Tell Me a Tale, Storyteller
After the meeting of the well, Larei had not thought she'd see Eiel from Far Away again. He had retrieved her bucket, they had exchanged more playful quips, and then he had been on his way to the bathhouse to clean a month's worth of grim from his skin and perhaps pay in the flesh they had skirted around in conversation.
Larei would admit openly that if that were the case, she was terribly jealous, and if the women who got the chance did not appreciate it, she could call them fools.
After all, who wouldn't be interested in a man from far-distant lands, where the gods were different and the people crawled out of the ice and snow?
She was at her loom, fingers deftly working on her weaving and ears deftly listening to all the gossip around her as fellow weaver women murmured about who was sleeping with whom, who the new bastard's father was, and whether the soldiers would be returning home from a recent battle soon or not.
A shadow fell over her loom the same moment silence fell among the women, and Larei looked up to see Eiel from Far Away standing before her; clean shaven and smiling a dimpled smile that she now had the opportunity to fully appreciate.
"Now here's a face I did not expect to see again. The company of the bathhouse not to your liking?"
"They poked me too much for my liking," Eiel said, looking to the other women and giving them a polite nod before turning back to Larei. "I was about to leave town when I saw you, and thought I should say goodbye."
"You're leaving? Already?" There was something heavy hanging in her chest at the thought, but the Grecian woman put it aside along with her loom, standing up and lifting her chin in that pride she had shown before. "Well, then I may as well walk you to the town gate, hm?"
"May as well." Eiel grinned, offering her his arm in a move unrecognized to her. But she took it all the same, glancing back at the women and grinning at the thought of the gossip that was going to spread because of this. She didn't care; she was hanging onto the arm of a handsome man and they weren't.
They walked casually through the quiet streets, Larei looking surreptitiously at Eiel from the corner of her eye while the foreigner looked around with quiet interest at the town. They slowed near the gates, no one around (and walkers paying not the least bit attention to them).
Turning to Eiel, Larei folding her hands behind her back and smiled at him coyly, rocking back on her heels.
"I never got to hear a story," she said after a moment, smile widening when she saw a grin twitch on Eiel's lips. "Got any short ones to tell before you go?"
"What will be the payment, Just Larei?" Eiel asked. Larei laughed at the continued joke, shaking her head and shrugging thin shoulders. "Something within reason, of course..."
"You never did take payment for retrieving my bucket."
"I had thought to keep you in a debt, for when I eventually returned. But perhaps I shan't. What kind of story would you like to hear?"
"I'd like to hear a story about the mysterious foreigner who came and went," Larei said, flicking back a loose curl of hair that had fallen from its ties. Eiel's expression sobered a little, and he reached out to assist her, fingers pausing near her temple.
"...he was just a man with some stories in his head," Eiel muttered, tracing the length of her face; callused fingertips brushing against a cheekbone, curving along with the jaw and stopping at the chin, touching her bottom lip without hesitation. "Silly stories, really, things he'd heard about on his travels and things he just made up. He was a chronic liar, especially when it counted... but he couldn't lie to a pretty girl he met one day."
Larei listened in silence, taking his hand in one of hers and tracing her thumb along his knuckles; feeling little scratches and scars that she could not see again smooth flesh. He was warm - warmer than she thought a man from ice would have been.
"The pretty girl left a mark, you see; nothing that could be seen by man's eye. It was deep, pressing into flesh and bone down to his very soul, and it branded him. But he wasn't sure what it all meant. So even though he wished to see the girl again, he kept away."
"The girl wishes he hadn't."
"Aren't I telling the story?" Larei wrinkled her nose but shut her mouth, waiting for him to continue. "Eventually the man had to leave, but he thought he should say goodbye to the pretty girl. And he wished to ask her something very much, but was not sure how she would receive it."
"...and what did he want to ask?"
"...'Might I kiss thy lips?' he wished to ask her. 'Might I beg for that affection?' But he was too afraid to ask."
Feeling something warmth underneath her skin, Larei pressed a hand to her collar before smiling at him sweetly. "I dare him to ask."
"I believe he already has - he's just waiting for an answer."
Grinning at him, Larei grabbed the back of Eiel's head and dragged him down into a kiss, still holding on to his other hand; unconsciously linking their fingers together. A callused hand cupped the back of her head and for just a moment Larei felt comfortable giving up a bit of her security.
But then Eiel pulled back, and the Grecian weaver breathed in deeply, dropping her hand to his chest and patting it as if to say 'good talk'. Eiel fixed the strands of hair he'd mussed, thumb brushing against her cheekbone, before finally pulling away - only their hands keeping them together now.
"...did the wandering man leave?" Larei asked after a moment of staring at the foreign man with the boy's face, waiting for him to speak. Eiel quirked a smile, squeezing her hand before raising it up to kiss her fingers.
"Oh, he stayed just a few days more."