Deadly Little Leo - Inej Ghafa

Understood.

"Friends" he started, Leo cringed.

"What are you so cheery about?" Kaz asked in a huff,

"Certainly not them bread rolls" Leo muttered, earning a nudge from the girl next to her, Leo turned to her shrugging as if to say 'what!? It's true'

"This is Marko" Leo turned her attention from the girl, who's corners of her lips twitched upwards at the reaction she got from Leo,

"Marko is the leader of the travelling troupe known as the Pomdrakon Players" Kaz glare didn't falter and Leo tried to hold in her laugh at the ridiculous name,

"They have been invited to preform in this years winter fete-"

"A lifelong dream" Marko chirped with a smile bigger than Jespers ego,

"Yes, yes" Arken nodded along, his arm around Marko's shoulders. "A chance to get inside the Little Palace. But they lost their star performer due to an unfortunate freak accident" Leo rolled her eyes at Arken obvious actions "they are in desperate need of someone with the skills to replace their star performer, and as Ketterdam's premier talent manager" Leo snorted at that "I had an idea"

Kaz and Jesper both turned to look at Inej as she looked very displeased, Leo however, was very confused. Following along by turning to look at the girl also,

Inej's stare was fixated on Kaz, Leo can tell she was angry "as a friend once said, if I can't crack this none of us are going anywhere" with that's being said, Inej made her way to the front. It didn't take Leo a second to follow along whilst the others talked with Arken and his new friend.

Pushing through the crowd to catch up with Inej, Leo said "I'm gonna take a guess and say you don't want to do this"

Inej didn't answer as she began unstrapping her daggers, she held the first one out towards Leo. Leo looked towards the elegantly designed dagger and back towards the owner of it, her face showing confusion.

Inej's face softened, her previous frustration seemingly diminishing at the girl in front of her.

"I know you can keep them safe" Inej told her and gestured to the one Leo currently had strapped to her waist. In perfect condition.

Leo glanced at the golden designed blade that sat in its holster and looked back up at Inej. She hesitantly and gently took the first weapon from her, their fingers brushing against one another and the hot tingling sensation traveled down both of their spines.

The eye contact never breaking, and both noticing each others eyes widen ever so slightly at the touch.

Leo was hesitant to hold such a beauty of a blade. She understood better now, how important these daggers were to Inej. How innocent they were, never killed anything living. Leo felt it wrong to have one, both on her hip and in her sin stained hands.

It took a lot in Inej to hand the girl her precious daggers, ones that she held so close to her heart. Leo recognised it as a new level of trust, and Inej saw it as a hop skip and a long ass jump.

Yet she handed them to the girl with complete confidence. A new barrier broken for both of them. And they knew it too.

⋅ ⌖ ⋅

In total, Leo had around 7 daggers in as many places as she could fit them, in her holsters and pockets. And yet she still had to hold 1 in her hand.