"Sara, hurry up!"

The young woman marched hastily down the stairs of her old home, the temperature rising as she reached the bottom floor. She emerged into the living room of her house, a number of old, but well-kept sofas surrounding a round table marred by scratches and etchings in its formerly polished surface. On the walls were several family portraits, all overlooked by a pair of daggers mounted parallel of each other over a small pedestal with a picture of an old kindly lady.

She moved towards the stand with the photo and bowed solemnly. "Good morning, grandma," she greeted gently.

"Sara! We have customers, now hurry it up!"

She sighed and returned to her upright posture and headed for a sturdy, wooden door. She turned the knob and tugged on the door, meeting resistance from it as it was just crooked enough in the frame to have just enough stubbornness. She gave a mightier tug and forced it open to find her mother and a man with peach-colored locks standing beyond a counter. "Good morning, Jacob!" Sara called as she joined her mother behind the counter.

"Good morning, Sara! You're looking quite fine today," Jacob greeted in turn. This man was always dishing out compliments, not just to her, but to just about everyone. Perhaps he was just very tolerant or maybe he was simply that nice, it wasn't clear, but Sara always appreciated his presence.

"Thanks!" she responded, brushing a strand of her hair out of her eyes. "So, what are you here for, Jacob?"

"Well, I just received a message from the Orwelle Recruitment and I've decided to join the forces," he explained. "So I thought I'd come here for my own weapon. Everyone knows the weapons you make are the best!"

This came as a genuine surprise to Sara, while her mother simply brushed off the compliment with a bit of cynicism. "Why? I thought your family was against it!" She huffed half-heartedly when all he did was smile in return. "Just try not to get into trouble, okay? We're not at war yet, but knowing you and your bad luck, trouble's never far behind."

"Stop mothering him, Sara, all they'll be doing is going from Orwelle to Revenant," her mother chided as she headed through another door into a stone-walled extension of the house with a forge and a large pane of glass on one side to open and let the smoke out and submerged a bar of iron into the smoldering fires. "Besides, nobody in their right mind would incite war right now." The older woman turned to Jacob and glared at him for a minute. "You'd best watch yourself out there, though. If you go and get off by some backalley thug, I'm going to stomp on your grave!"

"Mom!" Sara shouted in disbelief.

Jacob smiled in spite of her harsh words. "Don't worry, ma'am! I won't go dying on some round trip. After all, I need to be a respected member of the army first!" His optimism was baffling to the amber-haired assistant, but it was her mother's audacity that she could never get used to.

The crude blacksmith let out a disgruntled scoff as she pulled the hot iron out of the fire. "Anyways, your weapon will take a while to be complete, boy. I assume from that naive banter that you want a longsword?"

"Yes, ma'am!" he insisted with renewed vigor. "I'd love to stay and watch, but I know you like to work in private, so I'll be going!" Jacob walked for the door after leaving some Munny on the counter. Just before he walked out, he smiled at Sara and asked, "When I come back from Revenant, wanna have dinner? Maybe something fancy?"

Her mouth turned up to a small smile as she answered, "You're paying, soldier boy! So you'd better come back with a fat wallet!"

"Get outta here already!" her mother shouted from the workroom, making Jacob jolt and trip out the door, causing Sara to laugh heartily. After he left, Sara stood at the counter, awaiting any possible customers and giving her mother a hand every once in a while with her work. It was quite a slow day, but that's what happens when tourism and merchants are few and far between. It was in the middle of summer when trade and tourism slowed down, so Sara had quite a bit of free time.

"Go and fetch us some lunch," her mother called from the workroom. "It's about that time, besides, it's not like we'll be getting anymore customers." Sara responded curtly and headed out of the shop.

-X-X-X-X-X-

Sara had headed to a small restaurant on the west edge of town, entering into cozy room with warm lighting and several tables filled up already. "Excuse me!" she walked to the front counter and asked for a few things, including a couple servings of beef tongue for her mother to go. She seated herself at a well-cleaned table just as she heard loud and mocking laughter not far from her.

"Hey, hey, don't you morons go laughing at me! I know what I saw!" an older man grumbled, wiping his drink from his lips as he two other middle-aged men guffawed and chortled at him. "I said knock it off, ya drunken knuckleheads!"

"Come on, Jeeves, you expect us to believe you saw a walking, talking duck in a waistcoat?" one of them prodded jestfully.

"I saw and I can prove it! That duck said he was heading for the chapel outside of town! We'll just go there and you dumb-dumbs will see!"

"Yeah, sure Jeeves! Maybe you need to cut down on the liquor," the other said, his laughter dying down.

The older male slammed his hands on the table and walked out of the restaurant in an outrage, leaving his two somewhat younger compatriots to come to the slow realization that he just left the bill on their shoulders to pay. It'd have been funny if it wasn't so strange. A duck in a waistcoat? Was someone just playing a prank on him? "The chapel, huh?"

-X-X-X-X-X-

After she'd picked up her order from the restaurant and paid the necessary amount, Sara took off to her home once again and entered the forge, setting part of the order on a table opposite the anvil, several tools hanging on the wall above it. "Here's your food, mom," she said.

"Thanks, Sara," her mom said genuinely. Her mom was often of a grumpy and somewhat aggressive disposition, but lunch always seemed to perk her up. She wasn't a bad person, just had a rocky personality that often times turned out-of-towners away from the shop.

Of course, having lived with this woman for her entire life, she'd become accustomed to it. Just enough so to ask, "Mom, would it be okay for me to skip out on work for the rest of the day?"

"What brought this on?" she asked.

"Well, while I was getting our lunch, I overheard some folks talking about something strange over at the chapel. I thought, since we're having such a slow day, that maybe I could go and check it out?" She looked upon her mother with eyes full of hope and anticipation. She didn't time this on accident, this was intentional. With lunch softening her mother up, and only having received a couple customers today, she might just get to go.

"Ugh, you know I hate that look," the older woman groaned in response. That was all her daughter needed to hear.

"Thanks, mom! I'll be back before sundown!" she said, her voice picking up excitement. She threw her arms around her mother, not caring for the overwhelmingly smoky scent.

"You'd best!"

Sara grabbed her lunch and stuffed it into a bag, dropping it onto the front counter before rushing up the stairs and bursting into her room. She nabbed a rather shabby emerald green and turquoise jacket and a small shortsword in in the corner of her room that was gathering dust. She didn't often get a chance to take it out of the house, as she normally didn't have that many opportunities to leave town, but now was the perfect chance.

Talking duck or not, she was going to leave her home, even if just for a little while.