“Well if your shoulders are bothering you, slouching like that isn’t going to help them. Seems like your couch would be more comfortable than that wooden chair.” Elissa smiled fondly at him. “You could never disappoint me. Father never cared about you, but I always did, still do.” She confessed, blushing slightly. “You were the only one who was truly my friend, everyone else either shunned me or wanted to be friends because of father’s money. You never seemed to care about his money. We definitely defied him and his wishes as much as we could.” She laughed. “Like all the evenings you spent teaching me to fight and how you taught me about sailing. He wanted me to be a lady so I’d marry a nobleman and be someone else’s problem. I’d have run away a lot sooner if you hadn’t left. Our father’s hated each other, I think your’s like me, but I don’t remember. I never saw much of him, but he seemed kind.”

Elissa finished off the food on the plate. “Thank you for the food.” She said, picking up the tankard. “Though you could have been a little kinder in the drink you picked out for me.” She took a drink and grimaced. Beer was not her favorite, to her it was like drinking watered down sewer water. “What do you do to this? Water it down with bilge water?” She joked with a laugh. It was good to be talking with him again. It almost felt like they were catching up, if only he’d remember her. “Do you still have the ring I gave you? Gold band with two small diamonds on either side of an emerald?” He’d given her the dagger and she’d given him the ring. The ring had been her mother’s and she had given Elissa permission to give it to Joseph, knowing how much he had meant to her.