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[TheLivvingDoll]

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"Three sweet dough, two regular." Livvie counted absentmindly aloud to no one. It was her normal baking day at the Stonegate Meadhall and as per usual, she was covered in flour head to toe since sun up. Picking up one of the regular balls of dough she placed it on the counter and began to knead it with her hands. Pushing and pulling until she had a nice round flat disk she grabbed a pie dish from beneath the counter and put the dough inside it. With her thumb and forefinger she pinched around the top edge to crimp the dough around the dish. Casually she dusted off her hands and walked into the pantry to get the berries. Two minutes and she had a bowl filled with them. With an umph, Livvie stood back up and turned round making her way back to the kitchen. Her head down, she had been examining the berries and not watching where she was going. So when she ran head first into a chest her bowl of berries went flying across the upstairs of the meadhall.

"You really ought to watch where you're standing," she began to yell, picking up the far flung berries.

"And you ought to pay attention to where you're walking." The voice was unmistakeable and Livvie did her best not to show any form of surprise. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

"I got your note. Thought you would have been long gone by now." She didn't look up to meet his eyes. She took her bowl, now refilled with the berries and walked back into the kitchen.

"I told you I had some things of interest keeping me here." The smirk was unmistakable.

"Did you and the oak trees make yourselves acquainted? I hear the bark will really keep you warm at night." Handful by handful Livvie took the berries and rinsed them in the water trough.

"Don't you think you ought to throw those out?"

"I keep this place spotless. Those berries are cleaner now then the ones back in Trinsic growing on the vines."

"Clean eh? Like the ones you sat on and smeared into Father's favorite chair?" She could hear the laughter in his voice as her mind flashed back to the incident.

"I was 5 Aaron. And if I remember correctly aren't you the one who said that was the best way to make jam?" Finishing up she set them off to the side and turned round. "Did you have a reason for the visit, Aaron?"

"Is it that time of the month?" Without warning Livvie grabbed a rag at that comment and started smacking her older brother left and right. In a faux attempt to defend himself he threw his hands up in front of his face. "Oh please Miss cook, I'm sooooo scared."

"You will be if I get a hold of those potions over there!" Hearing that Aaron took off in a dead run across the back of the meadhall and down the stairs. He hit the bottom and could have sworn he heard the lid of a chest slam shut. About that time Livvie came round the stone doors with a purplish pink bottle in her hand. The look on her face was murderous as they jockeyed back and forth at the opposite ends of a Meadhall table.

"Now you know you can't do anything drastic. Your new bosses will have your arse if you destroy their property." His voice was filled with laughter at his sister's hunched stance.

"My Bosses know I can clean up my mess. Besides, that's all that will be left of you Aaron Anthony Dell." Raring back, she had an evil glint to her green eyes and wondered if she was really only half-kidding.

[Aaron Dell]

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Aaron watched his little sister from across the table. With one hand on the table and one hand on the potion she looked like a Hen that had had all her feathers pulled at one time. He too had a good grip on his end of the table. And truth be told if he wanted to uproot it and send it flying he certainly could. As is it was all he could do to keep from doubling over in fits of laughter. He watched her duck left and right and then left again, finally coming around the bend his direction. In an effort to get out of the way before the potion hit the ground, or him, Aaron ducked out the doors of the Meadhall and headed south.

Livvie hot on his heels he stopped just inside the southern most Mountain pass. "You can't move any faster that that," he teased? "This job is making you soft!" His voice echoed across the valley.

"Soft my eye." And with that Livvie dropped the potion on the ground sending up a cloud of fire and smoke that easily cleared the top of The Training Center. She would have paused to check the damage but didn't have time. With her arms clenched now tightly at her side she took off at a dead run after Aaron. Less then a half a mile from the snow, Livvie tackled him from behind sending them both rolling in the grass.

She didn't have his back for long. Without warning Aaron had her swung around and underneath him. His legs off to the side he was trying to get a hold of her hands and pin them to the ground when an errant knee came up catching him squarely in the kidneys. He gasped a small, "Umph." Trying to block from other knees to the same spot he forced one of his forearms across her arms and used the other to try and gain control of her legs.

"I thought you were a smart carpenter? Not some dumb hick?" Livvie bit the teasing sting out through clenched teeth. "Did you forget who taught me how to fight?" While he wasn't looking she had managed to get her other leg to his right side and now had him clenched tightly between her thighs. With one forceful push she swung them both up and around again.

"Is that all you got brat? I can do this all day!"

[TheLivvingDoll]

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Winded and laughing some hour and a half later, Livvie sat cross legged on the grass just outside of Stonegate. Aaron sat across from her with his knees pull up and his arms draped across them. A piece of grass sticking out of his mouth he gazed at her. Livvie lowered her own eyes and stared at the ground picking at some non-existent bug. “Seriously, why haven't you gone back home?” Her voice had calmed and green eyes that mirrored his echoed back the edge that was just under the words. “Did you get a job? Are you stocking up on supplies?”

“ No. I have enough wood back in Trinsic to last the rest of my life.” He answered her matter-of-factly knowing full good and well the suspense was killing her.

“ Then what's keeping you?” A grin spread from one ear to the other and Livvie didn't need to ask any more questions other than, “What's her name?”

“Amdiriel.” With a laugh Livvie shook her head back and forth.

“Of course!” I knew it wasn't me, reverberated in her mind.

“And before you think it, which is too late I can see, I promised I would watch out for you.”

“Aaron, I don't need you to watch out for me. And besides, I'm not the one who hasn't been here a month and is already climbing in bed with someone.” She was part-teasing, part-jealous, and partly wishing he wouldn't ask anything about her own life.

“I haven't slept with her yet.”

“Yet, being the operative word!”

“What I do and with whom is between me and whoever it is. The only reason I decided to give you a name is because you're my sister and I love you. But since we're on the topic, what stick climbed up your butt and stuck in? Has to be a he cause as much as I irritate you, even I don't cause that sour-ass look.”

Livvie glared at him now, her red-headed temper returning at a boiling pace. She could've just let him sit and stew but Aaron wouldn't leave it be. He would keep prying, keep coming around until she coughed it up. “Ebon." Her voice almost a whipser. "Doesn't matter. I can't have him, he's already taken.”

A look of realization crossed Aaron's unshaven face creasing his blondish red beard at the mouth. “So that's it. He's married.” The confirmation glare was more than enough. “Oh for Dawn's sake, Livvie. You sure know how to pick em. First it was that loser when you were sixteen and now someone whose wife will probably have you fried and fed to the Boura the next time you look crossways at him.”

Changing the topic she cut him off. “And what about you? This, this.. Amdiriel. That sounds like an elf name. What are Bastian gonna say when you bring home some creature?”

“Her name is the only thing elven about her.” Aaron's eyes got a distant look in them and Livvie could tell his mind was with whoever she was at that moment in time.

“So that's it, you're sticking put?”

“For now, yeah. Look's like you're stuck with me brat.”

“Great, leave home and I still have a babysitter.”

“The hell you do. I have better things to do. But I will be checking up on this married fella. Since you can't seem to pick an eligible one maybe I ought to for you.”

“Don't you dare!” Livvie watched her brothers grin widen and felt the horror well up inside her.