He'd bumped his big fat head twice, almost ruined her potion and actually scolded and yelled at her, and even cried in front of her! And Rhedara had looked so alarmed at it that Tor knew he'd lost his self-control badly around her. It was deeply embarrassing and her kind invitation to help him was trashed by his stupidity. The woman was just being polite to him and he'd spoken his mind too freely, which was inexcusable. 

Her leery, uncertain expression was at odds with her offer and Tor knew that he'd overstayed his welcome. 

'I apologize for my behavior back there and thanks for the offer Rhedara, but it's probably best that I go now. I think I've imposed on you too much as it is."

Tor had gotten all stiff on her, and her weak attempt to loosen him up didn’t work. He seemed almost eager to go. Well, she could try and force him to stay, but if he needed to go be alone and deal with his breakdown by himself, she wasn’t about to stop him. That might just push him away more.

“It’s fine, Tor,” Rhedara said, crossing her arms, “A lot’s happened recently…one of us would have….” Bringing attention to the fact that he’d just wept in front of her seemed like a bad idea, even if it was to point out that she could have easily been the one crying, too. She was the one, after all, out of a job and facing the prospect of living on the street. She didn’t even have the barracks to fall back on like he did, “You’re not an imposition, Tor.”

She would follow him to the door to see him out. Bette, thankfully, stayed in her little corner, resewing a button on a shirt. The alder woman looked as if she did not notice the two young people walking to her door, but Rhedara knew that the old biddy was watching them. Probably seeing if Rhedara would give Tor a kiss goodbye—she’d been trying to figure out who her secret lover was ever since she’d come home with the love bites. Well, she was about to be disappointed because she and Tor did not have that sort of relationship.

“Stop by soon, Tor,” she smiled, “Maybe next time I’ll teach you to cook something,” maybe she’d show him how to debone a fish…granted that he didn’t already know how to do that.

Tor would never be an expert on people or social cues but telling someone it's all right and then crossing your arms was definitely not an open invitation. He'd obviously botched another attempt at being around other people and as usual, he'd screwed it up. Maybe someday he'd learn how to be normal around others, but today definitely wasn't that day. 

As Rhedara spoke, she ushered him closer to the door and he didn't resist her efforts. He made a last attempt to show his deep concern for her safety, though he had strong feeling that if anything, she'd push against it. 

"The Lieutenant isn't a safe person to be alone with Rhedara. Please be careful around him. There's something unsavory about him and ..." He let the sentence drop, hoping that implying things would do the job. He wouldn't speak directly against a work superior, but Tor was free to hint as much as he wanted to about the shaggy homeless looking thug. He didn't trust him one bit and he was positive that his friend shouldn't be alone with that type of guy.

He nodded at her offer but made no commitment to follow it up.

Rhedara had a feeling that something was being miscommunicated between them, but couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. Maybe it was her imagination, or maybe it was just because he was difficult to read. Even though she wished Tor would be more expressive so she could read him better, he had an unbreakable hold on his emotions that she envied.

Tor’s warning about Raff was…sweet. Rhedara didn’t agree with Tor at all--Raff had been nothing but nice to her so far. Still, his concern for her was touching, even if it was unnecessary. She recognized that he was only trying to look out for her, something that no one had really done for her since her family had died. Briefly, she wondered what he would have said or done if she told him that she’d lost her maidenhood to Raff? Would he yell at her? Try to force them to marry? Would he offer to marry her instead? She wasn’t about to tell him. Not only would it just upset him, but also the fact that she was no longer untouched really wasn’t his business, brotherly relationship or no. She wouldn’t have even told her own brother if he was still alive.

He let his sentence drop, and she waited a moment in case he would continue. If he didn’t elaborate further, she would smiled sweetly to visibly show him that she was not upset, “Thanks, Tor, really,” she said, “You don’t know what it means to have someone looking out for me, but it’s alright. Really,” a pause, “If it helps, he’s been nothing but good to me,” if one could count getting her drunk and taking her in an ally ‘good’ but she’d not regretted it in the morning. Not a bit, “Maybe he’s a lot meaner when he’s on duty?” She suggested, even though he’d not been that mean to her when he’d taken the time to train her. That training session had been very flirtatious, “You know how the higher ups get...unless there’s something that you know that I should know, too?” He’d mentioned him getting drunk with someone else…but drinking was hardly unusual for commoners. Life was hard, and alcohol took the edge off the misery. Besides…she’d met him while drinking herself.

Tor guessed that 'everything was alright' as long as you were an attractive woman the Lieutenant was hitting on at the time. After seeing the marks on her neck and her fond look when she kept defending that surly guy, he put two and two together that they were obviously an item. From the little he knew of Rhedara, the harder he pushed her to not do something, the more she'd do the opposite. He supposed, correctly, that two people who wanted each other, would treat each other differently than their normal behavior. Like it or not, she was firmly in the degenerate's good graces so who was he to question it? 

They could claim a brother and sister-like relationship, but in the end, it wasn't blood family so it clearly wasn't his business or Tor's place to tell her how to live her own life. And maybe she hadn't quite got the message when still enlisted, that you didn't trash mouth a superior officer, on or off the clock as it set a bad precedent.

For a long moment, Torsten's gaze lingered pointedly on the hickeys on her neck. Rhedara certainly knew far more than Tor did, judging by the guilty evidence she wore without shame. She got special treatment from the ornery officer because she wasn't enlisted anymore and she was a pretty female-it was that simple. They were both such literal opposites that a thread in common was difficult to find, especially now with the newer circumstances. She was no longer subject to orders and regulation and he certainly wasn't sliding into an officer's bed at night to make relations ease up on them when on the job. There was actually a shocking number of women who bed-hopped among the officers to get a promotion or ease their career, but the opposite direction rarely happened. Rhedara wasn't the first or last to ride that wave. But she was at least smart enough not to be secretly fraternizing while having an insubordinate role to the Lieutenant. If she had, her veracity with any further promotions would be called into question and doubted if it was earned like most others. Some women merely stayed in the ranks only long enough to get their 'mrs' and start a famliy.

He opened his mouth to say some kind of empty platitude like I'm sure you'll be fine, but he just couldn't bring himself to do that. That would be a total lie to him. 

"I think in this case Rhedara, it's safe to say that you know him far more intimately than I do." It was the blunt truth unvarnished and while it sounded condemning, it was more about stating the facts. She -did- know the guy much better than Torsten did, so who was he to say anything about it? 

"It's definitely not my place to speak of a higher up in a derogatory way." one corner of his mouth lifted up in a wry almost, half-smile when he continued, "I think we both learned that the hard way."

She saw his eyes level on her neck. He didn’t say anything about them, but the stare conveyed everything. Although she wasn’t ashamed of what she and Raff had done together, her neck tingled at Tor’s blatant stare. Involuntarily, she reached for the bruises and scratched at them as if it would knock away Tor’s disapproval. What did he think of her, she wondered? Did he now think her loose? Stupid? Both? She thought of Raff’s protectiveness of her thus far, from the teenage noble sneering at her to the poker-playing soldiers, and was glad that her lover wasn’t there to see the way Tor was staring at the love bites.

If Raff would do anything at all that is. Protective of her as he was, Tor was still a subordinate, and although she was no longer in the military, the boundaries he’d established still applied. Still, it was better not to tempt Raff into getting himself in trouble over her—especially since Tor’s disapproval was not something worth getting in trouble over.

Her friend had apparently put two and two together. Again, Rhedara was not ashamed of sleeping with Raff. She fully intended to let him take liberties with her again. However, Tor’s use of the word ‘intimate’ made her cheeks feeling very hot. It was one thing to know you’ve had sex with a man you were not married to, it was another for someone to point it out to you. Especially when that someone was as steadfast as Tor. Maybe she should have pretended to be more embarrassed, more ashamed at his knowing of her activities, but she would not lie to him. He could be a stick in the mud, but Tor was someone she respected and considered a friend, and she would not do him the disservice of being untruthful. So instead of averting her gaze and mumbling some platitude, she’d keep looking at him straight on, “Yeah,” she confirmed gently.

“I’m not asking you to speak about him in a derogatory way, Tor,” she realized at that moment that if Tor did speak of him that way, she probably would have snarled at him. Now that was an interesting instinct that she’d have to examine later, “I know you can’t go around speaking badly of your superiors…but I would hope that if you had reason to believe that he’d,” she waved her hand in the air as if grasping for an example, “beat on me or something, that you’d find a way to warn me?” She didn’t believe for a second that Raff would beat her. She could see that by how well his siblings appeared to be doing. Yes, his home was a one-room shack and they all slept on cots and used a communal fire to cook their food, but they all appeared perfectly healthy and warm to her, “Because I would warn you if I thought you were about to tie yourself to an abusive woman.”

“We’re still friends, right?” Her question was asked carefully, almost shyly. There were a lot of commoners that wouldn’t associate with a woman who’d slept with a man she wasn’t married to, “I…” she almost said ‘love’ but it was too early in their relationship for her to feel that particular emotion, even as her young heart saw it as a given that she would eventually completely fall for him, “…I really care for him, but I hope my relationship with him doesn’t make you not want to be my friend,” the question may be childish, she was aware of that, and she was prepared for him to ridicule her for it. It didn’t make it less true. His averse reaction to her relationship with his superior was strong, and she also wasn’t sure if he’d think it inappropriate to associate with her now that she was not only in a romantic relationship with his superior, but that that romantic relationship was also sexual.

He'd tried. Tried and failed with his joke about they'd bonded in a subtle way to change the subject. What exactly was it she wanted from him? She was overtly defensive about any mention of her lover. Rhedara looked ready to jump up and claw out Tor's eyes if he so much as said Terach's name in the wrong tone. Which clearly illustrated deeply and personally how invested she was in the relationship. Far more than he'd realized. Given a choice, between Tor, who she'd known longer, and her new lover, there was no contest where her loyalties lay. And that was fine, because it was -her- life after all. Torsten had warned her more than once and now what she did was totally up to her.

But if she was looking for Torsten to start agreeing with how great she thought the rude shaggy caveman was, then she'd be sorely disappointed. Torsten instead, nodded very briefly at her comment. He couldn't talk about the guy at all or Rhedara would get upset again, so the topic was essentially off limits. 

"It's not my place to judge you or your relationship Rhedara. That was out of line for me, and I won't do it again." he said firmly. Torsten had no idea now what there was left to talk about or say. It wasn't right to talk about her personal life but they no longer shared a professional life either. She'd made his potion. Torsten had said what he felt, but it wasn't taken well and he'd definitely gone too far. He really sucked at peopling. What more did she want from him? Tor shrugged, feeling both awkward and helpless at the situation. He shuffled his large feet and murmured,

"I suppose I should probably say good bye now. I don't wanna keep you from... well your business." 

Had he known he was being deployed in three weeks, he might've had a lot more to say, but as it stood, there wasn't really much else up for discussion.

There was something not being communicated between them, but Rhedara wasn’t sure what it was. She wished she could open up his head and grab the thoughts that were bouncing around in there. The way he’d said that he didn’t want to keep her from her business made her wonder if he thought she was going to prepare herself to be bedded by Raff as soon as he left.

“It’s fine, Tor, Really,” it’s not like he’d called her a slut or just a bedwarmer.

She’d hoped to spend a nice evening with her friend, but that had gone down the drain. Disappointing. If she knew that he’d leave for Coheed in a few weeks, she might have tried harder to get him to stay, to clear things up better. As it was, she thought that he was embarrassed and uncomfortable and probably disgusted enough with her behavior that he just wanted to go home. He didn’t outright say that they weren’t friends anymore, but he didn’t say that they still were either. Maybe she was just overthinking it. Maybe not.

“I don’t have anything going on after this, but if you need to leave, I won’t keep you,” she said, “Just…don’t be a stranger, okay?” she didn't have a lot of friends, especially friends who worried about her, even if she thought the worry was needless.