The moment Miranda blinked Marcel had disappeared to somewhere, leaving behind only a sour taste on her tongue. As she turned to return to the town, she spotted a brunette with a yellow parasol waving her over.
âMiss Wavecrest,â Quinn addressed her as they neared one anotherâs company. She tucked a brown curl behind her ear as her eyes scanned around and noted Miriamâs absence. âI require our healerâs presence at The Red Flask. Have you seen him?â
Miranda let out an annoyed sigh. âHow many times must I remind you, you donât have to be so formal with me⊠Just call me Miranda.â
Regaining herself Miranda said, âAs for the healer⊠Iâm afraid I have not seen him since before we came into town.â
Quinn bristled. She folded her arms and stared at a spot in the dirt a moment. âYou were my senior when we were children,â she said, clasping her hands behind her back and looking up at the grey skies, âAnd continued to be so even when I reached the age I could call myself your âequalâ â as my employer. Iâll be as formal as I please.â The clouds shifted across her full-moon glasses. â... Have I told you how my parents were displeased with your penchant for adventures? That they didnât consider you the âmature influenceâ they intended you to be? If our families were not business partners, I may have been removed from your company much sooner. It shouldnât come as a shock that you would have sought someone free like Miriam after carrying the burdens of someone like me.â
Quinn went quiet and still for several seconds, before blurting right as Miranda went to speak â
âI canât believe you would fall for someone like her!â she shouted, throwing her hands up and her umbrella to the wind. She clasped her head in her hands immediately afterwards, staring at the ground and shooting off with increasing distress, âI spent three years listening to you prattle on about how fierce and wonderful she was only to discover her fierceness to be an unquenchable and misdirected anger settled only temporarily through material means and that the only thing âwonderfulâ about her is the wonder why she is still here after all the times she had threatened to abandon me, the cause, and the honor of the dead she had pledged for! I thought â I thought, I thought she would be somebody worthy of you for a start! You had a responsibility to carry the Wavecrest familyâs legacy and you used it to help a nation in need while she abandoned you to roughhouse in a desert pit! Even I thought your Beautiful Tempest must have been dead, or else she would have returned to you â not out of chance, but because she should have been looking!â Quinn exclaimed, hand over her heart. She panted, red faced from her passion, before clearing her throat and settling down, tucking her expressive gestures away by folding her arms.
âIâm going to say it, Miranda,â she sniffed, them stated after a dramatic pause, âI do not like your fiancĂ©.â
Miranda was taken aback by Quinnâs sudden outburst. She felt an anger swell inside her as Quinn bashed her lover. She made a fist but managed to stay calm. âYou donât know her as I do⊠You didnât see the struggles she went through. Her father trying to set her on a path she didnât want. A path that was not who she was. I saw in her the same thing I saw in myself. While my father wanted to groom me to be some noblemanâs sonâs bride I sought a life away from all that. Away from the life that took you away from me.
You think my father liked that? No, so I planned my escape with the woman I love. She went ahead to make a place for usâŠ
And I admit I was starting to doubt that she would ever send for me⊠But you know what I found out when we at last were reunited?
She did send for me! Letters I never got because my father didnât want me to! So all this time she thought I had abandoned her. She has led a rough life believing all she loved betrayed her. I donât know why I never went to her or she to me. Maybe we both gave up on each other. But now we are together and trying to heal the time lost between us.â
Mirandaâs voice took a darker tone. âYou have only seen the side of her fueled by rage and you have judged her without truly knowing her. Do not try to ruin what we are trying to rebuild.â
Quinn did have the means to ruin it all. A common piece of gossip and speculation that could crush Mirandaâs heart. And because she could not let herself be responsible for that, she kept it tucked within her fist. Miranda would discover it on her own eventually. Quinn would be there for her when she did.
âItâs true I do not truly know the woman you fell for,â she muttered, her cheeks flushed with a hint of shame. âI only know the Miriam poisoned by the potion she drank from the demonâs hands. I never would have seen the woman you told me about within her.â She looked to Miranda, her eyes guarded. âYou told me that she had changed. That her feelings for you were the only thing you could recognize.â
Quinn took in a deep breath before what she said next, âAre you really fine with babysitting somebody you donât know anymore?â
Miranda tried to stay calm as she listened but Quinn's last statement earned her a cold glare from Miranda. "It wouldn't be the first time," she snapped.
Quinn reflected on the kind of person Miranda had found again after all those years. Angry, directionless. The unofficial bodyguard of the brothel and source of the majority of the bloodstains in the lobby. Not the cheeky little princess Miranda had come to know. And the guarded, pragmatic commander she was now was also certainly not that.
"You can't be eight forever," Quinn said. She remembered slipping her chubby hands into clear pools of water. Watching the bigger fish chase the little ones. "Keeping to the rocks, experiencing life through pools and windows." She remembered peering through the crack of a door, watching the back of a blonde head. As the door creaked, the boy suddenly tossed to her, only to be yanked back by the chains restraining him to his desk. "Going on adventures with imaginary dangers and the guarantee we will be safe in the end. The premature destruction of that fantasy can make for some bitter people."
Quinn looked to Miranda. "Miss Wavecrest, I understand what it's like to be angry at everything. It's unfulfilling."
She turned and began walking to retrieve her umbrella. "Rebuild as you wish," she shot over her shoulder, "And I will withhold further judgement on her character. But I will not reevaluate my observations until you show me a woman that can grow up!"
She snatched her umbrella from the ground and began storming away.