Don't Rock the Boat

"Uh," Sylen said. He swallowed, shifting his jaw slightly, unsure of how to respond. He looked down at the hammer and nail. "I was trying to get the boots off, actually. So, I guess if you mean dig a hole into the shoes, then yes, more or less." He looked back up to the mage beside him, who stared with wide doe eyes at Sylen's hands. Sylen turned back, letting the mage watch him work at chipping the shoes off bit by bit.

As he worked, he remained silent, focused on the task at hand-- but as he whittled away, he began to sense a sort of tension from the man at his side. Sylen kept his head down, tilted toward the hammer, but he allowed his gaze to flicker back toward Uwe every so often. Uwe's expression was still wide-eyed and attentive, but Sylen noticed the slight curve in his lip, the occasional tightening of the throat; Uwe was nervous, and had every right to be.

"Listen," Sylen grunted, prying off stone with the claw of the hammer. He paused, and looked to Uwe. "I understand that you're nervous. Trust me, I've felt the same way a hundred times before." As he spoke, his voice grew softer, its pace a bit slower. "Witchfinding is difficult work. Things like this happen all the time. Traps, arguments, combat-- it's all part of the process." Making eye contact was too much for him, so he settled for a blurred stare toward nothing instead. "It takes a lot of willpower to get through it, most times. Even if you're scared, or panicking, and think you aren't going to make it-- you still have to put in the effort to try. Try to escape, to negotiate, to survive. You can't protect others if you can't protect yourself."

With that, he wrenched off the last bit of stone from his ankles, then rose up and removed himself from the stone soles of his boots. It looked as though a statue of someone had been blown apart, leaving only the bottom inch of the thing afterward. A rocky white film caked his socks; Sylen cringed at the crackling sound they made when he rolled his ankles.

Relieved to be free, Sylen stretched a bit, rummaging through more of the junk scattered throughout until he found what he was looking for.

"Okay," Sylen said, as gently as he could with the object in his hands. He hoped his expression wouldn't betray how hesitant he felt. "So... it's gonna go a lot faster for you to get out if we use, well. This."

He lifted up the crowbar.