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There was something to be intrigued by when one stopped to consider the lengths a certain woman would go to remain unobserved, unbothered. The phrase "out of sight and out of mind" did very little to convey exactly how protective she was of her obscurity, her lack of ties to the world.
And perhaps that intrigued Obi all the more, especially following the sight of ruins and debris upon his return from a job out of the bounds of the city.
It was another routine visit to check on one of Clarine's forts, not unlike Fort Laxdo in fact. It was another fort in Zen's charge to observe, given rather recently it seemed, and considering its close proximity to another bandit group prowling around since the revelation of decaying, diseased forests, Zen was far more concerned with visiting all the forts to check on its occupants.
Needless to say, it was the group of four minus Shirayuki who left to check on the forts, and of course, there were bandit hunts while they checked. But none were as expansive as the slaughtered bandits near that lake, not as interesting as earning rises from the woman he knew responsible for said slaughter, and it left him feeling perhaps a little impatient to get back.
Needless to say, returning back to find naught but crumpled cobblestone, still-smoldering coals and that bag of coin nailed to a stake with a simple, albeit moderately hostile note was certainly not what he had hoped for.
The note and his returned coin was something he had honestly expected, and it pleased him in a sense that his prediction of her reaction was so close to what he'd received.
However, the fact that what was once a clumsily built, but rather functional house was now reduced to a pile of cobblestone rubble and chunks of embers and smoking charcoal beneath an exceedingly old oak tree was something he never expected. And while it disappointed him in a sense, it was more of a glean to the nature of that conundrum than he'd expected.
As he stood there, taking mental note of the fact that there was less rubble than the house should have left, he found himself recalling something that Garrak had told him. Or rather, growled at him in a bout of displeasure and irritation, more to the point.
She refused to say particularly much about Akazawa Saki, the former Maid as a person, but rather, reprimanded him on his so called behaviour towards her. It was peculiar at the time, enough so that instead of warding him away, it only sought to intrigue him all the more.
"Leave the poor woman alone, you great lout!" Garrak had ground out, dramatic in a sense as she practically tossed her quill and parchment to the desktop. "She's got enough to deal with on her plate without having you set off her anxieties for your amusement!"
At the time, it was the most insight to the woman he had within his grasp, and it prompted him to try and coax her into forging something, purely out of curiosity more than anything else. The thrown hammer alone was his only cue that she was liable to turn a sword onto him in the end, and while he certainly wasn't the least perturbed, he admitted to himself that he'd done enough prodding for one day and left it as that; He had to head back to the castle anyway, due to their departure for one of the nearby forts come morning.
But seeing this, made Garrak's snapped words all the more potent.
He'd riled her enough that she chose to relocate, ironically before he could get back and locate any sign of her.
He could easily find her again, given enough of an opportunity, but he found himself strangely reluctant to do so.
He wasn't necessarily feeling guilty, but he certainly wasn't denying the fact that he was at fault, for sure.
The trip heading up to the castle was one spent in pensive silence for Obi, his thoughts looping back around the conundrum that was Akazawa Saki. It was back to his charge of guarding Shirayuki, like usual, but given the results of his most recent exchange with the volatile ex-maid, his thoughts were of course, elsewhere.
It stood to reason that because of this, he hadn't noticed the peculiar silence that had fallen upon Shirayuki when he arrived at the Court Herbalist Office. Additionally, this was the reason why he didn't realize something had happened until it hit him; Quite literally.
A hand had slapped him over the back of the head, hard, and it was enough to startle him out of his train of thought. It wasn't sudden enough to have him react on instinct he'd tried to bury away since coming to Zen's service, but it was sudden enough that he'd actually flinched and turned his head promptly to his so called attacker.
There, however, stood none other than Garrak, who looked none too pleased with him at that moment.
It was perhaps the first time he'd been concerned about what she could possibly say to him, which was concerning enough as it was.
'What did you do?' Garrak demanded, her tone just as stern as her expression had been, and that unpleasant train of thought he'd been plagued with didn't fail to hint what she was probably asking about.
The volatile maid, no doubt.
'About?' He responded dumbly.
'To Akazawa, you buffoon!' Garrak snapped, tersely, enough so that Obi had actually shifted back a little. 'What did you do to upset her this time?'
Had the maid been in while he'd been away from the city?
Needless to say, he was quite perplexed by the revelation.
'Nothing that comes to mind, really.' He lied, choosing to play dumb; Maybe he'd get answers if he did. 'I'd noticed she had a forge and asked if she'd forge something for me.'
'What did you ask her to forge?' The woman demanded.
'Just some arrows we found at a bandit massacre.' Obi answered.
Garrak's eyes actually seemed to narrow in response.
'I hope you didn't request that just to get a rise out of her.' Garrak snapped.
Well, guess he'd better keep that tidbit of information out of the equation.
'What's exactly wrong with asking the surly maid about forging a quiver of arrows?' Obi questioned sheepishly, slowly lifting his hands up in his defense in response to the narrowing of Garrak's already sour expression. 'Did I step over a taboo?'
Instead of answering, the chief herbalist instead let out a breath as she moved to step away from him, almost as if she was about to drop the discussion altogether.
'If you're trying to pry into whether or not she executed those bandits herself, you may as well drop it.' Garrak dismissed as she headed for the stairs that lead up to the woman's office. 'She has no qualms with admitting she did.'
At that remark, Obi lifted a questioning brow.
'Then why did she burn down her house and leave?' He called out after the woman.
'Please, Obi, just let the woman be.'
Needless to say, her remark had left Obi feeling none too inclined to listen.
* * *
Dancing thoughts twirled and spun, breaking in glimmers of coloured shards and piercing her concentration like hail on a stormy summer eve. Wherein normally Saki would pause to humor them, if only for a second, now her thoughts only irritated her enforced train of effort.
The soft whinny of horses punctuated the air, blessing the soft few days before winters arrival with presence, belaying the inevitable silence for a little longer. Akazawa Saki was exhausted, staring blindly towards the distant trees that hid the trail from the skies with a foliage of withering golds and browns.
This marked the second time she had been stumbled upon a strange man from Tanbarun, one named Redmonds Isaac, who happened to once again be steering his horse-drawn cart down the dusty trails leading towards some of the lesser-used mines in the distant surroundings of Wistal City.
Of course, that had been yesterday with several differences between then and the first time she had encountered the young man. He without his cart full of furniture and personal belongings, was on his way back from the open mine shafts with a hefty sum of ore-filled stones and broken pickaxes. And Saki, having been walking her way back towards her house to gather another sum of her own belongings, had been quite perturbed by the man's sudden arrival right when she was in the midst of a long trek throughout the Wistal forests.
She had of course been suspicious of the man's offer to once again give her a lift to wherever it was she needed to go, but that mountain of ore, muddied and slightly despondent horses, and the dirt and grime that covered the easily-flustered male was enough proof for the woman to decide that really, he had been doing just as he'd said and simply had stumbled upon her by accident.
Now, it was her third trip with the man and his two horses, this time a trip solely at her own request, with enough silver pieces to pay for the trip.
Beyond asking Saki if she was in the process of moving house, Zack, as he reminded her to refer to him as, had been more than happy to help her relocate supplies to the approximate location leading towards where her new residence was to be built, and in fact, he'd volunteered to do all the heavy lifting, which was a benefit, considering the tattered condition of Saki's wolf-gnawed arms.
He didn't question the fact that Saki chose to set her old house on fire, and he certainly didn't seem to mind the hostile strikes of her hammer driving the stake housing an angry note and coin pouch belonging to one painfully inquisitive retainer to the second prince of Clarines. Instead, he was quite pleased with the opportunity to see a so called friendly face again and let the chips fall as they may.
Paying the overly helpful male with the equivalent of two gold coins merely tied the niggling discomforts from wrecking havoc in the back of her mind. Though what was more peculiar than the fact that she'd accepted the man's offer of help was the fact that he'd been more than interested in the supply of freshly forged building tools she had crafted, even moreso with the glimpse of blown-glass lanterns in the shape of large, coloured baubles she had attached to the rucksack currently resting between Saki's feet on the footrest.
In fact, he was still quite interested in them, Saki noted, as she caught Zack casting her rucksack a rather thoughtful, and strangely hopeful glance.
'Hey, Saki. I've been meaning to ask you something. Do you mind?' The young man had spoken up, earning nothing more than the smallest tilt of Saki's head in response. 'I-I mean, only if you'd like to! Sorry, that was a bit forward of me, wasn't it?'
Saki's silence was all the response she gave, though honestly, she was a little curious about whatever it was he wanted to ask her.
'Y-you don't mind, right?' Zack insisted on asking.
'You can ask.' She forced herself to speak.
Though she resisted the urge to roll her eyes as she practically felt the smile that he threw her way.
'Great! Then, those lanterns you have with you, the round hanging ones?' He began as he looked back down at the lanterns in mention. 'I've never seen any made like those before. Where did you buy them from?'
'I didn't buy them.' Saki dismissed.
'Oh. Then they were a gift?' He questioned, once again.
Dancing around the question she was fairly sure he wanted to ask, but didn't for some reason she couldn't fathom. But it was starting to irritate her.
So she answered.
'I made them.' She admitted, if only to stop the growing mass of questions she was sure to be drowned with.
Zack's brief moment of silence was graced with the slack-jawed expression of disbelief, right before it melted into awe.
'You did? But they look amazing!' The man gushed, his full attention upon her and not the trail before the horses. Of course, judging by how the two creatures walked with the trail without so much as a pause or misplaced step was sign enough that perhaps this was not an uncommon instance with this man. 'What materials does it take to make them? Are they hard to come by?'
'Broken glass I find in the forests, often just empty bottles left over from some of my purchases.' Saki decided to answer, since she doubted he'd really let the topic go at this point. 'I just smelt them down to liquid and reform them.'
Sometimes she would bring a sack full of crushed sand she'd find in the area and melt that down to work with, instead. Not that it really mattered, either which way. Careless merchants, travelers and the like tended to litter the forests and trails with glass. She used to just carefully dispose of the glass shards her flash fire vials would scatter through the forests, but with all that she'd find from the common people, she just decided to utilize some of her skills to do away with them.
Zack seemed enthralled with her responses and didn't hesitate to frantically nod his head in agreement.
'Can you sculpt them to different shapes?' He asked.
She remembered her father used to make glass flutes and ocarinas, though she hadn't attempted anything beyond what she needed, in particular.
However, she gave a simple nod in response, which didn't fail to please the brunette beside her all the more.
In fact, it wasn't very hard for her to imagine him with a pair of erect canine ears and a frantically wagging tail.
'Saki, I have to ask you, have you ever considered making glass trinkets to sell?' He asked her, practically turning on the bench to fix her with his undivided attention. 'I've traveled quite a bit, and I've never seen anything like this before in stalls, and I don't think many people on Wistal have seen anything like this, either! It feels so foreign and exotic just seeing them hanging from your rucksack like this, let alone how decorative they could be.'
The woman wasn't surprised by the remark that the bauble lanterns looked quite exotic.
While it wasn't a skill specific to just one part of the world, the skills of forgecraft and blown glass was in fact a large piece of her heritage now lost over the years. People like her were few and far between, and the intricately crafted glass works and forged tools were near lost to the world. It wasn't all that farfetched to say that it was a lost art, as some would say.
Still, Saki loathed dealing with humans, seldom tolerated it, and she certainly had never wanted any piece of her own craft to wind up in the hands of others, paid or otherwise.
Though judging by how eager this strange man was about it, Saki was curious as to what he had in mind.
'Why do you ask?' She eventually spoke.
'O-oh. Right, I should have explained that first, shouldn't I?' Zack's eager expression quickly shifted to a wry, almost apologetic smile as he shuffled back to sit properly on the bench, and his attention seemed to shift straight back to the horses still following the trail. 'I know I told you that I wanted to make a permanent move here from Tanbarun, right? W-well, you see, I've actually managed to get hold of a stall in the markets. I'm selling hand-made quills of iron and blank books, leather bound, wood crafted, all different kinds of books, and I was thinking if you were at all interested, maybe I could sell some of these glass pieces of yours for you? I mean, only if you're okay with that, of course. Decorative lanterns as unique as these would sell extremely well along with books, I think.'
Saki lifted a questioning brow in response.
'I, well... couldn't help but notice you don't seem to like people, but these are amazing and I really think they would sell real well.' Zack proceeded to explain, lifting a large hand to sheepishly rub at the back of his neck. 'I mean, having somethin' shiny would probably help me sell more books, and it'd get you some extra earnin' as well.'
Saki could not deny that, and as the topic was shrugged off due to awkwardness on Zack's side, the woman sat there contemplating the offer.
In a small part of her, she kind of fancied the idea of at least not letting her heritage arts disappear in the murky tides of regal influences, and a sum of extra money never went amiss now that she was technically unemployed.
And the prying done was superficial, brought upon with upfront questions instead of sly, underhanded tactics. And it wasn't being forced down her throat, unlike that of the assassin-like retainer.
'I'll think about it.' Saki remarked, earning a startled and somewhat confused glance in response.
However, as the seconds passed by and the cogs in Zack's head turned away, he soon cast her a thankful grin as he said, 'Of course!'
And that, was enough said on the matter.
The horse-drawn cart eventually reached a clearing that once held the bounds of a bandit camp, strewn with bodies she'd dragged into piles and marked the grounds of a massacre. It was steered through the clearing, circling the lake along a wearing path through autumn foliage trees, past makeshift graves marked by fallen weapons and flowers, until eventually reaching a span of ground high up above the lake front, veiled from the rest of the countryside by thickets of trees and vastly sloping hillsides combined.
Piles of gathered stone and lengths of lumber lay in piles across the roughly cleared ground, with old wooden barrels standing covered with many animal pelts to form a makeshift tent. At the sound of the horses coming to a halt and Saki's form dropping carelessly to the soft earth, a pair of feline emerald eyes appeared at the opening to the makeshift tent.
As soon as the remaining barrels were unloaded from the canvas-covered cart, Saki was left alone to commence construction on her new house.
And none too soon, if she had any say in the matter.