[FIN] Homecoming [Harriet & Faolan]

Harriet intended to greet the new customer with her usual level of bouncy enthusiasm. Signaled by the jingling of the bell, she spun around with a bouquet of pungent flowers, something that she'd bought inside to lighten up the place rather than offer as useful merchandise. However when the girl saw who had walked into the shop she let the stemmed flowers fall from her hands and scatter on the floor, fragrant petals catching the draft from the door as it swung shut, and swirling about her leather boots.

The shop was much neater than it had been under Faolan's rule, without the light elf to supervise her Harriet had made a great deal of improvements to the inner decor. The walls had been painted light airy colours, the shelves, once suspiciously stained by odd alcemical ingredients, demon blood and spider bristles, had been replaced with new ones. Tables covered with laced cloth displayed jars of herbs, salves, and healing supplies, as well as more trivial things like scented candles. The once foreboding shop had been converted into a health store with no abundance of Harriet's own lacy pink aesthetic.

Sithia wasn't here for the moment, running some errand or another. Harriet idly wished that she were there, struggling to gather her thoughts, or anything significant to say to the man in the doorway. She hadn't expected to ever see him again, and a part of her expected that now he was here, that he would yell at her for ruining his shop. Certainly she hadn't ruined it in her own opinion, but she knew faolan well enough to know what the man liked.

Or she used to know him.

There was something different about the elf's bearing now, something must have changed. It wasn't surprising perhaps, Harriet knew she wasn't the same young girl who had begged him for employment years ago.

"Where's Efa?" she asked, pleasantly surprised to find the words came out evenly and didn't catch in her throat.

"Destroyed?" Harriet screwed up her face in confusion, unable to discern why he turned away from her or why his tone was so harsh. Still she kept her voice level, the same could not be said for her expression, obviously pained, thankfully he wasn't looking at her to notice. "What attack... the attack you mean, you were there?"

she clenched and unclenched her fists, unsure what she should do withe her shaking hands. This grouchy old man had been like family to her before he left, and yet he had walked nonchalantly into her shop and started browsing the shelves as though no time had passed.

A sob escaped her, a quiet sound yet it betrayed her true feelings well enough. It was a good thing Sithia was not there perhaps, she wouldn't want her friend to see her fall apart like this.

Tentatively Harriet stepped toward faolan, one step, then another, and then she ran; colliding with his back in a hug so tight that he would have to pry her arms off him to effectively escape. "I didn't really think you'd come back, I missed you." Harriet was barely audible as she mumbled into his clothing.

Harriet was relieved to hear a more friendly tone, and squeezed tighter, burying her face in his chest to hide the tears that were trying to escape her eyes, instead they served to wet his robes instead. Eventually she did pull away, but not until a great deal more sobbing into his clothes. Finally she sniffed and stood up straight in front of him wearing a forced smile.

Horrified, Harriet realized in her haste she had forgot basic manners, an elf back from the war should be offered hospitality, especially one returning to what was technically his own house. "Would you like some tea? Scones, there are scones... I'll get you some, you can come sit down in the kitchen everything's p-pretty much how you left it," she stammered, wiping her face on her frilly sleeves.

"Good, good, make yourself comfortable." One final sniffle and Harriet glanced in a nearby mirror to check she looked presentable. A little red-eyed but not too awful, she could hurry to the kitchen and put the kettle on now.

So she did that, leaving Faolan behind her, although the building was as small as it always had been so they were never very far apart. The smell of scones from the kitchen became more pronounced as Harriet adorned with pink oven mitts, removed the warm tray from the oven and began arranging the fluffy cakes on plates while her hot water boiled, and the tea brewed.

"I would have continued the shop as you left it," Harriet began to say, by way of an explanation. "But you know I was never much good at dealing with demons.. aha." she laughed at first, but then turned and caught Faolan's eye, a anxious frown meeting her lips. The memory of her all-too-close encounter with a succubus had never left her quite the same, feverish, horribly burned, and traumatized by the experience; and by bringing it up quite by accident Harriet had put her foot in her mouth yet again.

"I'm sorry about Efa," she mumbled to change the subject, turning away to hide her reddening face. "Would you- do you want to tell me about it? About what happened?"

Harriet blinked, silent until she placed the tray of tea things on the table. "Well, that all sounds rather mystical." she noted oddly, her face looking like it was unsure whether it was relieved or sad that it was a release of spirit rather than death for the snake. Efa hadn't been a pet after all, she had always seemed to Harriet just like a pet, a benevolent animal friend. "I think I'll miss her, spirit or not, but also... I'm glad you're okay."

She sat down, awkwardly looking at her chair before she did so. For some reason something so odd as sitting in Faolan's old chair disturbed her, it was just like old times and yet certain things had changed.

"You aren't here to stay are you." Harriet noted, staring at him. It wasn't a question, but something she concluded by herself. "Did you just come to see me, or do you have business in the city?"

Harriet beamed, his words cheered her up despite the oddly tense atmosphere and the lack of any smile on his face. The man had changed, that was evident, but he still cared about her in his own way, just as she did him. That was comforting.

"I'm doing great, I found a herbalist to run the shop here with me. I'm glad you stopped by, you know you can visit any time you like. I know war times and sorcery battles must be busy work, but my door is always open." She poured tea into the cups, making sure to offer Faolan his exactly the way he had liked it back when they lived together.

"My father's debt?" Harriet rotated her own cup of tea in her hands, she looked wistfully out the nearby window. "As far as I'm concerned he paid any debts he had when he gave his life in Amedra."

Harriet didn't look appropriately distressed for somebody who had lost a family member so recently, indeed the news hadn't sunk in yet, and her fathers remains had yet to arrive in the city for the funeral. "But I suppose that's not how the bank will see it, I'll have to make more money now that mother doesn't have daddy's income to support her."

she looked back at Faolan, stifling the emotion that caught in her throat.