An Ignoble Tale (Act 1.2)

Violet stumbled into another tree. "Why..."

She shrugged, watching him walk into the tailor's and proceeded to spectate through the window.

Violet pushed away from the tree, stumbling off and shortly tripping over a root.
"Ow..."

Audren walked in, noticing a bunch of assorted garments on racks off to the side, along with a woman working at a sewing machine who seemed to be the owner of the store.

Violet twitched, coughing a bit. She sat up with a sigh, wiping the dirt from her shirt.

He leaned over, walking over to the woman and tapping her on the shoulder. "Miss?"

She stopped what she was doing and cast him with an irritated glance. "Yes...?"

She leaned against the tree, covering her face with her hand.

"Are you the owner of this shop?" Audren asked.

She sighed. "No, you're looking for Madame Frelle, over there."
She pointed over to a woman in a blue dress.

She curled up beside the tree and just started crying.

Madame Frelle was in fact already making her way over to Audren, smiling.

"Greetings, you requested a trade of your old, worn-out coat for some new clothes?"

She put her head against the tree, keeping her hands over her face.

"Yes.. uh, how did you know, exactly?" Audren asked,

"A nice girl in a red dress with a ponytail came over and pointed you out, of course." She said, going over to some racks of clothes.

She cried for a bit until it was finally reduced to sniffles. She wiped her face. "Fuck..." she mumbled.

"Oh," He said flatly. "so can we work something out or not?"

She put a gloved hand on her chin, looking at his worn-out coat. "It's hard to say, your coat is nice but in this condition I doubt I could get any practical use out of it, all of these blood, dirt, and grass stains.. is that one black? What were you doing, on fire or something? Who did this crude sewing, as well?"

He didn't have much hope after hearing her evaluation.

Violet lifted her head, frowning. "Stupid..."

He looked at her. "So.."

Madame Frelle shrugged. "As I said, it doesn't seem in good enough condition to reuse. Perhaps the sleeves I could do something with if they weren't so burned, at least that's what it appears to be."

He sighed, looking down at the floor.

She got to her feet, shaking her head. She held onto the tree for a moment before again stumbling off. She had not a clue where she was going, only that it was deeper into the forest. She wondered to herself how long that inn and other settlements had been here, and she worried that they would intrude further into the forest.

Audren walked out of the shop, Aserl waiting beside the front door.

"How did it go?" She asked, noticing he was frowning.

He sighed, "Apparently they couldn't do anything with it because it's in too bad of shape."

She looked down, nearly tripping over another root. This sucked a lot. She pushed her hair from her face.

"Do you want to try my plan, then?" She asked, looking over at him.

"..Sure?" Audren asked, confused what that meant.

She found a little clearing where she could at least see the sky enough to check the time of day.

"Excellent, take off your coat." Aserl said.

"What?" Audren said, looking at her funny.

"I said, take off your coat Audren." She said again, crossing her arms.

She watched the sky for a moment before continuing on. She stuck her hands in her pockets again.

He hesitated, taking off his white coat, leaving his black undershirt, and handed it over to Aserl.

"Whatever you plan on doing, just don't make me regret trusting you."

She smiled, taking his coat and walking into the tailor's.

She kicked a tree root by accident, almost falling again. "Why me?!" she asked the tree whose root nearly tripped her.