Not yet, sage colored eyes said. Fia wasn't permitted to give Dariel her cheek or the top of her head. She was snared in the seemingly rare pleasure thawing his face and made to partake in his smiles. A fool when faced with another's gladness, Fia abandoned whatever she carried so she could return them their spirit. It did her good to supplant her recently oppressive thoughts. Her laughter slowly kindled, warm and fluid as firelight. Predictable as she was, Fia colored under the compliment, but a wise glint in her looks showed she did not hold them too dear. "You're right kind. And a seer to match." She let humor gently gild her face. "I sing to keep meself company. Do a middling job of it. Not all of us could be finches, have to have a few ravens. I like a bit of noise, I 'spose. Sounds like living." Brought to sudden levity from the gray trenches of recent days, she indulged a mote of play. "I'd have you know, I'll make your weapon sturdy whether I get a pretty word or not." Fia remembered the small furors Dariel stirred when physically overtaken by a thought, and it made her walk faster, almost matching his longer gait. "But I do think I may not live to see the forge, if'n I don't get out from underfoot here." When Dariel guessed around her ideas for his weapon, Fia's smile was surprisingly secretive. "Aye, we'll burn and cross as it goes. Best let the iron speak what it will." Defying expectation, she didn't scatter words as they walked. There was nothing forbidding in her form or dour in her feature, but her thoughts were new coals, slowly ripening in color and intensity. They wound her inward for a span as the pair traversed the Zintia peak. She became sensible to the world in brief spans, her eyes drawn towards common majesties: an especially fine carving in a lintel, a unique slope of skyglass, the change in cobblestones. "I'm glad for this task," Fia said in time, "Hinges and drawer pulls don't ask much of the heart…This will feel like meeting with someone." Whatever Dariel rendered of himself in their brief acquaintance would be drawn against the anvil, melded with the iron. She would be compelled to look for him whenever the project was taken up. It was an odd link to a relative stranger. The Touch of Fire had an elegant show room, populated with samples of work and pieces for purchase. Fia delighted in the array, but still felt disjointed from it. She was more accustomed to a forge beginning with a wooden door and packed earth. Whenever faced with something especially fine, she behaved like a pleasant guest. "Have a look about." She held her hand out for her scarves, "Thank you for toting them." |