He was absentminded for a little while, blank sheets mulling his thoughts before he'd come back to his senses; a courtesy of the sound of silver coins rattling along the wooden surface, thirty of them, about half of what'd been left. "Hrm, this is…less than ideal" the man noted, holding up a coin, "This is an expensive business, Gohlm, enchanters barely come by the many" he sighed, setting the coin down. True enough, specialized magic users were a rare sorts, not that magic was rare in nature but the more talented in it were—the more desired enough by towers to very well be taught anything useful about it. He gleaned over the dull grey armour and shot a pensive look, "Maybe it's time for a change in that too, enchantments aside, you've worn that thing to oblivion" He scoffed, earning a glare as Gohlm crossed his arms over, "Will you enchant it or not, Arthur?"
Arthur grumbled, waving at him dismissively before swiping the allotted half of his earnings from the counter, "No need to get so sensitive, I'll enchant it for ya but this isn't a small matter. I'll need that armour off of you since I'm starting from scratch here"
"Everything…?" Gohlm sounded surprised, a huff filling him in on the fact that the man was serious, "Of course! Keep the helm if you want but the rest of the armour stays"
Gohlm frowned, that sounded…"Preposterous, it's never taken this long"
Arthur scoffed at him, "Because no one's ever told me to do the whole thing from scratch, they come here to get the enchantments restrengthened not redone" he sighed though, noting the awkward silence; it was clear the other party wasn't so comfortable with that. "I can never tell whether it's this persona you've got going on or some genuine reason for it, haaa, take some clothes to compensate for the time being; they're enchanted, rudimentary but still useful to an extent—might even be some chest plate over here somewhere"
He made a motion as though contemplating the idea, "…How long till its done?"
"Armour or no armour, Gohlm, make a choice" He sighed, taking the pouch with their remaining earnings from the counter as Arthur moved below, snatching something from beneath the counter and tossing him a pair of clothes as the latter grumbled. "Besides, I think you need a change"
Clopping hooves passed them by at the edge of the sidewalk, standing ahead of the cramped store in the deep hues of late afternoon where a glance too many swayed his direction, veering elsewhere when he turned, hoping perhaps that he hadn't noticed. "Seriously?" He asked after another veering gaze when he'd noticed him staring, in response to that Gale coughed, "What?"
"You've been glancing so incessantly, is it really so shocking?" He grumbled, turning to face the street again and then his coat, surprised at the question and more so the insinuation, Gale raised a brow, "I've only ever seen you in armour so it's a nice change, I like it" he complimented, quelling the rising need to chastise the appearance any further than it had to, at least to an extent. Feeling lightness over his body was a little awkward, feeling fabric instead of leather, instead of metal that kept him covered—kept him protected and most importantly, felt like home was hard to get used to. "This doesn't suit me…" he said after a minute, adjusting it again as though it weren't sitting right, like one position might magically summon more familiar wears in its place; truly, he could only be grateful at least that the thing came with a chest plate.
"It's only temporary, try to bear with it" Gohlm tilted his head, "Why do you sound disappointed?"
Ignoring that, he glanced back towards the open street now, cross-able as he stepped forward first, "We should probably pay Tenma a visit, she hasn't heard us in ages"
"Hasn't heard from us since we left to go bird hunting, that's more than normal" Gohlm commented, pausing as though slowly realizing something, "You're silently celebrating"
A natural elation, it seemed the novelty of the situation hadn't fully left them; there was little reason for it to do so any time soon either. He hadn't truly grasped it then although now it really was glaringly obvious what was happening, they lived in the city as well, Thrand and Tenma were nowhere short of unavailable, spend as much time out there without a budget to get you on a bed and the first thing one would prioritize when coming home was a nap, a shower—all of the above to really feel at hom. Thrand couldn't be avoided tonight, Tenma could be seen tomorrow yet there was ever more the rush. Facing the accusation, Gale didn't deny it, humming along in agreement as Gohlm said so, "Besides, I'd like to be personally told I was being someone's maid of honor"
"You've thought about that?" He sounded surprised, almost wincing, that it hadn't flown past his thoughts as of late. "Thrand's yours isn't he?" Gale questioned, an olive branch extended his way as he nodded, who else would it have been otherwise? The hesitance hadn't gone unnoticed though, smiling half nervously and half amused, Gale nudged him, "He'd kill you if he'd known you hadn't answered with him first"
"That's half of my problems" He chuckled, glancing back down on himself, "Those two won't shut up about this"
Following across the street as they made their way downtown, Gale grinned, "Oh, definitely" he chuckled, "I'm surprised you didn't refuse the idea immediately"
He frowned at the realization, "I implore that we turn around then"
"And how would they ever find out about our engagement?" He winced at that but urged on, "Days from now actually, in the worst case scenario, we send a letter"
But the shabbily built building stood tall at the end of the street, visible now as they drew closer, those wooden frames, that afternoon sun glinting off of the oval glass window adjacent the second floor, the sight of steam permeating from the first, window sills decorated with flowers. It'd been a short walk from Arthur's enchantments store to her home, it always was, he sighed when he'd realized it was too late and only wondered whether buttoned or unbuttoned fit him best, under Gale's amused guidance, the latter seemed best; from what he gathered, that was almost always the case.
She grumbled again, wiping the fog from her goggles as the contraption growled and sputtered, a gradual descent into a begrudging void of silence. Damnit, she sighed, cursing the failure as she slipped off the eye wear, crashing onto a nearby chair. The mana had ran out again, drained the stone dry in only a few minutes or less. The engine hadn't even run long enough to perform the slightest modicum of a stress test, forget about the elation at having started it. The chair groaned, her hand searching the table for a bowl of grapes. That wasn't the most of her issues anyway, what was the point of shoving this into something more appropriate for daily use if it was so damn tedious for the average person? A water tank somewhere, an excessive amount of mana crystals to keep the contraption running? Worthless, she mumbled to herself.
Tossing down another into her mouth, she frowned, running a hand through the grayish silvers of her hair. Why were they running out? Because the process took so much effort. What was the solution then? She frowned, replace the crystal…or perhaps, if there was something that could replace the water instead…
She was halfway through entertaining the thought before a knock from the door roused her from her stupor, turning the chair in that direction and grumbling as she stood, wading through a sea of discarded papers and abandoned tools. Eventually making it there, she half swung the thing open, wagering a guess at who it was and not exactly pleased by the prospect, "I told you already, the noise doesn't—who the hell are you?"
Gohlm stared, a pair of grayish jewels staring back at him. Great, she hadn't noticed, they could turn around like they'd made a mistake, they'd knocked on the wrong door. Tenma glared, this wasn't that blazing neighbor of hers, never this tall nor did her wear a maroon coat, much less a helm. A helm? Knights? No, they wore maroon, why did they seem so…
She pondered, not missing the glimpse of someone else from behind them and stepping into view after another second of silence; tail swishing and a little disappointment, "Forget worrying about the laughter, they'd barely recognize you" recognizing the voice and its person, she slacked, surprised but pleasantly so, "Gale? When did you get back, I wasn't expecting anyone"
Gale smiled, "Today actually, you noticed really quick" Tenma shook her head with a laugh, "Your hair's different, it suits you. Val wouldn't change a thing about it if she tried"
"That, is a far more compelling answer than someone I know" Tenma grinned, "The helm blinds his eyes, speaking of which where is he?"
Opening the door a little wider in letting them in, Gale looked on in surprise, soon turned delightful as he took the liberty of stepping in. "You know, doesn't make you invisible" He glanced back, practically feeling the other's gaze narrowing as Tenma followed it, glancing at the man who she'd slowly come to pay no mind at all—a friend perhaps. Only a second look didn't miss her judgment, that helm was familiar, that height only second to the towering half dragon beside her. But…where was his…
As her mind pieced together the hilarity of the situation, quiet but a growing expression of amusement foretold the laughter to come, it seemed silence was pointless anyway so he sighed before she let out a cry of laughter, "Gohlm?!"
He sighed again, the stares from her almost manic, glossing over him again whilst practically burning the sight into memory. It was a maroon coat, the deepest shade of it she'd ever seen, black at the lapels and unbuttoned to where a visibly no less dull plate of armour covered his chest. His hands were gloved and black, everything from the waist down seemed to be of a similar sorts, black in colour; the pants and boots. Truthfully it looked a lot more stylish than what the reaction might've suggested, it suited him, had it not been for a prior history in one specific appearance, it might've actually been a lot less humorous.
Grinning with a hand resting on her chin in joking thought, she circled around him, half admiring, half surprised, half laughing at how unexpected it was. "Who forced you into this? They've got good taste~" He scoffed, earning a laugh from her as she waved him off, "Seriously, Gale, tell him"
"I did my part, it's a dashing change"
"It's impractical…"
Tenma scoffed, rolling her eyes rather playfully, "Keep up with the times, this is how you should be dressing" she joked, his head tilting to the side as she nodded, "One of us is barefoot…"
"One step at a time, once we're done with you, your lifelong partner over here is next" She said, turning around only to find Gale having stepped away from her as though fearful the woman might wrangle her into a pair of shoes just as his expression shifted, shaking his head as he caught the last part, "I should've known"
She chuckled, "I told him he'd better hurry up with it after the whole…well, shitty circumstances. There'd only be one damn piece of gold on him then, you'd notice it in a heartbeat"
His eyes widened, "As far back as that?"
Sweeping a few of the scattered papers to the side with a flick of her feet, she smiled, reminiscing on the memory with an amused fondness that bordered on contagious, "A few months in advance actually, no rush and he was still so adamantly frantic about it"
Gohlm grumbled, "I'll admit, choosing where and when was a little…stressful"
Leaning back against a work bench adjacent to the wall opposite the main entrance, Gale smiled, staring over the cluttered living room as she worked to somewhat tidy it up. It wasn't the largest of spaces nor was it east to say that it was some of the smaller ones either, just in between, a fair mix that seemed…right, at least maybe for her. The kitchen stood at a sectioned off corner of the room by a small piece of wall but door-less where one would've been at the end of the wall. Her curtains were slightly ajar with her windows lightly bringing in the cool draft of. the outside that wasn't too windy that it'd disturb whatever work operations she'd let the rest of her room become. There was a small shelf beside the front door harboring a small collection of books and weirder, smaller contraptions in the empty spaces where more works could've sat.
Some felt familiar, perhaps even a little recognizable, old things she'd made from back then, that spinning dial of hers for measuring mana levels, said it was spectacular at chasing down beasts—configure thing to the animals reading upon discovery and that's what it'd look out for when hunting; if only she was still working now, that would've been useful. She'd joked that the thing was kinda useless though, far from any aspirations she truly had in mind. The walls weren't bare, covered in a sparsely packed mess of similar sketches to the ones lining th e floor that she was increasingly starting to give up cleaning up as Gohlm shot a glance at a second workbench, the larger one, the one actually holding something that drew his attention, "An engine?"
Tenma stood, packing the few papers she'd scrounged into a neat stack, turning rather slowly but somehow rushing in her excitement at being asked about the project, "A smaller one! Still steam powered but I'm working on it"
"Is there any need to? Trains use them well" Gohlm pondered, if he remembered correctly,. they used—"Mana crystals, they power the magic circles heating the water, takes a while to do that though, the crystals can but then after that they run out after a little while—now you're running through dozens of them, they're not expensive but that's just tedious" She shook her head, "No one in something a little smaller than that is going to like having to carry all that around, not much less the water"
Gale raised a brow from the other bench, "Smaller, like what?"
She beamed, skimming through the scores of scattered papers in search of something, and somehow found in no time at all. "I've been thinking ever since I'd seen them for myself, pulling something forward without the direct aid of animals, people? Why not extend it to more personal uses—we have machinery like that yet we're still half moving around in carriages, still on horseback"
Gale caught the illustration and so did Gohlm as it was turned to him, "Replace the horses with something similar, crisis, you thought of all this?"
She seemed proud for a moment but shook it off, moving to the bench if only for the bowl she'd been far from finishing, "Heavens no, I've been thinking about it but I'm not the only artificer in the world, it's a popular idea, visited Bastion some time ago and a friend of mine clued me on something scarily similar" She coughed, scratching the back of her head, "Call it…inspiration, I didn't steal it so stop looking at me like that! It's a very common practice, alright?A little bit of this and that, then your own head puts in something of your own that you think might solve the issue and there, problem solved, contraption made. No one's going to hurt you over it, especially when all I got from him was how to scale it down all the way to this, mind you he didn't come up with this himself either, we're both stuck either way so no harm done"
Gale chuckled at the frantic effort at dismantling any thoughts of thievery whilst Gohlm stared at the open engine, a small pile of opaque grey crystal shards laid discarded across the work bench, their usual violet glow completely drained from them, "You're enthusiastic about this…"
She smiled, crashing down on the chair she'd left earlier as she gazed back on the bench with an expression hard to explain. Soft really, it was easy to start there, somewhere no less apparent was a hint of pride, a sense of accomplishment. Her gaze eventually drifted elsewhere as she tossed another grape into her mouth, "It's the most fun I've ever had"
Gohlm chuckled, "Six years ago you said the same thing during that one mission, where was it, there were so many woodlands back then that I can't quite remember which"
"I do" She tossed another grape, "And I count that now as the second most fun I've ever had"
He continued to chuckle as he shook his head, the amusement more quiet, subdued into something less readable "Over a sudden ambush of drew worms? Damn client wanted to take a shortcut following the river"
"And I'd told him that wasn't a good idea, thought trying to cut the journey short would reduce how insanely pricey the escort would be" She reminisced, "And the worst did happen, and I hate worms, no less when they look like a bunch of moving bark and moss covered roots but then he wanted to run"
"An even worse idea"
She scoffed, "He was hindering how well we could deal with the things"
Gohlm chuckled again, "So you struck him quiet for a bit, spectacular"
Shrugging, she set down the bowl, "His few guards wanted him quiet too, I'd say we were all thinking it" Gohlm nodded, absentmindedly examining a shard whilst a brief moment of silence wafted the room before she spoke, "I found better though, well, maybe it's more correct to say I found me and there's a whole lot more fun in doing things that that me enjoys—the real me"
"Hm" He acknowledged but didn't respond to that directly, his gaze seemed glued to the shard for a little while longer before gently setting it down back onto the work bench as somehow another drought in words settled in before Gale sighed, "And here we came visiting my future maid in honor"
Glancing back towards him, her brows furrowed, processing the words before widening as she turned to Gohlm and then his hands and then Gale's. It was another round of silence, this time garnered through astonishment before standing from the chair and dashing towards one of them, nimble even on this cluttered floor, true to her past it was surprising how quickly she'd closed the distance between them, grabbing Gale's hand and bringing it close to herself; storm grey eyes practically sparkling into silver pools, "Its stunning!" She exclaimed, glued to it like cement, "Damn, the gold really does match well. I really had my doubts over Gohlm's…less than creative choices" She joked, a mumble of retorts from the other side following with it as she brought up his hand a little higher, staring between it and the jewelry he already wore as inseparable ornaments, "if it works on you already, there's no need to change that" She smiled, staring into the stone embedded onto the ring.
"What a beaut" Autumn red yet when angled at certain points, it appeared to brighten, revealing a shimmering pattern of wave like bands that reflected orange and at some points blended both. "Like flames trapped in time, phoenix stone…" She marveled, suffusing to a proud grin, "Such a romantic" letting go off his hand with a small laugh, she scoffed "Stare long enough and I might just catch whats got the both of ya, Thrand's already halfway there"
Gohlm turned as she amusedly waved him off, "I'm exaggerating, she's a regular though, Theia knows he needs some more friends"
"Isn't that what you nee—"
"Tread carefully now, treasure fingers, I haven't quite accepted being anyone's maid of honor" Gale quietened, earning a nudge from her as she giggled and stared between them after a moment of thought, "A maid of honor," she joked to herself, shaking her head before staring at them warily, "You two aren't doing a wedding anytime soon, are you?"
Gohlm coughed, "That…was the plan.."
"You're flattened" That was true but to that Gale answered instead, leaning forward from the bench "Mel's got a special request, it's paying good money"
Mortified, she groaned as though hearing something so outlandishly preposterous, she couldn't believe it was said, "I admire the two of you, really, that's tenacity I tell ya. If its able to pay for everything, it's able to pay for your caskets too"
Gohlm sighed, not agreeing and not fully disagreeing with that either; it was household mantra after all, easy to understand why one would be wary of it when taking up those kinds of requests wasn't rare, higher pays were always going to attract almost anyone…safe to say the consequences of that attraction were..lethal.The concern was warranted although, "Mel says it's nothing dangerous, simple escort duty, with what we've heard out there, it sounds like one deeply paranoid individual"
She nodded, half convinced but slowly dismissing any further worries with a tired sigh, "It wouldn't be impossible for you two," a competent pair, at the very least, one of them was more than capable of solving most things if it came down to a fight. She could be assured of that much, they'd held their own pretty well even after the rest of them had settled down. Stepping back and moving towards the kitchen, she asked over her shoulder, "So, you're leaving again, has Thrand heard yet?" Inside, one of the counters housed a bowl of fruits that she stuffed a hand in for another bite.
"He'll know, everyone back at the guild want to swarm the place in celebration tonight" leaning back and peaking into the living room from the passage, her ears perked, "Drinks? Tonight?"
"Is that all you got from that?" He shook his head as she rolled her eyes, coming back into the living room a few seconds after, apple in hand and a look as though she'd found something funny, " 'Course it is, sounds like home"