Chapter 3: Gwen
Quinn sighed and dropped her arm, "Gwen you know better."
"Yeah," Gwen replied, "but you always overreact, even with all your…" Gwen struggled to find the word, "...ah, senses," Gwen frowned not liking the word she used, "you didn't know it was me?"
Quinn's expression did not change. He sat in the empty chair next to the woman. Their relationship was, well, what was it? Both had been married before however, their spouses died for very different reasons. Quinn's died from external circumstances. Gwen had outrightly poisoned hers. It had been an arranged marriage by her father, Arophon, King of Tirvinyiir to a very ugly king of Milvorth. That action had left Arophon with no choice but to banish his daughter from the palace. Gwen was gone before the sentence could even be passed.
Their jobs caused them to travel but that didn't matter. Someone had asked them both if they loved each other. They both were confused by the question. They did love one another, or love? Well, that's a weird word. Quinn loved his close friends and that included Gwen, but that also included Winick and Roan. So from one sense of the word yes, Quinn did love her.
Had they ever used that overused word? Love. Love is like a four-letter word nobody wants to use it but when you do you can't stop using it. So it's best to not use it at all, right? Well at least in most cases. Or most cases? Maybe just in some cases. Either way, both were disgusted by the word. Why place limits on your life when you had none to begin with?
Quinn had felt love for his first wife, dead, ambush. And his second wife, dead, disease. He still felt love, for his horse and his dog. But love for a person only insofar as one loves his close friends. His job was intense, a high rate of death, gone for long periods, and he generally distrusted and disliked other people. There were exceptions to people he liked. Those being: Gwen, Winick, Roan, and a few others but only a few.
"How long has it been?" Gwen asked, and lowered her hood. Her red hair fell past her shoulders and almost touched the tabletop. A round ear broke through the red ocean of hair- wait- a round ear?
Quinn's frowns was barely noticeable as he reached for her hair and pulled it away from her ear, "what happened?" He asked, his voice maintaining its low unchanging tone.
Gwen was an elf, elves had pointed ears. Gwen did not. She had pointed ears the last time he saw her. Now she did not.
"It's fine." Gwen stared at the tabletop.
Quinn traced the outline of a scar on her ear, "who did this?" His voice deepened and the room seemed to darken, "I will kill every last one."
"Shhh," Gwen took his hand, she could not remember the last time his voice had changed other than to yell over the sounds of battle, "The man is dead and so are the men he was with. I found some new friends. I partnered with a man for a job, it was stupid. I was- it was a stupid decision. Anyways it ended with me getting captured and worse things happened to the woman I was with."
Quinn nodded slightly, he understood. Nimh was a cruel place.
"Thankfully he only took the tips of my ears off before my partners freed me."
"I will have to meet these partners."
"I'm sure you will cross paths with them at some point, besides the ear is not as bad as my other scar." Gwen laughed half heartedly.
"That's for sure." Quinn replied.
Gwen remembered that scar, it would still give her phantom pains. Maybe they were real pains, they felt real. She had been ordered to stay put, but Quinn was ambushed so she somewhat blamed him for the situation although he would never admit any of it was his fault. It was a narrow passageway between two rock faces, men seemed to crawl out of the rocks as they attacked. Quinn cast a few signs but soon became overwhelmed. He had his own scars from that day.
In truth, she saved Quinn's life that day. Only soon after he saved hers. The scar came from only wearing a light amount of armor and mostly made from leather. Gwen had just killed one of the mercenaries, her weapon became jammed in armor that it had pierced. That moment of delay where she tried to free it gave another enough time to cut her. The scar ran from halfway down her neck to her left collarbone down along the outside of the chest just before the armpit and across all her ribs, ending halfway down the outside of her left thigh.
She had been split open. She did not remember it but Quinn said her scream was what helped him get the upper hand both in stunning the mercenaries for a few seconds and fueling his rage. She had a few scars but none as ghastly as that one. Quinn had her beat on the scars though. She had seen his scars that covered his entire body like tattoos. But that is what accompanied hundreds of years of battle.
Gwen looked back to Quinn and studied his face, no there were no new scars there. Quinn's face had not suffered like the rest of his body had. It couldn't have, you could only suffer so many head wounds until you received one that was fatal. The first head wound he had received was from a bandit gang that had attempted to rob him on the road. A sword struck Quinn in the back of the head, the scar ran from the back of his head down to the middle of his back. However most of the time it was covered by both his armor and his hair. Another scar received from a wyvern shot jaggedly up just in front of his right ear then halfway down that side of his neck. The final scar on his face was given to him by a spriggian that had surprised him in the woods. The foul beast had managed to get two claws at the base of Quinn's right jaw and then pulled them through his flesh until just before his mouth where Quinn had managed to turn away. Spriggians claws were sharp but small thus the wounds although visible were clean and straight, hardly as offensive as the others.
Gwen only had a few others one gash across her stomach from a spear. A sword struck through her left thigh across from where the other one ended that one healed well.
"So," Gwen picked up the conversation where they had left it before it trailed off, "how long has it been?"
"A while," Quinn said staring into her dark green eyes.
"Yeah. Two years about?
"Ah yeah, around a year and a half."
Gwen's smile was barely detectable. Quinn probably knew to the exact day how long it had been.
"How was the hunt?"
"Fine, I tracked the werewolf to its lair and killed it. It got a claw right above my belt and cut me pretty good."
"Another scar added to the collection." Gwen grinned, "You heal it properly?"
Quinn scoffed, "I'm not an amateur Gwen. I know how to heal wounds probably better than you. I mean I healed that mammoth of a wound on you right?"
"Yes but the scar is still as ugly as ever."
"I'm not a healer I know combat medicine. It leaves scars and heals crudely but it keeps them alive. Besides that scar has got to be a conversation starter especially at a ball or banquet or something where you're wearing a dress.
"Ha! Yeah," Gwen shook her head, "I've got so sick of people asking about it that I just make a story up now. Sometimes its a bear or a dragon or something of the like. Not a lowly mercenary.
"Okay well those were not just any mercenaries, they are or were the Highland light infantry division. The Highland mercenaries charge top coin. Someone with a lot of money paid them and I am still trying to find out who."
Quinn frowned, he was frustrated that he didn't know who had wanted him dead. Many people did but they were all petty, whoever had enough money to hire Highlanders was someone of great influence.
"You and me both," Gwen said also unhappy that she did not know.
They sat there for only a few more moments before the horrible noise of the party caused them to seek solitude.
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