“Oh damn it all!” Demeter hissed out, staring down and analyzing the tear that had carved its way through her favorite overcoat. If only there were more of those damned mercenaries to kill to help quell her anger, but there wasn’t- the battle had ended. Leaving them victorious, of course, but with one extremely angry necromancer. The rest of the companions worked on picking up any loose supplies from the dead, some already starting to make their way back to camp, but there was one that heard the hurt undertone of the raven-haired woman.
“Is this really the first time you’ve torn that coat darling?”
The woman glanced up from the glaring wound to her favorite article of clothing as the white-haired spawn came treading up, surprisingly lacking his teasing smile.
“I-Yes. Normally I’m very good about not getting hit. I.. Bloody hells, if I was back at home I could get my sister to patch it, but I don’t even know how to get back home. Damn it. Bloody f*cking damn it.” Demeter tried to measure herself, but her gaze kept drawing back to the tear. She had so very few things of home with her currently. It wasn’t like she was exactly packed with the intention of never coming back. The thought of having to get rid of the jacket was something that caused her throat to tighten. She had taken very good care of this coat ever since her father had gifted it to her when she began her professional studies.
Her brows were knitted together, her jaw set, and her fingers curled into the fabric, to anyone else, she simply looked like a very angry woman.
But to Astarion, he knew how much the wound to the jacket was for her, even if she didn’t express it directly.
“Come on,” he sighed out in his usual almost bored tone, placing a hand on her shoulder to spin her around back to camp. She shot him a glare, but at the very least the motion did keep her from staring at the tear any longer.
Upon arriving back to camp, Astarion led the necromancer back to his eloquent tent without a word. That was the thing between them, when they weren’t gossiping over wine, they understood how to enjoy silent company. And that’s what he figured she needed at the moment. Besides, he had a headache from the ruckus of the battle, he was due for some quiet time with a threading needle.
“I’m teaching you this so you don’t have to come whining to me every time that darling jacket of yours gets scuffed.”
Demeter scoffed at his words, but she understood they were lighthearted and therefore decided against arguing against him. Instead she shook her head with annoyance and simply took a seat amongst some of the comfier pillows he had. She still wished they were in an inn somewhere, but his tent was always nicer than sitting out with the others. It held a faint resemblance to home.
“Jacket off, I’m not fixing it while you’re still wearing it.”
“You’re needy aren’t you?”
Astarion fixed her with a sharp look that the woman only puffed out a short laugh at, working the overcoat off of herself and handing it over. With the fine fabric settled in his lap, he proceeded to explain the process as he went along with a skilled hand.
And, surprisingly enough, Demeter listened and watched as carefully as she was studying a new spell. She didn’t bother with questions, the process was self explanatory- though she would have to say that she envied the deftness of his hands. The way that he wove the needle through the fabric so seamlessly might as well have been magic. And in the time that he explained and sewed up the wretched tear, the necromancer had brought herself to be calm again. By the end of it, Demeter blinked and held up the finished product, expecting it before raising her brows at Astarion.
“Bloody hells, that’s just about as good as new. You’re… Actually a dab hand at this, and to think I thought you were lying this whole time.”
Astarion rolled his eyes. “That’s what you get for thinking. And now you know how to sew it up.”
“Don’t act like you didn’t enjoy that. You’d make a fine mentor.
“Tsk, mentoring is beneath me darling. Now go grab a bottle of wine, we have matters to discuss about Gale.”
Demeter laughed, pulling her coat back on, a glint back in her eyes before she rose to go to grab a bottle of wine. She hardly recalled even being upset at all.
