“Well, ‘m not doin’ it again,” Harlin replied mulishly, crossing his arms for effect. “S’not my fault you chips go ‘round makin’ things so difficult to put on and take off.”

He turned to look over the jeweler-wick’s wares for another moment, completely at a loss as to what to do next. Mission accomplished but—now what? He couldn’t exactly go back to the hingle-tent; the complicated journey here had woken him up more than he could care to say. Not to mention the sun had lowered past prime sun-bathing time by this point… An idle hum buzzed past his lips as he drummed the pads of his calloused fingers against the ledge of the table.

“I doan’ suppose…” he started, eyes quickly finding Venadi, “yer hungry?”

Food. The universal tension solvent.

"I'm always hungry!" Wendy said cheerfully, "Do you like stew? I know a woman who cooks good stew. She's a hand. I'm a hand, too. Sort of. I'm not really, but um...it's complicated?" She began to lead the way towards said stew place.

"Petra introduced me. She's my Aunt...kind of. Well she's like my best friend. She's a hand. A real one." As they walked it became clear that Wendy knew exactly where she was going. One had to wonder why she had asked Harlin for help at all.

Disarmed by Venadi’s sudden turn of friendliness, Harlin grinned like a child and blurted, “I’m a Hand!” Oh clock.

His giddy expression immediately dropped so far that it had practically fallen on the ground and was withering by his feet. You clocking tsuter, what are ye thinkin’?! “I mean, er,” his voice seemed to be struggling, trying to recover from the bullet he had just shot himself in the foot with, “I—I like stew…” he finished lamely. Why did everyone in his life constantly insist that he tell the truth?! It was so not worth it. No more of that.

“An’ whaddya mean ‘not really’?” he ventured instead, a vain attempt in covering up his faux pas. “Yer either a Hand er yer not.” But that did raise the question, didn’t it—what was he?

"Really?! Maybe you know Petra! She's a healer! Petra knows everybody...eh...almost everybody." She recalled the incident with warwick and shrugged it off. "Well it feels like she knows everybody."



" It's really delicious. She was using lamb the last time but I think she switches it up every few days." She said cautiously, staring at his change in expression. "But if you don't like it that's fine..." She had mistaken the direction of his chagrined expression. "I think there's a place with uh...wrap things."



"Some things aren't so simple." She replied quietly, and shrugged. "So did you want the stew or the...other stuff?" She asked brightly, obviously changing the subject and not really caring.

Harlin’s face had turned into a block of cement, the freaked out smile permanently etched across his lips. Petra? Did he know a Petra? Why did that sound so familiar? Or was he just making that up? Either way, he didn’t think he wanted to meet another Black Hand. Especially not one that knew everyone. That sounded perfectly disastrous.

Wraps. his conscious practically screamed at him. Say wraps. You want those. But the forceful suggestion backfired, and he just ended up lying to his judgment and catering to his stomach instead. “Uh, stew sounds benny,” he said. He didn’t want wraps.



No. Shit.

"Yes. "Benny". Right. Good." She stared at him curiously for a few more seconds and then shrugged, leading the way once again. She was weaving through people and stalls. It felt good to know exactly where she was going and to greet people she'd met from days past on her way.

"Oh. And I'm not human." She suddenly said, waving at someone else as they walked. "I don't like it when people think I am. I'm just not." Wendy felt that this was an important thing to point out, even though it wasn't particularly relevant. "Just so you know."

She tripped and steadied herself on his arm, then started to walk again. "So I guess you've been a hand all your life, huh?"

“Boemo…” He stared at her, confused, but happy for a change of subject. “So—are yeh a passive then er wha?” That seemed to be the only other option. She didn’t seem to have a tangible field, so that knocked out wick and galdor, and, unless she was very much in denial, the declaration against being a human meant she wasn’t one of those either.

It felt odd to be led. So often people would confuse him for a native, mistakenly asking him for directions and typically being herded in the wrong direction—just as she had earlier. Even though he never really did seem to know where he was going, Harlin always fell into the leadership roll quite easily and could take charge at the tip of a hat. Perhaps it had something to do with his lack of ethics… or something. Whatever it was, walking in this Venadi’s wake seemed to diminish it some, and he felt much smaller for it.



He jumped inadvertently at the touch, and glanced down at her blue head. Small thing, she was. “Er, I guess yeh could say that…” he muttered, unable to find a decent way around that question now that he had so blatantly given the information away. “I mean, I warn’t adopted into it er nothin’.”

"Mmmhmm." She said, refusing to let whatever expression might or might not cross his face ruin her mood.



"That must be nice." Came the somewhat wistful reply. She took a sharp left, and immediately there was a difference in the air quality. Mainly in how delicious it now smelled. "We're almost there, can you tell?" She grinned puckishly and moved around the stall towards its back.

"Um. Nora?"

"Venadi! Hesta and far'ye?" Nora cried, appearing from behind a giant pot of stew, her expression narrowed slightly upon sighting a new man. "And who're you? Ye look mighty familiar, did I know yer da? Dze."

Nora waved her hand like she was waving away a bad smell.

"Dze." She repeated. "It doesn't matter less than seed on the ocean... What can I do you for?"

The stew smelt delicious. Nora wasn't the world's most beautiful woman but she made the world's best stew. Her pride shone through on her round face, which might have looked softer had she not had her hair tied back with several lengths of cloth. There was so much of it that you could not tell what colour her hair was. Her burly figure was a testament to her strength and a warning not to mess with her.

"I hate to ask it but me'n Harlin are really hungry. And you do make the best stew in all of Surwood." She twisted her hands behind her back. She really hated asking for freebies, and once again was wishing she had a job to pay for this. Even to just pay for a measly pot of stew.

"So do you um. Have any spare bowls?" She asked, blushing a little. This was the second hand out she'd be getting today. She hoped this wasn't going to become a habit.

Nora sighed and gave Wendy a look that said 'I'm onto you'.

"I do..." She said after a moment of heavy silence. "Maybe this time you can at least help me to clean up after, oes?"

Nora grabbed two bowls from a table and ladled out some soup for the pair. She handed it to them with out a flourish, something Wendy would have recognised as unusual.

"Take these spoons, chip and sit out back. No point wasting the sun." Nora handed the cutlery over and disappeared out front, shouting in tek.

Wendy beamed at her, "I'd love to! I'll be in as soon as I finish!"



"Thank you!" She shouted cheerfully, heading towards the back and taking a seat.

"You might want to be careful. It's very hot." Wendy told Harlin, stirring the soup and breathing the smell in. Steam wafted off it and her stomach gurgled. "Do you think Nora really knew your dad?" She asked curiously, still trying to fit Harlin in among all of the other Black Hands she'd met.

Harlin felt just like a kid again—being shuttled around back and forth according to the will of others. He stared at this Nora with wide, wild eyes and a strained mouth. Looking at her brought to mind a collective of all the Hand women who had had anything to do with his upbringing—particularly the ones who used to slap him and call him an erse.

The comment about his da made the wick go as rigid as a board. His mind flew around a myriad of different dissuasions, most of which having to do with something like ‘Ne, he’s dead,’ which were rendered completely irrelevant by the witch’s apparent age. This was exactly why he had wanted nothing to do with Surwood. Exactly.

Luckily for him and his stupid mouth, Nora negated her suspicion before he had the chance to go and say something ridiculous. He let out an inaudible little sigh of relief and took the bowl that had been handed to him without so much as a word. The earlier irritation he had felt at being the passive’s follower quickly dissipated into a distinct numbness, so he accepted her lead back outside with something vaguely akin to happiness.



“Oes, I can see that,” he said with a shaky sigh and an insincere grin. He lifted his hand to grab hold of the spoon, but noticed that he couldn’t stop it from trembling. Hoping the girl wouldn’t notice, Harlin clenched his fist and shoved it back under the table where it could shiver in privacy. This was mung. Of all the things he had to be afraid of, it couldn’t be something rational like drowning or getting stabbed. Oh ne, it had to be his damn fami.



Dze, let’s hope not.

He muttered back dismissively and hunched over his bowl. “I dunnae. Maybe.” This seemed like a very good time to down a spoonful of that stew. “But wha’ aboutchoo then?” he pried with a half grin, trying to ease back into his usual, comfortable self. “What’s a passive doing with a mant load of wicks?”

Wendy noticed Harlin was practically shaking and she threw him another odd look. If he didn't want stew he should have said so...



Hm. Maybe she was wrong. Harlin was about as adept at smoothly changing subjects as she was. That is to say-- not very adept at all. "I don't know. I just ended up here I guess. I was running from somewhere and Rosie-- Petra's girl, helped me out. Then she sent me off with Petra because I needed to get away from where I was originally...Then Petra came here and made me a Hand."

Which brings us back to you. Wendy thought to herself smugly.

"It's not easy trying to be a wick when you're not really one." She shrugged, "Probably being born and bred makes everything simpler, right?" She glanced at him, this time her eyes were sharp on his face. Wendy bit into her stew. It burned her tongue but it was really too delicious to wait too long for it to cool.

"Since you know everyone."

The wick made a few noncommittal grunts as Venadi quickly glazed over her story, his face more concentrated on the meat concoction in his bowl than on her eyes. She answered his question well enough, he supposed—so long as they were talking about her and not him.



His head shot up at this, and the wick stared back at the girl, the sharp golden rings around his pupils pinpointed directly into hers, expression unreadable. Harlin slowly broke out into a grin, but his eyes remained keen. There, a question he could answer.

“I dunnae if it’s so much that, Di,” he replied deviously, wagging a spoon at her, “but bein’ brought up as a native tekaa usually does it.” He quickly shoveled a hearty spoonful of stew into his mouth before continuing. “I mean, you jent er usually at a disadvantage ‘cos you doan’ talk tek, ne? I get jent lookit me all the time like, “What the clock is that kov on about?’ but tha’s ‘cos they doan’ speak the speak, ye chen? You get me, er any other wick fer that matter, together wif a bunch of spoke and we’re bound to get on, even if we doan’ know one another per say. S’cos we got tha’ common—“ his fingers laced together absently in illustration of the word, “—language. See?”

Wendy brain functions seemed to have petered out around the middle of his monologue and she was just staring at his mouth moving and making sounds instead of listening. She took a few more bites of her stew, making sure to chop up the big chunks with her spoon before putting them in her mouth. He had stopped talking. Whoops!

"I uh. Only understood about one word out of three. So I stopped listening. Sorry." She didn't sound sorry. It was like she was only using the word as a formality. Sometimes when wicks used tek, she felt like they were trying to confuse her. And she felt it was particularly true with this one. She had the vague suspicion that he was purposely diverting her mind away from him. A few more bights of stew. Wendy felt her body temperature rising. It was suddenly very hot out...and she was getting really full.

"If you want to talk to me at least try speaking slower. Or with your mouth not full of food. I have a hard enough time understand most of you as it is."

Languages...not my forte.

“Exactly my point!” Harlin said gleefully, looking completely unabashed by Venadi’s lack of attention. Had he been able to read Wendy’s mind, he might have agreed—that was precisely why wicks used tek, and it always worked rather beautifully.

Grin spreading ear to ear from the small victory, Harlin quickly ran his tongue over his teeth and scooped another spoonful or two of stew into his mouth. “Your Nora makes a benny stew,” he commented with a sly smirk before lifting the bowl up to his lips and draining the rest of the broth. Somehow food always tasted better when it was free.

"No." She said, folding her arms and glaring at him. "Say it again. Slower." She wasn't going to let him get away with speaking like that when he knew she couldn't understand her.
She felt like she could barely finish the stew. It was thick soup, and Wendy was already so hot she felt like laying down and taking a nap. This would provide a good break. Time to tutor some wicks in speaking like real people.

"And no tek." He could see she was completely serious.

The corners of the wick’s complacent sneer immediately slackened and dropped. He blinked at her. Wait…w—what? She couldn’t be serious.

He let out a short little guffaw, as if to say, ‘Oh that’s cute but you’re bluffing,’ and leaned back in his seat. His uneasy gaze found hers.

She was most definitely not bluffing.

Harlin made a soft little sound in the back of his throat as though he were clearing it and hunched forward so that his entire torso was parallel to the table. He placed each hand palm down on either side of his body for support, and his eyes looked up at the girl from under arched brows.

A little nod. “Ready?” his voice was slow and somewhat condescending, “Ookay. I—“ He shifted his head a little. “Speak. Tek. Wicks. Speak. Tek. We. Speak. Tek. Together! You—Don’t.”

Wondering if she was satisfied, the wick edged off the table and slunk back in his seat. “It is harder for you to fit in, because you do not know what we are saying.” It was obvious that the explicit pronunciation of all the t’s and r’s was difficult for him to manage. He hated trying to use perfect diction. It made him sound like some kind of raggy ponce. .

Even though it was clear he was being slow to make her feel stupid, Wendy smiled when he was finished, "See? That wasn't so hard now, was it?" She took one last bite of her soup and sighed. Too. Full. She could barely move.

"Anyway, I could have told you that." She said, leaning back in her chair and stretching. The sun felt nice. "And it would have taken me half the time to say it, too."

You're being mean.

Yeah so?

Stop being mean.

"Sorry." She barely refrained from saying 'but it's true', right after that apology. "And yeah, Nora really does make the best stew. I wonder if she uses magic or something..."

It was a still a little odd to Wendy when she found out what wicks used their magic to do. Always frivolous...and yet, when it was used to make soup more delicious, she never complained.

Harlin groaned. There was just no winning with this chip. How did a passive get to be so domineering, anyway?

“Yeh, tha’ sounds about right…” he muttered into his hand. Actually, the art of cooking was completely beyond him (give him two seconds in the King’s kitchen, and he’d burn the whole place down). He had no idea what sort of culinary magicks other wicks used if they used them at all. It certainly sounded like a good reason for the stew’s overwhelming succulence anyway…

“Well,” he said, pushing his chair away form the table, “I think ah’m ready fer another lie-down—since I was so interrupted the last time ‘round.” He gave Venadi a pointed, but semi-flirty wink. ”Yer welcome tae follow if it suits yeh.” He also just wanted to dust the area before this Petra of Venadi’s showed up, but she didn’t need to know that.

"You're going back to sleep?" She asked incredulously, and then shrugged. "Well...have fun. I'm going to stay behind and clean."

She picked up both their bowls and walked back into the kitchen area, wondering why on earth anyone would want to sleep when it wasn't night.

"Bye, Harlin!" Wendy called as she disappeared into the tent, her mind already on cleaning problems.