𝕋𝕙𝕖 ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝕆𝕗 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕃𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕖𝕤𝕤 ¦ 𝔽𝕖𝕟𝕣𝕪𝕤 𝕄𝕠𝕠𝕟𝕓𝕖𝕒𝕞

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚎𝚏 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙼𝚒𝚜𝚝

Swinging it open with a nudge of her boot, her eyes tracked the body of a boy sat upright on the bed. His chocolate eyes snagged up to watch her, his small rounded cheeks were flushed with tear trails, 

A women knelt at his front, finished cleaning off the wound to the boys thigh, the girl by the door watched her rise, the dark work frizzed hair cascaded down the women's back, 

The young boy still watched her as she stood by the door, 

"Don't go playing around those boys no more, okay?"  the women, a healer, spoke the boys gaze finally moving from the body by the door.

"Yes Ma'am" He didn't look old enough to be wandering around without a parent at his side, but she couldn't help but wonder whether he might have been one of the children scavenging through the streets.

The injury to his leg must have been from a street fight, the girl could remember the days where she fought teeth and nails for scraps, somehow she always managed to best the much bigger kids who always wielded the knife.

The soft padding of the boys feet moved towards the door, pressing her back to the framework of the entrance she shot the boy a clipped smile when he passed, in the closer lighting she could see the lingering blue of a bruise on the protruding bone of his right cheek.

He halted, like a feline eyes of so many street cats, he too was peaking with caution, but a hint of curiosity glimmered behind the gloss of his pupils. 

The boy was gone a second later, like mist, he brushed against her slightly when he left but he didn't so much as utter a single sound.

"You're a day late, Yvonne " the healer said from across the other side of the room.

Yvonne pushed from the doorway, strolling in with a little skip to ever second step she took further into the room, "Postponing, isn't the same as being late"

"Oh I wasn't aware of such arrangements" 

She finally turned around, and Safa's beautifully tinted face met hers. Safa was regal in her good looks, her stark autumn orange eyes standing abrupt against her dark skin. She was only a few years older, yet her eyes and hands worked the magic of experience way beyond both their years.

"Who was he?"

The healer faintly smiled in the direction the boy had wandered off in before turning back, there was the light noise of glass jars being moved about, no doubt feeding into her impulse to organise and reorganise everything again and again.

"Keenan, I found him unable to walk outside the front gates this morning, he said someone dragged him there, but I think he crawled here himself. He's alone."

Those words struck up a storm inside her chest. Alone. Since joining the ranks of Commander Brielle's Pride Yvonne had been anything but.

Some part of her heart still lurched at the memories, that clawed at the back of her mind, it would do her no good to pester over the young boy. 

"Any news from the North?" Distraction, after distraction.

Safa's shoulders stiffened slightly, a jar tapped onto the surface of the work bench.

"If you came a day before, we could've read over the letter from Colden together" 

Yvonne walked closer, turning herself around she leaned her ass against the work bench Safa perched herself at.

"Oh, does he send his kind regards?"

The older spy shot her a quick flat expression before she returned to shuffling around her jars.