Mon Mar 18, 2013 4:55 am
To no where with them. Let them wallow in their thickness.
And did Raia know how the seamstress had been playing the sides? That she'd communed secretly with Elliot on the potion-maker's behalf, that concerns levied toward the Marshall of violence against Raia turned into a survey of the girl's benignity? The seamstress balanced on thin threads, but did not see it that way -- it was diplomacy.
As they spoke of Cherny, she grinned. "Does what he does? While he is milling," she said, laughing, though she did not know if milling was at all what it was the boy did. He was a worker at the mill, but what was milling? "I know that he throws heavy bags, and one day his muscles will grow so large his shirts will not fit him, and I will wonder what happened to my very scrawny Cherny, and -- and I will brood like an old woman over small changes."
She intertwined her arm with Raia's and looked down for a moment at the potion-maker's hand, at her closeness and proximity. While she was younger and did not know as much as Raia, when she felt the warmth of her friend's touch, heard the cheer and excitement in her voice, she realized she would do what she must to protect her friend. She would ball her fists. She would spit in faces. Things rash, impulsive, subtle. Myrkenite as she was becoming, she would be a Jerno if she must. When it mattered. For friends.
"We may start moving thigns whenever you like. It will be as easy as pie, Raia, as they say. As easy as a pie."
And so it was -- or should be, and if it were not, it would certainly have been a grand opportunity for some much-needed laughter.