Elise flipped round the sign in the window so it read closed. She wasn't in the mood to be dealing with any more customers. She normally tolerated their inflated sense of importance and misunderstandings of her craft but she had reached her limit for the day. She pushed up her sleeves and with a bucket of water and a washcloth began scrubbing away any signs of the earlier altercation. Elise suspected that that kind of work was meant to be the work of apprentices but asking Willow to do it would have been rather tactless. Willow sat at the foot of the stairs and watched Elise work. Her face was still stained from her tears.

A tense quiet filled the shop. Neither Willow or Elise was sure of what to say. So Elise cleaned and Willow sat. Elise liked puzzles and almost everything could be broken down into a puzzle. Wand construction was something that followed clear rules and often had an optimal outcome. The same was true with any kind of design or engineering. Even violence was a solvable puzzle. How best to damage the opposition while minimising damage to one's self was a question to which logic could provide the answer. How to deal with Willow and her problems wasn't a puzzle. Elise knew that there was no right answer. But she hadn't expected to so often find herself unable to provide any answer.

She was still scared she realised. The thought of Willow getting to know more about her worried her. If the young girl got to know Elise better would she hate her or would she be scared of her? Being feared and resented was something she was well used to. But for the first time in a very long time, the thought of someone fearing her bothered her. Elise shivered as she involuntarily recalled how she woke up that morning. She wasn't exactly doing well in not making Willow fear her.

The contents of the bucket grew murkier as Elise worked. It had been a little too long since she gave this place a good clean. After a while, Elise had cleaned the blood up and had scrubbed enough dirt from the floor that the clean patch left behind no longer looked out of place. Declaring herself done she dumped the washcloth into the bucket and went to sit beside Willow. Willow hadn't moved much as Elise had worked. It was unsurprising, the girl had a lot to process.

For once it was Willow who spoke first.

"I wish I'd met you sooner," she whispered "If I had met you years ago then I'd be...I've wasted so much effort. I could have come down here years ago,"

"Well, I have two things to say to that. First; You didn't waste your effort. You just learned how to apply it. You only waste effort when you give up on something halfway through. Secondly, I've been here for less than a year. The window of time you could have met me before you did is pretty small. Even then how could you possibly have known to come here? Don't get hung up on what might have been. I do that enough for both of us,"

"Where were you before? Before you came here?"

"I was... travelling. I bounced between different towns and cities for a bit. Hawking my wares and services on the road. Making focuses in ditches by the road. You would not believe how much people mistrust travelling merchants. It makes sense I suppose, travelling merchants aren't as reliant on customer trust. So some don't care about building it up and see no issue with being untrustworthy, thieving bastards. I'm not the greatest at dealing with customers at the best of times. So I had some problems. But eventually, I got some commission work offered to me that paid pretty well and then I came here to Windhaven to settle down,"

"Was it the same for you when you were younger? Were you like me?"

Elise closed her eyes and breathed out slowly.

"Yes and no. I was luckier than you. I was born a reader so I've always had a more intuitive understanding of magic. But despite that, I also came to the mistaken conclusion that I was useless and helpless. No one believed in me but that wasn't because of malice. When I was growing up things were worse for short-liners than they are now if you can believe it," Elise gazed distantly at the empty wall opposite her. A subtle melancholy filled her, it was tied inseparably to those thoughts of the past.

"Neither of my parents had much of a line. So they were never able to achieve much. Then I came along with a line far shorter than either of them. They were convinced I'd never survive on my own. I believed them of course. They were my parents. They skipped meals so I could eat. You should have seen them when they first saw I could make focuses. It made them so happy. But-"

For a fleeting moment, she was back in her home town as old buried memories flooded in. The crisp cold winter air that was warmed a little by the mass of bodies crammed into the town square. The memories were so clear. Despite how long it had been, she could remember every detail. The faces in the jeering crowd, the platform and the people on it, all the things she wanted to forget. She could remember the faces of her parents, bloody, bruised and broken as they scanned the crowd looking for her. When they spotted her-

"Elise?" a concerned Willow asked.

Elise realising she had gone quiet shook herself. Willow peered at her with a worried expression on her face. What expression had she been wearing as she relived those memories?

"Sorry, I'm fine. I was just thinking of some things in the past. Don't mind me,"

Willow looked like she wanted to ask something else but she said nothing.

"How about we take a break? I've yet to pay you for your first day and you're still wearing the same clothes you were yesterday. So how about we go shopping?"