It was a far worse neighborhood than she had first thought and it seemed that the further she walked, the darker the shadows and more rundown the buildings became. Her path had taken her first to the shoreline, a rickety boardwalk weaving her path through merchant ships and fishermen?s dockings alike. No less than three times did she have to apologize for getting in someone?s way and two out of those three times, her apologies were met with less than pleasant grunting, growling, or even swearing.

Cassie decided that it would be best to get away from there, especially since night was falling on this weird place. Following the waterline, it veered northeast and turned from a sea to a river. The boardwalk gave way to cobblestoned sidewalks and streets in varying states of disrepair. It seemed as good of a time as any to fish her pepper spray out of the side pocket of her backpack. Wrapping her hand around it, she let her thumb rest on the top of the tiny canister. Times like these, she was sort of grateful her father was the paranoid sort that insisted on his daughters carrying such a thing. Sure it was sort of misogynistic considering her brother was met with no similar requirement (nevermind he was, like, eleven), but still she was glad.

With absolutely no idea where she was going, she tried to keep her head down and her eyes up while she stuck close to the buildings that flanked both sides of the narrow street. It still smelled of brine and fish but intermittent breezes helped sweep that away in favor of the scent of garbage and something she couldn?t quite put her finger on. Not much of an improvement but it meant she was getting away from the harbor area and hopefully away from the permeating feeling of danger that came with it.

The same feeling that had the hair on the back of her neck standing up exactly two seconds before she passed a gap between a rusted warehouse and an older brick building. She couldn?t even scream as a calloused hand closed around her mouth while another looped across her chest to yank her into the dark. Fight or flight kicked in immediately, her heels connecting with what she expected to be someone?s shins while her teeth gnashed at the hand over her mouth. Squeezing her eyes shut tightly, she brought the pepper spray up to bear and, in a moment of desperation that she would surely regret, fired it over her shoulder.

It burned, oh gosh, it burned. Her nose, her mouth, even her eyes stung, but not as bad as whomever she had sprayed. He let loose a pained wail and let go of her. Falling to her knees, she scrambled up under the weight of her backpack and spun away from her assailant, the pepper spray held up in front of her again. Though temporarily blinded, he still stood between her and the alley?s mouth. She could have tried to run past him but it was such a narrow passage that she didn?t think she could make it by. So she backed up, an unsteady shuffle scuffing her over uneven terrain.

?Ah, girlie thinks she?s a smart one does she?? The voice came from behind her just as she backed into something just pliant enough to not be a wall but still large enough to send her skittering forward. Vaguely accented with an English lilt, not quite Cockney but too muddied to pass for standard or Estuary English, he also bore a baritone chuckle of amusement that made Cassie?s skin crawl. He caught her by the shoulder and spun her around to face him. He was at least six and a half feet tall and broad through the shoulder and hip. A pair of jagged scars formed an X over his left eye which was a cloudy white, unfocused compared to the sharp bottle green right eye that glimmered even in the dark.

?P-please. I? If it?s money you want, I?ll give you what I?ve got. Or my phone. Or? my wallet, whatever. I-I don?t want any trouble?? she stammered, trying to pull away from him. The grip he gained on her wrist was firm, crushing, enough to make her whine out in pain and drop the metal canister in her hand.

?S?not your money we want, luv. You?ll fetch a pretty penny at the market after a bit o? breakin?, yes ya will.? His amusement grew when her amber eyes widened and her struggling increased. She shook her head vehemently and yanked hard enough on her wrist that she felt it pop beneath his grip. His thick, calloused fingers tightened and pulled her right back toward him. When she crashed into his chest, she was met with the disgustingly cloying scent of masculine musk beneath a hearty helping of brandy. This time she could scream and scream she did, high pitched and panicked just up until a sharp wrenching of his hand elicited a wet snap of her thin wrist. The screaming ceased in favor of a pained cry that died down into a shaky whimper.

?Please??

The man at the alley's mouth, still rubbing oleoresin capsicum from his eyes and spitting here and there to try and get the spray off his tongue was quick to scurry out of the new arrival's way. Nevermind that he was bigger than the man, brawnier to the point he easily outweighed him, but he also didn't have a death wish and so he cleared the way without protest. It left Cassie and the Englishman at the far end of the narrow gap between buildings. It could hardly even be called an alley for all of its tight quarters. But someone was coming and that sparked life into the limp armed girl. No matter the shooting pains through her fingers and forearm, she pulled against the man's grasp.

"Help, please! Please, please, please help me. I just... I just wanna go home, please let me go..." She was on the verge of tears, her eyes stinging from more than just residual pepper spray. Of course, as the man called out her brother's name, she truly wondered if she was having a nightmare. But she had no time to pinch herself to check and so she yanked harder against the hold on her wrist. At first, his grip tightened, painfully twisting as he grit his teeth in frustration.

"S'doesn't concern ya, Tralle." He growled, turning his gaze toward the approaching man. So they knew each other, Cassie noted in her panic. This was either good news or really, really bad news. She wasn't sure which just yet. But she couldn't help but feel like the bigger man holding on to her looked... almost afraid, like an animal cornered and so she cut a desperate look over to the smaller of the two, the one her assailant had called Tralle. An odd name, maybe a surname. Guys that age did that often, going by their last name to their friends. Oh gosh, she hoped they weren't friends. As he got closer, she looked between the two, hoping that whoever he was, he wasn't going to let the man take her away.

"The master's business always concerns me, Atticus." As official as the tone sounded, he would never lose the American flavor from his tongue, an accent (if it could even be called such) that seemed to straddle the line between north and south, pinning his origin somewhere in the mid-atlantic states. Tralle was a good looking man in his early 20's, though the perpetual hard expression he wore told the story of a youth long since fled or crushed, which likened him to a leashed animal, a beast of fell purpose just waiting to be loosed upon someone. "Give her to me."

The flick of a glance back to her face and the resumed study of what he saw there nearly ruined the bluff. He couldn't have said what made him intercede on her behalf or what he intended for her. She was weak. Fragile. She was fodder for the literal and figurative meat grinder that this place was. But here he was.

Maybe the bluff wasn't so good.

Dang it. She didn't want to be given to anyone! Especially not when there was talk of masters and business and no, no, no. This was not how her night was supposed to go. She stopped pulling against the Englishman's grasp, her broken wrist aching and swelling against the rough hand wrapped around it. Wide eyes between the shades of amber and honey (an ugly hazel-brown by her description of herself) turned back to the younger of the two men. He was hot in the way that Ted Bundy was, everything but the eyes proving charming. The eyes, those always gave it away. She looked him in the eye for a split second before a growl from Atticus brought her attention upward again.

"Nnnn, Gods above, this is gonna cost me," he snarled the words and with a shove, pushed the girl away. For the fourth time in a single evening, she tripped and fell right onto her butt. Luckily the bulk of her backpack kept her from landing flat on her back and she only had to catch the slightest bit of weight on her hands, breaking open the heels as they scraped against the wet ground. Her jeans were wet through and through, such a gross feeling. But likely not as terrible a feeling as the one she got in the pit of her stomach when she looked up at Tralle and slowly got back up on her feet.

"Ye owe me one, Tralle! Don't forget it," One-eyed Atticus said with a sharp point of a thick, gnarled finger that looked to have been broken multiple times and never quite set right.

The quietly gasped squeak answered the sudden stop and turn and her hands balled into fists almost instinctively but didn't rise to meet the potential threat. When in a position like this, she had been told, be as compliant as possible unless at the risk of grave bodily harm. While she knew the man definitely wasn't harmless, he hadn't hurt her yet, so she tried to compliance route. The touch to the underside of her chin came with a wince and she hesitantly trailed her doe eyed gaze up to meet his stern look.

"Rhy'din...that's...no, that's crazy. I was just in State College and...and... then I ended up where ever it is you say we are. I'm obviously dreaming or on drugs or, oh my gosh, someone drugged me. I've read about this, it's got to be a bad trip. Oh my gosh, my dad's going to kill me. I've... I've got to get back. Um. How do I get back?"

"You don't go back!" He snapped at her, frustration and anger bubbling up in his suddenly. As quick as it was there, the feeling fled him, softening his features but not removing the harshness completely. It almost appeared as though he regretted it. "You're here. Might as well get used to it."

Cassie jumped, jerking back from his touch as the bewildered panic faded briefly in favor of her own brand of frustration. It was her turn to snap at him. "You don't have to yell at me!"

In much the same manner as his had, the brief flash of anger melted. Only rather than the softer set of his jaw and brow, hers came with a quiver of her bottom lip and a glassy sheen in her gaze, the threat of tears imminent. "Please, I just... I'm freaking out, okay? And holy heck does my wrist hurt. What was that guy's problem?"

She was due for a harsher dose of reality. Everyone around here needed it sooner or later and better to find out how thick the girl's skin was now. Instead, the lingering look she was pinned beneath softened whatever he might have said otherwise and Tralle slowly lifted her other wrist for a closer inspection. "He was a slaver," he told her gruffly, but not ungentle. "Would have used you and sold you."

Army Colonel for a father? Check. Thick skin? Not so much. Mostly that came into play when it came to the authority figures in her life, though this man didn't really count. So for the time being, she was the picture of weak willed and easily offended. With his explanation, it was then that Atticus's early words clicked. Cassie gasped, the moment of revelation too much to take silently. And to think, the man currently checking out her wrist was enough to scare such a despicable being like Atticus away. Her wrist was a minor concern compared to the panic sweeping over her, tightening her chest and making it hard to breathe. There was no broken skin but her wrist was inflamed and resistant to manipulation, a likely Colles' fracture. With her free hand, she wiped away the first trickle of tears, sniffled back and tried to focus on slowing her heart rate.

"Oh..." Because, really, what else do you say to that?

"Will have to ice this. Get medicine for the swellin'." Did Tralle ever smile? Fingers played surprisingly light over her hurts, from the wrist to the scrapes before he, surprisingly, withdrew both hands. A moment of indecision took him before he tossed his chin towards the direction that had been headed, a gesture to set them in motion. "Don't try to run," he told her. "Just follow, okay?"

"Um, do you think maybe a doctor should look at it?" She asked gently, her shoulders tensing as if she expected him to snap at her again. The light touches were followed with her gaze until he let go of her. She could have run. Part of her said she should run. But another, the part that whispered just at the edge of her judgment, said that if the rest of the trek was anything like the encounter in the alley, perhaps it was best to hide in the shadow of the worst monster just until she was somewhere safer. Finally, she nodded and got her feet going again. "Okay. I suppose that means you aren't going to tell me where we're going, huh?"

"Doctor's cost money. You got money?" A sideways look saw him frowning again, the words harsh but without him yelling. It was busier our thee but not too busy, allowing him to lead her on a slow widening path that took them from one side of Dockside to the other, closer to Old Temple. More than a few people gave Tralle a wide berth. "Goin' someplace no one's gonna bother you while you sort shit out in your head. You got anywhere better to be?"

"I..." She hesitated and finally shook her head. There was less than a hundred dollars in her wallet and the sizable deposit in her backpack wasn't hers. It would also figure that a place like this wouldn't take her insurance. Heck, they might not even take her money for all she knew. She tried not to panic again, as much as she wanted to. As Dockside began to lessen in favor of the more run down parts of Old Temple, she relaxed if only slightly. "N-no... sorry, I didn't... I didn't mean to imply that I did... um, I'm Cassie. What's your name?"

The question had barely escaped her pretty mouth when a sizeable gang of sinister looking men appeared through the small crowd, fixing to pass them. Tralle's hand shot out immediately to seize Cassie by the back of her neck, the gesture firm and possessive, almost territorial but gentle enough. Hard stares were exchanged during their passage and it wasn't until they were gone that he released her, sliding a look back down to her face. "Tralle."

Just as quickly as the relaxation had fled did it come rushing back with the sudden grip on the back of her neck. Cassie swallowed hard and kept her eyes low as they passed the pack, tucking herself as close to his side as she could without touching him. It was better than the alternative. As he let her go, she coughed out a little sound and pushed her hair out of her face. She had enough time for a quick sidelong study of his profile through a thin veil of dark chocolate strands before they were swept out of the way. "Tralle? First name?"

Cassie was going to add "resetting a broken bone without anesthetic half a week after the initial break" to the list of things she never wanted to do again. But at least it didn't hurt to move her fingers anymore, so she stepped out of the clinic and into the dying light of Old Temple in late winter without so much as a grumble. Tapping each of her digits against her thumb in succession before working down the line in reverse, she already noticed a marked improvement in motion even with the transition splint wrapped tightly around her hand and wrist. Of course it came at the cost of the rest of the cash in her wallet along with a bit from her backpack, which definitely sucked but was worth it she supposed. Not quite keen on returning to the Row just yet, she scuffed her battered Chucks against the pavement and dilly dallied in her gawking at the sights. She couldn't help but think that had she emerged in a place like this versus one district over that her initial impression of the city might have been drastically improved. But as she rejoined him, she chewed at her lip and bounced up onto her toes.

"So, ummm... thanks." Cassie mumbled sheepishly, toeing the ground again. "What's the plan now?"

Tralle?

He paced. He paced a lot. For the two hours the petite, mousy woman was sequestered away with the physician, the gruff and anti-social man could have worn a nervous path in the cobblestone along the little clinic's front with his pacing. Agitated and unapproachable, the faded jeans, boots, and leather jacket didn't mark him as anything overtly special, but the feral aura he exuded was enough to encourage passing pedestrians to give him a wide berth. The bruiser didn't need to wander far; he knew the office's back door led to a single winding alley that spilled onto the very same street and easy to see from his vantage, well within prime rundown range.

Had she fled, she wouldn't have evaded him.

Blue eyes flashed back to the green painted door repeatedly, furiously with a dozen errant thoughts that made a distracting barrage against his psyche and in a more innocent anticipation of her passing through the wood framed portal. His confusion over their pairing and his unspoken attachment likely rivaled hers, for he had shown no used for her (in any fashion) beyond the gruff way he doted on her, against her will and, seemingly, possibly against his. It was difficult to puzzle out.

When she finally emerged, Tralle was looming over her almost immediately, a dark shadow with a darker visage that would have cut a more handsome look if the man would just smile. Could he smile? "Go back in there and get your money. Now. Tell him Tralle says so."

Three days, or was it four, had been spent trying to figure things out. Everything leading up to her arrival had turned into a hazy blur when she thought back on it. It made her head hurt but that didn't keep her from trying. Maybe if she could sort things out, she could remember how to get back. It had led to hours spent in the quiet bedroom area with her notebook in her lap as she wrote down every little detail that came to mind. That meant all of the details of after her arrival too, as unpleasant as they were, so when writing with a broken wrist finally got to be too much, she sheepishly requested he take her to have it seen to. Much to her surprise, he had done exactly that, though he grumbled and growled the whole way there. Likely it had been the most he had said to her the whole time and when she finally emerged, she got no "hello", no "you're welcome", but rather a demand that she go back in and...

"Wh-what?" Cassie stared at him incredulously and looked back at the faded green door that she had definitely heard lock behind her when she left. "Um..."

Another glance back at him. He looked completely serious (not as though he looked anything but serious). She swallowed and turned around to return to the clinic's front door, rapping her knuckles for a trio of knocks. No response came. Another lift of her hand produced two knocks. On the third, the door unlatched and cracked open four inches. The so called doctor eyed her suspiciously, quirking a brow as if to ask what she wanted.

"Um...I'm, um, well uh, I'm supposed to ask you for my money back..." She mumbled meekly while chewing on the inside of her cheek.

"Wot? No refunds, missy. Services have been rendered, all sales final." The portly "doctor" told her. Cassie lifted her gaze to meet him and frowned. Logically speaking, he had a point and fair was fair so she took a step back and nodded.

"Well, ah, thanks anyways then." Turning on her heel, she retreated back to meet Tralle and gave him a little shrug of her shoulders. "He said no refunds."

As the last four words spilled free from her pretty lips, her would-be keeper seemed to grow before her. He didn't, but she might have sworn his shadow did, and no sooner had the snarl spilled free from his curled lips, Tralle marched the last dozen paces to the door and promptly kicked it nearly off his hinges. The exchange that followed was brief, punctuated by more growling and some unintelligible babbling before he finally emerged, hunched over and slump shouldered, fuming silently and with her cash crumpled-clenched in one fist.

"Here," he growled the word and thrust it back at her.

The rational parts of her mind attributed certain things to the stretching of shadows that came late in the day when the sun sank beyond the horizon. The rest of her had to contend with the shiver that ran down her spine. She turned, otherwise rooted to the spot, to watch him as he did what she hadn't been able to accomplish. Her teeth gained a solid hold on her bottom lip when he emerged and as he neared, she sighed softly.

"You can't do that, you know." Still she took the wadded bills from his hand and smoothed them out so she could band them back into a tight bundle and tuck them into her pocket. "When someone provides a service, you're supposed to pay them for it..."

After a few moments, the tightness of her frown relaxed subtly. "But... thank you."

She lifted her chin and scowled. Defiance was back again. "Why? It's not like you owe me anything. And if I owe you something then you best tell me because clearly "thank you" isn't enough. Nevermind you've been nothing but miserable the whole time I've been around, I figured you'd be itching to get rid of me the moment you could."

He had stopped with her, to be certain. But in the face of her defiance, he rounded on her and hunched over until they were nearly nose to nose. Blue eyes locked on honeyed amber, riled. He wasn't a giant, as men went, and a deeper consideration of him might have made some wonder what most had to fear from him besides his continual snarliness. "This is me. The way I am. The way it is. And if I wanted rid of you, I would have let Atticus have you! Now stop arguing and let us get you clothes and food!

And tampons or whatever!"

She had seen bigger men scurry away from his approach, she had watched him kick in a perfectly solid door. Cassie was many things, but stupid was not one of them. There was clearly more to the man than met the eye, so it was a curious matter that she glared up at him as he came near.

"So you're saying you don't want to get rid of me. If that's the case you need to be nicer to me because I am not going to tolerate this bullcrap." She pointed the index finger of her unsplinted hand in his face, dangerously close. "I am not your prisoner and if you try to treat me like that, I'll be gone so quick you won't know what hit you."

By Cassie's logic, she wasn't arguing but rather merely laying out her terms and when that was said and done, she roughly pushed past him to continue the way they had been going. It didn't matter than she had no idea where she was going. She had a feeling he'd show her the way before long.

Much bigger men scurried away when Tralle approached. Groups of men. Other monsters. Yet there she was, this slim little slip of a girl, so beautiful but so fragile, was going farther than most brave men to have at him. He blinked. Not once, but twice, his scruffy jaw tilting slowly to one side as he suddenly regarded her in a new light. His fists were clenched, of course, the rise and fall of his shoulder hinting a silent, but heavier breathing. How dare she?

Cassie had dared.

She dared and she turned to separate herself from his company, fully prepared to take Rhy'din on by herself, whatever the consequences. She didn't, however, get far. Barely two strides beyond, he caught her by the elbow again, but with a gentler force that slowed her instead of spinning her back around and off-balance. "Wait..."

Tralle paused. "I bet you like consignment shops..."

Certainly she should have heard him make the climb down and definitely she should have at the very least heard him come near. But sure enough, she had no idea he was there until he spoke, at which point she gasped with a start and turned just enough to look at him, her eyes rounded wide. The path of her highlighter in her textbook had turned into an errant drag, a jagged path of yellow cutting aimlessly at an angle across the page. When she finally got her heart to steady and slide out of its perch in her throat, she gave him her own frown.

"Is that a question or a statement? Because if it's a statement, I'd like to hear why you think that." She paused for a moment before adding. "And if it's a question, then I'm simply saying that I wouldn't mind for you to show me things."

With a flop of his body that had an impact far bigger than the size of the body he possessed, Tralle rocked slowly and collapsed into a sitting position at Cassie's side, leaning towards her without touching. There was a hesitation there that said he might have wanted to. Blue eyes roved over her before seeking out honeyed amber again. "Brighter places. Friendlier people. Everyone's got an agenda, though. It's the way of things." Her host paused and then frowned again, heaving a heavy exhale of breath. "I'll show you sometime."

She chewed at the inside of her cheek, pulling her frown into a lopsided crescent. Breaking the lock of her gaze on his face, she turned back to her books, dog earring the ones that she personally owned and bookmarking those that may have been borrowed. They were closed in order, largest to smallest before she finally looked back over at him. "That doesn't directly answer my question, but okay. Be cryptic, that's cool too."

The frown quickly became a scowl and his broad shoulders bowed, chest puffed up in anticipation of the growl and shout that must have been coming. A deep breath was sucked in and then...

And then...

...he stared down into her pretty face and slowly began to deflate.

"Statement. Better people than me for company. Nicer..." His gaze drifted away from her face slowly and downward. That skirt, it was so short...

Her teeth clenched as she readied herself for another outburst of his, her gaze narrowing just slightly. After all they came so regularly that her phrasing was a matter of either walking on eggshells or pushing buttons. But it seemed she didn't care which it was and tonight, it was well into the realm of button pushing. But no grumbling or growling or even yelling came.

"Okay, so if you're aware that I'd supposedly like other places better than here why do you refuse to let me go?" If she noticed his drifting gaze, she said nothing, though the slight parting of her knee-sock kissed thighs closed until they touched. Three books closed, she stacked them by size and squared them neatly, lining the closed highlighter up beside them.

Drawing in another breath, Tralle lifted up from his crouch and slowly whirled until she was given the broad view of his back. He didn't have an answer for her. Not immediately. But his back remained facing her when the response finally came, a revelation delivered to her with the typical rumbling growl of his voice. "You'd be safer with me. But probably happier elsewhere."

Her frown returned with a vengeance and she wriggled her knees beneath her, pushing herself up into a kneeling position then sat back on her heels while she considered whether it was worth it to get up. Her fingers drummed against her thighs before she huffed a sigh. "There's something to be said about the contentedness of safety. Buuuuuuuuuut."

There was always a but, wasn't there?

"Know where I'd be reeeeally happy? I heard there's a library over in the church-ish district. Maybe... when you go out, you could take me there some time? And I can hang out there until you're done doing whatever it is you do and then I'll come back and annoy you some more. How about that?"

Most times (nearly every time) it was an internal battle just to breathe without giving into the anger the suffused his very veins. Tight control was exerted, the agitation loosed from him in small fits and outbursts to keep it from boiling over into something far worse. For the last few weeks, the girl's presence had been a tempering force. He listened to her in silence and when she finished with the question, he turned a look over his shoulder. Blue eyes blinked. Tralle turned around fully... and looked down.

Ahem.

"I could show you the library," he agreed. "And other places. There is the Teas and Tomes in Old Market. Other places you might fancy... You could, well, you don't annoy me." It was his own way of dourly admitting he enjoyed her company.

Cassie looked up at him not with coquettish seduction but rather a certain amount of naive curiosity as she sat back on her feet and peered up at him. Fingers kept with their drumming against the tops of her knee socks. "Aaaaaand, would you let me hang out at the library by myself or is that still a no go?"

At the very least she looked hopeful. After all, it was a matter of being by herself at the library when he was off doing "work" or being by herself at the cottage. And let's be real, the library had quite a few more books. Finally she angled him the first hint of a teasing smile, rolling her eyes as she did. "Don't even lie, I annoy the crap out of you. You're always like hmph, harumph, grrrrrrr." With each little sound effect, she affected a different caricature of his mannerisms, an exaggeration of his surliness translated into the pout of her lips and the set of her brow and the heaving of shoulders. With the final one, she curled her lips into a mock snarl and brought her unsplinted hand up to curl her fingers like claws. "Like grr."

One moment he was across the cottage, the next he was at her side. It still startled her with how quick he was but the leap of her heart into her throat was quickly overridden by the sudden loss of words she was forced to find. Reverent touches smoothed bent pages and dragged over stressed spines, as if doing so might sooth the damage inflicted in the books' fall. Grabbing for one at the same time he did, her hand brushed his and put a pause on the reach. She didn't draw back, at least not at first, curling her fingers around the thick book to draw it back to the pile.

"Evidently pretty and a total klutz too." Sheepish, the red in her cheeks was easily seen in such close proximity.

"No one's perfect," he said quietly. Hey, Tralle made a joke.

He remained in the crouch, silent afterwards and watching her beneath the furrow of his brows.

It was so abrupt that it caught her off guard. As such, her laughter spilled in just as faltering of a fashion, starting with a short huff of a laugh that after a breath turned into a full on giggle. She drew her gaze up to meet his for just a moment before a timid drop found her looking over the cleaned up stack. Cassie wrapped her arms around the pile and stood up slowly, hugging them tight to her chest.

"Ain't that the truth." She curved him a soft smile and with a couple backwards steps, soon turned around to take the whole stack to the nook that served as her sleeping quarters.

Instead of shrinking away from her stare again, from the weight of her scrutiny, brief as it was, Tralle let his gaze linger on hers. On her, as she smiled and slowly retreated. He might not have returned the expression, but he found himself getting lost in it just the same. There wasn't a smile for her, but again his expression softened for her. Just for her.

For a few moments, the beast was soothed and didn't appear so savage.

The stack of books was returned to a tower of their brethren at the foot of her neatly made bed. Hardly the best of places for them, they had been knocked over in her sleep on at least three occasions that she could think of, often on the tail end of a less than pleasant and overly surreal dream. But space was at a premium in the little cottage, so she never complained and always they would find themselves squared away in no time. Cassie turned back to him, dusting her hands off and smoothing them over the pleats in her skirt. "Um, you were heading to the kitchen. Before I distracted you. Did you need something?"

"I was hungry," he said simply and then, after a pause, ruined it. "But I was distracted by your legs."

Tralle cleared his throat right after and turned away again, hunching his shoulders. Three short strides carried him back into the kitchen, the place was so small, where his hands rose to open small cupboard. The offerings were spartan and very unhealthy in the simplest of ways: cereals, boxed dinners, and sugary snacks. It spared her the further embarrassment of him watching the fresh flush in her cheeks.

"I know a diner nearby." The words were quieter. "Like something out of the 50's, with waitresses on rollerskates and everything. Uh, wanna g-g-g-o?"

"My...legs?" She said, bewildered. Looking down, she saw the completely adorable vintage skirt but beyond that the high socks covered legs that usually made her self-conscious. They weren't shapely or strong or anything alluring, so often she kept them covered up. And to wear a skirt, that meant knee socks. Which were totally adorable. Maybe he liked those. When she looked up, she was red in the cheeks and he was back in the kitchen. It gave her a moment to regain her composure, as fragile as it was. Soft words lit a spark that flared into a flame of tip toes and bright eyes. "Really? Like poodle skirts and everything? Oooo, I haven't seen one of those since... oh wow, um, forever. Maybe this little diner we stopped at in Maryland on the way to Columbia once upon a time. Gosh, that was, I can't even remember."

Catching herself nostalgia-ing, she shook her head and beamed him a smile. "Yes. I'd like that. Though, um, if you're inclined... maybe this weekend we can stop by that little strip of market-y area that's down by the harbor that's got fresh stuff. I'm an okay cook believe it or not. Maybe I could make somethin' sometime. I dunno. Just saying."

"Cheeburger Cheeburger?" A brow perked and he looked sharply over his shoulder.

"Oh my gosh, that sounds right. In Annapolis with the oldies music and the soda fountain with the kitschy lights and signs." She wiggled her fingers with the description as if that would paint a picture. It didn't, but she could see it perfectly in her head. "So adorably vintage for a chain."

"This place is... better." There was a flash of it for her viewing as he turned away again, that hint of an almost-smile. This time it was something far sadder. "But Chick and Ruth's in downtown Annapolis is better than both. Best malts in any world."

"We never got that far in any time we passed through. It was always on the way home or going elsewhere. Joys of moving every other year." Cassie rolled her eyes but that was only to keep herself from tracing the line of his mouth with her gaze again, trying to pick apart the most subtle of changes in his expression. Crossing the cottage's living space, she bent to retrieve her cardigan. She tugged it on over the black tee and clasped the two middle buttons, leaving the top and bottom ones undone. "Yeah? This place had like a million shake flavors, I swear. But show me, I wanna see it."

A few moments longer and he was shutting the cupboard doors. She got his back for the passage of a few more before Tralle finally nodded and turned to reach for his leather jacket, tugging it slowly on as his blue eyes drifted back to her to watch. "Peanut butter fudge," he said quietly. "I like the peanut butter fudge."

"Mmmmmmmm," she groaned at the thought, the sound almost indecent in the way it rolled from her lips. Lashes fluttered briefly before she settled on a breathy sigh and shrugged her shoulders. As she rambled, she drifted toward the door. "Peanut butter fudge huh? That's good in a malt? I know it's good in a shake, but with the malt?"

"It's very good." A small twitch of his mouth hinted at the positive, but it was fleeting. Suitably coated, he reached the door before her and pushed it open, held it for her. "Promise."

A promise is a promise!

Tralle froze just inside the broad wooden door, letting it close abruptly behind him. There he stood, staring at her until the delicious scent of warm confection caused his nostrils to flare and his attention to drift briefly to the kitchen and then back to her. "I... Pie has its own day?"

Blue eyes, flickering a lighter hue, followed her bath back to the kitchen, where he met her a few short strides later to lean against the modest little white refrigerator. "Would have bought you pie." The words came out in a low growl, but by now she would have picked up on which tones meant what. He wasn't upset or agitated with her.

Cassie laughed as she shook off the oven mitts and set them aside. "No, silly. It's the fourteenth of March, so if you write it out, it's three... one four, or the mathematical constant Pi. Could even say it's Rounded Pi Day since you typically round Pi to three point one four one six. Last year was probably the closest thing you could get to a perfect Pi Day though, three point one four one five at nine-ish in the morning. Poor Tau though. Nevermind Tau's a way better factor of constancy when it comes to geometric measurement, everyone still uses Pi. Tau doesn't even get its own day!"

With an indignant huff, she finally realized she was rambling and a warm blush filled her cheeks. She cleared her throat softly and gave a poke to the pie crust. Flaky, hot, perfect. Fork prongs were used to prod open one of the vents, thin curls of steam rising from the slit. Gooey, sweet, hot, perfect.

"Sorry. I was rambling... um," she glanced up at him as he took his lean, studying him through an angled aside under pretenses of checking the pies. "I make 'em every year... something my mom started when we were young. Normally each of us would make one so we got three flavors total, but I only had time to make two. Gotta give 'em a little bit too cool but once they are, d'ya want some?"

He listened to the explanation with patient silence and a brow knit with deep thought, absorbing it all with an expression that said, at the very least, that he was pretending there was a significant importance to her ramblings. The truth of the matter was simple, twofold: important to her was at least somewhat significant to him, if only a little, and... he really enjoyed the sound of her voice when she was excited. Or, really, any time. Tralle's mouth twitched faintly, painting the narrow idea that he might be mildly amused.

"I would like to eat your pie, Cassie."

So returned the sunshiney smile, lifting her so far that she rocked up onto her toes for a slight bounce. "Great! Um, it's usually better a la mode, especially when it's so warm and gooey, but I totally forgot the ice cream, so... s'pose we'll make do!"

Letting the pies sit, she took the fork and stabbed at the bottom of one of the bowls she had used to mix up the fillings, spearing a lonesome cherry on the end and extending the fork out to him. "Have a cherry. Secret's a little bit of brown sugar instead of just white sugar and it gives it that extra little bit of mmmmmmmph."

His brows quirked.

Did she just?

He cleared his throat and reached around the fridge, tugging the door open for as long as it took to slide a hand in to retrieve his favored Badsider (he'd taken to stocking it with Broot since the drinking incident from the week before). When the door was shut, he advanced the short step it took to reach her and the sweet offering she held out for him. Tralle didn't smile when he leaned in, but there might have been the lingering hint of mischief his eyes, sparkling faintly against the typical tortured agitation of ever changing blue, or something a little more inappropriate. His words rolled over his tongue in a crooning growl. "You offerin' me your cherry?"

Without grabbing the fork, he bit the little piece of fork from its end.

Still holding the fork out as she watched him procure a drink, she bobbed it up and down impatiently while awaiting his return. As he leaned in, his question was enough to make her suddenly realize just how her offer might have sounded. Amber eyes widened as he nipped the bit of cherry from the end of the fork, her teeth dragging against her bottom lip in much the same way his mouth did against the fork's tines. The red flush had filled her cheeks again, going so far as to bridge her nose and bleed into her ears.

"Um... I um..." Her chin dropped toward her sternum and she rubbed at the patch of flour on her right hip. After a few moments, she giggled nervously and looked back up, only to turn her back to him so she could dig out a knife and a server for the cooling pies. "A cherry. As in, the one you just ate."

His own amusement was held tightly in check, reduced to a persistent rumble that rattled in his throat. The cherry was chased with a single pull from the beer bottle when it was opened, which was then set aside. The quick turn of her back disguised his advance and he went entirely undetected until a hand was planted to the counter on either side of her, effectively trapping her between himself and the bar, his neck craned and his chin dipped so he could say something into the wild darkness of her hair.

"It's a good cherry. Very ripe." Tralle didn't tease much. Only a little as the comfort levels between them grew. The suggestive tone faded with the passage of moments, but he lingered there to say a little more. "Thank you for makin' me pie."

March 19th-A Birthday Excursion

The longer she gave the whisky and beer time to settle in her gut and work through her bloodstream, the more she felt its effects. They had left the Inn with a brawl brewing behind them and she had just barely stumbled out in time to avoid the swinging of bottles and inevitably fists. He was as surly as ever, his threat of making her walk back to the Row alone weighing heavily on her mind. Soon though, an alcohol laden slur won out and she cast a look up at him in profile, studying the hazy shadows that cut long angles over his hard features. "You not gonna talk to me the rest of the way back?"

It wasn't unlike Tralle to he silent for long stretches of time, speechless in a purely surly fashion that was usually broken by a growl or some very terse words that either stole Cassie's smile away or made her get surly right on back. The odds were even on any given occasion as to which it would be, but tonight's walk back towards the Row and Underbridge Manor's little guest cottage saw a much more reserved side of her would-be keeper. His expression was hard, dogged and pensive both, but soon Cassie's voice was cutting through the gloom and drawing a look her way.

"What do you want to talk about?"

"Dunno. Why we had to leave so fast and why you're such a grumpy ass when we're out in public?" They were numbers one and two on a long list that would likely be easily forgotten to a whisky soaked mind. Her gait was uneven, bumping her hip into his at random intervals, but for the most part she kept herself upright out of sheer determination. After her last foray into drinking, she was determined to have no repeats of that hellish night. Her hands tucked into the pockets of her zip up sweatshirt, the midnight blue looking dark enough to pass for black except when the lamplight caught it just right.

"I'm a grumpy ass all the time!" He snapped at her, growling low and snapping his gaze back towards path ahead. "And it's unladylike to cuss!" Tit for tat, both hands were stuffed into the pockets of his leather jacket, the light bump of her body against his allowed and uncommented on, but eventually one of his hands was freed to steady her with a touch to her slim back. "Important things to do. That's why we left."

Tralle fell silent again, smoothing his hand over the back of her hoodie, and then adding. "Place is closin' soon. Wanted to get there before it does."

Her shoulders jolted with the snap, her eyes widening and then narrowing in rapid order. She seemed conflicted on whether or not to cry or yell at him but when he pointed out her slip up, she clamped both hands over her mouth. Her words were lost to the smother, drowned by her slur and the weight of her hands on her mouth. "OhmygoshohmygoshIdidn'tmeantosaythatI'msorry. "

Dropping her hands a few moments later, the look of horror lingered as she squared her gaze toward the horizon to steady herself, pinned between that and the guiding hand. "What's important to do this late at night? I mean, what's open anyways other than the bars and the strip clubs. Ew, we're not going to one of those, right?"

Those wide honeyed amber eyes, the horror and the surprise; it was all enough to melt away the perpetual irritation to curve his mouth with a mild sliver of amusement. He didn't point it out. It was something perhaps saved for a better time and Tralle was quick to turn his face elsewhere so that she wouldn't see that there had almost been a smile. He muffled his words when he finally replied. "Cake shop."

"Cake?" She looked mildly intrigued, stutter stepping to catch back up with him. For a moment she could have sworn that was a glimmer of a smile but like the passing shadows cut by the moons playing tag behind the clouds, it was there and gone before she could tell for sure. Her teeth grated against her bottom lip and she leaned to bump him with her shoulder. Bump. Bump, bump. "What if I don't want cake?"

"Then you'll starve!" There was the Tralle that everyone knew and disliked, unfortunate anger bubbling up before he could contain it. Inwardly, he regretted it but it was such a terrible, difficult to control. His shoulders heaved with the frustration it caused and then bit his tongue hard enough to draw blood in an effort to keep himself silent. Big hands clenched and unclenched and her keeper hunched over ferally.

But there was bumping. All that bumping. Eventually he turned a look back down at her, a small apology glimmer through the grimacing scowl. He wouldn't say it, but maybe she'd see it.

Her breath hitched and she stumbled right over her feet. Catching herself with a hand to his arm, she hastily pulled away from immediate contact but lingered in an unsteady hover like maybe she wanted to touch him, to tell him it was okay and that she had only been kidding. But her bravery drained away and a quivering frown settled in its place. Both hands, splinted and unsplinted both, lifted to catch the edge of her hood to pull it up over her head. It shaded her face entirely save for the very tip of her nose but didn't make it any easier to pass it off when she swiped the back of her wrist across her eyes.

"Sorry.. I was just... nevermind. Sorry."

"Can't help it," he said quietly. Eventually. It took a while for him to find even the smallest comfort in talking again, his body still heaving as if he'd just run a marathon and his angry heart was about to burst from his chest like a beast itself and eat someone. By the time those three little words were found, the dim light of an Old Market bakery, open late to accommodate any number of late working members of the Watch (it didn't matter which world you went to, cops loved donuts), spilled a sickly pale light for him to leave her in. Cassie was abandoned before she could reply or seek a clarification, the door chiming during the open and close.

The minutes ticked by slowly, uncomfortably before he opened the door again and poked his head out. The words were softer. "Come and pick."

As they walked, Cassie had wrapped her arms around herself, holding herself together as best as she could. Left to her own thoughts while he worked toward calming himself down and while he offered something vaguely resembling an excuse, maybe? She wasn't sure really. Whatever it was, she wanted no further explanation. She just wanted to go home. With her teeth worrying at the inside of her lip, well under the dark of the hood, she sniffed back some when he disappeared inside. A glance over her shoulder had her considering how much of a head start she could get before he'd notice she was gone but before she knew it, he was coaxing her toward the warmth of the bakery. Tantalizing scents of chocolate and cinnamon were enough to weasel their way through her foggy mind and reluctantly she trudged toward the door.

"I don't need cake." She mumbled in passing, squeezing past him to step inside just the same.

Tralle's face fell. Not that it had far to go. But if it was possible for his frown to deepen any more, it did so, painting a sudden disappointment over all of the more typical irritation and frustration. His shoulders sagged and he fished his cigarettes free from a pocket, pushing one between his lips and lighting it to keep his mouth busy. He sagged against the nearby window sill and just stared at her, ignoring all of the delicious confections that surrounded them.

Once inside, she pushed her hood back so she could see and out of politeness for the shopkeeper. Her eyes were rimmed red but she would gladly pin that on the alcohol's influence rather than anything else. Affording a shaky smile for the one behind the counter, she walked the length of the bakery case, leaning down to get a better look at the offerings. Along the way, she tipped a less than stealthy look back to Tralle before returning to her perusal. Finally, she tapped two fingers against the glass, pointing out a cupcake topped in blue frosting and yellow sprinkles. "Dutch chocolate with buttercream? That one. Please. And thank you."

The look was caught, his own expression chagrined. It was enough to make him take a sudden interest in his shoes. When Cassie finally made her choice, it prompted him to push away from his lean and cross the vinyl tile floor to place the requisite cash atop the counter. A subtle gesture was made to for the woman behind the counter to double the order.

"And whatever else you want," he murmured to Cassie. "Birthday girl."

She brushed back an errant dark strand, tucking it over her ear and waving off a wisp of smoke that had come with Tralle's approach. At least she didn't admonish him for smoking inside. She figured it would only worsen his mood which in turn would have dire effects on her own. After all, it was already going downhill enough, she didn't want to add to it.

"Just this, thank you," she mumbled, dipping her chin toward her chest to keep her eyes away from his. While the woman behind the counter packaged up the cupcakes into neat little takeaway containers complete with matching ribbons and plastic forks, Cassie rocked back on her heels, tipping precariously before righting herself. "I just wanted you to be nice, you didn't have to do this."

"I'm tryin'." Tralle said the words with a heavy exhale, his mouth widened into a grimace and his hands both pushed back into his pockets as soon as he could finish his cigarette and flick it out the door. The words were honest, another apology that wasn't an apology, and a glimmer of insight for the intuitive. The anger. The snapping. It wasn't all him. "No room for it in the Row. You're different."

Closing the distance between them, long fingers encircled her arm just below the elbow. Usually the touch meant above the elbow and a pull in some direction or another. This time it was a tender squeeze. Or, as much of one as Tralle could manage.

"I know." She conceded on the breath of a soft sigh, her chin still dropped and her eyes grazing over the bakery case without actually taking any of the details in. He made it difficult to think. Or maybe it was the whisky. She wasn't sure. Even closer it was only worse than before. She stood stock still in his grasp save for the brief bracing where she expected to be redirected and sent into motion. When that didn't come she finally lifted a look up to him.

"Can we just... I don't know. Go somewhere else?" She felt a little awkward standing there like that with the baker behind the counter waiting for them to take their order and get out of her shop.

"We can go back to the cottage," he offered. "You can have a bath. I can bring some books down to you from the manor." It was quite the olive branch, extended with another light squeeze and a gesture with his unattended hand towards the door. When she began to move, he moved with her, pushing the door open with the shove of a hand and leading her back into the damp chill of the night. "Then you could read and eat your cake, and I won't bother you."

"More books?" She looked up at him, her brows rising. Cliche as it was, he was speaking her language with such an offering. Within the pages of a book, new or old, she could disappear for awhile and not have to worry about her problems. Some people had drugs. Cassie had stories. She offered a passably polite smile for the woman behind the counter before turning to follow after him. The addendum to his offer had her expression crashing once more. Fingers curling into the warmth of her sleeves, she stared at his back for a pair of moments before she caught up to him, dropping her gaze to her feet instead.

"I... that's... hnngh. Nevermind."

"What? I t-thought you'd like it." Tralle actually sighed.

"I'm not good at this. I s-suck at this." He wanted to smoke again but jammed his hands back into his pockets once more, head ducked low to level a direct stare ahead of them. Their path took them through Old Temple and down the winding path that brought them through the smaller market that led into the Row. His body remained close to hers, their arms occasionally brushing when the path became uneven. "I wanted to make you smile..."

"N-no! I do! I like more books!" She said quickly, angling her chin upwards in the event she might be able to catch his eye. Alas, there was none of that. He had fixed his gaze straight ahead and they would be to the Row soon so the rashly bold thought of ducking her way under his arm was tucked to the wayside, kept solely for fleeting fits of whimsy. Saved for a time when Cassie wasn't so Cassie. She didn't match his sigh, as much as she wanted to, but the falling notes in her tone may as well have been a sigh.

"That's not what I was trying to say. I...I...um...what I meant was," she sucked in a deep breath and finally spit it all out in a rapid slur of tumbled words that melded all together as they fell from her mouth. "I didn't want you to leave me alone, I was enjoying hanging out with you but if you don't wanna it's okay. I just, I just don't want to be alone on my birthday."

"I like having you near," he said almost immediately. The admission was punctuated by a sudden stutter in his step during an inopportune turn down the final street that would spill them through the massive ironbound gates of Underbridge Manor. They collided after a fashion, a slightly stumble that might have spilled her on wet cobblestone if he hadn't thrown an arm around her slender frame to steady them both.

"Uh." Tralle was suddenly struggling for words again. "Very near, apparently."

Inebriation and her own lacking grace would have most assuredly dumped her upon the ground with such unceremonious brilliance that it could have only been the collusion of the universe working against her. Instead she found herself within the protective loop of his arm, much like she had wished she'd been brave enough to try for on her own. Maybe the universe wasn't out to get her after all. Once she was no longer at risk of ending up a tangle of limbs and likely ruined cupcakes, she lifted a gently angled look to meet him.

"Then let me be near? Don't push me away?" She asked softly, lingering there for only a few beats before drawing back from his grasp in favor of the final stretch back to the cottage.

She found his blue eyes, far lighter than their usual dark sapphire, boring into hers for her gentle look up. Once again his mouth had compressed into a thin, pensive line, something like the prelude to an uncertain smile. There was something reassuring in it, the lingering look and a more sure stalk forward. "You c-c-can be as near as you want. You can--"

And that was when Tralle walked smack into the unopened side of the manor's gate.

The unintelligible gasp and lift of her hands wasn't enough to get him to stop in time and the sudden clang of person meeting metal rang out all around them, an echoing warble lingering even after the collision. Cassie winced and hurried over, her bottle lip held firm beneath the weight of her teeth as she got close enough to see what damage, if any, had occurred. Left hand reached for a touch at his elbow, gentle and tentative.

"That...was something I would do. Are you okay?"

To his credit, Cassie's keeper stayed on his feet. Blue eyes blinked repeatedly as his mind struggled to grasp the sheer idiocy of what had just occurred. The shock led to recognition, recognition to embarrassment. The embarrassment? It became anger. It bubbled up from deep within him so suddenly that his skin had turned as red as a fire truck. His first inclination was to unleash a terrible roar and then to tear the offending gate from its hinges and then fold it into oblivion.

Cassie got to him first.

She touched him and the anger melted away, an occurrence so sudden that it left him blinking again, before a look fell to the fragile porcelain perfection of her face and the concerned etched there. She didn't find it funny when someone else might have. Tralle relaxed almost instantly for the touch.

"I... yeah. I'm fine. Stupid gate." He leaned into her anyway, setting them in motion again and skirting around the monstrous door. "What I get for gettin' lost in your eyes..."

The man was proving to be sweet at the weirdest of time.

The anger was rising, radiating off of him in pulsing waves that were almost palpable in the thick air of an hour much too late for lingering in the Row. It was part of why she had been so cautious in the way she touched him. She had been the target of his sudden snaps on at least a handful of occasions and while none had ventured into the realm of physicality, she wondered if it was just a matter of time. But he calmed and she breathed a sigh of relief, stepping in close to set the flat of her palm against his arm. Cassie was no stranger to embarrassing moments like that. If anything it made him seem a little more human. As he drew her around the gate instead of into it, she swayed against his touch and promptly tripped when he offered her what was arguably the sweetest thing he had said to her in the short time they had known one another.

"Aw f***." The f-bomb spilled free before she could catch it but at the very least she caught herself. On him. Awkwardly. Doubly so when her brain caught up to her mouth and she slapped a hand over her mouth. "Oh s***. I mean. Crap. Ugh. You heard nothing, Tralle. Nothing, I tell you."

Whether it was instinct or just a quick mind overburdened with the sudden desire to touch her, he was quick to snake that arm back around her, cinching her just above the waist and keeping her pressed tight into his side to prevent any further possibility of her fall. She cursed again and he pretended to ignore it, just as she asked, for a short while. A rough and sudden cough disguised another sound, possibly the impossible notion that Tralle had chuckled. But what were the chances.

The cottage wasn't far from the gate, far closer than the looming depression that made up the manor itself and it wasn't long before he was opening its door and holding it for her. Cassie was pressed gently into the waiting warmth of the homey little den, with Tralle following behind. "Christopher," he told her suddenly, uncertain of why now, of all times, he chose to share that little nugget of information. "My first name is Christopher... or Chris. No one else uses it..."

Melding against his side, she could have easily let herself fade into the nearly boneless stumble that the dutch whisky wanted to dictate of her anyways. There was a certain amount of safety in his grasp, looped as it was around her. Something that could have been suffocation or salvation depending on the day and their respective moods. As the fog gave way to the little cottage, she was easily ushered over the threshold and offered the scintillating little tidbit out of the blue. She spun about face and looked up at him, the surprise easily etched in the lift of her brows and the puckered rounding of her mouth.

"Chris." She repeated, chewing on his name for a moment before biting back a smile. Cassie set their cupcakes aside and stepped back toward him, stopping almost toe to toe with him.

"Nobody really calls me Cassidy, I just get Cassie. But I like Christopher. And Chris." Lifting on her toes, her chin rose to as if to let her nuzzle her nose along the sharp plane of his jawline. "I like how it feels on my tongue. Can I use it?"

And then there she was, an pretty invader taking up way too much of his personal space where anyone else who knew him didn't even want to share the same room with him. Maybe Cassie was braver than he had given her credit for. Maybe the little bird just had Tralle's number. The truth itself, he would tell himself later, was somewhere lurking in the middle, hidden beneath a dragon's trove of doubt and worry. She smelled like a good many of his nights alone, like liquor and rain and the candles he kept lit when the artificial light bothered him. She smelled like she belonged there, like she was his.

"You can call me Chris if it makes you happy," he said finally, tipping his chin down and very nearly returning the physical gesture, their mouths dangerously close to repeating a drunk kiss from a different night. "When it's just us. No one else. Names have power. But you... y-y-you can have m-mine."

She said other words. Other words that needed a response. Just not a sweet one. "You could have other things on your tongue..." There was a feral shift, some small confidence in the moment restored.

Wide eyes were bright and doe-eyed, amber looking almost gold with the bare light of the cottage mixed with the thin slivers of silver moonlight that made it through the windows. Gone was the petulant pout she had worn most of the way home, hidden under the shade of her awning like hood. In its place was something more uncertain, more tentative. Liquid courage only went so far, she had found that out once already. But it was her birthday, which meant a whole new year to be everything she hadn't been the year before. Bold, brave, beautiful. Maybe all of it, if she could manage.

"I like it," she repeated, nodding softly. The gesture swayed her against him, the soft collision sending her barely rebounding backwards with a quietly punchy giggle and a scuff of her shoe. "But only when it's just us. Cross my heart."

4/6/16

Precious few people knew how painful anger could be. Christopher Tralle could have taught a class on it. It had been an intimate companion of his for more than half a decade, bubbling terribly beneath the surface of his skin and always under a threat of consuming him. On another night, he would have given in, would have lashed out at the source of his ire.

Had it been anyone but Cassie.

He held it in as he stomped quickly down the porch steps and thrust himself across the small lawn towards the nearest street. He drew in on himself and bowled through more than one fellow pedestrian, snarling a threat at each one to keep them from reacting out of anything but fear or, at worst, wariness. His pace wasn't especially fast, but there was a purpose to his need for distance. He had to hold the Beast in.

One.

He was already gone, neither leather nor smoke visible from the Inn's window.

Two.

Cassie's nose pressed against the cold glass, each exhale flaring fogginess that made it even more difficult to see out.

Three.

She swore she would give him exactly ten minutes before starting after him, just enough to make it seem like she wasn't going to but not enough that she would be in his proverbial blast radius.

Four.

Her heels bounced every other second, bobbing the anxious girl up and down while the patrons of the inn continued to ignore her presence as they had done since she and Tralle had arrived.

Five.

Maybe she had gone too far. It was a silly bet. A silly, stupid bet.that ended in him leaving in a rage, his hand full of shattered glass.

Six.

Perhaps she should consider staying at the Inn instead. He wouldn't want to see her after that. He wouldn't want her.

Seven.

Her chest felt more and more tight with each tock of the water clock. The dark outside was so very dark and the Row was unforgiving. Tralle was unforgiving too.

Eight.

He was her only friend in the entire world (literally) and she had pushed him away for what? The sake of trying to win a bet with a lie?

Nine.

It had been weeks since her last panic attack but she felt the anxiety rising like mercury in her veins and before the clock ever struck the tenth minute, she was out through the door like shot, the early spring chill making her hard exhales come in billowing curls. Her Converse beat out an ungraceful cadence against cobblestone and pavement, the seams between which melded together so easily it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began until she was tripping over a fault in her footing.

Crap. She had waited too long and he was nowhere to be seen but maybe, just maybe, if she retraced the path they had taken to the Inn to begin with, she might be able to trail him back to the Row. It would make it easier to sneak back to the Cottage within the vague and undefinable boundary of his protective bubble. People didn't cross Tralle after all. Not if they wanted to see another day. Cassie really, really wanted to see another day, preferably in the warmth of Underbridge Cottage. He had been right, it was a cold night and it only made the binding feeling in her chest tighten further. Crap, crap, crap. Where was he?

Cigarette one.

The rage was almost blinding. It had set him on a very fine path back to whence they came, but Tralle paid little heed to anything else. Another person was shoved out of the way, off of their feet. Brushing a bus stop benched ended in it being reduced to splinters. A fist sized chunk of a lightpost went bouncing into traffic. The urge to hurt someone was at an all time high, the anger powerful enough to make him want to curl up into a ball and whimper.

Cigarette two.

He had become aware of his own low growling, of the stares of the sporadic collection of pedestrians who lived far enough away from the Row to not know him. Each look was met with an angry curl of his lip, but he contented himself with avoiding further contact, his pace slowly as the anger ebbed towards something more manageably. Something that felt more normal. It was difficult.

Cigarette three.

It had finally dawned on him that he had all but abandoned Cassie, regardless of the justification, and it stopped him dead in his tracks. She had antagonized him and unwisely so, but in retrospect it was noteworthy to recall the uncertainty that lingered beneath all of her playful cruelty. She had been left to whatever fate the inn's denizens had in store for her and though they had seemed indifferent, things could have changed in his absence. She did rely on him for protection after all... Did she? Would she still? The anger twisted inside of him, warring with other feelings that were less easy to define.

He should wait for her. Shouldn't he? It would serve her right. Maybe she needed a little punishment.

At first it was easy to follow the trail of destruction and bewildered bystanders, the wide sweeping path of Hurricane Tralle easy to see as it wound down out of Dragon's Gate and into the darker parts of the city. But soon the whispers abated, the stares relegated to those who peeked out from barely parted curtains. The longer she had to think, the worse she felt and the closer she came to losing it completely. It had only been a joke, a goading teasing that was meant to try and win that stupid, stupid bet. How much would it cost her? Her mind immediately went to the worst case scenario, her imagination running rampant with the possibilities. He would throw her out, no, he would feed her to a dragon! Or... or... he would let Atticus have her after all. Was it too late for returns?

F*ck.

Where was he? Her pace quickened the closer to the edge of the Row that she got. If she didn't catch up before then, she didn't want to think about the final leg of the walk back to the cottage. Not at this hour. She would be better off turning around and going back to the Inn. The Inn full of dispassionate people who didn't so much as spare her a second glance. Chris saw her. He always had. She wrote her sniffles off as a result of the cold though it was harder to account for the burning in her eyes. So focused on trying to find him, she rushed along the dark streets with her gaze fixed at the distance rather than the immediate vicinity. Six blocks, maybe less, the Row had a habit of sneaking up on the unprepared. It's all she had left.

He had thought about lighting a fourth cigarette and then dismissed the idea. The little bird had always chided him for what she had termed a dirty habit, though she hadn't tried very hard. Instead he shrank into the shadows of a looming building, seeking a false comfort in the obscurity they offered. There was no one to see the softening of his expression. The scowl that became a sad frown. Her bullish sassiness had been very out of character for her, almost mean in the desire to win where she was so often sweet, innocently tantalizing.

It was beneath the latter of those recollections that the anger ebbed a little more, extinguishing some of the inferno of his anger and making her keeper long for things to be different. Then, now, in the future. Tralled looked up just in time catch sight of her approach and the barest glimpse of her expression. It was just beginning to register with him when he reached out on instinct and grabbed her.

Immediately following the closure of his hand upon her, three things happened in such rapid order that there was no way she was even conscious of them. It was hard to tell what came first but her frame jolted like she had touched a hot stove. Her lips parted to loose a panicked gasp of a scream right as she burst into tears and, as a matter of most minimal self preservation, she twisted and punched at her assailant with her clenched right fist as hard as she could. Which admittedly wasn't necessarily enough to do damage but the frantic effort behind it was at the very least admirable. Her eyes had squeezed shut tightly against the sting of the sudden spill of tears and when she reopened them, her vision was blurred but she could just barely make him out.

"O-oh, oh gosh. I'm s-sorry. I'm... so sorry," she gasped out through a sob, her shoulders sinking with the sudden release of fight-or-flight reaction.

His grip tightened almost immediately when she struck him, a harmless blow that narrowly missed his face and found a home against his shoulder. A grunt was her reward for the strike, followed by a growl that was purely instinct. What Tralle hadn't been prepared for was the sudden waterworks, a breakdown of significant proportions that, after a few long moments, saw his grip shifting and her petite body being hauled in against his.

In that moment, the anger melted away completely, and his long arms were encircling her tightly.

I'msorryI'msorryI'msorry

The mantra was repeated against his chest endlessly, broken only by the shudders of each sob as they reached their peak before dying down to a tremor of her frame and a rough sniff as she tried to regain her composure. It took close to five minutes for the fit of tears to abate and it left her cheeks splotchy and her chest racked with hiccups. Burying her hot face against the cool leather of his jacket, she resisted speaking until she was certain she could do it without losing it all over again. The smell of cigarette smoke was heavy on him, laid over an earthy comfort that she had come to call familiar over the past nearly two months of knowing him. But there was no chiding, not under the weight of her guilt.

"I... I... It was a joke... I didn't mean..."

hic!

"For you to get s-so upset."

hic! hic!

"And your hand," she groaned mournfully, the tide of tears once more threatening her lash line even as she hiccuped again, "nnngh, your hand, I'm so sorry... Please don't leave me... I'm sorry..."

He should have still been mad.

He wanted to still be mad.

The soft sobs that shook her slender little body washed away whatever agitation that remained and had rendered the Beast surprisingly silent. No, not silent. The passage of time and her terrified apology gave birth to quiet reassurances. They were little at first, paltry nothings mumbled in near unintelligible fashion, letting his tone do the placating. But as Cassie got more worked up, Tralle gave way to Chris, her Chris, the one she'd come to know, and gentle words found a home in the wealth of dark hair atop her head.

"It's... we'll deal with it later. It's okay. J-just stop crying. We can fix it. You can fix it. Shhhhh."

Never underestimate the power of a girl crying to assuage a boy's anger. Another five minutes teetered on the halfway mark to ten before she finally stopped crying fully, her shoulders heaving as she gulped in deep breaths of the stagnant cold air. Even the jarring hiccups abated to tiny mouselike squeaks instead of rough jolts through her chest. When she finally got the gall to lean back from her hiding spot against him, she hesitantly drew her gaze up the length of his neck and over the sharp planes of his jaw and cheekbone to meet his eyes, expecting the deep, dark blue that was only beautiful in the cruel way that the minutes after midnight were; because they meant morning would come eventually, if you could make it that long.

"I-I'm sorry, Chr... um, Tralle," she barely caught herself, silently admonishing herself for the almost slip. Not as though the barren streets had discernible ears with which to hear her (or so she thought), but still. "I just, I wanna go home... with you..."

During some time in the last few minutes, the ferocious storm in his eyes had abated and cleared to that of a burgeoning summer sky in the midafternoon when a hard rain had passed. The anger had since faded and his brows had pushed together in a pained concern that he had yet lent a voice to, but one hand (the uninjured one) smoothed over the small of her back along the delicate ridge of her spine. He didn't smile when she looked up at him, but met her gaze and the begged requested with a short, affirmative nod.

"We can go home," he murmured a moment later, leaning in to kiss her forehead. "We'll go to the cottage, make everything right..."

"Um..." The girl paused, blinking into the dark. First looking down one side of the hallway and then the other, she jammed her pinky finger into her ear and gave it a wiggle. It did nothing to chase away the tickling touch of inhuman words on the edge of her ear nor the ever present feeling that she was being watched. She touched a few fingers to her head to make sure she hadn't somehow knocked it in her stumbling and sure enough, she seemed perfectly fine.

Because hearing voices is totally normal.

"Sorry about that," she said hesitantly, two fingertips grazing the edge of the table to trace its outline and verify its position as she took a step around it. Further down the hall, the doors on both sides were shut snugly in their frames though she could have sworn that the nearest still wobbled with the shockwaves of being roughly thrust back into their resting places. Cassie turned back the way she had come from, wholly intent on clearing out of the strange manor as quickly as she could.

Did you see the r?v on her, ja? It was another hushed rush of sound, audible but directed away from her. Like a conversation not directed towards pretty human ears. Not like the others, ja. Brave. So little but brave. And that r?v, oh ho!

Furniture in multiple rooms creaked audibly all at once, like a rickety chorus of wood laughter in some disturbing jest shared. But as quickly as it rose to its climax, the sounds were silenced beneath a another sound, loud and sharp like a whip crack. It happened twice more in rapid succession, faint. Coming from outside.

Run, little bird. The voices said, a whispered rush of surprise and panic. Resignation. Run if you want to live!

?Who?s there?? She called out, her own voice echoing back at her. It was easy to tell that it sounded differently than the whispers whirling around her. There was no way she was going to stay to find out why. Her chest was tight with panic and it was all she could do to keep her breathing steady instead of giving in to the rising anxiety as she ran back down the hallway and toward the dining room. Little things here and there seemed slightly out of place, as if someone had rearranged them in the short time she had been in the study. Had she been gone that long?

The sudden stop to all of the clattering noise had her skidding to a stop halfway down the dining room?s length, her head whipping a look toward the high reaching windows. The sharp sound that had brought the other sounds and voices to such a halting stop was definitely outside. She couldn?t possibly go out there could she? Run they had said. Run. ?But where??

Who? They who! Faceless Who. The whispers were so many that more words were drowned out than not. Make you Faceless too.

Crack. Crack. Crack! The sounds came again, momentarily halting the dull voices drifting through the dining hall, and then something banged against two of the windows, a sound light and tinny like branches striking in a storm.

Run, pretty one. Run, little bird. Run and call to the Beast!

The window most to her right shattered then, giving birth to a gnarly arm wrapped in tattered cloth. Branch like fingers scrabbled over the glass surface and then reached outwards. Then reached for Cassie, suddenly sprouting whip-like vines that cracked at her. Reaching for her. Behind it, more figures loomed. Shambled.

What if she didn't want to be Faceless? Some part of her thought that this was just a bad dream. She had fallen asleep with her face in a book and she'd wake up on the floor of the caretaker's cottage. Everything would be okay. Everything would be fine. There would be no voices, no moving furniture, no banging on the windows. The sky had been clear when she came in, not a cloud in sight and only the faintest of springtime breezes. Certainly nothing that could knock shutters or branches against the window panes.

"I'm going, I'm going!" She yelped, nearly dropping her armful of books as she tripped over a rogue footstool. Without crashing, she regained her footing and scrambled for the dining room's door just as glass shattered. A frantic glance back tossed her hair over her shoulder, a violent maelstrom of deep brown that gave way to the unsettling sight of something neither human nor animal but rather a nightmarish monster reaching through, grasping at her. Cassie didn't stay long enough to give it a chance to touch her, crashing into the door and stumbling back to yank it open. Without bothering to close it behind her, she tripped out onto the terrace, sucking in cool night air to break the feverish sweat that made her tank top stick to her back. As far as she saw, there was only one logical way down to the ground and that was the spiral staircase she had taken to get there in the first place. That would also mean going down there. Terrified tears stung at her eyes, blurring her vision as she spun down the staircase. "Ohgodohgodohgodohgod. Tralle, where are you."

Crack, crack, crack!

There were four of them outside the window, easier to see when she gained some open ground. They could have been taken straight from a Rob Zombie remake of The Nightmare Before Christmas, tall, gaunt beings with more length in their limbs than torso, with an ugly dirty flesh made of what appeared to be bark and moss beneath rotting clothing that perpetually threatened to fall off. Small branches sprouted from heads that were too round. Branches and bones, pushing through the tight, ugly flesh at the oddest of angles. There faces were... well, they had no faces!

Crack, crack, crack!

Their finger snapped together rapidly, each admitting that whipping sound, something passing between them. Communication. They looked at each other and then they looked at the little bird.

They lurched towards her then, long strides chasing her towards the staircase and then leaping over the edge to the soft soil below.

Cassie wanted to do many things. She wanted to scream, she wanted to cry, she wanted to throw up. Not necessarily in that order. Nowhere on that list did she want to go anywhere near the faceless things. Why had she gone outside? The voices had told her to run and she ran. It was either outside or wait for them to come in, she rationalized over the hammering of her heart in her ears. She reached the bottom of the spiral stairs and burst out onto the hill that led back down to the dark forest where the keeper's cottage was.

Scary manor.

Dark forest.

Lovely.

She was by no means athletic but she was little and quick, her Chucks pounding feverishly against the dew slick grass. Crackling of branches and snapping of whip like appendages behind her told her that she shouldn't look back no matter what.

"Don't look, don't look, don't look," she repeated to herself on each harsh exhale, her breath leaving her in tight gasps as she hit the hill at a sprint. The incline served to increase her speed but she knew the same advantage would be afforded to her pursuers and so she focused on keeping her legs moving as fast as she could. Three quarters of the way down, she got going just a little bit too quickly and stumbled, tucking into a roll that was graceful enough that it surprised even Cassie that she was able to scramble up and keep going. A dull ache in her wrist was nothing compared to the sharp stabbing of a stitch in her side but she could have sworn she could see the cottage's warm candlelight through the trees and it served as a beacon, calling her to safe haven.

Crack, crack, crack.

Crack, crack, crack.

Crack, crack, CRACK!

The little bird was quick but her pursuers had a long stride to them, a steady, looping gait that kept them on pace with the alacrity she displayed beneath the terror of the moment. Two more of the earthy scarecrows joined the pursuit, short and quicker than the others and bearing a faint crimson sheet along their ugly hands. One of those nasty appendages was what caught her, a scant hundred yards from the safety of the cottage.

CRACK!

The vine whipped around her ankle and stopped her hard enough to upend her, the solid soil of the manor grounds coming up fast to meet her.

Her high pitched scream pierced the night, shaking free even the sleeping birds from their nests. Robins and starlings, finches and jays, fluttering a frantic beating of wings but no squawks. There were predators afoot far greater than the usual fare of the Row and so, through some innate sense of self-preservation, the disturbance was quieted just as quickly as it began. Cassie felt her foot yanked out from underneath her and her scream echoed until she hit the ground. The books she had been carrying were smashed against her chest with enough force to thrust the air from her lungs and her squeal turned into a pained croak. Dirt and grass stained the previously pure white cotton of her pajamas, smearing them in green and brown as she twisted and kicked, doing everything she could to try and free herself from the faceless creature's grasp.

"No, no, no, please, no....," she sobbed, salty tears streaking paths through the dirt on her face, cutting jagged little clearing against lightly freckled but still pale skin. The books had been let go, forgotten upon the ground in her panic as her hands instead grabbed at the ground in an exercise of utmost futility. Thick clumps of grass were ripped up, mud and dirt catching under breaking nails as she scrabbled for purchase. Maybe if she screamed louder someone would hear her. The walls surrounding Underbridge Manor were tall, but what more could she do?

"HELP!" One scream.

"Oh my God, please HELP ME!" A second.

Call to the Beast.

"TRALLLLLLLLLE!"

By the time he was across the threshold of the bathroom and past, Tralle had stripped down to nothing but his boxerbriefs which had, ironically, been spared. Scratch and bleeding in places, his body was a canvas for some crazed artist's drugged up rendition of a not so epic struggle. Each bend and reach of his body was punctuated by a soft, breathy grunt, a sound that dragged out into a low hiss when he bent down to remove the last of his clothing.

"It's what I am," he told her softly, the words escaping in a slow growl. "A monster. You saw." Watery blue eyes glance down at her, his mouth pursed pensively and his arms wrapping slowly around himself. This moment, for him, felt like the beginning of the end.

"Shhh," she said softly, almost soothingly as she stepped fully into the bathroom. Only inches away, she leaned up on her toes to fish through the medicine cabinet for bandages and other miscellaneous supplies. Her fingertips were raw and many of her fingernails were broken, so she took a few moments to wash her hands, holding her breath through the stinging. Rather than stain another towel, she dried them off on her shorts then turned toward him, a bottle of peroxide in hand.

"I... I don't really know... or understand what happened... or if I'm maybe just dreaming... but... but...," struggling for words, she took a few slow breaths to calm herself, her amber eyes closing while she did. When she reopened them, she continued on a different path than originally planned. "Turn around, let me see your back."

"You saw me. The other me. All of me." He stared down at her beneath the ridge of a furrowed brow, reaching out for her once and then decided against it, ruddy hands stilled where they were half way to her. "I..."

Tralle fell silent again and, surprisingly, did what he was told without arguing with her. Or growling.

"I... I did," she conceded quietly. Cassie wanted to touch him, to caress each line that marred his skin and tell him that everything would be okay. But even the most optimistic of little birds are allowed a cynical side. Swapping peroxide over open cuts, the smaller ones were covered with sticky bandaids while the larger ones were cleaned a second time before she layered gauze squares over them and taped them down.

"You also saved me... from those... those things...," she pointed out, touching the heel of her hand to his shoulder. "Turn around. Please."

The start of a wince became a bubbling growl when the sting of peroxide soaked material touched the first would, causing him his muscles to tense and his body to puff up in a sudden burst of pain and rage. He bit back the snarl that should have followed, chewing quietly on any number of expletives that he was loathe to unleash on her, but quietly seethed for each fresh sting of pain.

"Yeah," he eventually mumbled, a small concession made in the admission as his body responded to her direction. His blue eyes were dark but softened. Tempered. "Not gonna let anyone hurt you..."

"Hold still." Urging through clenched teeth, it wasn't as though this was pleasant at all for her. Her lips puckered into a tight purse at much the same time her dark brows knitted inward. Without meeting his eye as he turned, she systematically treated the marks on his front side one after another. The adrenaline had worn off and she teetered between wanting to scream and wanting to cry, so focusing on something like that was exactly what she needed to make sure she didn't do either of those. With his major wounds cleaned and patched, she ventured a flicker of a golden eyed glance up at him before averting her eyes and turning toward the sink to wash her hands again.

"...I know." Once her hands were dry, she took some time to tend the worst of her own wounds, mostly split nails and scrapes but nothing that compared to what he had sustained. "Tell me what to say, because I don't know..."

There had been a boy, once upon a time. He had loved laughing. He had been a sweet talker and a voracious flirt. He loved people and, despite an odd and unexpectedly prophetic upbringing, had been very full of life. Brimming with it. He had been deep, open, and ready for change.

That boy had died at the foot of Ejer Bavneh?j/M?lleh?j in Denmark, screaming at the heavens and the ones who took him like some viking hero, dauntless in the face of death. It had been after that, after they had broken him, that he had learned of the Debt. Of his Curse. After that, the world had been nothing but pain. Solitude.

Until Cassidy Finch.

The Little Bird had changed everything.

Tralle should have had something profound to say. Christopher Tralle should have buried her beneath a litany of words and feelings, a compilation of every little nuanced thing he had learned around her in their short few months together. All the little details that had made her so much more than just the petite girl he had been drawn to upon first laying eyes on her. More. So much more.

But his head and his heart didn't want to cooperate.

In the end, all he said was, "Tell me you won't leave me."

Without a word, she gently took his hand and pulled him toward the bathroom door. She was dirty and tired, her pajamas stained with worse things than grass. Her muscles ached like she had run a marathon and really she just wanted to collapse face down on the daybed tucked into the corner of the tiny cottage. Instead she went to the couch where she sat, pulling him down and tugging him toward her, intent on making him lay down with his head in her lap.

"Shh, I'm not going anywhere."

Half zombie, half oversized dog, he ambled along in her wake at her urging, another pained growl bubbling up when she drew him towards the lumpy and lopsided comfort of the couch. A soft sigh wheezed free upon impact, the coarse stubble of his jaw scraping over the top of her thigh and his gaze falling towards the ugly shag throw rug before them.

He didn't say anything for a time, merely seeking out the warmth of her comfort.

One he groused and grumped his way onto the couch, she set about soft, featherlight touches through his hair and along the line of his jaw. They were chaste things, gentle and soothing. Mostly she was making it up as she went. Ever since her arrival she had felt out of her element but she understood what a difference it could make to simply have someone there during the low times. A quiet little tune thrummed in her throat, something equal parts lullaby and senseless notes accented by a quiet sigh.

"Sometimes... sometimes I think that maybe I died and went to Hell or something. And that's what this place is. But then there are other moments, with you usually, that I know that can't be the case." She quieted after the random thought tumbled free, offering no additional insight and returning to the quiet tune and the soft touches through his hair.

Tralle remained silent at the end of her quiet musings, possessed of nothing to add in those moments save for a subtle reach that found his longer fingers curling around her delicate hand claiming it. When he finally did speak, it was in a quiet tone and with far more words than she was accustomed to from him when he was in one of his moods.

"For the last five, maybe six years... I can't remember anymore since it all seems to run together, I can hardly remember a day when I didn't waked up angry and in pain. Never one. Always both. The angrier, the more it hurts. It's... like Hell, yeah. Or what I imagine Hell to be like. Lonely, painful, and miserable. A place where I'm not the me I was, humanity eroding one little chip at a time.

Then you came..."

"You've been here that long?" She asked softly, her tone sad in its surprise. Wetting her lips with a short pass of her tongue, she peeked down at him and tucked her fingers against his. Cassie was quiet as he spoke and even for a few moments after, the weight of the night wearing on her ability to process all that he was saying. Eventually she bent down to brush an awkward kiss to his forehead, lingering there for a moment before sitting back up.

"If it's Hell then at least I've got you. And you've got me. And the heat hasn't been too bad..." One corner of her mouth quivered like she might smile, her weak attempt at a joke making her feel even more awkward.

"You are a soothing balm," he confessed suddenly. "More so than I've ever known."

Sky blue eyes stared up into honeyed amber.

"I... don't even know what that's supposed to mean." She answered, blinking doe-wide eyes down at him. "But... it kind of sounds sweet? I think? Unless it's like IcyHot... then not so much. That stuff burns. When they say hot, they mean hot."

Cassie realized she was rambling and coughed quietly to shut herself up, red seeping into her dirty cheeks. "Um. Yeah. Hi."

"You touch me," he breathed the words out, barely audible, "and nothing hurts. There's no anger. Just... me. Been a long time since I've had that."

"What if... I do this?" She asked as she poked at one of the lesser bruises on his bare arm. Pinning her bottom lip with her teeth, she glanced away from him then right back to the pair of crystalline blues looking up at her. Sheepish regret filled in where playful smartassedness had been a moment before. "Sorry... I'm, um, I'm... really bad at this, Chris. I don't... I've never... I guess..."

Deep breath, breathe Clover.

"I've never really, um, felt like... this," she gestured vaguely between them, "about someone before... and I'm kind of freaking out about a lot of things. And I'm sorry. I just, I don't know what to say or do or... you've got your words and they're such... wow. And me, I'm just. I'm just Cassie. Just me. And I'm bad at this, I'm sorry."

"You can do other things with your mouth that're just as expressive." He tongued the inside of his cheek, making it balloon out, brows lifted and his eyes suddenly wide. Humored.

Cassie sputtered a giggle that likely jostled the sore man more than she intended. It worsened the blush in her cheeks and she gently poked him in the forehead. "Shhhh, don't be dirty. And you're hurt, you need to take it easy."

"I'm going to kiss you now," he told her though a wince from all of the jostling and then reached up to slip on hand into her hair, fingers curling around the back of her neck to slowly bring her mouth down to his. It was warm and sweet and gentle, a lingering bit of tender affection that ended when he was murmuring again. "You are very special, Cassie Finch. A rare beauty and a treasure."

"Oh... okay," she said lamely in the time it took him to pull her down to him. His hands were rough but his mouth was gentle and she met the moment with ample alacrity, her lips hot on his for the few moments that they touched. Softly she exhaled against him as he spoke, nosing against his cheek before leaning back so her neck didn't ache. "You're sweet. And you probably need sleep. Somewhere more comfortable than this too."

"Let's go to bed then." He smiled up at her, slow but sure in the way it crept up upon his mouth. It minimized the groan that came from his ginger rise up.

"Okay, let's."

5/30/16

Dark was descending upon the Row. Though at a later hour than usual thanks to the stretching days of approaching summer, the shadows were content to spread and settle from the corners that seldom saw light until they cloaked the Row as a whole. Amidst them, marine blue Chuck Taylor All Stars beat a frantic pace against pavement and cobblestone both as Cassie raced through dwindling crowds and narrows alleys alike in her journey back to Underbridge Cottage. She couldn't remember the last time she ran so hard. The wind whipped her dark hair into a wild frenzy, tangling and knotting as it flew behind her like a brunette banner. Nearly overshooting her last turn, she went skidding, twisting a hand around a lightpole to facilitate the tight turn. As soon as she made it around the corner, she was right back at it, sprinting the final length until she put the brakes on just shy of the iron gates that shut the manor's grounds away from the rest of the world. Slipping between a narrow gap, she gulped air for exactly two seconds then took off, dashing through the little forest surrounding the caretaker's cottage until she reached the front door. This time around she couldn't slow her momentum quickly enough and ran right into the door. It rattled a groan of protest in its frame but otherwise remained fully intact. The collision sapped the air from her lungs and with far less exuberance, she threw the door open and stumbled inside, slamming it shut behind her.

"Chrissss," she panted his name, bending at the waist to put her hands on her knees. Running was not her thing. Heck, half the time walking wasn't her thing. And, it seemed, talking was also not her thing, not so long as she couldn't breathe.

It had taken some doing (and a great many conversations) for Tralle to finally display even the remotest comfort with the little dark-haired beauty making regular forays from the little place she'd come to nominally see as home. Many discussions, some batted eyelashes and sweet kisses, and one night of less than innocent playfulness had finally sealed the deal before his growling protests gave way to a consent laced with words of potential worry. Taming the Beast had seemed to present a whole new bevy of concerns.

But the trust was there. He trusted the Little Bird even if he didn't trust the rest of the realm. And woe to the ones who thought that...

Somethings were best not to think on.

His day had been spent beneath the sun, muscles taut and his back bent beneath any number of things that had required his attention outside the cottage. The little building had taken a beating in a recent storm and the required repairs left him sweaty and only mildly ill-tempered. He was shirtless at the kitchen sink when Cassie came bursting in, his head whipping around and the distraction nearly making him lose his grip on the glass of water in his hand. "What? What's wrong?"

A certain shirtless keeper only served to extend her breathless inability to answer, her gaze tracing over an increasingly familiar frame before reaching the ever changing shades of blue that looked back at her. Cassie swallowed, holding up a single finger to let him know that she'd answer in just a moment. Save for bright red cheeks and the short, shallow breaths, there didn't seem to be a single thing wrong with her. After a few minutes of silence accented by heavy breathing, she straightened up, bringing her hands up on top of her head.

"I..."

Pant.

Pant.

Smile.

"I... got..."

Huff.

"A job."

Blue eyes widened.

In that moment, Tralle wasn't certain if he should be outraged or excited for the pretty little slip of a bookworm. So, for a few moments, he just stared. The angry gerbil that turned the wheels of his mind just... pooped out. "I... uh..."

Cassie was quite clearly excited. She bounced on her toes, turning to lock the door behind her. With it secure, she stepped away and crossed the scant distance to the little cottage's even littler kitchen. There she slipped the glass from his hand to steal a drink before replacing it within his grasp. Then she offered him another smile and furthered her explanation.

"Yeah, some place called the Iron Collar."

Wait for it. How she managed a straight face was impossible to say but she was certain she was about to kill the cogs in his head for good.

"..." Tralle's jaw dropped.

"...what?"

"Just kidding!" She threw her hands up in front of her, trying not to giggle. The bouncing reconvened again, bobbing up and down on her toes. "Wendenheim said I'm in there enough and he's wanting a little more time to himself, so he offered me a part time spot. Just some evening work, a couple days a week. But it's money, you know?"

"I... uh... wuh." It took him a few moments longer for all of it to register before Cassie's excitement finally infected him and his rigid posture softened beneath a better explanation. She bounced and he was reaching for her hands, seeking the solace of their warm. Touching her helped produce a smile soon after. "That's.. that's good. You've been bored, I know."

Her hands were hot from the run back to the cottage but she curled them into his grip and bobbed up high enough to peck a kiss to his cheek. Tugging on the grip between them, she pulled herself into his shirtless proximity and beamed a bright grin up at him. "Honestly, it felt weird not having a job. I mean, I've had various jobs since I was, like, fifteen. I thought... I thought maybe it might help. Um, is that okay? I didn't even... crap... I didn't even think about it when he offered. Should I have said no?"

She kissed his cheek, but when she finally wriggled her way closer, his mouth found hers for a more proper kiss. He made a quiet, feral sound of pleasure against her lips for it but eventually shook his head when she began to worry.

"I... I guess if I had my way, I'd keep you here... all to myself. But having your own money must be nice. And you sound so excited. You should take the job."

"Are you sure?" She asked softly. Rocking back on her heels, she raked her teeth over her bottom lip. "I just kinda... wanted to help carry my own weight. I mean, um, I'm not quite pretty enough to be a trophy... uh... girlfriend. Or whatever. And having a second person here can't, um, be like, I don't know. Easy? I guess. I just wanted to help..."

"I used to have a lot trophies," he confided in her quietly. It was a fresh glimpse behind the curtain of his mystery. "Baseball. Football. Wrestling. You put trophies on a shelf. You show them off, brag about them. Trophies down kiss away the dark thoughts in front of a fireplace. They don't make you pies or make you dance in the rain. They make you feel superior but they don't make you feel human. No, Cassie. You're not a trophy. You're a hundred times more special. And prettier."

"Well... they could help kiss away things... if you're in to inanimate objects and the one doing the kissin'..." Cassie pointed out quietly. Her fingers wiggled in his grasp, tightening and curving around his hands to draw him out of the kitchen. Her heartbeat was finally returning to normal enough that his words still had the ability to make it skip a beat or two. "And you. You're sweet. Come curl up with me and tell me what you've been up to and I can babble incessantly about my day. 'Kay?"

" 'Kay." Suitably pulled, he trudged across the short distance to the couch, pausing only as long as it took to kick out of his shoes before dropping heavily onto the old piece of furniture. Cassie was pulled down atop him a moment later with one arm draped possessively over her slender frame, loose enough for her to reposition herself however it pleased her. "Fixed some of those bad shingles on the room and resealed around the window you like to sit at. Started considering adding on to the place or something. Maybe someday."

He was agreeable and that made her happy. It wasn't always that way. As he sat, she let herself fall down over him, sprawled half across his lap and half over the couch, her legs kicked up on its arm. The angle gave her a familiar view of his face from beneath and only a little wiggling had her comfortable enough to settle. "Yesssss, I won't get wet anymore!"

It took her a few seconds to realize how that came out. In that time, the flush returned to her face and she giggled quietly before tacking on an addendum. "From the rain coming through the cracks, that is. But, um, adding on huh? Why for?"

"Roll over onto your stomach. We'll fix that." A small, salacious smile passed over his mouth, there and gone, before one hand dragged fingers through her dark hair. He relaxed slowly into the cushions of the couch and her company. "Place isn't very big. Didn't matter much when it was just me but... thought you might like more room. Places for your books. And a desk."

"Oh, you're baaaaaad." Cassie giggled, turning her head against his stomach to bury her face for a few moments. Before she turned back, she made sure to graze her teeth against the taut plane of his abdomen as if it would offer some sliver of reproach from the girl. Her goofy grin sobered slightly, muting itself into something softer but still easily read. It was a reminder that she was there to stay in Rhydin, likely for the long term. "It's cozy. In a good way. But I know all these books are probably annoying... especially if I'm gonna be working at Wendenheim's, I'll probably bring home more..."

Home. It was home. She took a quiet breath, her train of thought derailed for a moment. "Maybe it'll give you something to do. Someday."

"I like the idea of building something." Since all I do here is destroy. Tralle left those words unspoken. Instead, he concentrated on the enjoyment of the moment, revelling in her laughter and the possibility of his proposal. "You'll have to bring me books on building and carpentry and stuff. Maybe read them with me."

"I totally thought about majoring in architecture for like... three seconds. But then I realized that I'm terrible at it and just like looking at pretty buildings. And it'd cost me a whole extra year, so I stuck with the course." Her rambling found her fingers climbing up his stomach and reaching up along his chest until she could graze a fond caress along his jaw before letting her fingers slide back down. "I can do that. Gonna pay me to do your homework on 'em too?"

Her grin was cheekier than cheeky to say the least.

Her cheek was met with the wider tug of his smile, both arms curling around her slender waist to haul her up a little higher. His nose touched hers, then his lips, words teasing in the exhale of breath. "I could find ways to be grateful for the help."

Cassie hummed a contented note with the lift, wriggling just enough in his grasp to settle comfortably without upsetting his hold. A side to side shift of her head grazed her mouth along his, somewhere between intentionally tantalizing and innocently teasing. "I was just kidding. The jocks back in high school used to pay me to write their papers for them. Yaaaay photographic memory."

"Now you've got your very own jock," he murmured and nipped at her bottom lip. His eyes were a deep, light blue, as they often were when he was wrapped up with her just so. "When do you start?"

"Lucky me, right?" She grinned, crinkling her nose and setting her squirming anew. Lifted up as she was, it made it easy for her to snake her hands around the back of his neck, furthering the tangle of their bodies. "Next Monday. I'll train on afternoons with the old man and after a couple weeks I'll get to fly solo on closing shifts. Nothing major, really. Just have to mind the shop, run the till, and lock up before I leave. Don't even have to handle the deposit or anything like that. Which is totally weird for me, ya know? I got so used to it at Ivanna Cone that it was just second nature to count everything out and take it to the bank. But I guess he keeps everything on site. The joys of a locally owned place, I suppose. He isn't going to be paying me all that much but considering there's no taxes or anything being taken out, pair that with the discount I get on books and it might as well be even more."

Cassie paused to breathe. Midway through the inhale, her eyes went wide. "Oh. I'm rambling. Um. Sorry."

"I like it when you ramble. You smile a lot when you do it and I love your smile." It wasn't always like Tralle to be squishy and mushy, but the man had his moments. Like that one. One hand stroked her side as she talked and stopped to settle of the swell of her hip when she began apologizing. "Definitely gonna have to make a space for bookshelves and a desk. Maybe a real reading nook or something. Maybe a real bedroom at some point. A bigger, more comfortable bed?"

He had a way of soothing her anxiety that she couldn't quite explain. Despite her inability to put words to it, she was still quite grateful for it and rewarded him with one of the smiles that he so enjoyed. It wasn't necessarily the big, excited grin that she wore when she spoke but rather something softer, more demure and private, intended for moments just like that one where he said all the right words and got her stomach fluttering with girlish giddiness. "I dunno. I always had to share my spaces so I'm not too sure what I'd do with all of that space. What, ya gettin' tired of the bachelor pad feel?"

"This? A bachelor pad?" He snorted but couldn't hide the grin. "I never thought it exuded much in the way or machismo or romance. It was just a place I slept. And brooded. But if you're looking for the romance, I think I have a tent I could set up over here on the floor and..."

"Bachelor pads don't have to be romantic or macho to be bachelor-y. It just has to be a space best suited for a single male living alone. Like a loft you have to climb up to and a kitchen that isn't quite big enough to be a kitchen and..." Cassie choked on her words, her air, and likely her saliva all at once as his implications finally registered. Coughing through a laugh, she smothered a hand over his face and gave him a half-hearted push. "Shhhhhhhh, oh my gosh! So bad. So so so bad."

"But you like it." It was confident, for a moment. A small wave of insecurity washed over him before... "...right?"

That was more than enough to make her blink in disbelief. Tipping her head to one side, she tried to get a read of his expression and, not liking what she was finding, she used his shoulders to pull herself upright in his lap. Shifting one leg to either side of him, she made a face when her left knee sank down into the gap between cushions while the right remained level. The wriggle to get settled was wholly unintentional but completely necessary. Petite hands slid up to cup his face and after a moment of thought, she leaned in to gift him a softly persuasive kiss and then a second and a third before leaning back just enough to bump her forehead against his.

"Love it. And you."

Whatever confessions of love he might have returned to the petite brunette, they were lost in the warmth of her lips. She might have been done, but Christopher Tralle wasn't. He kissed her again, long and deep and as unhurried as it was urgent. It was a lover's kiss, the prelude to sweeter things, compounded by the tease of fingers beneath the hem of her shirt against bare skin. When they were finally forced to come up for air, he stayed close, clarifying his earlier declaration.

"I love you."

Cassidy issued exactly zero complaints when he was intent on stealing her breath away with a longer than intended meeting of mouths. The heels of her hands slid up his body only for her to rake her nails downward on the next pass. It left her fingers to curl at the top of his pants, only inches away from where his own hands toyed and teased. "Ditto."

"We gotta celebrate, right?"

"We do," he agreed against her mouth, not wanting to pull away. "You deserve to celebrate. What do you wanna do? Dinner? Movie? Whatever you want, Cassie. I will try to make it so."

A slight tick of tension at his waistband was soon relieved with the quiet pop of a button undone.

An answer to his question? Maybe. She grinned against his lips and pinched one shoulder upward in a lazy shrug. "I just wanna hang with you. And maybe sometime this week we can stop by that bakery with the cupcakes."

"Mmm, oh." Tralle was so damned suave. "Well, here I am..."