Makeout Cliffs, The Fading Wood
Winter 212
There is a smear of peach and plum among the twilight beyond the mountains and rising from a tin cup a bit of steam where sits the dwarf woman Korene. The thick honey braid of her hair has been embellished with the small blooms of winter flowers and heavy furs envelop where she sits atop stones where the cliffs overlook the lands. The fire beside her is no larger than a boot and its flame concealed just beneath the climbing ridge that empties over the side into the wide spell of the fading wood where she sips her tea.
It’s the snap of a twig that draws her attention, but there is no alarm. The Bandit Rye approaches with several heavy gasps curling into a fog on the air before his mouth. He squints with one of his eyes, glancing around. “Might you ever do this nearer to kit? Perhaps downhill for a change?” said, before he finds a place to sit on the ground with his back against one of the large stones beside her fire.
Korene doesn’t mistake the things he’s said to be actual questions, but instead regards her sandy-haired companion with some amusement as he slumps down. She sips again at her tin, and watches Rye as he takes his own tin cup from his belt and bends forward lazily and with a grunt to pour himself a bit of tea from the small open pot. He leans back again and blows across its surface, the steam curling through the winter air. He turns his eyes toward the remnant of the day lingering still on the edge of the horizon, not yet prepared to go, as he sips from the tin. It’s been months now since the… The muscles beneath Rye’s eye twitch a bit and he shifts his tongue around behind his teeth before reaching up and pulling a bit of soggy brown leaf from his mouth and squinting in Korene’s direction.
“It is tea,” the dwarf says proudly, taking another sip of her own, her accent snow and mountain tops.
The human furrows his brow a bit and a small groan rises out of him, “Korene, you need to use certain kinds of…” he pauses, peering at the dwarf who is glaring at him over the lip of her cup and sipping toward him audibly, aggressively. ”… never mind,” the bandit concludes, glancing toward the quiet forest once more.
“What are they talk of?” she asks, chewing merrily on a bit of leaf.
Rye quirks an eyebrow for a moment and runs his tongue along the back of his teeth, “Tossing logs into the road and narrow gaps and all the storybook things, naturally. They are getting stronger, though. I suspect they will be fine. They can do things I’ve never seen anyone do… not even our beloved woodland mates.”
Korene seems to chuckle heartily against the lip of her tin, before leaning more fully and comfortably against her own stone. The two sit in silence for a time as the last smear of lavender silhouetting the forest and the mountains can be said to be gone. Her voice is more quiet, “They are young. Some of them are going to die,” with a glance toward Rye now half painted by the fire’s light.
The bandit stares into the top of his cup for a moment more, his expression impenetrable. There is for a moment a field of blueberries in the spring and the sound of iron bells on the necks of cattle, before he glances up and takes a breath and a dim smile curves across his mouth with a shrug of his shoulders, taking another sip. “That’s the way of the world. There’s nothing won without its price.”
Korene watches him for a moment longer in the quiet. “Little Bear will know what to do when time. I train him strong.” She picks up a chopped log and nudges it closer to the fire so that its side begins to warm as the others are waning. “Which group are you?”
Rye blinks at the question and glances upward for a moment, adjusting his posture where he leans against the stones and rests one arm across the edge of it, lounging comfortably and drumming his fingers. “I hadn’t really thought of that - here I was hoping we’d just let them do all the work. I should probably go with the boys. I think that pink haired girl has become infatuated with me. I don’t want her to be distracted at a critical moment. The poor thing.”
Korene smirks knowingly as she rolls the log further into the fire and then leans back again. “It is perhaps for best. I will like to see Little Bear put his metal to the Swan I think,” said across another hearty sip of her tea. The two are quiet for a moment more, before she adds, “Saniel has not returned,” as much a question as a statement; a glance exchanged between the two.
Rye shakes his head a bit and brushes a bit of his hair back from his face, fishing a leaf out of his cup with the tip of his finger, his eyebrows going up. “Nope. It’s probably fine. He’s been away longer than this before,” he says, taking another sip from the cup and cutting a smile in her direction.
Korene nods slowly, her eyes lingering on him for a while more, staring through the mask of his ease, before drifting away from him and back toward the fire again.
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