"Miss Katarina," Leif greeted with a small smile as he returned the satchet to its drawer. When he stood, arm tucked at his stomach to sweep into a low bow, the smile widened at her tittering laughter.  Though he did not see it, Leif knew she would return his bow with clasped hands at her stomach and a curt nod. An outstretched hand appeared under his bowed head, slender fingers curling with a beckon for him to stand upright.  

Obediently, Leif rose and tucked his thumbs in his belt loops as he glanced around the shop. The heavy footfalls had come to a stop before the lighter ones approached him but he couldn't see heads nor tail of Coltham, or anyone else for that matter. 

"I thought your son would be manning the shop today. Is he well?" Leif asked, and Katarina cupped her cheek with a half-bitten chuckle.

"Ah, it's because he's feeling too well that he isn't here," she explained. "The sleep draughts did just the trick in getting him to slow down a tad, but now that he's made a full recovery - it's a trouble to keep him off his feet rather than on them."

Leif smiled sweetly as she talked on about her eldest son Dyten's recovery, and her young daughter Brenna. His first meeting with Katarina had been soaked in tears as she and her wife Nelle argued with the town watch about searching for Dyten. From what Leif recalled, the boy disappeared into the Wood sometime around the midday rest and hadn't been seen for most of the day. 

When I found him, he was unconscious but unharmed. I wonder if he remembers how he ended up there.

"—Now, what is it you need?"

"Pardon?" Leif blinked at her as he withdrew from his thoughts to Katarina's awaiting expression. He cupped his hand at the back of his neck while waving the other dismissively. "It's nothing to trouble yourself with, ma'am. I—" 

"Without you, I would have lost a third of my heart," Katarina interrupted wispily, reaching out to cup her hands around Leif's waving one. He stiffened under the touch until her hands enveloped his in a gentle, albeit firm grip.  The kindly look in her eyes bellied the gravity of her words as she continued, "And that would have been a travesty of its own. So, tell me what it is you need and let me decide if it can be done."

Leif sighed, letting the hand cupping his nape fall to settle at his waist. The resemblance between mother and daughter was striking as he remembered Brenna pleading with him not only a bell or two ago. 

The dedication of a Yun-Feian is something to behold, truly. 

"I'm only looking for Mr. Coltham," Leif told her as he eased his hand out of her hold, "I thought I heard him in here but it seems I was mistaken."

Katarina didn't seem to mind the loss of contact, her eyes alighting with joy at the mention of Coltham. "Not at all," she giggled a secret-keeper's mischief. "That treacherous thing is likely sneaking his hand into my latest pickings."  

A hardy THUNK against one of the produce crates turned their attention toward the shop's interior where Coltham's head and arm were poked out from behind one of the display counters. The bespectacled man fixed his skewed glasses with a nervousness to his eyes as he righted the leaning crate filled with green kruisbes. Leif did his best not to smile at Katarina's indignant huff. She flapped a hand at him as if to say 'see', then folded her arms across her chest, wrinkling her apron.

"You'd be doing me a favor by taking him off my hands."

Coltham balked at this, clambering to his feet. "N-Now that ain' true at all! I didn' touch not one of 'hose buggers." He harrumphed, hands curled to fists as he made to stomp over to them. A sharp look from Katarina, far out of Leif's sight as she turned her head, made him halt in place then step lightly against the shop's wooden floors. When he neared them, shamefaced and scratching his head, Katarina blew out a sigh. 

"That's hard to believe when your hand was on the infernal thing,"  Katarina said dryly, then turned a soft smile unto Leif with a pat against his cheek when he leaned down to her hand. "Let me make sure his order is ready, then take this old man with you."

Coltham's mouth fell open as he tried to stammer out a response to Katarina whilst she passed by. Yet, the proprietress paid him little mind and went to inspect her stock of krusibe with her back to them.

The palpable tension in the air lingered over them until Leif couldn't bear to withhold his laughter anymore. He bit the inside of his cheek to try and muffle his snickers but the act was in vain, considering the dirty look Coltham gave him.  Deciding to give up pretense, Leif laughed freely and rocked backward on his heel. "Gonna tell me why it is you were hiding, Mister Coltham?"  

"Mister?" Coltham spat, giving him a cursory look. It was as though to his eyes Leif had grown a second head, and he wasn't sure whether to turn tail or say something. His mouth opened then closed as he shook his head, "Feh, forget it. So, whaddya want?" Y'never give manners like that t' me." 

"Because the respect I hold for you can't be measured in normal customs," Leif drawled, folding his arms behind his head with a cheeky grin. "After all, we're two of a kind now. Seeing as you tried to make off with Miss Katarina's wares, and—" 

"I'm sayin' that ain't what it is!" Coltham argued, quieting his voice when Katarina began to turn her head to fix them with a narrowed-eyed stare. He gulped, giving her a deeper nod than necessary for an apology until she turned her back to them again. His hand cupped around his mouth as he leant closer to Leif and whispered, "I was meanin' to pay, jus' a little short on coin is all."

Short on coin, huh? 

"Someone quite wise told me that when someone does a kindness, you repay them," Leif said, pulling out the pouch stowed in his pocket. Coltham inhaled deeply as if he made to argue, but the lucre's jingle as Leif tossed the pouch up and caught it in his hand made the old man's jaw slacken. "Since I owe you three favors, let's settle one here." 

"Three?"

"For the food, the ride, and the lesson," Leif raised a finger on his opposite hand as he named each one, wiggling them tauntingly. "That's three favors, see?" 

"I told'y, there's no—"

Leif turned away as if he hadn't heard him, and strode past to where Katarina was finishing examining the last of the krucibe.  "Miss Katarina," he said, not needing to look down at the crates when Katarina glanced his way with a conspiratorial wink. "Are any of the krucibe missing?" 

"Not a one," Katarina said, sliding her notepad from her apron before she turned to face him. "So, is there anything else I can get for you, Mister Leif?" 

"I'd like to take a few of those with us," Leif tilted his chin in the crate's direction, ignoring the flummoxed HEY from Coltham. "And if you have any balms and vervain gels - I would appreciate it. We'll be out close to dark, I presume so it's better safe than sorry." 

Katarina jotted something down on her notepad before tucking it back into her apron. "Alright then, it'll take a moment to have everything ready. Are you in a hurry?" 

"Not at all," Leif chuckled when he spotted Coltham's flustered expression. "I'll need to discuss the conditions of our Party Agreement with my employer after all." 

Katarina hummed and tilted her head, regarding Leif with amusement as she said, "Very well then. Wait here, the both of you." 

Once she disappeared into the back room, Leif turned around and walked back to where Coltham stood with a tightly clenched jaw. He pulled himself up onto one of the barrels, boot resting against the iron band as he waited for the old man to speak. For a moment, nothing broke the silence between them but the muffled shuffling and murmuring from Katarina. Yet, the longer she spent preparing the items Leif requested, the thicker the air between them became. 

"Listen," Coltham sighed, jolting Leif out of his stupor. He blinked at the softness of Coltham's voice, unsure whether it was him speaking for a moment. Whether it was to keep Katarina from hearing or because of the crestfallen expression he wore, Leif wasn't sure.  But the heavy sag of Coltham's shoulders, and the weariness etched into the lines of his face were undeniable. "I already told'y, none of this is necessary."

Leif sank back against the wall behind him, propping up his knee to rest his hand on. "Yeah, I remember…" He trailed off, staring up at the rafters while his knuckles tapped out a rhythm against his knee.  "But something was bothering me about the entire arrangement. Mister Coltham, your lunches aren't always sparse like that. And you worked through the midday rest, didn't you? It's not healthy."

"Heh, yer bad for my health," Coltham countered crisply. "Y'really dance around like a fool - but yer smarter than you look."

"Praising me won't distract from what happened," Leif said. "Or change it."

Coltham inhaled deeply, the tension seeping out of him with a sigh. "True 'nough. Still, fact of the matter 's I won' have it to pay y'. It's a thankless job as it is."

A pang of guilt throbbed deep within Leif's chest. Though he made light of his debt to Coltham earlier on, the discomfort lingered in the back of his mind at what the old man's duties entailed. The loss of a loved being — whether Spoken or not —  could never be quantified, and to call it sorrowful was taking matters lightly. 

Still, death is a natural end to life, Leif thought to himself as he watched Coltham push up his glasses to rub at the bridge of his nose. That would explain why Arus hasn't intervened. On the outside, this is the way things should be in the Wild. 

"Then, I'll volunteer instead," Leif suggested, rolling back his shoulders in a careless shrug. He tucked his hands behind his head, leg swinging back and forth as he took mental stock of the amount of items they would be bringing with them.  "Seeing as I bought three types of recovery items from Miss Katarina's stores, that settles the scales between us. We'll divide them between us evenly."

He wasn't sure if Coltham could hold his own in battle, but with enough of a failsafe then at the very least he could get away unscathed. Leif huffed through his nose, the left corner of his lips curling at the thought of Coltham shouting at him even in death. 

A beat of silence passed before Coltham gravely muttered, "Been meanin' to ask this for awhile now, but why're ya so hellsbent on helpin' us?"

Leif's eyes widened. He tipped his chin down, pressing his lips into a thin line at the suspicion in Coltham's eyes as he regarded him from his periphery. Stealing a glance at the doorway Katarina disappeared into, Leif could still hear the clamor of her preparations and figured she might not have been privy to the change in atmosphere between them. 

Slowly, he returned Coltham's gaze and let the other side of his mouth curl into a lazy smile, "Are you still worried about paying? Lucre isn't necessarily the only way, there's always other means of compensati—" 

"Listen here," Coltham snapped, jabbing a finger at Leif. "Yer not from here, an' way I see it, y' could've packed up and left anytime. So why are y' trying to stick your nose where it don't belong?" 

Leif pursed his lips, the humor draining out of his smile. His hands fell from behind his head, one resting atop his bent knee while the other pressed to the wooden barrel beside him. The almost accusatory way Coltham regarded him was vastly different from the man he'd hitched a ride with, but there was something else there. A slight tremor in his voice, veins throbbing in his tightly-clenched fists, and the stiffness in his breaths when he paused as though waiting for something.

"Answer that, and I'll take ya on. An' if y' can't, mind your own." 

Ah, Leif thought when it dawned on him. Their usual routine was like this, wasn't it? A back and forth tug between two opposing ides. Only this time, it felt as if there was fear within Coltham's voice. 

Leif pulled himself to the edge of the barrel then stepped down, tucking his hands in his pockets as he rose to his full height. "Mister Coltham," he began as he took a step toward the man who turned to fully face him. While he was a head shorter than Coltham and could only meet his eye by tilting his head back when they stood toe to toe - Leif did so unflinchingly. 

"Have you ever heard of The Hero's Journey?"