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The sound of breaking glass broke the steady hum of morning production, and the apprentices scattered like startled birds. An oven door was left swung open, creaking on its old iron hinges and blasting the kind of heat meant to melt sand and minerals into lovely and useful things. On the heels of the shattering came a few choice ugly words from the redhead standing in front of the dropped thing of once-beautiful blue frosted delicacy. A vase. Or what was left of it. The dark-eyed youth who had shared the news of her results of morning inventory shrank beneath Rost's stormy glare, pressing herself against the hot stone of the counter near by. He watched a bead of sweat roll down her forehead before he opened his mouth to speak again,

"Tell me again." He exhaled, looking away from the youth to the pieces of carefully mixed glass at his feet that he knew he would be reworking the rest of the morning, "Before any Swords arrive thanks to your cousin running off to fetch them like some frostbit new apprentice."

Petty thievery was nothing new in a workplace that made the finer things. Rost could deal with hungry folk without intervention, or so he'd decided, whether or not the authorities would ever agree.

His face struggled not to pull into a scowl, toasted hands tugging at his thick leather apron, adjusting the unbuttoned collar of his lighter work short as if Rost worried he'd be judged more for his sweaty, sandy, under-dressed appearance than for the issue this woman, this Sword, had even arrived for. Stormy eyes, more green today, lingered on her cloak before he glared at the youth that dragged her in, bordering on accusatory in the level of his stare. He held the silence for a moment longer than may have been polite or obedient, as if hoping the youth would whimper or whine.

When the apprentice did not, he forced his words with a somewhat softened expression on the dark-haired woman, "I apologize for the inconvenience."

Hers or his own?

"It seems as though a few pieces of our finer smokeglass tableware has gone missing. It's, uh," one hand tugged at stray fiery waves and the hint of lopsided sincerity got hung up on the scar on his cheek, "a problem I had considered solved until recently."

Rost opened his mouth to speak too soon, a quip about the expense of such items being unimportant as long as everyone was somehow fed stopping against his teeth. He rolled his shoulders instead, watching the Sword reveal the skin of her hands with idle interest, though not of the kind his lingering gaze may have been suspected as. Did she work as a Sword? Were those fingers calloused? He'd seen skin enough before to not be distracted, at least not with a cloak like that in the way,

"Well, I'm reporting it, then. I'm sure it's in-house." Rost looked back up to the woman's frowning face, noting the uncomfortable squirm of his young assistant still hovering in view, "I figured a fresh batch of bellow-blowers and sand-scrapers would solve the problem."

The look on his face clearly admitted it hadn't. He couldn't rid himself of hungry kids. They were a given. What nagged at him was whether a noble simply wanted discounted prices for work of his quality or if a competitor wanted to know his minerals.

"I'd rather know who's buying it." That was more a crime, as far as he was concerned. He doubted the Sword would agree.

Maybe he'd overstepped a little. Maybe it would actually mean someone would do something since this one appeared to work for her title, even a bit. He thumbed his ruddy, freckled nose instead, looking past the Sword and through his hot, busy shop, stormy eyes scanning the handful of apprentices and young assistants scrambling to wrap up orders before afternoon gave into evening. No one wanted to stay late, regardless of how warm it was in the glassworks. It only meant Rost would be angry.

"I'll show you." That brightened up his eyes at least, waving a hand toward some shelves. He turned without really waiting and walked—no, limped—past his assistant, leaving her to stare with her sniveling cousin at the back of his head. His left leg was stiff, slower. He resisted the urge to run a hand along a countertop as they passed by. He was tired, but not in front of the authorities. Most of the shelves were empty or lean, either because things had been shipped or because Rost could have been busier. Seasonal requests came in waves. This was, it appeared, an off time. He stopped at a row full of hand-blown goblets and carefully shaped bowls, all a swirly grey like smoke but still translucent and gleaming.

"That's them. There's at least twelve missing." He sniffed, "If I knew where to sell them—and I do—that'd be a week or two of eating." Whoever was selling them didn't need to run a glass shop. If they did, the profit would have been significantly less.

"Yes … yesterday." His thoughtful pause was noticeable, eyes sliding from the now slightly under-dressed authority figure without passing any noticeable judgement to his work on the shelves. It might have been the day before. That was probably important, but Rost didn't always remember every item of inventory when there were other orders to fill. He looked past the Sword to the younger folk scurrying about the shop, one or two not really that much younger than himself.

They'd probably all steal if they had the chance.

"Unfortunately, no. I can't count any of them out. Not with things happening." The red-head smirked, not necessarily one to put too much trust in hearsay, "Or rumors of things. One of my apprentices probably has help from outside, though. Too much thinking to do alone."

He scowled at the admission, hating distrust in an environment so potentially explosive and dangerous. He already knew the cost of carelessness. Rost finally gave into leaning against a shelf, resting his left leg with a sound of disappointment in his throat, "They're all afraid enough of you." His tone flatly implied he wasn't, whether it was because her cloak was off or otherwise, "I can round 'em up, I suppose."

He'd pushed a bit, and found himself satisfied. Maybe for entertainment—how often did he have a Sword in his shop? Or one that was a woman? Maybe just for assurance—if she'd been dragged here without his permission, she'd better be useful. His lopsided grin hinted at the edges of his ruddy, freckled face and he leaned up from the shelf with a grunt. A couple of uneven steps, perhaps too close to someone of her rank, in terms of propriety, considering how they were dressed, and he spoke quietly,

"The one who fetched you, Hesche, went without asking me. The first to tell is usually covering his own hide, though I doubt he's got the balls to steal." His words when in low tones were as if dragged over broken glass, "His cousin, the scared little thing's a good apprentice, but impatient. She may want more and be sly enough to find someone willing to help. Everyone else might actually like me, though you and I both know there's a sharp thin line between loyalty and fear."

He didn't move from her proximity as fast as he could have, hovering next to the shorter woman while his mostly green eyes searched the faces of the youths entrusted to his care. He sighed before shoving scarred hands in the pockets of his thick leather apron and shifted away to lean on his better hip,

"The only one who'd stolen before, I fired months ago. He's likely to have frozen by now, lazy as he was." Maybe he should have mentioned that first. Rost arched a fiery brow in wordless question instead.

He didn't feel like explaining just entirely how thoroughly he'd dealt with the problem with his own two hands.

Used to working around so much glass, Rost was not one to touch things without permission. When not properly prepared by heat and time, he tended to break things—people not excluded. He smirked at the Sword's discomfort, her tensing like a spring—an armed spring at that—felt similar to playing with fire. That was enough, though. Clearly this was not a moment to explore other boundaries. He had nothing to say about social rules or politics, not to a woman with a blade. There was work to be done.

Somewhere else, he might have grinned at her staring, rude or not. He had a few more interesting scars in more interesting places.

The redhead exhaled, speaking with only a small glimmer of mischief, "I'll do one better. I don't want to waste your time." Limping toward the kilns, he raised ruddy fingers to his lips and whistled. Steam hissed. Metal clanged. Something else broke. The young people stuttered in their various tasks, all bright eyes in his fiery direction, "Finish up an' go home. Don't let me see your faces 'til dawn tomorrow, deadlines or not."

It was early. There were still orders to finish. No one argued—they appeared too frightened of the glassblower to even raise a single objection. He ran a tight shop. The handful of apprentices doubled their efforts to scramble from the place.

"Hesche. Arla. Feln." Rost barked above the chaos he'd created, rolling up his sleeves as he spoke to reveal more pale, burned, freckled skin. His expression was calm, but his tone carried the undeniable weight of threat, "You're to stay. Come join us."

Rost watched the Sword instead of the faces of his apprentices, stormy gaze following her movements curiously as shed even the semblance of a few more layers, lingering on the blade. The kilns were hot, it was true, though the redhead decided he needed to invite more women to his shop for an indeterminate length of time for the sheer entertainment value it seemed to preclude. This one was a bit delicate for a warrior, slim like the narrow flute of one of the missing goblets that even brought her here, though obviously tough enough to have not get trampled in her station. Either from a finer grade of sand on purpose or by accident, that one.

He reigned his thoughts back to the moment and forced his focus onto the three youths who sullenly attempted not to hear the Sword's stern threat. They'd been in the shop since children, since Rost was barely a journeyman. He frowned at the weight of their disloyalty, the sense of loss etching itself into his flame-kissed facial features. Underneath the gruff exterior, these were family enough. It wasn't like he had anyone else.

The three fidgeted, all of them looking anywhere but at Rosalie. The smallest, Feln, was hardly a teen. He was a bit dirtier, a bit hungrier than the other two. Wiping his nose with the back of his hand—from hand to elbow with a horrible wet noise—he looked at Rost instead of the Sword,

"I ain't done nothin'. I told 'em it ain't right, s'all. They made me stay an' watch fer you 'cuz I'm small."

This elicited a series of objections from the other two that quickly escalated into nonsensical shouting. What was worse, however, was that without thinking or waiting for the dark-haired woman, the fiery glassblower moved forward in a motion that was surprisingly fast for a near-cripple, grimacing at the discomfort of his own quickness, to slap the sniveling boy with the singed back of his hand, the smack of knuckles against young flesh enough to cow the other two.

"Ungrateful!" He hissed, raising a hand a second time with more threat than intention, "All of you! Tell the truth."