard brushing his with a soft, fleeting clink.

“Cheers.”

She nursed her drink slowly, watching the bar for a while in silence. Soothed by the act of just observing— the churn of patrons coming and going, the clatter of tankards, and laughter siphoned between stories. All while trying her best to ignore the air that lived between where her arm almost brushed his. That space ached like a bruise she couldn’t press on for fear of weeping.

A small group of men loitered in the far corner, speaking low among themselves. One laughed a little too loudly, glancing over at her. Then another. Farren stiffened slightly at the pointed flick of their eyes, her gaze sliding away with practiced indifference. She looked instead to the band playing and turned the handle of her mug between her fingers, her grip tightening as she realized it was already half empty.

The barkeep, Jakobir, as she had learned from others shouting it, was the name of the barkeep who brought their food without fanfare some time later. Her thanks waved off with a humble grunt as he went back to his bar.

The bowl of perpetual stew was thick with root vegetables and the occasional gleam of fat on broth. Beside it sat a heel of bread and a modest hunk of cheese. Farren leaned over the bowl and began poking through the contents with her spoon, stirring slowly as if hunting something down.

She found what she’d expected. Strips of some kind of gamey meat.

It was a small thing. A common enough disappointment. On any other day, she wouldn’t have blinked. But now, with everything else gnawing at the back of her ribs, it felt like one more stone on the pile leaning against her carefully numb seams.

With a sharp breath through her nose, she scooted the bowl toward Aarno with a frustrated sigh, her carefully crafted good cheer evaporating.

“Here you go,” she muttered, voice thin with lilted sarcasm.

And then she turned to her bread and tore it apart with jerking pulls, chewing like it owed her something.

@Aarno
 
It had been terribly pleasant for a hot second, how one can forget and lose himself in a crowd and the noise of it. Listening to strands of conversation, letting the gaze lazily drift across the room betwixt rowdy points of interest, all whilst sipping at his drink.

And then the meal, that he had frankly completely forgotten about, arrived. Pulled them back to their little spot and what quickly dawned on it not long after he’d picked up his spoon. Tiredly, he stared at the bowl she’d pushed over with first incomprehension, then barely veiled disappointment. Not so much at her, as just the—

Everything. The past day and a half. The fucker was just getting thicker with bullshit, wasn’t it.

He stifled the obvious questions, the stupidities that always bordered on condescending, and nod his head. Pushed the stack of bread and cheese on his side of the table over to her with the back of his hand.

“ There you go. “ He implored, toneless, and paused for a draught from his drink.

“ It’ll probably be awfully dry though. “ He continued belatedly, picking at his stew without appetite.

“ So if you need another drink— “ Look drifted from his absent poking with the spoon to their surroundings, where one too many pairs of eyes could be met. Lingering in their general direction and quickly turned away at his glare.

“ Just say the word. “
 
There was a distracting lurch in her chest at the small gesture— it almost pulled her back from that far-away place as her heart thumped once, too hard, a painful little betrayal. But she had to remind herself of reality, that Aarno was just being polite, and the little things didn't have to have meaning beyond one being decent to the other. Still, her eyes were softer than before as she looked at him. “Thanks,” she murmured, her fingers brushing the back of his hand as she accepted the simple fare.

She was just about to take him up on the drink, noting her now bone-dry mug—how did that keep happening—when Jakobir reappeared. The barkeep dropping off a single fresh tankard of ale in front of Farren.

“On the house,” he said. “Courtesy of the gentlemen in the corner.”

Farren’s hand froze halfway to the gift. Shrank back as if it had become a snake ready to strike.

Flat grey eyes cut to the corner. The same men from earlier. They were watching her reaction now with open interest, lifting their mugs in a mock salute, grins too wide and sharp in the dim firelight.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” she muttered. All she wanted was to eat her fucking bread and cheese and then climb into bed, hopefully, at least six cups deep.

But she lifted the drink anyway, offering a tight-lipped smile in return. Then she turned back to the table and didn’t take a sip, passing it to Aarno instead. "Wanna trade?"

@Aarno
 
The lads have their nets out, alright. Obnoxious.

He stared at her drink as she offered it, or rather, passed it over. Shifted his look to middle distance and leaned his shoulder against hers, playing the pretense of casual conversation.

“ Let’s. “ And simple as that, he put his tankard down in front of her. Picked up his new, freshly poured one, as per provided by some possibly perfectly nice gentlemen. “ I’ll even put an arm around you, if you like. “

Spoken low just betwixt them, deadpan and only half in jest.

“ But you’ve better come bail me out once they choose to fight me for your favour. “ He mustered his worst smile and rose the tankard at the leering men in a toast, head tilting with mock appreciation. All sharp teeth.

“ I’d rather not get ambushed on my way to the privy. “
 
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