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chapter fifteen. pentimento
Outside, the setting sun had cast the sky in blush and tangerine, yet the wind did not carry a fragrance to match. Woody rot seeped into the air's chill, mixing with the earthen scent stirred by countless pairs of boots against damp soil, her own among them, and the bloody aroma of livestock taken to slaughter, for where else could their meal have come from if not the final breath of an animal bred to die.
With quickened steps, she had alighted from the tavern, needing not to dodge and dip for her commotion had drawn most eyes within. She was given a wide berth that previous inattention had not, for now that the strangers inspected the woman, they had to admit she was perhaps best to be avoided. Those mis-matched eyes, the drooped ears and her wary alertness stood her a sore thumb, even as far as passing travellers were concerned. Beneath aesthetics, they detected something else in her, unnameable yet undeniable. What was for certain was that her spirit was not of their ilk.
Fallon's gut told her that Raphael was still near, feet beating wooden stairs to gravel to muck. The tavern was positioned beside a humble forge, currently unattended, no doubt the blacksmith had retreated for some drink. Coals within still coughed flaked ash into the heavens, and built around, a wooden structure to shield a tool bench from the sun, stacked with bars of iron, bronze and copper. To its front, the path they'd travelled and the woods that bordered it, to its back, an enclosure of chickens, pigs, and sheep. Beyond, the open thrust of the vale below.
She heard the faint swish of fabric moving behind the back of the forge. Fallon made for it, rounding the corner and finding the ground thin and near flush to the mountainous edge. Too quickly she moved, and with a bold incautious gait, earth crumbling underfoot and slipping. She made to claw the wood of the forge's shelter, her desperate flail finding a hand extended. He had appeared in place as though birthed by the air itself.
Fallon let herself be pulled forward, what other choice did she have after all, and fell against Raphael's broad chest. For a moment the race of adrenalin trumped all else. She dared look over her shoulder, stomach dropping with the sight of what she had narrowly avoided. Her stomach plummeted just as the tawny rocks did against the steep descent.
"Now now, a death so sudden and unceremonious wouldn't do." Raphael met her with amusement. "You would do better to watch your step."
Fallon startled, suddenly aware, with the rumble of his voice, just how he held her. She made a noise of disagreement, retracting herself a step to his side, her back now visible to the tavern, he just shielded from view. She clutched the palm he had touched, skin warmed by unearthly heat: an opposition to Astarion's undead flesh. Fallon shook the hand, as one does a burn, burying her gaze away from that of Raphael's hard dark delight.
