For the next two weeks, he avoids her. Some small part of his soul, the part lodged between his ego and his pride, calls the other part a craven, but whatever; he's good at running away. It's one of his most marketable skills, the one contractors pay immoral sums for.

Plus, running away is easy. Pain-free.

And even if he doesn't beat feet outta there anytime he glimpses her vampiric cloak or witchy shoes, he's got nothing to say to her. They established that quite firmly in their first-slash-last encounter.

The only problem with the whole avoiding thing is that Stahl, that soft-hearted, humble, selfless idiot, notices and just has to bring it up over lunch.

They're picking at salted bear jerky for the fourth day in a row, drenched in sweat and companionable silence, when the idiot stops chewing and lets out an alarmingly low whistle.

"What? What's happening?" Gaius looks left and right, up and higher.

"Behind you." Stahl nods at something over Gaius' left shoulder.

He turns to look. It's Anna—more specifically, the backside of Anna. She's bent at the waist, ears pressed against Virion's whispering lips. She's got a customary finger on her chin, a coy smile beneath perky nose.

Typical.

Gaius rolls his eyes and turns back to the idiot. "I don't see anything."

"Sure you do. Did. You were looking for pretty long. Six seconds, to be exact. I counted."

"How observant of you. You should ask Chrom for a raise."

"I just might." Stahl grins. "But don't deflect. We're talking about you, not me. Don't think I haven't noticed you running the other way anytime she comes near."

"What're yatalkin' 'bout?" Gaius' mouth is suddenly full of bear.

"Anna. And don't lie."

The liar chews, swallows. Picks up his flask of something-something and takes a very long swig.

Stahl waits and watches. Stubborn little idiot shit.

"So?" Gaius finally says, throat numb and eyes stinging. "Can't a guy change directions without being judged?"

"You're avoiding her. Care to tell me why?"

"No."

"Man, c'mon! Did you have a fight or something? I didn't know you knew each other."

"We don't."

"Then why do you keep running away from her? Did you…did you try something?" Stahl's tone shifts from unwelcome-inquisitive to even-less-welcome sympathetic. "Gaius, did she reject you?"

Scoff. "In your dreams."

"Then what's up? You can tell me. We're friends. You can trust me."

"Uh huh. No."

"Dude, seriously?"

Dude sighs, rubs his eyes, and involuntarily glances over his shoulder again. She's standing straight now, but it's as though she can sense his gaze on her ass, because she turns her head and throws him a matching hooded-lid stare, smirk in place. It's a cheeky little challenge, and the self-loathing that blossoms in Gaius' gut is immediate. Intense.

So he tells Stahl everything. And Stahl, that idiot, starts to laugh.

"Wait, wait, wait! So let me get this straight. You're mad at Anna for something her identical twin sister did to you seven years ago? What the hell, man?"

"I'm not mad at this Anna, per se. Just wary."

"That is fucked up. And dumb." Pause. "Fumbed up."

"You're brighter than the sun today."

"I'm just saying, Gaius. It's weird to hold a grudge against the wrong girl. It feels kinda, I dunno, superficial? Like you're prejudiced against her just because she looks a lot like someone who wronged you long ago."

"Huh. Never thought about it that way."

"Yeah, well, think about it now."

He does, pulling red licorice from his cloak, tearing it into spindly strands. So what if Stahl has a very logical and reasonable point? "Still don't trust her or her type. They're robber barons. All they care about is money."

"In her defense, you care about money too. You're a thief, remember?"

"No. I completely forgot about one of my defining, identifying traits."

Stahl laughs and picks up a well-polished apple. "People are more than their identifying traits, Gaius. Trust me. You can't really know someone until you really know them."

"How wise."

"Stop being sarcastic for a second, and admit that I'm right."

"She does only care for gold. Gold's like her soul food or something."

"It's her fuel, yeah, but she's a traveling merchant. What more can you expect?"

"Not sure. Though…"

"Though?"

"Though." Nah. "It's stupid."

"What? What's stupid?"

What's stupid is that Miss Moneybags only cares about gold. So, it naturally follows that he oughta use gold against her. Or…from her.

He drops licorice into his mouth. "I'm thinking about revenge, Stahl."

"Huh? For what? What'd she do to you?"

"She didn't do anything in particular to me, but she could stand to learn to care about other things too. Things other than gold, y'know?"

Stahl's shaking his head, eyes widening in alarm. "Uh, no, I don't know."

"It's fine. I gotta get going now. I have thief things to do, schemes to enact, yadda, yadda, can't talk. See ya'." He stands, his steps full of spring.

"Hey, where are you going?" Stahl calls after him.

Gaius turns, salutes. Walking to his tent because he'll be needing his tools, he unwraps a caramel cube and pops it into his mouth. Sugar time.


Escaping from Virion's clutches is no easy task.

"Like riding buck naked through a blizzard," Sully once described it. "Good luck being his new plaything."

Hah. Good luck indeed. Anna manages to dodge the blue-haired Lothario long enough to take a nice bath. She's gaining a reputation around camp for being the Longest Soaker, but she doesn't mind the title. It's kinda cute. And what's wrong with bathing yourself thoroughly?

The recent humidity magnifies the stench of body odor, makes it linger in the air around you like fruit flies to rotten bananas. She's a saleswoman. She has to smell nice. Who's going to buy from her if she doesn't?

Besides, being in the bathing tent is beneficial to business. She has ridiculously luminous skin—not a product of any lotion: a gift from the gods, but the other girls don't need to know that. As long as she's flaunting her smooth arms and legs, she's got her bathing neighbors wrapped around her little finger, begging for tub after tub of moisturizing cream.

"You look like a doll or something," Nowi says, wonder in her voice.

"Thank you, dear, but you flatter me. It's just the cream. Would you care to try some? I'll give you an extra large tub with an extra large discount."

Nowi nods slowly, running her small fingers down Anna's arm. "Wow."

Yeah. Chaching, chaching. She can practically hear the coins fall, drowning out her current discomfort.

After her bath, and another tub of moisturizer sold (to Cordelia, who doesn't actually need it but buys one anyway because Anna's such a good seller), she pulls on a fresh set of clothes. The day's not quite over yet. The sun has barely gone down, and that means her purse can still be filled.

Walking back to her tent, sword fastened to her belt, she hums a little ditty Mom taught her years ago. And speaking of her mother, she really ought to return that last letter, as well as all the other letters from her sisters far and wide. She misses her family from time to time, you know? She can be sentimental.

Amid her musings, however, Anna doesn't forget to check her tent for signs of intrusion. Had she forgotten, she might not have spotted the new wrinkles in the canvas, the mud on the zipper, and the candy wrapper in the grass, as if whoever broke into her living space had wanted to be obvious; had wanted to be discovered.

So it comes as no surprise to see Gaius kneeling in front of her box of gemstones, collected to adorn the engagement rings that will soon be in high demand.

Despite the lack of surprise, there's a rush of adrenaline, a spike in anger, that courses through her veins. So the craven's finally mustered up the nerve to face her? Lovely.

She forces herself to repress it all and to crawl on her hands and knees until she's practically pushing him up against the side of the tent.

"How may I help you?" she breathes onto his neck, inexplicably pleased to see his ears color red.

"Hi." Looking at her out of the corner of his eyes, he flashes a sly, stupid smile she wants to punch so badly. Gods, damn it.

Resist. Be cool.

"Fancy seeing you here, stranger," she says in a voice reserved for silk-gowned nobility.

"Yeah, uh, care to give me some personal space?"

"Sure. Care to explain why you're invading my personal space?"

"No reason, really, besides ye olde curiosity."

"Curiosity." She stares at him as if he were stupid. Which he is. "Curiosity?!"

He has a lollipop in his mouth, and his breath smells like strawberries. "That's what I said."

Okay. That's it. Nobody comes into her tent and acts like he's the one in control.

"No more Missus Nice Merchant. Get out of my tent," she hisses, finally backing away. "And don't touch my stuff ever again. Ever. You hear that?"

"Whoah, Robber Baron, relax." He turns around and holds his hands up in mock-surrender, and it makes her want to punch him again.

"This is my last warning, Gaius the Nimble. You won't be very nimble for much longer if you don't scram in the next five seconds."

"Let me explain—"

"One."

"Seriously, RB, let me explain—"

"Two."

"Fine, fine. I'm outta here." He breaks for the exit quickly, but she grabs the back of his cloak a little too roughly. It makes him choke for a second, and she should feel bad at how happy that makes her.

"Oh, shit. I'm sorry! I didn't mean to hurt you," she says, mostly lying.

"It's fine." His voice is scratchy through his coughs. "No harm done. I'll just be…going…now...like you said."

"Wait!" She doesn't let go of his cloak. "Empty your pockets first."

"What?"

"I'm not a moron. Empty your pockets!"

"You sure?" He raises an eyebrow, tilts his head. That chump. "I've got a lot of candy, and it could dirty up—"

"Are you deaf? I said, empty. Your. Fucking. Pockets." Brigands, thieves are no laughing matter to a traveling merchant. "I trust you about as much as you trust me."

"Okay. Alright. You got me, Robber Baron." He's grinning again as he pulls piece after piece of candy from his pockets, like some sort of diabetic magician.

"Gross. Gaius, how can you eat this?" She picks up a melted bar of chocolate, scrunching her nose up in disgust.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." He showers her sleeping bag with a handful of colorful mints. "There. That's the last of it."

Anna surveys the mess, disappointed to not see any of her personal items among the sweets. "That's it?"

"Yep."

"Don't lie, you sneak. What did you take from me?"

"Nothing. I told you. I was just curious."

"You do this to everyone you meet then? You break into their tent while they bathe and rifle through their stuff?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"That's against camp rules. I could tell Chrom about this. You'd be kicked out."

"That possibility doesn't bother me at all."

"You'd be out of a paycheck."

"Working for the Shepherds, I'm making a third of what I could be making elsewhere."

"Then tell me why you're here."

"Curiosity—"

"And don't say curiosity." She's still holding onto his cloak. "For the last two weeks, you've been running away at the mere sound of my voice! Why did you decide today of all days to sneak into my tent and mess with my stuff without even trying to disguise your footprints? Are you suddenly, like, into me or something?"

"Please, don't flatter yourself." He yanks his cloak from her grip and starts to stuff his treats back into his pockets. "I've just…forgiven you."

"Forgiven me. Right."

"Yeah, right."

"For something I didn't actually do to you."

"I realized that, yeah. So consider my presence in your tent a bit of a peace offering—an 'I'm not mad at you anymore'."

This is weird. This is beyond weird. Anna's not sure how to respond, what to respond. He's wearing that impossible smile again, and his ears are no longer abashedly red, which means he needs to get out. Now.

"Get out of my tent, Gaius. And, once I go through my inventory, if I find that you've taken anything from me today, there will be blood to pay."

"Sure, sure." He picks up his last mint, flips it into his open mouth. "Have a good evening, RB."

And then he leaves.

And Anna, left to count her coins (intact), her gems (untouched), and the rest of her inventory (all present), is perplexed.

Until she settles in to sleep that night. Looking at the sword by her pillow once, twice, eyeing the bare keychain again and again, she realizes what that damned dastard had stolen:

Mr. Sprinkles!

Poor thing.