“Oh, you can do better than that, can’t you?” Any novice could handle a few flowers. What about the rest of the garden? Still, it was miles better than nothing. Tiberius recovered some small amount of his composure. He wasn’t being swindled, at least in this respect. Lyric was what she said she was.
That left the question of what, in the Archon’s name, she had been doing for the last twenty-five years. If it bothered her to be away from her prior life, right now she was giving no sign of it. Well, she was somewhat angry, perhaps — but he’d given her much cause. He watched her closely, as though getting partially devoured by a rosebush was a perfectly normal mid morning occurrence. The thorns were prickly through the leg of his trousers. Wasn’t there some kind of awful disease associated with picking roses?
The offer to demonstrate her healing magic was interesting. Perhaps not meant to be taken seriously. Tiberius shucked off his jacket and slung it over his shoulder anyway. He followed that up by unbuttoning his left cuff and rolling the sleeve up past his elbow.
“As you like. I’d have more use for that than flowers.” He offered her his bare forearm, palm up, fingers loosely clenched. Pale scars broke up his warm olive toned skin, runic shapes of magical significance cut again and again to strengthen his spells.
“Do have a care, though.” He leaned down slightly, speaking conspiratorially. “If you ruin my clothes, I’ll have to replace them. And that’s less gold for your mercenary parents to wring out of me.”
That left the question of what, in the Archon’s name, she had been doing for the last twenty-five years. If it bothered her to be away from her prior life, right now she was giving no sign of it. Well, she was somewhat angry, perhaps — but he’d given her much cause. He watched her closely, as though getting partially devoured by a rosebush was a perfectly normal mid morning occurrence. The thorns were prickly through the leg of his trousers. Wasn’t there some kind of awful disease associated with picking roses?
The offer to demonstrate her healing magic was interesting. Perhaps not meant to be taken seriously. Tiberius shucked off his jacket and slung it over his shoulder anyway. He followed that up by unbuttoning his left cuff and rolling the sleeve up past his elbow.
“As you like. I’d have more use for that than flowers.” He offered her his bare forearm, palm up, fingers loosely clenched. Pale scars broke up his warm olive toned skin, runic shapes of magical significance cut again and again to strengthen his spells.
“Do have a care, though.” He leaned down slightly, speaking conspiratorially. “If you ruin my clothes, I’ll have to replace them. And that’s less gold for your mercenary parents to wring out of me.”
04-06-2024, 03:37 PM
