Priscylla leans against her kitchen table, tapping a finger against her arm idly. She’s already picked out the tea, drawing from one of her less bitter blends to go easy on her guest, so all that remains now is to wait for the kettle to boil. Not that there’s particularly any rush, seeing as Wick is busy washing off the grime of the road. Her eyes flick down to the runic tattoo inscribed along the length of her arm; a perfect mirror of the one she carved into Wick’s skin, in another life.
Gods, but it’s nice to see him again. She can still faintly remember their first meeting, a teenager with a wooden sword confronting another teenager caked in grave dirt. Embarrassing for both of them, but then, neither of them had a clue what they were doing at that point, save for knowing who they were and what they wanted.
Considering where they started from, Priscylla has to admit they’ve both done well. In the last few years alone, Wick ended up saving enough cities that you’d need two hands to count them, and she’s been getting tantalizingly close to proving her theories, assuming tomorrow’s experiment goes well.
The hiss of the kettle snaps her out of reminiscence, and right on cue Warwick steps into the living room, clad in a fresh change of clothes. “Syl? Are you in the kitchen?”
“First of all, it’s Priscylla, or Scylla if you absolutely must shorten it.” Carefully, she lifts the kettle, pouring two cups and muttering a charm against spillage before raising her voice again. “Second, yes, but I’ll be right out. Third, how do you always manage to walk in exactly when it’s most convenient?”
“Call it an occupational requirement,” he chuckles, rounding the bend into the kitchen. “Here, can I help carry- whoops!” Priscylla turns around as he closes in, startling them both. The teacups slosh precariously, but the liquid only just stops before cresting the rim of the cups. The two people in the room, meanwhile, are momentarily stunned, a bit closer than they’d normally stand.
“...You grew a beard,” Priscylla finally mumbles, looking down at him.
That breaks the silence, and Warwick steps back courteously, his signature grin back across his face. “You noticed! It’s still a work in progress, but what do you think?” He strokes his chin in a parody of roguishness. “Do I pull it off?”
“Probably,” Priscylla replies curtly, before her mind can conjure images of pressing against it. “Though I will say, it changes your image a bit. Less ‘bright-eyed hero’ and more ‘grizzled wanderer’, if you catch my drift.” Before she can look at his smile any more, she forces herself to head for the living room. “Come, let’s sit down and drink before the tea gets cold.”
“Is ‘grizzled wanderer’ a bad thing?” Wick’s joking protests follow her all the way there. “I happen to think it makes me look more mature!”
“Gods know you could use some help acting your age,” Priscylla retorts as she takes a seat, holding out Warwick’s cup as he sits down on a chair beside hers. “Speaking of which, happy belated thirty-first.”
Wick stops with his teacup halfway to his mouth. “Wait, did I have a birthday?”
Immediately, Priscylla can’t stop herself from laughing. “You can tally your victories and losses against everyone you face, but forget your own birthday?”
“Unimportant,” Wick replies with a wave of his hand. “I care about people, not dates.”
“Blockhead.”
“Pedant.”
“Your tea’s getting cold.” Priscylla takes a sip herself, to hide her smile.
“Oh, so it is.” Warwick takes a drink before making a face. “Little bit bitter, isn’t it?”
Priscylla presses her fingertips to her forehead. “Do you realize you’re going to be the death of me?”
“Of course! Heard it in a prophecy.” After taking a moment to steel his nerves, Wick drains the rest of the cup in a single gulp. “Phew. Okay, one last thing before we get to business. I couldn’t figure out how to fit this in naturally, but you look amazing! It can’t have been more than a year since last we saw each other, and yet…”
“Well, you know,” Priscylla can hear her voice catching as her throat heats up. “It’s mostly that I finally went and put some effort into finding a tailor.” Either Wick doesn’t realize what he just said, or he didn’t think through how it’d come off. “So now I have some actually flattering dresses, at long last.”
“That tracks. I don’t know what I’d do without my armor guy.” Wick leans forward, gingerly placing the teacup on the coffee table. Without his armor covering his arms, the act of stretching gives Priscylla a front-row view of his own tattoo, a bit frayed around the edges. “But yeah, just. You look stellar.”
“Thank you, you as well.” Priscylla takes a shaky sip of her tea, focusing on something other than Wick’s biceps. “Now then. To business?”
“Right! Right.” Wick claps his hands and rubs them together. “Let's get straight to the point. Did you send Mrs. Falk into town recently?”
With one last tip of her cup, Priscylla finishes her tea and sets it aside. “I did, to pick up some supplies from the apothecary. Why do you ask? Did she not pay with the money I gave her?”
Warwick grimaces. “No, worse than that. She arrived during the apothecary’s lunch break, when the door was locked.”
Horror dawns on Priscylla’s face. “You’re not saying that she…”
Warwick nods solemnly. “She took the door off its hinges trying to get in, and now people are saying that the necromancer sent her minion to attack the shop.”
“Great. Superb. That’s what I get for sending that bonehead to run errands.”
“But, hey, it’s not all bad, at least?” Warwick reaches out a hand to comfort. “Apparently she left the money on the counter, so the apothecary’s not pressed. She just wants a new door.”
Priscylla folds her arms, tapping a finger against the crook of her elbow as she thinks out loud. “Okay. Well, you’re right, that isn’t as bad as it could be. I can do that for her, alright. I’ll, I don’t know, make her a talking door of living ice. The best damned door the world has ever known, just not right now.”
Warwick picks up on the subtext, raising an eyebrow. “You’re in the middle of another project right now? Not something I should be worried about, right?”
“No, no,” Priscylla waves him off, prickling despite his clearly genuine concern. “Nothing dangerous. Just time sensitive. I need it to be ready in the next three days.”
“Oh.” Wick’s eyes widen. “An important project, done by the Winter Solstice. Who are you making a gift for?” It would be so easy for her to write him off as accusing her. It’d be so easy to get indignant and chase him out of her house, as she’s done before. And yet, every time she does, he comes back with a genuine apology and a guarantee of her privacy.
Priscylla is silent for a moment, eyes closed, tapping a finger against her arm. Warwick gets the message, standing up and pointedly looking away from her, instead taking the chance to admire her bookshelves.
“Myself,” Priscylla says quietly.
“Sorry?” Warwick spins around, quickly pushing a book back onto the shelf.
Priscylla clears her throat. “It’s a solstice gift for myself. I wanted to…” She balls her fists, forcing the words out. “I’ve been trying to finalize the design I used for Mrs. Falk, because I want to be able to–”
The door unlatches behind Priscylla, and she privately curses to herself before putting on a smile. “Afternoon, Mrs. Falk,” she leads, “don’t worry, we don’t need anything, we were just talking about you.”
The ice sculpture in the shape of a person before her squints, the snow that makes up its face wrinkling in on itself. After a second, Estrel Falk nods, giving a frigid thumbs-up. Priscylla’s first attempt at sculpting a body around a skeleton, her movement isn’t nearly so fluid as the dogs, but it’s still hard not to be a little proud every time Mrs. Falk chimes in on a conversation.
“Well, hello, Mrs. Falk!” Wick stands in order to properly pay his regards. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were in. You’re looking lovely.”
Mrs. Falk waves a hand dismissively, but slips out the door and returns seconds later with a plate of cookies. She sets the plate down in front of Warwick with as meaningful a look as her snowbuilt face can allow.
Wick can take a hint, and wastes no time in helping himself to a cookie. “Ooh, that’s superb, thanks. So, how have you been since the last time I visited? Any luck on getting your memories back?”
Mrs. Falk just shakes her head.
“Not a bit,” Priscylla says on her behalf, “And no luck getting back her speech, either, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Hardly a priority, either– a number of times now, she’s offered to take another look at the spell animating Estrel’s remains, see about either improving or severing it, but so far Mrs. Falk has turned her down every time. “But, my research is still going well. You saw Genly earlier, after all.”
Even if Mrs. Falk is happy with her current state, the failure to reanimate her properly has been lodged in Priscylla’s craw for all four years since the resurrection ritual. When public opinion turned against Priscylla, she took the hint and switched to using departed animals instead of humans. Her work with Genly proves that she can keep almost the entire memory intact, she’s so damned close to finally being able to keep the ritual stable, and then…
“Okay, okay,” Warwick says quietly, snapping Priscylla to the present. “I think I understand what your solstice gift to yourself is.” He takes one last cookie, nodding in Mrs. Falk’s direction. “You have someone in mind that you want to see again, right?”
Priscylla’s stare is stony. “Yes. That’s right.” Mrs. Falk takes the hint and clears out, taking the empty tray with her. Priscylla keeps grinding her teeth, her frustrated breath leaving little clouds of vapor in the air. “That’s right,” she repeats to herself.
“I understand. And I’m sorry if I’m prying here, by the way,” Warwick muses, taking small bites of his cookie. “I can tell this is personal to you, and I get it. I have someone I’d want to talk to, as well, if they were still alive.”
That throws Priscylla off. She frowns for a moment, pursing her lips. “I mean. If my experiment does work out, I’d be happy to do the same for you. There’s no reason I can’t do it more than once, though I’d need more reagents, and I suppose an extra pair of hands on runewriting couldn’t hurt, although…” Her panic forgotten, she mentally runs through the list of steps.
“Wait, wait.” Wick’s breath is shaky, the bravado drained out of him. “Are you serious? You could really let me talk to…”
“In theory.” Priscylla stresses. “If mine works, and if you have a piece of their remains, and if you’re okay with things potentially going wrong, then maybe. The last thing I want is to get your hopes up.” She realizes she’d been combing a hand through her hair as she talks, quickly folding her arms again. “Who is it you’d want to see, anyways? A past lover?”
Warwick shuffles unsteadily. “Look, it’s…Here, can you tell me who you want to talk to? I’ll feel less self conscious if you go first.”
Priscylla breathes a quavering laugh, rising to her feet. “First of all, I didn’t know ‘self conscious’ was in your vocabulary. Second, I’ll feel less self conscious if you say who you want to talk to. Third, I asked you first.”
“You brought it up first,” Wick says gamely, looking way up at Priscylla.
“I’m also doing this for you out of the kindness of my frozen heart,” she replies, glad she decided to wear heels.
“Fine. Fine!” Warwick throws up his hands and walks in a circle. “But promise me you’ll go through with this for me even if you think it’s a bad idea.”
“I’m not promising that.”
“Fair. Thank you. It’s…” Wick pats his cheeks gently to get the adrenaline flowing. “It’s my mother. She passed away when I was young, and she never got to see me, you know…” He gestures at his beard. “Grow into myself. So I want to talk to her one more time, but as me.” He lets out a long, slow exhale. “Is that a stupid idea? Asking genuinely.”
Before he even finishes talking, Priscylla is forcing back giggles, hand pressed to her mouth.
Warwick winces. “That bad?”
“No, it’s…” Priscylla bites down on her hand to keep her mouth still, tears welling up in her eyes. “You put it into words perfectly. I’ve…” She takes a moment to compose herself, wiping crystalline flakes away from her eyes. “I’ve spent decades thinking about doing the exact same with my parents, and I know I shouldn’t care what they think but I do, because by the time I was me they were already gone, and…”
“...And that was to be your Solstice gift to yourself.” Warwick steps closer, tentatively. “Here, may I…?”
Priscylla nods, and immediately shudders as Wick wraps himself around her, holding her as if to squeeze the emotion out of her. After a few choked sobs (from which of them, she couldn’t tell) Priscylla returns the hug, pressing tight against him.
“This probably won’t work, anyway,” she mumbles.
“At least then we can say we did everything we could,” Wick says, face muffled by her hair. “Is there anything I could do to help?”
Priscylla forces a few deep breaths before answering. “For starters, we’d need to go back into town. Two castings of the ritual means I’ll need twice the raw materials.” She tucks her chin over the top of his head. “Plus, this way I could apologize to the apothecary in person.”
Wick rumbles a laugh. “See? I knew you were good at heart.”
“Never said I wasn’t,” she replies, pulling out of the hug, “Just that I have better things to be worried about than good and evil. Now, shall we get going? We’d need to move quickly if we want to get our shopping done before closing time. I’ll go tell Mrs. Falk to hold down the fort.”
“Alright, alright, let me get my boots.” Warwick, the Savior of Toch, the Slayer of the Banks, one of the vanishingly few people in Priscylla’s life to try and help her rather than fix her, pauses and turns. “Thank you, Scylla. I mean it.”
“That’s funny,” she replies. “I was about to say that to you.”
