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[thelibertybelle]

y'all know what to do

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[wolfdogwitcher]

The night passes without incident, Eskel stirring from his meditative state when he hears Stephanie waking up.

"Mornin'." He rumbles. "Up at a reasonable hour and everything. Seemed like you slept okay?" The woods had been mostly quiet, though he wasn't foolish enough to think it would always be so.

[thelibertybelle]

It's not the best sleep she's ever had, but thankfully Steph was too tired to slip into the fitful nightmares that so often plague her dreams, passing out with the alacrity of a soldier used to grabbing cat-naps when the opportunity presented itself basically the moment her head hit the ground and barely stirring until close to dawn.

Eskel's still kneeling across the way, looking the same as he did when she lay down. She wonders if he moved at all the whole night.

"Yeah," she agrees, her jaw popping as she yawns again, rolling onto her back and stretching out her limbs. "Thanks."

[wolfdogwitcher]

He's going to go find some dry rations for breakfast lest he get too good of a look at that lazy stretch across his bedroll.

"Good, you probably needed it." He says, crouching down by his bags. "Now, if we make decent time we should get to town a little after dark."

[thelibertybelle]

She hums in agreement, the sound turning into the kind of rumbling noise a sleepy cat can make when woken suddenly as she shifts up off her back and twists herself as best she can while still wearing her armored suit into some of the poses Natasha forced her into when she was going through her yoga phase.

A lot of it seems rather pointless, but some of the poses give a really good stretch, and it feels good in the morning.

"How big is it?" she asks as she drops one shoulder to the ground and twists her back enough to make her spine pop, referring to the town.

[wolfdogwitcher]

"A few hundred people, no more. And the population fluctuates with the season: wool industry. In summer, lots of people are out with their flock. They come back in the winter as well as tradesmen to work the wool in the winter months. Might be bustling at the moment, we'll see--" He turns to see her doing some kind of contortion atop his bedroll. The purpose becomes clear to his keen ears, however, when she twists to the other side and he hears something pop or crunch.

"Good thing you'll have a mattress tonight." He teases, offering her more of yesterday's dried fruit and jerky, as well as a rind of cheese.

[thelibertybelle]

She emerges from her pretzel twist with a grin as she shoves her hair out of her face, hopping up to her feet with the sort of agility that goes directly against the cracking of her spine.

"They were able to fix the scoliosis, but apparently even the serum couldn't ease my popping joints," she jokes, shaking out her shoulders before reaching out to accept the dried food he's holding out.

"Did you sleep at all?"

[wolfdogwitcher]

"Me? I'm fine. I can go a good long while on just meditating, but I'll sleep well tonight to make up for it." He shrugs, popping a ring of dried apple in his mouth.

He pulls a map case from his saddlebags to lay out for her. The vast span of a world she's never heard of.

"We're up here." He says, tapping a corner of the map where the details become less exacting, tapering off into an unmarked corner of the page. Can't very well put Kaer Morhen on a map.

[thelibertybelle]

Narrowing her eyes at him for a moment, Stephanie considers the picture Eskel presents like she can somehow discern whether or not he's lying if she squints at him enough, before nodding. "If you say so."

She comes over when he brings out the map, curious about whether or not she could recognize any landmarks. She's not really expecting to, but you never know. Considering the map for a long moment like she's attempting to memorize it, she eventually reaches out to tap her finger against the surface.

"Do I have a concussion or can I just not read anything on this map?"

[wolfdogwitcher]

"Well, jury's out on if you have a concussion, honey but it's possible you can't read it. We must use different alphabets." He rummages around until he finds another map to show her. This map is older, faded and the borders of the countries are different. The script is different too.

"We have two alphabets, actually. The one humans use and this one: Elder Speech and Elder Runes. Predates humans. You won't see it much but that's what was scrawled all over the shrine yesterday." He shakes is head. "Fuck, you add in a difficult spot, even if you'd found your way to a town a map wouldn't have done you any good past that point."

[thelibertybelle]

She bites her tongue until Eskel brings out the other map, though she's not exactly holding her breath about magically being able to read it.

Sure enough, once it's flat enough to read, all she can discern is a bunch of squiggles that mean nothing to her.

If she tries, she can sort of see some patterns forming, letters repeating, but it still means nothing to her.

"Ah, fuck," she sighs. "Well. I suppose I really am lucky I found you."

[wolfdogwitcher]

He gives her a look that says "What did I tell you?", but it's all teasing. He rolls the maps up to put them away in the stuffed documents case that hangs from Scorpion's saddle.

"You wanna walk or do you wanna ride and I'll walk?" He asks. "I don't think we'll both fit in the saddle." He tries not to think about the ways their muscular thighs do or do not fit together as previously demonstrated. "And Scorpion might throw a fit if we tried."

[thelibertybelle]

The reality of not being able to read anything at all — he's right, if she found her way to a town without him, the people there would find her even more suspicious on account of her being illiterate, forget the looks she'd get just from her clothes — makes her uneasy even in the face of Eskel's affable acceptance, and the thought of sitting still for the next few hours chafes.

She shakes her head. "I'll walk," she decides. She could use the excuse to stretch her legs, and Eskel spent all night resisting sleep for her sake. He could use the rest.

[wolfdogwitcher]

To be fair, most of the people she might come into immediate contact with might have been illiterate, especially as the towns get smaller and more far-flung. But anyone in a position to help her would have probably found it odd that not only could she not read, but that she didn't recognize the writing or couldn't guess her way around a map. Combined with her strange clothes and her confusion would have been a very odd and potentially dangerous set of factors indeed.

"Alright, but let me know if or when you want to switch." He says, beginning to gather up the campsite. After a moment, he remembers what she's said about feeling unhelpful. "I don't mind if you help-- in fact, if you smother the fire that would be great-- but there's a few things you need to know: You can touch literally anything except my personal gear. Yeah, my swords but don't touch this or anything in it--" He points to a small black bag that he slings across his body so it rests in the small of his back. "It's full of lots of little bottles and almost all of them will be filled with some kinda deadly poison, plus packets of what might look like herbs but are probably also poisonous and a lot of which have toxins which can be absorbed through the skin." He's trying not to talk to her like she's a child, when the last person he probably had to explain this stuff to probably was a child, and he hadn't done that since...well, since there had last been children at Kaer Morhen, more than a human lifetime ago. "Especially shit you'd never have been exposed to in your world: monster's blood and venom, mutagenic agents, stuff like that."

He gathers up the pheasant feathers from last night. carefully binding them in a scrap of paper with a piece of twine, but not before selecting one to repair a battered cap he pulls out of one of his saddlebags, discarding the crumpled feather and replacing it with the new one. He looks pleased but only tucks the hat carefully back into his bag with the bundle of feathers instead of putting it on.

[wolfdogwitcher]

The morning dawns bright and clear, though there's just a slight autumnal edge to the breeze.

Eskel spends breakfast-- heavy potato scones with jam-- with a scrap of paper that may or may not have a bloodstain on it and a stub of pencil making a list of things he needs to pick up, paired with the names of merchants he remembers as being less likely to fuck him over on supply costs. There's also coffee, which Eskel is surprised to see in so small a town so far north, but it gives him hope that maybe he'll find a little to take with him.

The market isn't as large or impressive as those in a truly urban city, but Steph will still be treated to a taste of that lively chaos. Merchants are less easily intimidated by their strangeness, mellowed by the possibility of coin as they call out to try and offer Steph jewelry or simple perfumes. A few of them still call her "madame sorceress", which Eskel will let himself find funny as long as everyone stays friendly as they go along.

[thelibertybelle]

Breakfast is slightly more reminiscent of things she had in her childhood, chiefly when she was able to eat at the Barnes' table, since she and her ma rarely had the money for hearty food, and she spends it trying not to stare at Eskel's pencil too much.

For some reason, out of everything that she's seen so far, it's the pencil that's the most jarring.

She enjoys the market, though, allowing herself to admire the hustle and bustle of it all as she trails Eskel between the tables and stalls. People stare at her, but not as much as she was afraid they might, and she's definitely used to ignoring the prickle that comes with being ogled at, so that doesn't bother her. When people try a little too hard to convince her to purchase something she doesn't need, she demurs in a pidgin of what German she remembers from the war and the Russian she taught herself when she was first trying to bring Bucky home, hoping that the people here won't understand her.

They might. She doesn't consider it until it's too late, though, and then she has to commit.

[wolfdogwitcher]

They don't understand but they do wave her off with an expression of bewilderment at her language, which sounds like something they don't understand but has the tones of the south in it. It's enough to cut off their saccharine overtures.

Eskel laughs.

"Nice, good plan." He says, keeping half an eye on her as they move through the market until he finds a good dry-goods stall where he can get most of the things on his list. "Keep an eye out for anything you want. We should get you your own pack and a sword if you want it, or if there's something else you're good with." He says, before he gets sucked into haggling.

[thelibertybelle]

"How many times can I say stand down and I'm your friend before they realize I only know a handful of phrases?" she asks, mostly rhetorically, as Eskel forges further into the market, obviously in search of something specific.

He finds it, eventually, at a stall selling bulk items she assumes he's going to be taking home, probably to help bulk up the winter storage, and she leaves him to his shopping. He doesn't need her hovering over his shoulder, distracting him. Besides. The stalls nearby are interesting enough to hold her attention.

By the time Eskel finishes haggling for his shopping list, he'll find her a few stalls down, crouching in front of a small child, balancing a piece of paper torn from the noticeboard nearby on one knee as she uses one of those pencils she found so fascinating this morning to quickly sketch the child and her little dog caught mid-play.

[wolfdogwitcher]

"There you are." He says, several sacks slung over his shoulder. "Glad you didn't wander too far." He goes on, unaware that he's probably shattered her quiet little moment. Especially when the child spots him and skitters away like mouse to hide in their mother's stall.

[thelibertybelle]

Her model disappears, but the look Stephanie turns to Eskel isn't recriminating: she smiles up at him but remains crouched for a moment longer so she can finish up her drawing before finally straightening to her full height and turning back to the proprietor of the stall.

"For your daughter," she says, handing the notice with the picture on the back as well as the pencil back to the man before stepping back to fall into place beside her witcher.

[wolfdogwitcher]

The man looks surprised and a little wary, but his daughter looks delighted, even showing it to her little dog. Her joy seems to soften her father somewhat, and he bows.

"Thank you, my lady. Little Joan is absolutely tickled with the present, I see."

"Sorry about that." Eskel says sheepishly. "That looked pretty good-- you're full of surprises."

[thelibertybelle]

The man's wife is a little less quick to thaw towards her, attempting to keep little Joan held close to her skirts, but Joan still has the bravery of youth, bolstered by her father's seeming acceptance, and darts away from her mother's hands so she can grab for the picture.

Stephanie smiles at her, fond in the way that people with no children of their own can be when observing them, and waves away the stall owner's thanks.

"It's nothing."

Drifting away from the table, she glances at Eskel and lifts one shoulder in a shrug. "I was an artist before all...this." One hand waves vaguely in front of herself, to indicate her body. "Well. Not much of an artist. I wanted to be, at least. Went to school for it and everything. When I could afford the tuition."

[wolfdogwitcher]

"Still, it's interesting to know." He says, warmly. "It's nice to now we've got talents beyond the work, right?" You're not just a killing machine, he means. And the kid seemed happy!" He says, as they meander among the stalls. "Oh, hey, that guy has some weapons and armor. Nothing fancy. Wanna look?"

[thelibertybelle]

All she is, all she's been allowed to be since she was defrosted is a soldier, a fighter, a wind-up toy that punches whatever's put in front of her. Steph has always had a fire burning in her, a sharp sense of right and wrong, but that never meant it was all she cared about.

Every now and then, she has moments where she remembers that.

But then reality reasserts itself, like Eskel reminding her she'll probably need to have some way to defend herself. She doesn't know what they're expecting on their journey to his home, but if he thinks she'll need armor or a sword, she's going to believe him.

"Yeah, alright, let's take a look."

[wolfdogwitcher]

Eskel's right, the man doesn't have much, his occupation mainly concerned with patching up other people's goods, but he's got a little in the way of leather chest-plates, a few very plain swords and a choice between wood and brass shields.

Eskel loiters outside, his burdens at his feet. He trusts Steph not to go nuts and spend all his coin. If anything, he expects she'll want to bicker with him about this expense.

[thelibertybelle]

She tries not to go for the most obvious thing to her in the stall: the shields. For one thing, she highly doubts that this merchant has anything like the one she's used to carrying — even if vibranium exists in this world, it's probably far too expensive for it to be found here, of all places — and even if either of them feel good in her hands, she doesn't want to waste Eskel's money on something that isn't terribly practical.

He's probably expecting her to return with a sword or something.

She has no idea how to use a sword.