Completed Old Made New (Rue)

[Colt]

Affirmative, said her hands. Confusion, said her body. It was a feeling that Shahar knew he was sharing. He didn’t know what had just happened, didn’t know if she had felt the same thing he had; what words could possibly fit this situation? The silence which so often had been his shield now became his cage, barring him from any notion of understanding.

I’ll just… her hands sketched half-signs, none of them complete, none of them adequate to describe the sudden indescribable elephant in the room. She eventually gave up altogether, turning to head deeper into the maze of clothing.

Shahar’s gaze immediately wandered to the ground in an attempt to pretend that he was not still hyperaware of the soft footfalls and rustling of fabric that followed her. He didn’t want to acknowledge that he knew exactly where she was from the sounds she made, the rhythmic sound of her digging through piles of clothes, the pauses in her motions as she lingered on one thing or another––it was an auditory clarity that he had only ever previously experienced on the open plains, when he was unable to use his eyes without revealing himself to his prey and instead had to rely on his ears. What did it mean for him to be listening to this Rue with such focus, when he could not bring himself to even raise his eyes and look at her?

He heard her shift and turn, signalling her approach. Shahar looked up as she made her way towards him, two pairs of breeches in hand. He looked between them; one had vibrant green laces, while the other had simple brown ones. The hunter blinked. Was he supposed to choose between them? Or would the badger be enough to trade for both? Suddenly at a loss for signs, but suddenly desperate to find some anyway, Shahar’s hands moved of their own accord, forming half-questions that died almost as soon as they were begun.

That… Which? Enough? Both? One? Or both? This badger… which?

His gestures trailed into a stupefied stillness, and he gazed at Rue as if she had just offered him the most perplexing puzzle in the world. Without any real form for the question he wanted to ask, Shahar’s body took on a basic, unspecific query.

[Naiya]

There was an element of near panic in the rapid mashing of questions that were thrown at Rue, and she blinked slowly, half hoping that a full question would magically appear. It did appear in the lines of his body, and she found she was even more aware of these than she had been before. He read of confusion and unease and questions all at once. She flushed behind her hair, realizing that she looked far to long to have noticed so much.

I thought the green was... She couldn't finish the thought because she wasn't sure she could put words to the feelings that had driven the choice, unwilling to acknowledge the voice in her head that chimed helpfully that the green would suit his eyes.

She couldn't even piece together a single question from his signing, because as vague as she had been in her arrival, he had posed more than one fair question.

Choose, but both is more fair. She signed, thinking about it hardly a moment before offering or something else, a tunic or cloak. It wasn't until after she offered that she realized she would need to size him further for the other garments.

If she hadn't been so flustered she wouldn't have made the mistake, but then again, if she hadn't been so flustered it wouldn't have mattered.

[Colt]

Her own response was as jumbled as his was. I thought the green was… and then she gave up on that train of thought, moving on to his other mess of questions.

Choose, but both is more fair. Or something else, a tunic or cloak.

Shahar blinked again, hands on the threshold of a sign but not quite there. His ability to make decisions had abandoned him awhile ago, leaving him to glance back and forth between the two pairs of breeches without any inkling as to what he should choose.

Eventually, he just chose to affirm her offer.

Yes, he said, holding out the badger. It wasn’t really a proper response, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say. He was on unfamiliar ground now, and when on unfamiliar ground he tended to retreat, to go on the defensive, and so he left any social action to Rue.

[Naiya]

Dazed seemed the most accurate word to describe Shahar, Rue decided. He stared rather blankly at her for an uncomfortable amount of time. She realized that he was a man of few words, so it wasn't his silence that struck her, but even his hands were still, his body poised as though he was considering fleeing.

A tense moment lingered, and Rue shifted her weight uneasily, fingering the fabric between her fingers for distraction. Finally he assented, a rather firm yes his response.

But to what?

He held the badger towards her and she suppressed the desire to snatch it from his hands. It seemed his answer for everything.

Want something? Badger.

Need clothing? Badger.

How much? Badger.

Pick something? Badger.

A deep breath shuddered through her chest, serving to calm her only marginally. Yes, she decided, he wanted more than the breeches. A cloak and a tunic, she bit her lip doing the quick mental math, he still would come below two gold mizas unless he wanted these other items further adorned. Which left Rue still in his debt over the price of the badger.

His answer left Rue to interpret it's meaning, and she decided that she would outfit him in two new sets of clothing. One for working and one for play. She'd find a way to compensate the man the price of the badger even if it meant doing something that might bring about that strange feeling from before.

She wasn't sure if she looked forward to the possibility or dreaded it.

Gently she took the badger from his hands, careful not to let her fingers brush his skin. She waited a moment but then rather than wait for him to decide what to do about the breeches she placed them in his still outreached hand.

Follow me. Her body stated as she turned and wound between displays once more.

[Colt]

She looked at the offered carcass for a long, deliberating moment before slowly reaching for it. She took hold of a place that was far enough from his own grip that their hands didn’t even come close to making contact, and for that Shahar felt a bit grateful, if not entirely relieved. He wasn’t quite sure what deal he’d just made, but she seemed to agree with it. And if there was a misunderstanding, he still had mizas aplenty.

Follow me, said Rue, giving him both articles of clothing.

Shahar nodded and did so. His steps were quiet and creeping, as they might be when he was trying to keep his presence shielded from potential quarry. He measured his stride, remaining precisely a single arm's-length behind Rue at all times. When she slowed down, so did he. When she sped up, so did he. The distance between them was constant––at least, as constant as he could manage.

He wasn’t quite sure where they were going, though; he had what he had come for, but they were not moving towards the exit. They were instead going to the place where clothing for the upper body dwelt, though for what purpose, Shahar could not fathom. Wait, she had said tunic and cloak before, when the trade had been offered; was she intending to give him one of those, too? Would it cost more than the badger? Questions filled his head once again, but with Rue’s back turned and his own arms filled with fabric he knew it was pointless to sign at her. And so he remained in silence, following the copper-haired woman until she found where it was she wanted to go.

[Naiya]

With a fleeting moment of clear thought, Rue realized she could just approximate his measurements and have him try the clothing on. A solution far more desirable than risking the intimacy of being so close once again- or so she told herself.

She lifted two tunics, mostly at random and turned to face Shahar, finding that her motion brought her closer to him than she had intended. Pink darted across her cheeks and she took a small step back, her wall of hair falling softly around her.

Fair trade. I will take the badger. Will you accept an equal amount? It was more of a realization that he was unaware the value of his trade than it was an actual question, so she offered him the two tunics, one smaller than the other, and neither really of a suitable color.

For size only she signed her body reading unease but her hands signing with tones of reassurance. She found her voice then, and though she spoke softly, she wondered at how loud it seemed. "Please try them on." The words held the rushed tone of pleading although she wouldn't have recognized the sound for what it was, for she found it was becoming one that she used almost as frequently as she spoke.

[Colt]

Rue halted before a mass of tunics and took up two of them. When she turned back to him, the arm’s-length was shortened considerably, and both of them blushed and made small movements away. And then her hair was back, making a veil between them that was easier to deal with than eye contact.

Fair trade. I will take the badger. Will you accept an equal amount?

Shahar nodded. He would agree with just about anything she could say to him at this point.

Rue offered the two tunics to him. For size only. Her hands moved to reassure him, but her body had unmistakable unease on it.

“Please try them on,” she practically murmured, as if it was a request that needed actual pleading.

Ah, they were meant to take the place of measurements. Shahar nodded an affirmative and placed the breeches on a nearby table. He hadn’t taken his javelins into the city, and so the only thing upon his back and shoulders was the tunic he currently wore; with his hands now free, it took hardly a moment for him to take it off and expose his torso. Folding his own tunic neatly over his arm, Shahar held a hand out for one of the ones Rue had.

[Naiya]

Rue blinked, and suddenly Shahar stood half naked before her. It was not what she had expected. Heat crept through her, flushing her cheeks a darker shade of red that couldn't be hidden by the light tan that was dark as she ever managed to get.

Obviously he spent much of his time shirtless, apparent from the smooth darkness of his torso, uninterrupted even at his shoulders where sleeves would fall. There was the faint lightness of scars, she noticed, more numerous on his lower arm, the one she had opportunity to stare blankly at as it reached towards her.

What was it she was expected to do with that hand of his? So distracted was she by the new expanse of skin, shaped by hard lines of shadow and highlight, that she had forgotten herself completely.

With a soft gasp for air, hardly audible over the pounding of blood in her ears, she tore her eyes away. They fell upon the tunics, now clutched tightly in her hands, one a bright blue that was almost hard to look at, the other the red of rich wine.

Oh. It clicked, and she handed him the smaller blue one with an unsteady hand.

What would her father say if he found her in such a situation? He'd be furious to find his suspicions confirmed, because through his eyes, and the eyes of any outsider surely, this looked as though she was selling more than clothing in the privacy of the shop.

To be afflicted so strongly with fear at such a situation was unlike her, but it may have had something to do with the returning brush of that.. other from before.

All the same she could no more dispel the feelings than she could relax the tension in her body, though Shahar seemed to hold no such qualms about his state of undress.

[Colt]

Rue gawked at his hand silently, and after a moment Shahar looked down at it too to see if there was something there that should not be. No, it seemed to be a normal hand, if a bit calloused, and so he looked back at Rue with bemusement on his face. With a small intake of air she looked away from it, prompting him to look back; was his hand particularly offensive in some way? It appeared normal to him, corded and textured by years spent working under the sun, and he had seen hands similar to it on plenty of other people. He turned it over to look at the back. No, that appeared to be normal, too.

The curtain of hair was back when she handed him the blue tunic, thicker than ever, and so Shahar chose to focus on the clothing. It was certainly not the color he would have picked, but this was only to see if the size fit.

Which it didn’t.

The shirt went over his head easy enough, although it took a bit of work to get his head through. The sleeves clung to his arms, and the tunic ended just at his belly button, leaving another inch of flesh below it. When it was securely on his body, Shahar gave Rue a flat look.

Perhaps not this one, he signed.

[Naiya]

The blue looked better on him for the contrast against his skin, but that was truly the only positive to the garment. Well maybe there was one other, she posed the thought as she looked him over quickly, not letting her eyes linger anywhere for more than a moment.

When his eyes caught hers she found them trapped by the sparkle of amusement in them. His otherwise blank look was a stark contrast, leaving her to wonder what caused humor that danced in his gaze.

So ensnared by his look she almost missed the signing of his hands.

'Perhaps not this one.' Looking him over more blatantly she couldn't stifle the giggle that slipped through her lips, and quickly the sound was followed by a full on laugh. That was a sound she hadn't made in a while, and the light feeling that accompanied it was a relief after the tension of moments before.

Strong agreement her body informed him even as her hands signed I suppose you might prefer something less... revealing. There was a soft teasing in her manner that revealed nothing of her previous thoughts, though they lurked not far from the forefront of her mind.