Besides, she had a rune on her hand, didn't she? At least, she acted like she did.

As Cleo sat down and settled herself on the ground, she idly asked, "So what's that rune you've got on your hand there?"

Amaranth had been slowly sitting down, trying to find the spot with the least amount of dirt when Cleo asked that. After she asked it, Amaranth fell unceremoniously to the ground, eyes wide, and if she really could pale any further, she probably would have. She stared openly at Cleo as she hoarsely said, "What?"

Cleo blinked, surprised. "Is something wrong?"

Violently shaking her head, Amaranth said, "No. Nothing. It's nothing. Don't worry about that rune. It's nothing."

"Are you all right?" Cleo asked concernedly, also confused by Amaranth's reaction to her question. It had certainly seemed innocent enough to her. But, then, she supposed, there were those people who were overly sensitive about their runes.

Pulling her knees up to her chest, Amaranth stared into the fire for a moment or two. "It's... it's a personal problem, is all. Nothing I haven't dealt with before, nothing I won't be able to deal with now. I just don't like to talk about it, is all."

Amaranth's sudden, overall change in tone took Cleo slightly aback. After all, she'd been continuously formally verbose over all the day and a half that they'd known each other. But still... "It must be awfully hard, having a problem that's like that, and not talking about it at all..."

"What? Oh, well, no, not never..." Her eyes grew slightly dreamy as she started staring off into space. "My Lord... I would speak with him, at least. He... never pretended to understand, but understanding is quite impossible. Understanding... is unimportant, besides. All that matters is..." She shook her head, trailing off. "At any rate... Why don't you tell me about yourself, and I can think of what to tell you about myself..."

Cleo shrugged. "Not much to tell, really. I was born in Gregminster, seventh of twelve kids. We were never poor, but having so many of us kept us from ever being rich. When I got a chance for employment as a... well, if you get right down to it, at the beginning, at least, as a nanny of sorts to the Young Master, I jumped at it. It ended up less... nannying and more helping keeping him from doing stupid things. And even that ended up changing to... armying."

Calmly raising an eyebrow, Amaranth said, "I wasn't aware 'army' was a verb."

Cleo waved her hand dismissively. "Of course it is."

Amaranth's eyebrow didn't move an inch. "Oh?"

"It is because I say it is."

"I see. Forget about it, would you? Just... carry on."

Cleo shrugged. "That's about all of it, pretty much. Like I said, there's not much to tell."

"Ah..." The single word came from the very back of Amaranth's throat and held there, sounding a great deal like the purr of a cat. "Well, then, as for myself..." She stared directly into the fire, as if gathering her thoughts. Then, as if she was talking to herself, she began, "I was born in Antei. I truly was, no matter what anyone there says. I just left for some time and only returned there a year past. I was trained as a runemaster when I was fairly young, though I've never gone into business for myself as one, nor advertised that fact. Indeed, I went through that training for one reason, and one reason alone, and that... that is..." She sighed and shook her head.

She didn't say anything for a few more minutes; she just sat there, staring into the flames. Finally she said, "Nevermind why. I had my intention, and I failed in that. My doomı is for my greatest desire in this world to go unfulfilled." She paused, then: "But I have resigned myself to that."

Amaranth stopped again. With a slow, liquid sigh, she rested her forehead against her knees. "And I wonder why I take a drink or twenty every once in a short while..." she murmured. "Anyway..." she continued, "I also took up fencing, because it is the only art of fighting I have ever had any aptitude at, and a woman who is... essentially alone in the world must have some means of self-defense."

She stood up and walked a few paces, then bent and picked up the rapier that was lying there. There was a distinct star motif on the ornate guard, and the curiously glossy black blade had something written in silver in an odd language. Amaranth returned to where she had sat, and returned to that position. "This is my second sword," she said almost lovingly. "My first, I called Ab Initio. It served me as well as it might, while I had it. This one is Ad Astra. I think it suits it well."

Standing up again, Amaranth balanced the sword on the palms of her hands and leaned over the fire, sleeves coming dangerously close to the flames, to hand the sword to Cleo.

Cleo took the rapier and looked at the blade closely, noting its strange, gem-like quality. "I've never seen a sword with a blade like this before..." she said after looking the whole thing over. "What's it made of?"

"It's obsidian, volcanic glass," Amaranth replied. "I daresay that there's not another sword in the world like it."

"Glass?" Cleo queried, turning the sword over in her hands. "Wouldn't that break easily?"

Amaranth shrugged slightly. "It has yet to. And the edge on it is wonderfully sharp. In fact, I've heard that, way back when, back when human sacrifice cults were all the rage(and no, I've no idea of when or where that was), that oftentimes, an obsidian blade was used to perform the deed. Interesting, no?"

Cleo shrugged and handed the sword back. "If you find things like that interesting, I guess. Anyway, you were saying?"

Setting the sword down next to her, Amaranth continued, "Yes, I took up fencing. Then... I've done some traveling. I imagine I've seen most of the known world. And then I... I eventually returned home. I've spent the last year there."

A question had started nagging at Cleo, grown from the fact that this woman was apparently a runemaster, a fencer, and a world traveler. Usually, one really could only attain any sort of proficiency with only one of those things in a lifetime. Either Amaranth was a liar, very poor at one or all of those activities, or something else entirely. "If you don't mind my asking... how old are you, Amaranth?"

Amaranth's answer was bitterly crisp. "Twenty-seven, just like last year."

"Sorry."

What an odd person, this Amaranth. Cleo'd never met anyone who could change so quickly from talking your ear off to being so verbosely tight-lipped. Cleo was used to talkative people, and she was used to quiet people, but people who never shut up until they hit some topic or other? Shut up being a relative term. Great gods above, why, why, why did Amaranth have to spout off a paragraph saying she wasn't going to say anything? It all struck her as fairly strange. "Anyways... it's getting fairly late. I think I'm going to get to sleep now."

After Amaranth's nod, Cleo started settling in to go to sleep. Not long after, though, through the fire, Cleo saw Amaranth slowly turn around. A moment's pause, then with her left hand, she laid her right glove on the ground. Her head bent slightly, as if she was concentrating on something in her lap. A few more moments' pause, then her head sagged forward. Her left hand reached out and picked up the glove.