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He had taken from the tray one of the tarts, hoping to tempt Shuu down with the berries -- but he had hardly set his belt-knife to it when she had begun to talk, and by the time she finishes the tart is still untouched in his hands and his eyes are still fixed on her face. After a moment's silence he makes a choked sound, hard to decipher .. and then laughs out right, full and deep, unable to restrain himself. Leaning back, he looks at her with a grin that makes him seem -- quite suddenly -- to be very much like his brothers after all. 

"I do believe I must take back a great deal of what I have said in the past about city girls: you are a good bit more clever then I expected. If I were to guess that my brother hasn't the least idea that you know all this, would I be correct?" 

He shakes his head slowly, marveling over it all: he'd come here expecting .. well, it's not clear what, but apparently he had not been expecting Rosalie. It'd been enough of a boon that she was able to read and write; anything else would have been a bonus. To find her observant, clever, and quick-witted seems a gods-sent favor. 

"You make me begin to wonder if my brother actually has intelligence enough to have chosen well," he tells her, and there is more then a hint of approval in his voice. If she knows anything of nobility, if she knows anything of the status quo -- and as a female blacksmith, she must have seen something of this -- she must know how unusual it is for a man to approve so highly of her willingness to speak out. But Jacob seems to feel just that, that it is only once he realized how bold his brother's love interest is that he approves of her, and perhaps now all of Last's assertions that he loves her no matter what she wears or how hard she works makes sense. 

Women are different for the Grimms. 

"So if I were to ask if you had anything to do with a large crate of weapons going missing from a shipment they were supposed to supply to me last week, would you know of that?" While she may know that the twins have been interested in weaponry recently -- it only makes sense, with all this fuss about wolves and Wardens -- she also just so happens to know someone who is even more interested in weaponry then the Freds. 

Rajani.

And while slipping Rosalie weapons wouldn't have done any good (she produces weapons), it's entirely feasible that Rajani either requested, implied, or demanded something of the sort, and entirely likely that First would have provided it.  

All the while, Jacob is watching her, weighing every word -- which may and may not dispel some of her relief. Even now he is testing her, even as he smiles at her, because he knows where the weapons have gone. It's entirely possible that he even knows why. 

"From what I have heard," he says after a long moment, "she would hardly have had to ask: Last has been listening too closely to her." His voice is even, but almost dismissive: even if this is yet another test, he plainly does not think much of his lovelorn sibling, giving gifts to a woman who so plainly does not return his affections. But before she can react to the touch of scorn in his honeyed voice, he leans back and follows her gaze to the weaponry. 

" .. and you believe, Miss Blacksmith, that the wolves will come for us? Do you believe also that you were selected -- singled out by your Guardian -- to fight them?" He has lowered his voice, and each word is soft and yet strong, meant to wrap her in its grip. It is hard to tell what he thinks, what he believes, from the way he has spoken .. but this is not a question asked playfully or gently. This time he is in deadly earnest. 

"And if it isn't about destiny, Miss Blacksmith?" He is definitely serious now: there is an old soldier's darkness in his eyes. He didn't need to see the wolves. He didn't need to be at the ball to know what blood was. If she has watched the twins bumble along in their badness and wondered if they could truly do wrong, she may not wonder for much longer. This man has done wrong: this man has taken life with his own hands, and it is there for just a moment in the depth of his eyes. 

He knows what it is to kill and he knows that she does not. He doubts that Rosalie -- in her youth, in her innocence -- could really, truly do it. And some little deer, dainty and pretty, are supposed to make these naive children capable of winning a war? 

"What if it's just about dying? There is no honor on the battlefield, Miss Blacksmith, no honor in dying. Yet in persisting to believe this, you are deluding two fine young men, who lives will be spent in this war, inconsequential to its outcome. If they follow you, the Friedrichs will die, do you understand?" 

While she struggles with what he has told her, he remains silent: his hands are cupped gently around his mug, and he sits posed, with his back straight and his eyes resting steadily on her face. If she has ever had the chance to see painted portraits, the magnificent paintings that often hang in the homes of the wealthy as well as in the halls of museums, that is what he looks like. An image, an ideal, a depiction of a created man -- 

And when she speaks, he sets his mug down abruptly, hard enough that a splatter of tea is flung free of the cup to sprinkle across the table. "You have proven yourself to be clever in many aspects," he warns her, "do not change my opinion of yourself so drastically now by suggesting that any man or woman of my blood lacks in courage. No, Miss Blacksmith, you will not be able to 'convince' them to stay behind for the sake of your suffering conscience. Can you truly tell me that you believe they will be better off if you were to die, leaving them to forever wonder if they might have been able to do something to prevent it?" 

He does not let her speak again but continues, warming up to his subject, as if he is finding somewhere in the depth of his cold heart many things that he has been wanting to say for a very long time. "I do not say this to hurt you, I simply want you to understand the choices you are making. If you fight in this war, people you love will die. That is what a war is. It is not glory, it is not honor, it is not tradition." Taking up one of the pastries -- a delicate construction of the thinnest layers of pastry, frozen crystalline with sugar -- he crushes it, mangles it in his fist in a single contemptuous movement. "It is sharing death with an enemy and never knowing whose death it will be. It could be yours. It could be .. and this is more likely, for they are fighters, Miss Blacksmith .. theirs." 

"But what you have hinted at is also true: one day the war could find you, as it could find them. And -- " 

Abruptly, he is silenced by the hearty bang of a door being thrown open, and Last tumbles into the shop. Rosalie has never seen him this way: she has seen his clothing mussed and his cheeks flushed, but there is a fury in his eyes she may not have known he was capable of. His hands are balled into fists, and he stares at his brother (gods, the resemblance!) as he would at an enemy.

Last does not look at her, not yet: his eyes are on his brother, as they would be on a snake -- he cannot look away, does not trust his brother enough to look away. Who knows when the snake might strike? Even Jacob seems surprised, though this is evidenced only in a slight raising of his eyebrows, and the fact that he has shifted the whole of his attention away from her and to his brother. He is watching Last, steadily and in silence, as he had watched her. 

And however eloquent Jacob might have been, Last is less so. He has only one thing to say to his elder sibling, which he says as he approaches the small table and (there may be some comfort for Rosalie, finally) positions himself to stand directly beside her. 

" .. get out." His voice is a growl, nearly unrecognizable as the same that has murmured sweet nothings in her ear, that has laughed -- so carefree! -- at so many little things with her. 

There is a moment of purest silence. 

And Jacob quietly rises to his feet. He dusts the crumbs of pastry off of his hands, puts the small knife he used back into his belt, and nods first at Aelius, then at Rosalie. 

"Good day to you, Miss Blacksmith," he tells her pleasantly. "And it would perhaps do you both well to remember that where one Grimm goes .. the others must necessarily follow." So saying (and what could he mean by that?!) he will turn and depart.

The instant the door closes Last moves suddenly once more: but not to turn his anger on her, not to shout, not to yell. It is as if someone has cut his strings; the tension spills from his body all at once, so quickly that his body can no longer seem to hold him upright. Though he grips the edge of the table to support himself, he still falls, collapsing onto his knees just beside her, and she can see that his hands are shaking and a tremble is running through his shoulders and each breath comes more unsteadily then the last. He reaches out for her, even from the ground: if she will not stop him he will put his arms around her middle and his head in her lap, holding on as if she is the last thing in the world preventing him from drowning. 

" .. I'm sorry," he whispers, his voice hoarse. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know he was here. I didn't know. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry .." 

The door pushes slowly open again, but Last does not look up; he seems to know that it is only Unwanted, who seems just as shaken as the others. The younger buck will make his way across the shop, to touch noses gently with Aelius as if to check and make certain he is okay. 

There is no sign that the eldest Grimm wants to return -- and no telling where he has gone. And today even Unwanted seems altered by the somber mood; he nuzzles the other Guardian with surprising tenderness, licking his head once before settling in beside him with his legs tucked neatly beneath him. There is no silliness in him today, no sign of the wild youthfulness he generally displays. He is simply there to share his warmth and his presence, and perhaps partake of Aelius's company in the same way. 

It is hard to tell, but there is in Last's voice a telling hoarseness, as if he too is on the verge of tears. Rather then allow himself to be drawn up (he does not seem to have the strength for it) he pulls her down onto the floor with him, so that he can pull her into his lap and wrap his arms tightly around her. His breath comes in jagged little gulps, and he tucks his head against her throat, one hand resting on the back of her neck. "Y'couldn't know how he is, what he's like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, he ain't gonna talk to you nivir again, he ain't, we won't let him, it's okay, it's okay .." 

He seems hardly able to do anything more then she can, but mumble and moan and hold her and pet her hair with shaking hands: it may be some time before either of them are able to breathe evenly or speak coherently.