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A single sunbeam through a narrow little window provided the only light in the holding cell. The limited sunlight highlighted the colors of the priestess's white robes and pink-red hair, making her all the more visible to ruffian who approached from the shadowed entrance.
"Are you here to kill me...?"
The ruffian flashed a cocky grin. "Oh, darling. If that was all we wanted with you, we would've gotten it one and done already, wouldn't we?"
The priestess was silent, calmly waiting for the ruffian to continue.
"So, what's your name?" He had no intention to allow a silence to linger for very long.
"Huh?" The faux politeness seemed to surprise the priestess more than any attack would have. "... My name is Lena. Pleased to meet you."
The ruffian pretended to stifle a laugh. "Pleased? I don't think I'd be callin' this a meeting, if I were you."
"What is your name?"
"That doesn't matter. Now listen here, Lena-"
"Why would it not matter?"
The dispassionate, yet inquisitive look on Lena's face tested the ruffian's confident façade.
"You don't have to tell me, but... I do think it matters."
The ruffian's winning smile withdrew into a tenser expression. The façade had started to crack.
"... It's Julian. Alright? It's Julian!"
"I see. Thank you, Julian."
"You're welcome. ..." In the span of a moment, Julian realized how his tone had veered from earlier, and tried to change course with a practised cough. "I mean, quit tryin' to change the subject, lady!"
"I apologize for interrupting." Lena's peaceful disposition was unflappable, no matter how Julian tried to spook her. "What was it that you wanted to discuss?"
"That's more like it. Now, y'see, you don't need me to tell you, the work me and my boys do up in these parts is dangerous."
Julian dug out his dagger and began idly playing with it, blade and handle flipping through his fingers in a casually daring display, as if to further his argument while also providing more intimidation for his quarry.
"Sometimes, folks get cut up, and that's where you come in. We noticed you had one of those healing staves on you when we... took you in. You see where I'm going with this?"
"..." Lena's eyes were vacantly drawn to something other than the coercion.
"Not gonna say anything, huh?" Julian was unsure what to make of the non-reaction. "Well, it's all the same to me, 'long as you understand-"
"Oh! Forgive me, I lost track of what you were saying." When Lena snapped out of her minor trance, she was still not daunted. "I couldn't help but notice that dagger you're carrying. It's quite beautiful."
"What." Julian seemed to deflate, shoulders and spine drooping to express his sheer bafflement.
His feelings grew mixed and complex as he understood the sincerity of Lena's behavior. "... Yeah. It's the nicest dagger I've ever stuck in someone. Somehow, you beat all of my colleagues to noticing that."
"I suppose this dagger isn't any sort of immediate attention-grabber. Sometimes, people only seem to have eyes for flashier decorations, like gemstones." Strangely uninhibited, Lena leaned close to the weapon, so as to better inspect it. "It's a shame, not to notice things of understated beauty as well. These finely detailed patterns carved on the handle... they can only be the work of a genuine master of the craft."
"Oh, man, you get it!" And before Julian knew it, he had let go of any inhibition from chatting with the prey. "If it was fancier, we could fetch a big payout pawnin' it off, but I say, that's not the only thing that matters."
"That's true. Sometimes, the beauty of an item expresses the care that people have placed in them. When I look at this dagger, I can sense the warm devotion of the one who crafted it, almost as clearly as if they were here." And yet, regrettably, not exactly as if so, Lena felt. "Say, might I trouble you tell me where you've acquired this lovely article? I'd be overjoyed to meet the person who made it."
"Uh... lady, I'm a highway robber, where'd you think I got this thing?" Amused, but perhaps not enough so, Julian ended up with an awkward grin on his face.
"Oh, yes. Pardon me."
Julian's eyes drifted to the gorgeous carvings that had so thorougly charmed his would-be victim. Thoughts rattled in his head as he did. Someone had made this. Someone had made this with love and care. Perhaps it was never meant to fall into the hands of a filthy rogue.
Filthy – not a word Julian would normally describe himself with, being that he fussed over his appearance and hygiene all the way up to the limits that his lifestyle placed on such things. And yet, for a moment, he felt filthier than ever.
"So... uh... you know a bunch about knives, huh?" Some part of his mind plotted to reawaken the sounds of conversation, so as to drown out the sounds of inner shame. "Ever... stab someone with one?"
"No, I haven't. Although..." Although? Lena's listener clearly had not expected that response to continue. "I must admit that I find them quite interesting. Something about them caught my attention while I was honing my understanding of laceration wounds, and... even if it's rather grim, I've read a certain amount about battle and duel techniques with knives.
"Huh. You don't look like the type for sure, but... I guess it's not the weirdest thing I've ever heard of."
"I wouldn't want to overstate it, in any case. I'm familiar with some of the technique in theory, but I've never even seen a knife fight, let alone partaking in one myself."
There was something else Lena wanted to say. Something she felt embarassed to ask, but which she couldn't stop from showing in her face, loud and clear enough for Julian to catch it.
"And what? You want me to show you my moves?"
"Oh! If it wouldn't trouble you, I... I would like that very much."
From there, Julian took Lena on a thrilling journey of lunges, and swipes, and thrusts, and tales. The chemistry between them distracted them wholly from trivial things such as the passage of time and whatever it was they were talking about before.
"... and bam! We really showed that stupid knight. Never showed that smug face of his up here in the mountains again. 'Course, it also means Molly's got a price on her head now, and people are gonna be looking for her all around the foothills. Rough people, if you catch my drift. But hey, ain't like she was planning on going somewhere else! When you got somewhere else to go, you don't really stick around creaking dumps like this place."
The last two lines or so of that particular story had Lena's face once again prodding out questions, without a word but unbearably loudly.
"Hey, I told ya about making that face instead of asking the thing you wanna ask, didn't I? Don't be shy, now."
"Ah, it's... no, nevermind. It would really be crass to ask about..."
"Ooh, you're just makin' it even worse. Come on, out with it."
"... Every now and then, you describe your companions' reasons for being here in the mountains... I don't believe I've ever heard about... er... why is it that you... stay around here?"
Julian suddenly feels to lunge, just from the question. He can only restrain himself enough to reduce it to a glare. "Hey! You implyin' something, lady?"
"I'm sorry!" Lena backed away in fear, the very motion that had been oddly absent from every other moment she'd been threatened that day. "I swear, I mean nothing by it... it's nothing more than idle curiosity."
As Julian failed to utterly lash out at the person who posed the question, he was left with nothing with which to escape the question. Why is it that he'd stay here in the Ghoul's Teeth, indeed. He fidgeted and paced. By now, the person who truly felt trapped in that dimly-lit holding cell was not Lena.
"Look, I... I don't really know, alright?" Julian ineffectually made noise without quite answering the question. "I just... don't know. This is the life I've got. That's all there is to it."
"Julian..." There was something on Lena's face – Concern? Disappointment? -- that Julian was not prepared to see.
"What? You got a problem with it, lady?"
"... If you're asking whether I have a problem with you living a life of crime... it's not really something I feel I have a right to judge people for. What I can't really abide, though..." Whatever it was on her face, it washed away under a shadow of uncharacteristic solemnity. "... well, you know what they say about the unexamined life, Julian."
"Uh... no, I don't, actually."
"That it's not worth living. That's what they say about it."
"Yeesh. Isn't that... a little harsh?"
"Harsh though it may be, it's the truth. Julian, listen... if I'd never thought about what it is that I want about life, I wouldn't have ever made it this far. I wouldn't have learned to heal people. I wouldn't have traveled this far out to do so, either."
"Well... you also wouldn't have gotten captured by the Soothsires, isn't it?"
"If I'd met my end here in the mountains, I would have gone to the next life without a trace of regret in my heart."
Somewhere between those words and the sturdy steel in Lena's gaze, Julian caught a glimpse of something he'd never quite seen before. Something he couldn't identify or understand. Something that had him hopelessly drawn in.
Days later, the errant knights of Altea ventured through mountainside Samsooth. On that day, Julian tried, for the first time, to make destiny his own, the way Lena had ever masterfully done. Everything that follows is a story you've likely already heard all about.