“Mory, what are you- oh.” Eclair turned back from her closet. The organizing effort was not going so well, considering the fact that Mory was digging through her boxes (with permission, of course) and the crown prince had taken up residence on her bed. Every so often, he would let out a bored sigh and roll over, as if it was his own bed and he was completely inconvenienced. Linguine found her way onto his pillow and laid atop his head in a small, yellow-scaled bundle.
Mory held an engraved wooden latch-box about one fulm long by one fulm wide and a half-fulm deep. Eclair’s eyes lit up a bit at the discovery. “Why, Mory, that’s something right out of my childhood.”
She let out a small laugh before going to kneel beside the raen woman. The deep-hued wood held intricate silver swirls, carved by a carpenter specialist. Her father’s house crest was in the center of the design.
“Open it, I haven’t seen these in about a decade! I hope they haven’t rusted...” She watched as Mory slipped the latches up and put the box on the floor to open the heavy lid.
“It’s a lot of... pliers?” Mory seemed unsure of the significance until Eclair was digging silver threads and cakes of bees wax from bags. There were tungsten soldering tips and pliers in many sizes, diamond bevels and drilling tools, cements, a mallet with removable faces, emery buffs and microfiber cloths. An entire collection of tools meant to create the most specialized of jewelry. “Oh, was this how you learned goldsmithing?”
“Are you kidding? My tools were a lot cheaper. This was my father’s collection. I, uh, borrowed it before I, er, left.” Her smile only grew as she dug through the shining instruments. “I could teach you how to make some if you want!”
Eclair jumped from the floor to dig through the closet. “When I converted to the Empire, I was allowed to bring some few things. Thing that fit in a box of certain dimensions. That box, a few changes of clothing, daily necessities and... a bag of precious gems I also borrowed from my father. Extremely precious gems.”
Her smirk was telling, truly. Her father had deserved everything she took from him, the miserable bastard. “Oh, here it is! A-ack they’re spilling everywhere!”
A sudden burst of shining red, blue, green, and every other color in between came bouncing out of the closet onto the wooden floor. Unfinished gems of many sizes and cuts, diamonds and rose quartz and citrine and emerald and tiger’s eye. “Well, at least you can keep a few you like.”
