“These old things?” Jocasta asked tapping one ear ring with a fingernail. It twisted slightly on the brass swivel and Beren swore he saw the insect blink at him. Jocasta’s lips turned up in a mischievous grin made all the more exaggerated by the fact that one of the glow worms chose that moment to peak from beneath her tunic and illuminate her from below.
 
“Oh just some muscle bound fool,” she replied with deliberate offhandedness. She tapped her lip as though considering.

 “Handsome too now that I think of it,” she admitted with a further twitch of her lip.
 
“A bit on the stubborn side though,” she teased, “kind of like a dwarf in that respect.”
 
“Reminds me a bit of a golem I once made,” Jocasta snickered, remembering the false Beren she had conjured to lead the mercenary wizards away.


“Sounds like quite the guy,” Beren replied lifting both eyebrows with a grin.
 
“So long as he doesn’t get himself killed getting into damn fool battles on behalf of his companions,” Jocasta stuck in, unable to quite let it go.

 “That was…”

 “That was a matter of honor,” Jocasta said in a credible imitation of Beren’s voice, though necessarily higher in pitch and timbre. She thrust a finger into his still sore chest.
 
“If your sense of honor gets you killed, I swear I will kill you myself,” she promised, only half joking.