#scarsdale

Inside the box Miriam finds.... "Chocolate Ruggalach?"

Hirim shrugs. "What, you can't have dessert until you eat dinner? It's going to be cold again, we get home. Eat."

Then gruffly, he says. "You used to like chocolate ruggalach."

Zara chafes her upper arms, chewing at her lower lip.

He betrays himself with a glance at Zara. "Craved it, even." Although this is said to Miriam.

"Ruggalach is good. I like the cream cheese..."

Hirim manages a stiff smile at her, knowing she means cream cheese left for a week on the counter.

Miriam is dubious. "I eat this, you'll answer my questions?"

"Eat that, and your questions will have answers. Maybe all new questions, but...."

Miriam looks at Zara.

Zara nods, offering a weak but hopefully-reassuring smile.

Miriam shakes her head, but picks up the pastry. Hirim looks at Zara, expression tense. One of his gnarled, red hands strays close to the Freehold's 'doorknob'.

She folds her hands over her stomach, pressing against it.

Miriam shrugs and eats it.

Then staggers, flailing out with a hand to catch Zara's shoulder or arm reflexively. Zara can feel the hum of Glamour from the treat buzzing through the other woman, changing her.

Zara shrinks back a step, a thousand doubts and fears crawling up from her gut, unable to be hidden. But she stops, and shores up the other woman....

"You're safe. You are safe here. This is a safe place...."

Hirim doesn't waste time talking, he opens the Freehold portal in and shoves Miriam through. She staggers in, falls. Hirim shoos Zara in after her, unless Miriam took Zara with her?

Zara staggers in with the nocker, repeating her whispered mantra.

Muttering something himself, Hirim closes the Freehold up and turns to the ladies.

Cold hands on the nocker's arm, a bony shoulder of support, the smell of rot in her nostrils...

"Ok, up we get, come on now...." Hirim 'helps' Miriam up to stand. "There we are....."

"It's safe here... please?"

Still a wilder, but faded from years of hard use. Miriam is typical of the kith - wild white hair and plumed eyebrows, and fiery black eyes that spark with embers. Her voile is more patch and rag than finery, but carries traces of bright colors and elaborate embroidery. Her face is lined beneath the crimson swirls and pink cheeks.

Her eyes blink, stutter, and shift wildly from side to side as she takes in the Freehold, the other Fae, and what she can see from here of the nature of the Dreaming.

"H... Hirim?" She looks around at him, in horrible wonder.

She rakes back her tumbled bangs, and fades a step away.

"Welcome home, Miriam." He says gruffly as Ratchet approaches. "You've been gone a little while. We can fill you in."

Ratchet steps up to Zara, putting an arm around her in a friendly, family, you're-not-getting-away fashion.

With the touch - Zara is shaking, literally.

"I... it.... oh, Hirim...." She is rapidly alarmed. "Master, I have to... they... what I did! Master, I have to see someone, tell them... tell them what I... please, help me!"

(Ratchet gently squeezes the wilder to his side.)

Hirim nods. "Yes. Come with me, we'll find a steward or someone. Or I'll just knock the Count's door down. Come."

"I could find Patchwyrm, m-mayhaps..."

He glances at Ratchet, nods, and leads Miriam away. Miriam follows.

Thank goodness for Ratchet - solid as his smithy, something to lean on. A rock in a stormy sea.

Miriam, in fact, chivies Hirim into something like a limping jog.

"Kettle is on at the forge." He murmurs, watching the other pair stagger away.

"She... I'm sorry... "

"Mm? For what?"

Zara watches the pair go, shoulders sagging. "I made him tell her. She was... I couldn't answer her questions..."

"It was time." He says simply. "Anyway... you ever able to -make- Hirim do something he wasn't going to?"

"Not really."

Ratchet just nods.

"Tea?"

She closes her eyes, and nods.

"Come." And he takes her to the forge, makes her tea, and finds her the quietest spot he can to enjoy it.

Zara goes with, craving both the quiet and the company that Ratchet provides.

Happily, the work of the day is done and the workers have exited post haste. Aside from the ticking, cooling metal, it's quiet.

Tea, quiet, and eventually - home, with Miriam and Hirim left deep in counsel with the lord of the hold.