Solmere's lower market district smelled, on a good afternoon, of fresh bread and sea salt in roughly equal measure, and Elsie had been insisting for the better part of a week that they visit a particular bakery near the harbor road, one Rowan had apparently mentioned in passing as the best in the city.
ELS: He said the honey ones are worth the walk.
YSE: Everything is worth a walk if honey is involved. I don't need convincing.
They found the bakery easily enough, a narrow shopfront with steam curling from a side vent and a small handwritten sign advertising the day's offerings, and Elsie had just started toward the door when Yseult caught her arm and pulled her back behind the corner of the adjacent building.
ELS: What-
YSE: Look.
She nodded toward the bakery's front window, and Elsie, following the gesture, went quiet. Corin stood outside the glass, close enough that his breath was faintly fogging the pane, dressed exactly as he always was, the fitted leather armor beneath a dark traveling cape, his sword belted at his hip the way it seemed to be belted at his hip regardless of occasion, and he was watching the trays of pastries through the window with an expression Elsie had never once seen him wear in any of their shared classes. He looked, for lack of a better word, hungry. Not for food alone. Something in the particular careful, wistful stillness of his posture suggested a hunger that went beyond the pastries themselves, the specific longing of someone watching an ordinary pleasure from the outside of it, uncertain whether he was permitted to want something so small.
ELS: Is he just going to stand there?
YSE: Apparently.
They watched him for a long moment. He did not go in. He simply stood, cape settling around his boots in the harbor breeze, sword catching the afternoon light, watching a tray of honey pastries being pulled fresh from the oven with an expression that had no business belonging to someone as composed as Corin Ashby usually was.
ELS: He's not going to buy one.
YSE: No. I don't think he is.
ELS: Why not?
Yseult considered this, watching Corin's rigid, watchful posture with the particular sharp attention she brought to most puzzles.
YSE: I imagine buying yourself a pastry requires believing you're allowed a small, unearned pleasure. I'm not certain that's a belief he holds.
Elsie looked at her.
ELS: That's rather insightful.
YSE: I have my moments.
They watched a moment longer, and then Elsie, apparently having reached some decision of her own, straightened and started toward the bakery's door.
YSE: What are you doing?
ELS: Getting him a cupcake.
YSE: Elsie!
ELS: What? He's clearly not going to do it himself. Someone should.
Corin did not notice them approach until Elsie was directly beside him, and when he did, his whole posture shifted immediately back into its usual guarded composure, the wistful stillness folding away so quickly Elsie might have doubted she'd seen it at all if Yseult hadn't witnessed the same thing.
COR: Tanner. Marchant.
ELS: Not on a first-name basis, are we..?
COR: What are you doing here?
ELS: Buying pastries. Same as you, presumably.
COR: I wasn't buying anything.
ELS: I noticed.
Something flickered across his face at that, quick and gone, and Elsie, without further comment, pushed through the bakery door and returned a few minutes later with a small paper bag, from which she extracted a single frosted cupcake and held it out toward him without ceremony.
COR: What's this.
ELS: A cupcake. I believe that's fairly self-explanatory.
COR: I didn't ask for one.
ELS: I know. I'm giving it to you anyway. That's generally how gifts work.
Corin looked at the cupcake, and then at Elsie, and then, briefly, at Yseult standing a few steps behind her with an expression of open, curious amusement, and something in his rigid posture wavered, the particular visible discomfort of someone being offered a kindness he had no established protocol for accepting.
COR: I don't need charity.
ELS: It's not charity. It's a cupcake. You're allowed to simply want things sometimes, Corin. Nobody's keeping score.
He did not answer immediately. He looked at the cupcake for a long moment, his expression unreadable, and then, finally, reluctantly, took it from her hand, holding it as though uncertain what the proper procedure for eating it in public actually was. He ate it in three small, careful bites, standing stiffly in his full traveling attire on the harbor road, cape shifting slightly in the breeze, and said absolutely nothing at all when he finished, simply crumpling the small paper wrapper and tucking it into a pocket with the same rigid formality he seemed to apply to everything. He turned and walked off without another word. Elsie watched him go, her expression settling into something between amusement and genuine bemusement.
ELS: He didn't even say thank you.
YSE: No. He didn't.
ELS: Not one word. Just ate it and left.
YSE: I noticed that too.
ELS: Do you think he doesn't know how? Or he simply chose not to?
Yseult considered the question with real thought, watching Corin's retreating figure, cape catching the wind, sword swaying slightly at his hip, until he turned a corner and disappeared entirely from view.
YSE: I think, whatever the reason, it's probably not as simple as rudeness. Nothing about that boy seems simple, from what I've observed.
ELS: That's the second insightful thing you've said today. I'm starting to worry about you.
YSE: Don't. It happens rarely enough that you needn't adjust your expectations permanently.
They turned back toward the bakery, the afternoon settling warm and easy around them, and Elsie, glancing once more toward the corner Corin had vanished behind, found herself turning the whole strange little encounter over in her mind, the cape and the armor worn even here, on an ordinary street, on an ordinary afternoon, the particular careful rigidity of someone who did not seem to know how to simply exist without his armor on, in every sense of the word.
ELS: Should we tell Arthur about this?
YSE: Absolutely not. Let the man have his mystery. It's rather the only interesting thing about him at the moment, aside from the fighting.
ELS: That's a little harsh.
YSE: It's accurate. Now come on. I believe there were honey ones, and Rowan was apparently correct about them being worth the walk.