Penn matched Tarquin as they shifted further along their respective beams until their knees hit the window sill. The new vantage point enabled them to have an almost 180-degreeview outside of the factory building. Though Penn had long since given up the pretence of looking outside, her face turned just enough to see Tarquin. 

“It always gets worse in the winter months, perhaps it is merely arriving earlier this year? The smoke will win: it always has, the snow cannot survive the might of your engines.If it would help ease your mind, I will check to see if I can get any more power from my engine?” Penn found herself having to pause between sentences, her throat still thick and scratchy from ill use. While her voice waned towards the end, she still managed to keep it loud enough for Tarquin to hear with the distance between them. 

Penn finally let her gaze fall away from Tarquin as he chose to let the silence fall between them again, cloaking them. The minutes stretched on as people milled around below them. Her lips pursed together creating creases at the corner of her mouth, before melting away to a passive nothingness. Her eyes trained on the baker’s wife who appeared to have stopped to tighten the smoke mask around her face on the way to her friend’s house. 

No doubt to gossip about their husbands.

“Maybe it would be best if it didn’t.” Penn snapped her head back towards the origins of these words. Her icy blue gaze set heavy on him as his own deep chocolate brown gaze moved from her bronze leg to meet hers. His fingers clenched onto the lapels of the positively ancient jacket he wore in an attempt to keep him calm. 

Even if a small part of him admitted he was impressed by the quality of her workmanship. 

Neither of the pair dared drop their new staring match. Each one attempting to feel out who should break first. The decision was made not by them, but by the beams shaking raining dust and rust down onto the factory floor below. Whether the machinery or the cold was the cause no one would ever know, but it was enough to break the impasse. Penn swallowed and turned back towards the window, her gaze burning as she watched the storm rage on.

“You surely must remember a life other than this? You didn’t come from the Ice Desert; I know that much. I know you know something more than battling to survive every day.” Tarquin’s usually genial tone had dropped an octave and took on a harsh edge. His horns flashed a burning bright lavender for a moment before they dimmed once more. It felt somehow more natural in the way he spoke, less rehearsed than the few sparse words Penn had overheard between him and Ugik or the foreman. 

Penn clenched her jaw tightly, resolutely denying the urge to turn towards him, fixating instead on the darkest part of the clouds. Tarquin still had his gaze set on Penn; now framed against the window she was staring out of and casting her in ethereal shadows. She slowly moved to bite her lower lip, a thoughtful gesture he knew all too well, this time accompanied by her furrowed brow and narrowed gaze.

“You are so very far from correct Sir. Just because the cold and never-ending snow was new to me, does not mean there were no hardships beyond the Dragons Pass. Or that the hardships I knew were any lesser, Sir.” Penn chose her words carefully, being extra cautious to emphasise his place above her. She did not dare to turn back around and look at Tarquin. Her voice was still thick, but now it held a more whimsical quality that Tarquin could only attribute to her accent. 

“I thought I asked you not to call me that: ‘Sir’.” Tarquin whispered just loud enough to be sure Penn would hear. It had possibly been the last thing he said to her, outside of their few mandated interactions on the factory floor. It was closer to a decade than not since he had first asked her that since he tried to speak to the odd girl found in the middle of a snowstorm while she lay in her hospital bed. 

“You did, Sir.” Penn’s short reply pulled him out and forced him to focus back on her, on the tone that was bordering on sarcasm if he entertained that she was capable of such things. His cheeks burned beneath his umber-toned skin.

“I’m definitely no sir!” The emphatic nature of the words ended up somewhat muddled by the furious wobble to his voice at her near lack of an answer. He turned his face away from her, to hide the flush of his cheeks from her view. He did not even attempt to watch the snow as she did, instead holding his breath to wait for a true reply.

“And yet, you are the son of the man who owns me, Sir. No matter what you would like to believe about yourself, how good you believe yourself to be, you are a Sir to myself. I am in no position to call you anything else, even your given name would be incredibly uncouth for me to use, Sir.” Penn finally managed to speak out her thoughts after several moments attempting to wrangle them into something akin to normal speech. She gave a good effort at least. Even if her knuckles turned white from how harsh her grip was on the beam to keep her from trembling. She waited with bated breath, the kind that caught deep in her chest, to be rebuked for refusing his request once more.