Do I know you?

Her brow furrowed at his reaction to her answer, and she could practically hear the wood creak when he let go of his white-knuckled grip. Again, it could be worry over the whole name mistake getting back to Antioch, but that answer didn’t feel quite right. There was something off, but their haggard rescuer shrugged it off before she could ask.

He left the carriage for a moment to scrounge for a knife, she guessed, and she took that time to lean over to Saria and murmur, “If he tries anything, scream and run, alright?” To which Saria tightened her lips and replied hoarsely, “I can’t.” “What do you mean, you c-? Oh. Grace, I forget not everyone is - well, uh. Just pretend you can and run anyway.” The girl just stared back at her, worried, and Medea flashed a gin that she hoped was brave while the man came back with not one, but two knives.

He motioned for her to scooch her way to the open end of the caravan, and turning around so he could access her bound wrists behind her back made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up on end. But he didn’t do anything funny, Grace be praised, and held out the knife, handle facing her, like a gentleman.

Thankfully she’d chosen a beach dress with pockets, and after she made quick work of the bonds at her ankles and any Saria had left, she deposited the little knife amidst the clinks of seashells she somehow still had in there, and she listened to his advice.

“Funny that you think I know anything about crossbows,” She offered a thin smile, glancing to the road behind the wagon as she added, “...Mister Kerelas. What about you Saria, do you know anything about them?”

Saria, surprise surprise, actually nodded. “Bows,” She quietly croaked, every word a struggle. “Hand crossbow. Dinner.”

“Well, you can have it then, in that case. I’d probably shoot my own foot.” She rubbed at her wrists and glanced back at Kerelas. “Would you –“ She started, before the cigarette he started up made her nose wrinkle.

She stared a hole into his cigarette, narrowly watching the ash fall to the steps of the wagon before he thoughtfully offered her his coat, and she took it under her arm. “Noted.”

A few seconds passed until she became far too bothered to be polite. “You do know that those things will kill you, right? Do you know what they do to your lungs?” She reached up and plucked the cigarette from his knuckles and threw it out the back of the wagon with a huff. “You’re not going to live forever, you know, Mister Kerelas. ‘Specially not when you take on six Witchfinders for a laugh. Might as well not make it any shorter.” 

She was about to reply with where she wanted to go when the smell of smoke quickly turned acrid, and a quick glance told her that the cigarette she’d cooly thrown into the dry autumn grass had caught fire. In a rush of expletives fit for a sailor, she scrambled down and stamped it out in a flurry of skirts, smoke rising around her impractical beach slipper.

Fire smothered, she crossed her arms with her chin held high in a show of pride. “You saw nothing.”  

Saria snorted, then jumped down from the back of the wagon to pick up that crossbow and the quiver at the unconscious Witchfinder’s hip. “Mhm.”

Medea huffed through her nose at her, then showed a wry smile to Kerelas, much warmer than before. “Thank you, by the way. For the help.”