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IN NO WAY was Axion unfamiliar with threats. He'd had daggers trained at his throat, sword tips poking him in the chest (ruining some of his favorite vestments), and fists flung at his face. Poisons slipped into his cups and death mixed in with his desserts.

And yet, he never expected a ladle to cause his end. But one was aimed at his face, wielded by perhaps his most fearsome foe yet. 

Leo did not look happy. In fact, her expression was rather bland - no seasoning of contempt, disdain, or hatred.  Her skin was smooth like an eggshell, disturbed only by a smattering of freckles. Her dark eyes were no more keen to reveal her true feelings than his were. 

But he knew there was no escaping. Forgetting to swap Evernight scraps with hemma currency was a slight oversight. Nothing he couldn't remedy once back in Ean. All Leo had to do was believe in him, and his promise of future payment. 

She proved far shrewder than he thought possible when she'd given him his check as well as an ultimatum - either pay for his meal or be hauled off to the dungeons by guards all too eager to see him spend his nights in cold and squalor. 

While he was no stranger to dungeons, Axion rather enjoyed when his movements weren't restricted by chains and his toes weren't nibbled on by rats, and he wasn't forced to relieve himself in an already full chamber pot. 

Leo motioned toward the sink at their right, where a mountain of dishes awaited him. Grimacing at the bubbling, gurgling water, and crust-studded plates, he muttered, "You can't be serious."

She thrust the ladle forward, the rounded bottom smacking him between the eyes. She lowered her arm, and now that the ladle had done its job - presumably to make Axion aware of the conviction of her threat- she tossed it into the sink. It smacked off a tea cup and saucer precariously balanced atop one of the many mountains, the whole thing succumbing with a tremor. Dishes and plates and crumb-coated racks dove into the murky water and had Axion not been so spry and effortlessly agile, a drop might have sullied his shoes. 

"I'm most definitely serious, Axion." Leo rolled her chair away from him, her black hair, done up in a ponytail, slapping against her shoulder. 

Axion thought her hair rather pretty, like the Evernight's sky. Admittedly, Axion thought all of Leo was rather pretty, and while ruminating on the ways in which she was -- the freckles across her nose and decorating her cheeks much like his stars, her rounded face and slightly crooked nose. The way her nostrils flared just the slightest at her agitation, something he was sure she wasn't aware she did. If she had been, she probably would have demonstrated even more restraint as Leo seemed steadfast in not wanting to show emotion -- a curious thought came into being. 

He'd much like to see her smile. Not that she was some worthless hag elsewise, but the urge to see how such a thing shaped her face was there. Stronger though was the desire to be the reason of her smiling. A silly, childish notion he knew, one birthed from selfishness that would never manifest into reality.

Leo thrust a pair of blue, elbow-length gloves into his chest, bringing him out of his thoughts. He glared down at them, the color -- a pale sky blue-- the texture - rigid and unforgiving. Truly a horrible item of clothing.

"Clean every dish, then I'll consider your tab paid in full." 

Axion's stars pulsed with alarm. A planet, circling his neck, disappeared, no doubt dying from disgust. Careful he didn't breathe deeply enough to defile his lungs with the sour, rancid air, he said, "Me do commoner's labor? My suit will get ruined." 

At this, Leo's mouth cracked open, the corners of her lips rising like the morning sun. But as quickly as her smile had shone, it had fled, chased behind an impenetrable wall of indifference. "How could your suit possibly get worse?" 

Smirking, he leaned over her, trapping her within his shadow. Had he still been connected to his realm, he could have shadow-stepped her to the southern continent and shown her its vast deserts, or let her glimpse the glass beaches, or ferry her to the Smokesea where stood the crumbled remains of his mother's realm. His possibilities had been endless then, but now, all he could manage were a few steps at a time, on legs that ached and with a heart that did much the same. "Such cutting words, I imagine they could fell dragons."

She pulled away and rounded on him, but not before he noticed the blossoming blush on her cheeks. 

"I'll help." She pulled out her own pair of hideous gloves, threw them on, and moved over to the sink. Without hesitation, she plunged her hands into the water and pulled out a bread pan. 

Axion stepped toward her. "Thank you." 

Slowly, Axion dipped a finger into the water, revolted by the way a foamy, brownish scum lingered on his glove. Tamping down his revulsion, he pushed his hand down, until his fingers collided with something hard and square. He pulled it up, and following Leo's example, began scrubbing. 

A chuckle, small but full and abundant with warmth, found its way to his ears. He glanced at Leo, who was already looking at him. Their eyes locked but for a moment before Leo turned her attention to a tray with stuck-on cream and red jam.

"I think there's a good chance you'd end up drowning in the suds, or dead and buried beneath all these dishes without me here." 

His lips jerked into a smile. "You seem to know me well, considering the few hours we've spent together."

"You're not hard to figure out."

"Oh?" He set aside the pan, now glistening and clean, on a towel laid out on the counter beside him. "Then you're saying I'm simple? Or perhaps you are a witch of renowned power? Or--"

She stopped cleaning, her hands resting on the lip of the sink. "I just look." Her head tilted and her gaze was fixed on him. Axion gulped, his nerves coiling in his stomach, his stars blinking as confusion swept over them. "All that," she motioned at his outfit - its frills and scalloped lace, and gold buttons. "It's a distraction. Meant to keep people occupied, so they don't look deeper." Her eyes darted to her hands. "I do the same with my expression. I look bored, not because I truly am, but--"

"But what?" 

"The world won't end just because I'm no longer in it. It didn't end when my mother was--" She gulped. "When my mother passed away. The world's bored by us, so why shouldn't I be bored with it?" 

Almost in a whisper, he responded, "I'm very interested in you, Leo." 

She chuckled, once again plunging her hands into the water to procure another dirty item. "But you're not the world, are you?"

He shook his head. "No." But underneath his bandages, his stars, his meteors and comets, his planets -- all his worlds, flashed a bright, honest white, Leo having captured his attention wholly. 

*

They cleaned in relative silence, Axion taking breaks whenever his delicate senses demanded it of him. He could only stand so much stink in such close proximity for small spurts of time. In one breath, Leo would berate him for taking any opportunity to leave her with the brunt of the work, and in another, she'd commend him for doing as much as he had. 

He'd even removed his jacket, revealing the light yellow sheer shirt he wore underneath. Of course, he'd wrapped his torso in bandages, so as to cover up his stars. But Leo was still unnerved when she turned around and found him standing there in only a shirt and trousers, her face igniting like a matchstick. 

Axion did cut a fine figure, his arms trimmed with lean muscle, his chest much the same. But he hadn't expected her to let so much emotion flood her face. Her father had drifted in and out of the kitchen, a perpetual grimace stuck to his face. He was always ferrying trays of freshly baked goods to the display case or to restock the wall. Never once in all his time in the kitchen did he look Leo's way and since Leo hadn't commented on it, neither did Axion.

By the time Leo's father left and the sun was setting, they were finishing up. Most of the pans and dishes were dry, and only a handful of things were left in the sink. 

Leaned against a flour-dusted table, Axion stretched, his hands raising above his head. He felt the tension in his back and shoulders, after being hunched over a sink for hours, start to melt away. 

He watched Leo work, a wet towel being thrust and twisted inside a cup. A song slipped from her lips, a soft hum of pleasant but sad notes. 

Axion's eyes widened. "Do you like music, Leo?" 

Her shoulders stiffened, the cup in her hand slipping. "I like the piano." 

"You play?" 

"I did."

Her answer was curt, her attention returned to the remaining stack of dishes. Sensing she wished to talk no more of music, Axion turned his attention outside. A small window on his right, seeped citrus-scented air into the kitchen. Its curtains fluttered. Triad's sun had gone down, and the mountains' shadows loomed across roofs and streets. Soon night would fall and the sky would be brimming with stars.

Axion smiled. It had been similar back then. Fluttering curtains, a humming baker. He recalled the lingering sourness of yeast, and the flour caked on her fingers and the way she looked at him not with fear, but with warmth. 

That day, he'd been chased from the castle. His brothers taunting him about his stars - how they wavered with doubt, how the pulsed with fear when his father had commanded him to slay a Shadling, caught sneaking in the palace. How his refusal showcased a weakness that needed to be expunged from their bloodline. 

The castle a distant black stain at his back, Axion had gathered a shadow and slipped inside it, no thought to where it might lead him. He hadn't cared, so long as he escaped his suffocating life in the Dying City. 

He arrived under a lamplight, the air damp, the sky full of stars. An enormous city of gold and cream rose up around him. Pale skinned creatures, similar to him, but without his stars, and no where near as dark, strolled down streetways. 

He darted into a nearby bush, his heart hammering in his chest. All of his stars burned orange, pleading with him to exude caution. 

He'd come to Exul, the realm of hemmas. 

He could have gone home easily. Shadows had been everywhere. But despite the danger hemmas presented with their sharpened teeth and blood-stained talons -- at least, that's how they were described in the books he'd read -- he didn't want to go home. So he remained, sticking to the shadows, wandering the side streets and deserted alleys. 

He quickly learned hemma teeth were dull and yellow and as demonstrated by one such grinning hemma hobbling out of a tavern, capable of falling out completely. Their talons were stunted, and their eyes seemed ill-suited for night. They kept close to the light, and when they strayed, he noticed their footsteps grew unsteady. 

His fear of them abating, just a bit, Axion grew bolder. He glimpsed in windows, and traipsed through gardens. 

He had his fill of foreign sights - towers of stone jutting into the sky, healthy rivers, stands selling flowers, meat being grilled over open pits. 

He decided to rest under a tree -- as the roots lacked the appetites of those in the Evernight -- and that's when he heard it. A song quietly sung. A voice lovely and warm like Axion's mother's. He followed it, to a window where a pair of curtains were dancing in the night air. 

A hemma, round and stocky, but with a kind face, and dark eyes, was bent over a table, working her knuckles into something like mud. Though it was smooth and pale. Something sweet found his nostrils. She continued to work and sing, specks of white gathering in purple gashes along the base of her talons. 

Then she stopped, and so too did her music, and she turned her gaze on Axion. His stars flashed red. 

"A child," she mused, rubbing her talons on her soiled apron. She leaned out the window, her  eyes inches from Axion's. She glanced down and all his stars blinked out of view. "You hungry?"

Axion nodded sheepishly. She never commented on his skin, nor his two sets of teeth. She merely opened the back door and let him into the kitchen. 

He sat on a stool, swinging his legs back and forth. "What are you doing?"

"Kneading dough."

His eyes widened. "Like for bread and stuff?"

"Yes." She grinned. "You know a lot, don't you?" 

"We have bread at home." 

She nodded, a soft hum escaping her lips. 

"But I never thought hemma capable of making it what with yo-your ta-talons."

The woman stopped, her eyes meeting his. Axion's gaze dropped to his shoes. "Hemma? Talons?"

"Th-that's what I read."

"Well, I'm a human. And these are hands." She raised them, then wiggled the individual, rounded talons. "These are fingers."

"Fingers. Hands." Axion nodded. "Human." 

She chuckled. "And you I suspect aren't exactly human, are you? What with how you wear the stars on your skin?"

Axion squirmed, comets plunging across his cheeks, leaving them streaked pink. "N-not exactly." His voice was a whisper. 

"You don't have to tell me, if you don't want to." She turned back around and plopped the dough into a tray beside her. 

"That song you were singing," Axion asked when she tossed the pan into the oven, "what was it?" 

"Ah," the woman turned around, eyes glittering. "That's a lullaby I sing to my daughter." She stepped toward him. "Do you have a mother?" 

Axion nodded. "She's as bright as the sun." He smiled as he recalled the warmth of his mother's arms, and the tenderness of her kisses. 

"I'm sure she's worried about you then." 

Axion threw his arms over himself. "She's got other things to worry about." Like his father, and his brothers, and all the Shadlings in court that wished to see her head decorating the castle's walls. "Besides," he huffed, squaring his shoulders. "I can return at any time."

"Okay." The woman took a loaf of bread off a shelf, then moved to a pantry. She gathered some kind of glistening meat, and half a cheese wheel. "Well, how about I get to making you something to eat?" He nodded enthusiastically. She placed all the ingredients down. "Do you like sandwiches?"

"Sa-sandwiches?" He furrowed his brow, a confused planet swirling around his temple. 

"You don't know what a sandwich is?" 

He shook his head. 

"Well, I happen to make the best sandwiches in the city." 

"Really?"

"Mmhmm." She pointed to the loaf of bread she'd gotten off the rack. "And this is why. My own recipe. Light as air and sweet with a crunchy texture. Big hit with the locals." 

Axion felt his mouth water. 

"Would you like that--" She frowned. "By the gods, I haven't gotten your name yet."

Axion slid off the stool and stepped toward her. He gave a bow, as his mother instructed him to do when meeting anyone for the first time. "I'm Axion." He stopped before he added, twelfth son of Shadow King Gravious and youngest of the Night Princes. Such tidbits, he thought, were best kept to himself. 

The woman took his hand and shook. "Well met, Axion. I'm Danria. You can call me Dani."

"Axion?" 

He snapped to attention, Leo staring into his face. "I knew something was wrong. You stopped talking for a solid ten minutes. Thought a soap bubble popped and splattered on your sleeve and your soul returned to the stars." 

"I--I was..." He glanced at the sole window in the kitchen. It was like any other window in a comely house in Triad - plain wood, crudely painted to match the walls, no adornments or colorful curtains. Jars sat on the sill, their contents some light brown mixture that occasionally belched. "Remembering." 

"Well," Leo spun back toward the sink, empty of the dishes, drained of the dirty water. "While you were remembering, we managed to get through everything." 

She slipped off her gloves and Axion did the same. 

"Your debt's repaid." 

Composing himself, Axion sauntered forward, a smirk playing on his lips. "Such words are rarely uttered in my presence." 

One of Leo's thin eyebrows raised. "You have a lot of debt?"

"I've had," he corrected. "A lot of debt. But that's all in the past." 

"Right." She threw a towel over her shoulder. "I guess, you should go. I still have things to do before I close up for the night." 

"Oh..." Axion didn't know why but he felt reluctant to leave. His shoes were heavy, his legs unwilling to work. "Of course." He pushed himself forward. "I'll leave you to it." Making his way to the partition, he called over his shoulder, "thank you again for the delectable--"

"Would you like to go to a festival?"

Axion spun around. Leo's hands rested in her lap, both formed into fists. "My-- People I know-- Anyway, there's a festival, nothing big, for the solstice and there's food and drink. Dancing, if you're into that kind of thing...since it's your first time in Triad maybe you'd like to--No guards ought to be there so--"

He took a step forward, and with a flourish swept his arms out. He bowed low, meeting Leo's eye level. "I'd love to."

 Every one of his stars shimmered gold.