To Rhaena Olwak, Schoolmistress and Unexpected Sister

[Rance]

There was no conversation shared between the seamstress and Professor de Lanz. She came to him with her own parchment this time, stained dark from her satchel, and after she had been invited into his home, she planted it on his bureau and said, "I need you to write, please."

She spoke in sharp, consonant-heavy Jernoan; he wrote in tall-lettered Standard. The entire time, the girl worried the hem of her black glove with her other fingers. Tugging. Stretching. Speaking with direction.

To Rhaena Olwak, Schoolmistress and and Unexpected Sister

I hope You will forgive the Overly-Poetic Title; it is what I think They call a Metaphor, though because I am not Too Clever, I may be mistaken, for We are not Sisters of Blood but perhaps of Other Things. Yet I did not write this Letter for your Toot Tutelage (though is it a Metaphor, truly), but to instead open a Dialogue of what I feel is Great Importance and Secrecy.

You see, in a Heartfelt Conversation with My dear Ser Catch, certain Now Knowledge has come to Me regarding a Similarity between us that during Our Few Conversations has never been revealed.

Ser Catch gave you Something. I must speak to You of It; I must see it to set My Heart to Ease. You are not alone with this Oddity, but before I burst, might We talk as Friends. Soon may We meet? You were the first Face to greet me with Sensitivity in Myrken Wood, and I feel the Nameless have directed Me back to You once again.

Also, maybe we will talk of Mathematics, and I must return Your (regrettably damaged) Book of Poetry.

I trust this Letter to my Closest Friend, Master C_____, Who I hope will deliver It as a favor to me, for though He is no Courier, I shall humbly ask Him this Favor.

Yours,

Gloria Wynsee, seamstress

When the letter was composed and stamped firmly with the professor's wax seal, the young woman took it and was gone without a word from his residence as quickly as she had come.

Letters, however, did not deliver themselves.

___________________________________

Cherny had set up a practicing range for his sling not too far from Catch's grand woodpile. The target -- a villain, Cherny had called it -- had some vicious teeth and eyes that had been sloppily painted on it. Those had been weathered and chipped away by all of his successful tosses with the sling. The seamstress stood beside it for some time, cloak wrapped around her shoulders, black shoes stuffed halfway into the hardened snow.

Inside, she felt as raw as her reddened nose, which had been too greatly abused from the unforgiving winter. She smacked the letter several times against her gloved hand, wondering if the boy might come that day to his little practice-range.

[Cherny]

There are little hints and clues: the snow around the woodpile is recently scuffed and disturbed by feet smaller than those belonging to Catch the wood-splitter; a small sack half-filled with lakeshore pebbles lies on the ground an arm's reach from the chopping block, bearing no sign of frost that would've crept across it overnight; the cordwood villain's head wears clumps and clots of snow where it's recently been knocked to the ground. So the boy is likely not far away.

A few minutes' patience are rewarded, then, by the sight of a boy in a patched black coat picking his way around the corner of the tavern, walking carefully so as not to spill the mug that steams fiercely in the chill air. He's halfway to the woodpile before he notes the seamstress standing beside his target, and he offers a wave and a grin before hastening to set down his tea on the chopping block's scarred surface.

"You don't want to stand next to him." Lifting his voice to carry hoarsely across the intervening distance. "He's a terror."

[Rance]

The seamstress was never without cheer to see her younger friend. She knew all too well how he walked, his slight height, and wondered in that moment, because she had not wondered it at all, does his chest hurt in this terrible air? When he approached, she returned his wave in that way she did, less with the fingers and more with the palm.

"A terror? No," she said, turning to look upon the battered target, giving it a smile and a little pat on its head-piece. "I think we look quite dashing together, Master Cherny. I have just been wooing him with my charms--" a humor, that, because she knew too well that she had so few, "--before you came to knock his brains in with your stones. A condemned man must have a few moments of peace before his demise. You see?"

But her care for the cordwood villain had only been ephemeral. Her heels crunched through the snow as she approached Cherny, her gloved hand hiding a fold of paper amid her stained skirts.

"You know that I am always happy to see you," she said, "but today, it is bittersweet: I have a dear favor to ask of you, Master Cherny, not because I wish to turn my friend into a mere courier, but because I trust no one the way I trust you."

The words were stiff, disappointed -- in herself. She produced the feather of paper and held it in a black glove.

"It is for Menna Olwak's eyes. I know that she is at your school," she said with some discomfort -- a flicker of her eyes to the ground, a turn of her toe in the icy powder.

"It is about my hand."

[Cherny]

That his throat is wrapped about with a thick scarf shows what precautions he's learned to take against the cold, the neckcloth of muslin beneath it that covers mouth and nose at other times. It can sting, yes, and set him to coughing, but he's grown accustomed to making allowances for that, finding ways around it. That or it does hurt and he just ignores it with the stubbornness of youth.

"He's a, a heart-breaker, he is." Clearly an adopted turn of phrase, some eavesdropped snippet of gossip condemning some dashing rake or all-too-charming rogue. "Leaves poor girls in, in tears and disgrace. Better if I knock his block off before you end up the same." A quite heated overheard conversation, it seems, a touch of farmer's accent creeping into the echoed words. There's a grin to go with that warning, though, and he waits patiently for the seamstress to cross the distance.

He nods in ready agreement at her being pleased to see him, the sentiment entirely reciprocated, but dark brows lift uncertainly as she goes on, her tone less than pleased.

"I can do that." Agreement as soon as the matter of favours is mentioned; she talks of couriering and a thin hand's already held out for whatever it is that needs taking; that it's for Sera Olwak isn't so much of a surprise, and he'd assume it was to do with threadwork or dressmaking or the like, were it not for the explanation that follows. His gaze drops reflexively to her gloved hand, and to the letter it holds, before lifting again with clear concern to inspect her face more closely.

"Are you alright?"

[Rance]

"I am well," she said. "Rather, as well as I can be--" she turned herself, a tilt of the hip, a sway of the skirts, "--when a wooden man has quite broken my heart in two halves. Have at him, Master Chery. Knock off his block, for it is what he deserves."

Her words were meant for the fun of them, that they might share this imaginary moment of damsel, hero, and villain. Yet, the humor was not without its weight, for he had asked if she was alright, and she could do nothing but tell Cherny the truth.

Only once she had told him a lie -- this is blightmillk, it is a demulcent, you see, meant to ease your cough while you recover; now hush, Master Cherny, and drink. It will soften your mind. You may see and hear things that are not real.

But that was not the only reason she had given him the mixture to drink.

Say yes, Master Cherny. Let me bear some of this with you. Give to me a morsel of what ails you.

But, brave boy, stubborn boy, her t'oddah, he had said no.

The guilt was still with her. It bent her spine invisibly. It rested on her shoulders like a burden of iron and lies. She had tried to disorient him -- to help him -- but yet she had not told why, had tried to take advantage of his lack of judgment, his temporarily-addled mind, if even for his betterment. The way Catch had looked at her, snarled, pressed his forehead to hers and said n-n-never again, the seamstress knew she had told her only and final lie to Cherny.

"Niall," the girl said, finally looking back to him. "I told her what I thought of her and Elliot with the potion-maker. She put me against the wall. The glove came off. She saw. She saw, Master Cherny, and I learned that not all secrets will be kept, even if I wish them to be.

"Ser Catch told me that Menna Olwak had a thing about her, and though perhaps its origin is not the same, and the reason for it--" she held high that black-gloved hand, fingers splayed, displaying it, "--may be different, I feel the need for this commonality. You see?"

She reached out and tightened his scarf. She had gentle hands. They reworked the twist of fabric so that it was not so loose, that it might keep the redness off his neck or the dryness from his skin.

"Now, on the matter of this revenge, give this fellow a good stoning. Will you? I wish to see how much better you have gotten."

[Cherny]

She jokes about the cordwood villain, and though the boy offers a quick smile at the attempt there is still the matter of the true answer. He's quiet while she explains, frowning at the idea of Niall laying hands on the seamstress, a glance for the tavern as if deciding whether to march in there this moment in search of the scarred girl.

As to Sera Olwak's involvement, though, that's something of a surprise to him - or at least, the thing about her is. That Gloria might write to her as a result of it takes a moment or two of thought to understand, but he does understand - a matter of seeking friends, of finding support before Niall tells... well, whoever.

"Your hand's fine." Uttered in a tone that makes it clear that any who disagree had best beware. "There's plenty of people who have things different. It's not like you've got claws or, or knives for fingers or anything."

For all his surly grumbling he's tolerant of that fussing with his scarf, chin lifting while she works before he shrugs a little to settle the fabric more comfortably against his skin.

He nods in reply her exhortation against the wooden figure, stooping to pick a stone from the bag unwinding the sling from about his wrist; it takes three or four casts, sling cord snapping like a whip each time, but when he does hit his target the clonk of stone on wood rings clear to the treeline and back.

[Rance]

Your hand's fine, he said. It made her smile--

what do you think of it, the Sister said.

it is the most awful thing i have ever seen, she said.

that is what it is supposed to be like, choir-child, terrible and a sin itself to look at; silver and steel are the colors of a rat'vak.

but i am not a rat'vak; i am a middle-streets girl.

no, you are neither of them, Sister said. you are not even a jerno anymore, not by the standards of the Nameless. do you think you can be a jerno with that?

yes, yes i can, Sister!

no, glour'eya. that is not right for you to say. it is a terrible thing for terrible girls. you cannot stay here--

--and blink.

"Thank you, Master Cherny. I could not ask for a finer friend, and that I might, I would refuse the option entirely. The world could make none better."

She said nothing more, because there were stones to be tossed from a practicing sling; his intervals had gone from one-crack-in-ten to one-crack-in-four, and unlike her doting concern for the presence of a falchion, the sling did not disturb her so greatly. They were only stones, and she did not see stones as things that could outright kill a man -- or get a boy killed, if he tried. The distance, too, pleased her. The further away from a villain -- whether wooden or otherwise -- the better for Master Cherny.

If you love to live, the Marshall had said.

She praised him when he struck it. She praised him when he did not, well until they parted ways when the sun had gone, and the cordwood target vanished under the moon.

[Cherny]

True to his word, he delivered the letter the very next day - at the end of class, when he might prevail upon the headmistress for a few moments of her time without interrupting the important business of teaching. So again he lingers after the other students have gone, hovering at the back of the schoolroom until an opportune moment in which he might approach and set the letter carefully on Sera Olwak's desk.

"I can, can take a reply as well, if you'd like." he offers helpfully, not entirely sure of the protocol when it comes to couriering. "I mean, I can wait. Or take it tomorrow, if you're busy."

[Jirai]

It is becoming almost a normal thing, to see the thin miller's boy lingering at the end of class until the other students have left. Cherny would not have to wait long at all - Rhaena would smile and wave him over, letter scanned.

"Ah, thank you, Cherny. And yes, please do wait; I shall have a reply in just a moment."

She pulled out parchment of her own, writing with the ease and graceful hand of long practice. It wouldn't be long before she had folded the letter and sealed it with wax. This would be offered back to Cherny along with a small coin for his trouble and a merry smile. "I hope this won't take you too much out of your way, Cherny. Do be safe!"

To Gloria Wynsee, seamstress at the Broken Dagger, Greetings.

Sera Gloria,

It would be a pleasure to speak with you at your convenience. I confess, you have piqued my curiosity, as I am not certain what gift from Ser Catch you speak of. I would dearly love to be enlightened. I have also been meaning to broach the matter of employing your skills to widen my wardrobe. I have come into posession of some fine silk, in shades of crimson, and I am sure that your skills would equal this cloth.

If you would care to stop by of an evening, once my duties at the schoolhouse are over, you would be received with great hospitality. I have included directions with this missive so as not to dely our meeting any further.

Sincerely

Rhaena Olwak