Reluctantly, he handed over the key, his floury fingers clinging to it a moment longer than strictly necessary as Laarke glanced over toward the door.
“I swear on my great grandpappy’s butter knife it’s a banshee!” he cried. His pale hands tied themselves in knots over his apron, and she took a moment to note that they were unusually slender for a baker’s.
She felt her brow lift with bemusement at his choice of oath-worthy heirloom. “I’ll take a look,” she said brusquely, moving to step past him.
“I-.. I don’t think you should!” his voice grew higher, lively with desperation, though he did not move to bar her way.
She sighed. “If it’s a banshee,” she said skeptically, “it can’t stay in your home. You’ll be safe outside.” She brushed past him.
“It… isn’t me I’m worrying about,” he muttered from behind.
That gave her pause, and she turned to look him over thoughtfully. He was, indeed, slender for a baker, with dark hair and brown eyes made warm by the glow of the setting sun. They avoided her gaze, nervously watching his own front door instead.
Laarke had met a lot of westerners in her two years in Bree, and it wasn’t often that one didn’t recoil from her on sight. Her dark skin and accented voice marked her as a foreigner… And the company she kept by necessity didn’t help.
The silence of the moment stretched into awkwardness. When he finally looked up, she simply nodded her acknowledgement and turned away. The opener fit easily and turned smoothly, and she paused as she cracked open the door.
“Catch,” she smiled slightly, passing the key back with an underhanded toss. Then she was on the other side.
~~~
She locked the door behind her (in case his claim held merit) and looked about curiously; she had passed this bakery every day for over a year, yet never gone inside. In fact, this was only the second time she'd ever been in such an establishment, and she hadn’t had time to look around the first time. She made her own bread, as she assumed most people did, and had never really understood the use these westerners had for a dedicated baker’s shop.
Now she understood. The man didn’t simply make everyday bread, though there were a few loaves on the counter. He also made smaller breads with fruits and nuts mixed in, and next to those were what looked like little flatbread discs with similar things mixed in. And then there were the flaky looking, golden-brown… things. They were wholly unfamiliar to her, as was the mouth-watering butter-touched smell that filled the entire store.
The muffled howl from above her head shook her from her inquisitive examination and she remembered the task at hand.
“Banshee” now, strange flaky bread things later, she admonished herself, heading up the stair beyond the counter.
At the top of the stair she had a choice between a closed door and an obvious bedroom. The creature wailed again, and she chose the latter. It was nicer than her own, but plain other than a painting hung on one wall. She tried not to inspect anything too closely as she looked for the source of the baker’s concern. Another scream, again from above her head. She peered upward, confused.
Eventually, her eyes found a hatch. Another howl; it was a disturbing sound.
I’ll give him that, she admitted, tugging her dagger free of her boot after a moment’s thought. She held it loosely at her side. More likely prankster than foe, she thought as she stretched painfully upward on tiptoe to open the hatch with her right hand, barely able to reach.
Something furry plummeted toward her face with a cry, and Laarke swore as she tossed the dagger aside and caught it, saving it from a long fall to the ground. Something sharp pierced her arm and she dropped it (or it leapt?) onto the bed with another ear-splitting scream. She squinted at it, trying to see what it was, but it spun around and jumped at her again, voicing a battle cry.
She caught it in midair, seizing it with both hands around what had to be its torso. It twisted and contorted, claws flashing as it wailed.
The door banged open downstairs and something clattered up the stair, distracting Laarke as the creature swiped again. It left bloody stripes on her arm and she yelped as the baker burst into the room. She blinked, finally identifying the quivering mass in her arms as it calmed, seeming finally to recognize that she wasn’t going to hurt it. Gingerly, she set it down on the bed.
“There’s your banshee,” Laarke pointed feebly, hiding a wince as the movement tugged cloth across the scratches it had left behind.
It was a cat. A slender, powerful, tawny, tabby cat. With incredibly sharp claws.
“I-..” the baker reddened, then his eyes widened. “You’re bleeding,” he observed.
She waved him off. “A scratch,” she murmured, watching the cat thoughtfully. “You can’t stay here,” she told it solemnly, and it blinked.
“No. Really. You’re going to have to leave.”
“Shouldn’t you d-do something about it?” the baker asked.
“I am,” Laarke snapped testily, still staring at the cat. She wasn’t sure she wanted to pick it up again.
A chair was shoved beneath her and she twisted around to look at him as she fell into it, startled into a mild panic.
“N-not the cat. Your arm.” He pointed, reddening again.
“Oh.” She drew in a calming breath. “It’s fine,” she promised, wondering how the cat had gotten into the attic in the first place. She looked up to ask the question, but the baker’s anxious stare gave her pause.
Oh fine, she stood with a sigh. “I’ll be on my way, then,” she said, eyeing the cat warily as she prepared to pick it up. It eyed her back.
“C’mon Banshee,” she murmured softly. And to her surprise, the cat straightened out of its watchful posture. Elegantly, it arched its back.
…Interesting. Laarke headed toward the stair and the cat leapt gracefully from the bed, padding softly behind her. “You’re a strange cat,” she commented.
They made their way to the lower floor and toward the door, but she paused when the smell reminded her. “Oh!” she looked back. The baker was halfway down the stairs. “What’re those?” she asked, pointing.
“Hmm? Oh.” He looked startled, possibly that she didn’t know. “I don’t know that they have a name… Butter pastries, maybe?”
“What’s in them?” she asked curiously.
“Ah…” he paused, thinking. “Jam, often. Nut paste, sometimes. Would you like one?”
It was Laarke’s turn to be startled… Until she realized that he meant to sell her one, of course. For a moment, she entertained the idea. Then the lightness of her coin purse decided the issue. “No,” she forced a smile, “but thanks.”
The cat was waiting by the door and Laarke shivered as they stepped out into the evening dark.
“Alright Banshee, you’re on your own from here,” she murmured, looking down at it.
The cat slipped off into the darkness, and Laarke turned toward Beggar’s Alley.
~~~
Two-thirds of the way home, tawny fur flashed in the light of a passing torch, and Laarke smiled.
