“You know, when Eury described the ‘stray’ she’d picked up, I…had almost hoped. And here you are.”
Umbrage nearly leaped out of her skin at the voice from her doorway, despite its familiarity. Sure, her door had been open, but her mind had been…somewhere else. “Ambrosine.” The charr turned haunted, yellow eyes towards her.
Ambrosine leaned against the door frame, letting Umbrage keep her space. They hadn’t been friends, exactly. Friendly acquaintances, who sometimes worked together on Order business. They probably would have been friends, had the whole events with Mordremoth unfolded differently.
She found it easier to be close to people who were in on her little Order secret. It was easier to be close to people you didn’t have to lie to, who’d’v’e thought?
“I’ll be around here and there if you want to talk. Thought I’d offer, seeing as how Eury is better at hitting things than talking about them.”
Umbrage hunched her shoulders. “I don’t especially want to talk about it. Or think about it. Not that I have a choice about the latter.”
Ambrosine had to admit to herself–she was DYING to know. Umbrage had been on a Pact airship out to Maguuma, same as her. It had gone down–same as hers. But they’d never found the wreckage (she’d looked) and no other survivors had ever surfaced (she’d looked for that, too). And yet here was Umbrage, years later, twitchy and sans her entire warband.
There was one hell of a story there.
“Well, I can help with that too. At least, if you don’t want to think about it when you’re sleeping.”
Umgrange side-eyed her.
Ambrosine shrugged. “We all have our nightmares. I stopped feeling shame for drugging my ass to sleep about the time I started to not feel exhausted all the time.”
“…I’m almost there but not quite.”
“Well, let me know.” Ambrosine crossed her arms and took pains to keep her expression pleasantly neutral. That Umbrage was in rough shape was easy to see. That she’d fight much of what would help her was also obvious. “It’s good to see you. I’ll be in touch, okay?”
Umbrage nodded before going back to her pensive rifle cleaning.
The rifle was new–Umbrage had used pistols before, but that must also be part of the story she didn’t want to tell. So Ambrosine closed the door and walked back downstairs, frowning.
Eury glanced up as she walked through the kitchen. “Went about as well as we expected?”
“Yeah, roughly.” Ambrosine shook her head, and slid her hands into her pockets. “I can’t believe she’s back.”
“I just think it’s funny that I of all people scraped her up. It’s good to reunite her with someone she knows, at least. I don’t think she’s ready to go back and confront all the Legion nonsense yet.”
“No, I imagine not. But speaking of nonsense, I’m back out in Elona for awhile as of tomorrow. I think we’ve got the radios working better out there, but it’s still hit and miss depending on the weather. Still, try to let me know if she’s having too many problems. Not that I think my usual methods are as effective on charr. You lot have a very different mindset.”
“Don’t you lot me,” Eury grumbled, albeit with no real irritation. “I don’t wholly grasp the mindset of those in the Legions myself.” She muttered something else under her breath, too, but Ambrosine didn’t catch it.
Ambrosine smiled ruefully. “You still have a different mindset. Just different again from them, as well.”
“Yeah, well. Look, I’m glad to see you, as always, but now it’s time to get out of my house.”
Ambrosine laughed. “Okay, okay. Got important stuff to do?”
“Yes. Going to gift the cub with a second dagger, and then spar with him. I’ll be using a greatsword, so the lesson of today will be ‘how to run the fuck away’.”
“A good lesson,” Ambrosine said, already on her way out the door.
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