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“ .. Ros’! Ros’! Hey, look, tell me quick, but you don’t need to come back yet, I promise, but jest tell me, you got any more all bent up nails? We found a box jest shoved unner a workbench, kinda dusty, only I need to know were there more somewhere?”

Although First has become — although it is a peculiar word to use for a man who has promised to be her lover, it is oddly fitting — resigned to his fate, Rosa may have started to notice a pattern that has developed over the past few weeks since he has returned to her side. Ever the opportunists, even when it involves their own hearts, the twins have started to take care about which of them brings up certain topics. When they want something of her, or when they’re asking her to do something they know she doesn’t like, First is the one that puts the question forward. When they want to cheer her up, or distract her from something they’ve already done, Last is the one that speaks up.

True, this has a tendency to backfire on them, since all she has to do is let her eyes get big and wide and First falls to pieces, and any attempt to distract Rosa inevitably distracts Last as well. But it doesn’t stop them from trying.

This time it’s First. Although she’s been at her work for several days now, with one of the twins hovering at her elbow no matter how easy the task, today had been different. They’d chased her out of the shop with a basket and a full purse and orders to have a good time and not come back until dark. To be sure, they’ve learned how to watch the shop by now, what to say and how much to sell things for, and they’ve proven remarkably adept at turning a profit ..

.. but it’s barely past noon, and First’s found her in the market and now stands in front of her, hopping impatiently from one foot to the other, naked to the waist. It’s no surprise he’s stripped down; it’s a hot day outside, and with the fire running in the forge, there are days where it’s almost unbearable in there. But for something to have driven him to bolt out of the shop looking like this, gleaming a bit with sweat, it may raise a few questions. He doesn’t look frightened and he doesn’t look like he’s injured, he just looks impatient and a good bit distracted.

“ .. um, we might be sellin ‘em?” First sounds a touch puzzled now, which means that some part of his brain has started to notice the anomalies, although it will probably be several moments more before he makes a deduction about why they are there. He glances at Aelius, as if to try and judge what kind of mood Rosa is in, or see exactly how far he can push her, though from the tone that she’s using he’s beginning to suspect that the answer is going to be ‘not very.’

“I mean, we found ‘em on accident, and they sells easy enough,” bent nails? how the hell is he selling bent nails well enough to need another entire box? “and we thought it’d be helpful, y’know, make more room in the shop, and it’s really okay, only if there’s some more can you tell us where? You don’t need to come back yet.” This last is a bit concerned, as if worried that she will (despite his reassurance) come back to the shop anyway, which would be a disaster, really, she can’t come back yet!

Meanwhile, quite disgusted with all of this, Unwelcome drops off from the awning of a nearby stall to land on Aelius and examine him at closer range. She does not seem to like the grass stains, and avoids walking on them, tsk-tsking at him and clacking her bill in disapproval. “ .. dirty, dirty,” she scolds him, before climbing up the back of his neck to stand on his head so that she can preen the fur around his antlers.

He seems to realize all at once that he has somehow landed in trouble — surely he was expecting it, that was why he’d approached her so carefully — and that serves to distract him for a few more crucial moments. He winces at her scolding, his face pulled long by his worry: it is terrible hard for him to displease Rosa now, for any reason. “It weren’t a-purpose! We were jest fixin’ things up, ‘cause we were almost done.” He licks his lips, aware that he is treading dangerous ground now, since the inevitable question then becomes ‘done with what?’ Then again, close contact with the twins may well have taught Rosa over the past several days in particular that they are not as clever about keeping secrets as they would like to think. There’d been the day she’d caught Last in her room with a measuring string, for instance, or the day they’d huddled in a corner talking about feathers for hours on end. And the carpenter that’d stopped by, only to be hustled away by First, assuring Rosa that he must have come to the wrong place, even though he’d known their names —

To be fair, they have spent the past few weeks alternately falling off either side of her bed or sleeping on the floor. But it’s hard to say where they got the idea that it’d be a fun thing to do to surprise her with a new bed big enough for more than just one person.

“ .. anyway, we’d been liftin’ an’ cleanin’ all day, and then this gel comes by, a real silly tart, an’ we caught her feeding pastries to Unwanted, th’ b*****d, like we ain’t tol’ him to lay off — and she asks us if we got any nails that’s been in the horse-shoes for him, ‘cause they’re lucky and she wants one.”

And the twins being who they are, instead of carefully explaining to the girl that Guardians do not, in fact, have iron shoes and therefore do not have nails, had found a box of twisted nails that looked ‘used’ enough to pass muster. Because, well, of course they would.

“ .. how come you’re scuffed?” The question spills suddenly out of him, on the tail end of his own explanation, and he looks to Welly for support. The bird fluffs her feathers, quorking in deep disgust at them both.

“Bath,” she offers in her gruff voice, looking to her sweaty witch and then to the smith. “Bath!”

His mouth works — open and closed, open and closed, as if he cannot quite make out how readily she has figured all of this out. He looks stricken, in fact, it not having occurred to him that the intelligence he found so attractive could also be used to place him and his brother in a difficulty like this, where it allowed her to see right through them. He even finds himself looking past her, to Aelius — no help there, he’s obviously on her side — and Unwelcome, who fluffs her feathers and makes a sound like a snort of laughter.

“Stupid,” she says, in her hoarse voice, turning her head at a right angle to blink thoughtfully at her witch. “Stupid.” Stretching out her slender body, she flaps her wings several times for emphasis, and then looks up to make certain that Rosalie is watching. “Dirty,” she says again, more urgently now. “Dirty, look, look, dirty!”

First colors at this admonition, as if Unwelcome has taken things one step farther by tattling on him — which isn’t really fair, now is it? After all, the smith and her guardian are dirty, too! “It weren’t like that this time!” Which means that there was a time when it was like that, surely? “We were jest movin’ things about, and people came by t’talk t’us, and we din’t really tell people it were good luck, jest as hinted, like, that it coulda been —“ But if they were just moving things about, why would Unwelcome be so upset about them being dirty? Surely the twins sweat all the time, that can’t be anything new ..

.. except First isn’t exactly sweating. He’s shirtless, gleaming in the sun, and is there just the faintest scent of some kind of oil in the air? The Freds are not what anyone might call traditionally handsome, but they are not altogether unattractive, either, and their sameness makes them look quite striking when they are together. And they know that, surely, because they’ve used it to their advantage before. So what’s to keep them from trying to make some kind of show of themselves, to attract just the sort of silly bint that’d believe that Guardians got hooves as need to be shoed, like a horse’s?

“ — you ain’t been fallin’,” First wants to know, much preferring to address her transgressions before she figures out his own. “You ain’t as well yet! What if you tears somethin’ open again? Or gets hurt?”

He goes straight from red to redder, and though one would think a tall man like him couldn’t get any shorter, he certainly seems to be trying. From the scrunching of his shoulders and the furrowing of his brow, he’d promise her just about anything now so long as it settled her anger — Last might’ve wheedled or denied it or just plain tried to distract her, but First folds like wet paper. “ .. it ain’t like that,” he says, soft but urgently, unable to keep a certain desperation out of his voice. “You know we don’t belong to nobody but you. We’re jest tryin’ ..” He makes a small noise, possibly realizing that there is no way of finishing that sentence that will not get him in trouble. Swallowing, he runs a hand nervously through his hair, glancing briefly at Unwelcome in frustration — as if she’d help, she’s the one that always gets him in trouble!

“ .. you din’t let us up right of when we was hurt,” he mumbles, but this is wrong, too, and he knows it as soon as he’s said it, and finally with a moan of frustration he rubs at his face with one hand gives up on talkin’. Instead he goes down on one knee, and will try to catch her hand to press it on his forehead, not even caring that by now there’s probably folk that are watching the spectacle.

“I’m sorry,” he says, breathlessly, “I ain’t so good at this. Please don’t be mad. We ain’t got no practice lovin’ nobody as much as we love you. Sometimes we don’t do it right.”

"You kin come back now," he tells her loyally and instantly, which is probably not at all what he'd promised his brother. But he'd promise her near anything to keep that frown away, and he don't plan on letting her hand go until she takes it back from him. Instead he stays down on one knee, kissing her knuckles like some posh gennlemun, for all that he knows the idea of him as anything of the sort is outright comical. He's fine with that: better she laughs at him then frowns at him!

"We was just cleanin' after, is all." He looks up at her earnestly, torn somewhere between hope and fear, and tugs her hand gently until he can place it over his heart. " .. don't be mad. We don't do nothin' no more as ain't for you." The words are murmured low and slow, and he means them with all his might: maybe that's his youth, maybe the family he comes from, but now and then he and his twinsib seem to have a flair for the dramatic.

There is some evidence outside that they have been cleaning, despite her suspicions: the street in front of her shop has been thoroughly swept, and there is a new coat of whitewash on the steps and the front of the shop, making it look like a new building entirely. Inside there is more of the same; dust and soot has been removed from nearly every surface, her remaining stores — running low, as she’d mentioned to First — neatly organized, and some simple touches have been added. There is a bed of fresh hay in one corner now, with visible sprigs of fragrant herbs in it, deep enough for Aelius and Unwanted to sleep in, nestled in the hay together. There is also a basket nailed to a rafter and filled with brightly-colored fabric, its purpose easily guessed; Unwelcome is settled comfortably inside the pretty nest already, looking supremely content.

There is also a new set of hooks near her anvil, where not one but two aprons are hanging, each a slightly different color, as if it should matter to her which one she wore. It’s the thought that counts, surely ..

As if all of this is not enough, there is also a stranger sitting on top of the counter where she keeps her book of sales, looking pleased with himself — and if he may be a stranger, he is not entirely unfamiliar. After all, by this point she should know a Grimm when she sees one, even if he might take more after the eldest in the family than he does the matched set she’s claimed for her own. Yet even should he look much like Jacob, it’d be hard to fear Ferdinand: he’s looking to her already with a smile and a coy little tilt of his head, like he might’ve been the one to do all of this for her and is pleased now to have her reaction.

He looks a bit too fine to be in a lowly smith’s shop, with lovely clothing and hair that aches to be touched, but there’s no shame for him, not at all! He is posing where he sits with his ankles crossed, just waiting for her to say something.

“And it’s a right shame, isn’t it, and I hope you’ll accept my fervent apologies; I take the blame entirely on myself, you can be sure of that.” Down from the counter he hops, and if his movements are fluid, he also moves in an entirely different way from his brothers. There’s nothing menacing in the way he crosses the room, and though there’s nothing mincing either, his grace is somehow more delicate — more ornamental. With a flourish he bows deeply in front of her as if she is a queen and he a mere knight: he will only glance up after a second, a cheerful grin making him twice as handsome as he was before. “Ferdinand Grimm, sweet lady, third-eldest of our happy little litter, and here to pay my respects. I’m afraid I can’t promise you that my siblings know how to clean, but I’ve trained them as well as could be expected, and I can say that at least they can do well if someone is around to direct them.”

He is, in other words, playfully taking credit for the look of the shop — although she has seen the flat the twins share, and it isn’t badly enough off that one would think the twins incapable of arranging things in an aesthetically pleasing fashion. All the same, Ferdinand seems genuinely happy to see her, and eager to have her approval: but then, she is going to be joining his family, and he has liked what he has heard of her so far.