Work Text:
The shop bell rang like a tragic little bird about to die of boredom, shattering the stillness of the midsummer afternoon. …Or perhaps that was merely the shop keeper projecting his own misfortune onto it. Reluctantly he opened his blue-gray eyes to see if the customer was one worth rousing himself up off his folded arms upon the countertop for. His pointed dwarf’s ears twitched and his stomach tightened as his eyes fell upon his guest.
“Afternoon, Bado.” She called sweetly. He swallowed and straightened up, raising a hand in greeting.
“Hey there, Frey.” He replied, trying to sound casual but his voice didn’t ring quite as naturally as he’d hoped. Inwardly he frowned. Thankfully, however, she did not seem to take note of his awkward, stiff countenance. She smiled at him briefly before turning to closely examine a small porcelain bird on a shelf.
The ‘Meanderer’ was, in fact, a blacksmith shop. Perhaps it only technically fell into this category thanks to the forge in the back right corner of the shop surrounded by a cluttered workspace. Everywhere else looked like nothing so much as a curiosity shop carrying everything from hell to breakfast and then some in between. Sure there were weapons, armor, accessories, farm and household tools, and all the usual things one might expect from a blacksmith’s shop, but there were also turnip-print handbags, big wooden clogs, a child’s toy or a plush doll here or there, and a myriad of small sculptures and so on and so forth.
Frey looked at, touched, picked up, contemplated and smiled upon all these strange little anecdotal pieces of merchandise without exception. Either she had a very diverse set of interests, or what was far more likely, she was smiling at something else altogether, unseen and notably not volunteered. The long twin ponytails of the acting princess of Selphia trailed behind her like two pale green banners of glossy sunlit silk as she made her way along the walls, appraising everything her gaze and smile fell upon. The town blacksmith of Selphia watched her from behind the shop’s counter with his blue-gray eyes following her every move and his pointed dwarf’s ears turning slightly red.
He couldn’t help it. Not really. Who could avoid falling for her, anyway? Certainly all the young men in the town had their eyes on her, too. No one was particularly subtle about it, except himself... he hoped. Upon that thought he realized the silence was getting long.
“So, you gonna buy something this time?” He teased in a flat, bored voice, hoping he had pulled off the right amount of aloofness without being rude.
“Maybe…” She returned loftily and without turning to look at him. “Do you have anything worth buying?” He flinched and the corners of his mouth curved into a smirk. Everyone in the town gave him grief for his antics, it was true, but this one…
Princess Frey turned her emerald green eyes onto him and with a twinge of her brow and the corners of her own mouth curled, bestowed on Bado the blacksmith the very look he always waited for from her. She alone teased him with all intention of playing his game. She alone treated him as a transparent trickster without ever rolling her eyes in disgust. That look that made his stomach flutter and coil up just under his lungs with giddy laughter barely contained behind his sealed lips was her greatest gift and sharpest weapon all at once. …And he happily fell on the dagger of her wit at every opportunity. She who took the bait flippantly every time and smirked defiantly at him, waiting for the next line of his ridiculous game to emerge from his lips… she was a treasure. He’d cast aside a throng of paying customers just for another tête–à–tête full of teasing with her.
“I think you’ll find my stock has a little something for everyone,” He chimed in a pleasant tone, feeling mischief glittering in his eyes all the while. “Even a picky, pampered princess like yourself.”
“Is that so?” She yawned and strode further around the perimeter of the room, glancing at him from the corner of her eyes as she passed the counter. His pulse jumped as those green eyes fell on him and his whole head turned to follow her like a wolf eyeing a rabbit as she stepped in front of him.
“Yeah, as a matter of fact, I have just the thing for spoiled royalty right over…” He trailed off as she approached the draped doorway leading to his living quarters in the back of the shop. By her gait and the way her course never hesitated, it looked for all the world like she intended to waltz right into his bedroom… and she did. Bado blinked at the curtain that settled back to its usual position in the doorway. He was alone in the shop portion of the building again, as his crush had just disappeared into his room without a moment’s pause. He pushed a little breath through his voice to call out but it faltered and he was obliged to muster his words and try again.
“H-hey now,” He called, standing up and stepping nervously toward the doorway, himself, “Ain’t nothing for sale in there…”
“Nothing?” She called back from behind the curtain in a voice like a bell, if a bell could sound like a scheming little fiend in the form of a beautiful girl. “I’ll bet I could talk you out of something in here for the right price…” She continued with playful, devilish cartwheels in her voice. The grin that had been threatening him since she first spoke grabbed hold of his mouth and opened it around a laugh he just barely managed to keep silent before following her into the room behind the draped doorway, saying as he went:
“Well, that’s just a tautology, missy. Everyone has a price, you know…” He swept his gaze quickly around his room to find her standing by his bed and plucking up a wide brimmed straw hat that looked more like a bird’s nest than anything else. It was true that extra stock or miscellaneous items that couldn’t reasonably be sold often ended up in here. He was pretty poor at maintaining a separation between work and home life and it wasn’t helped by the fact he lived where he worked… when he worked.
“So what’s your price, then, hm?”
She dropped the hat onto her head and looked over at him as she spoke with a flourish of her hands as if to say: ‘You may admire me now, peasant.’ A laugh burst out of his grinning mouth and he shook his head at her.
“A million gold.” He returned, tossing his head defiantly with his big square hands on his hips as he bent his sideways smile at her. She grabbed hold of the brim of the hat and flung it from her head like a Frisbee with all the careless haughtiness one person could muster.
“Done.” She said with finality as the hat bounced off one of the corner posts of his oversized bedframe and settled on the floor. He gave his expression a streak of knowing disbelief before he replied.
“Very funny, Frey, I know you ain’t got that kinda cash.” She frowned and bent her knees, suddenly falling down to a sitting position on the edge of his bed, bouncing on the springs of the mattress once and propping herself on her arms as she leaned back and crossed her legs. Bado’s eyebrows climbed a little higher at the sight of her, all but reclining backward onto his bed. He swallowed and his ears grew hot.
“Well sure, not now...” She returned indignantly, and rolled her eyes as if this was the most obvious and useless thing he could have pointed out. “But when I do, I’ll hold you to that.” She pointed a finger at him but his wit had been dulled by a sudden acute awareness of her long slender legs stretching out beneath the rim of her skirt, which settled around and over her thighs and fell down across the edge of his mattress, implying with its supple fabric the supple skin just beneath it.
“Uh…” He blurted out stupidly, then clamped his mouth shut and stared dumbly at her while she raised an eyebrow and looked at him with the eyes of a cat looking at a wounded pigeon. “Uh, yeah but you haven’t ever been that good at coming up with ways to make money, ya know?” He tried to salvage his misstep by looking thoughtful, half folding his arms and tugging on the point of his short, dark beard. She raised her other eyebrow to throw a look that dared him to reach into the lion’s mouth and get his fingers bitten off if he was so sure of himself. He let his eyes comb over her contemplatively as he made a show of furrowing his brow and chewing his lip as if he were thinking very hard. In truth he was working his brain very hard, but only toward the goal of not diving too deep into the lovely and appetizing picture of Frey and all her sprightly, clever, and beautiful splendor stretched out on his bed with a playfully devilish expression teasing her adorable features. It wasn’t all that much of an exaggeration on what he was actually seeing presently, after all…
The silence was getting long again. He had to say something. Fortunately, he had a lifetime of coming up with foolish, disarming lines about absurd money making schemes to depend on now. Unfortunately all that practice did not automatically come with situational awareness. His heart all but stopped as he heard himself blurt out:
“I wonder if I could make some extra money by renting out my bed… If customers act fast, I’d even lie in bed with ‘em, no extra charge!”
Time stopped as all the muscles and ligaments in his tall, broad-framed body tightened in visceral, horrified embarrassment. The smile slipped off of Frey’s face and her big green eyes widened as his words hit her ears. Oh, gods… why was he born with a mouth that ran ahead of his brain? Why?? He spent a whole day of hard labor’s worth of effort to resist showing his mortification to her, and tried like hell to salvage the situation.
“Only kidding, of course.” He said with a chuckle and winked at her. He couldn’t help but feel relieved and pleased that he’d successfully managed to completely disguise the screaming his inner thoughts were doing, presently.
Frey blinked at him twice, still as stone, and then stood up, straightening her skirt from where it had wrinkled while she sat. He watched her move toward the door and he stepped out of her way, hoping the motion didn’t look too hurried. The last thing he wanted was to obstruct her escape now that he’d said that aloud… Inwardly he winced at the way she looked straight ahead at the doorway as she stepped past him. It was all over; all the cat-and-mouse games with her and the delectable exchange of wits, and all the curious, mischievous affection she’d shown to him up to now. He was going to need a stiff drink, or several, to soften the discomfort of this humiliation, not to mention the consequence of losing her interest completely in one fell swoop. Why was he such a blockhead?
As she reached the doorway she swept the curtain open with one outstretched hand and turned her neck to look back over her shoulder at him. He swallowed and stared like a petrified dormouse at the little woman he towered over. Her eyes were as devilish as he’d ever seen them at first glance, but the obvious blush in her face and ears and the way her pupils dilated said something else… something more. But what her eyes said was nothing to what actually came out from between her soft, pink lips:
“It’s a shame, you know…” He stared at her, paralyzed and puzzled all at once as he waited for elaboration. “…That you weren’t serious.” She continued, blushing still more crimson and smirking still more wickedly. “I would have taken you up on that offer… and you could have named your price.” The words hammered into his mind and the embarrassment vanished as she vanished behind the curtain with a grin and left him standing in giddy, disbelieving shock, rooted to the spot where he stood, his ears a fiery shade of red and twitching with undisguised excitement of a very particular variety.