She goes back to her training, but her heart falters a little. 

She's chasing a fantasy. A pretty little dream in her head. 

She knows that. She knows that, but...

She hasn't gotten this far by not trying.

And her instincts say... her heart says... 

It's hard to hear. Hard to listen, over the fear of rejection. But her heart seems set on this impossible goal. That's what it says. 

So she trains, and she works, and she hopes.

Fall passes into winter.

She'll see him again soon... 

She's being a damn fool. She's seen him what, three times. Mooning over the clanless Jade. She's not the only girl afflicted so. She's met others. Others who fantasize about being his. And none of them are.

She should really cut her losses and try some other boy...

But she just can't seem to let go. 

The dreams won't fade. She sees his face, hears his voice, too many times a day. Even though he's somewhere up in the mountains, and she's here, down on the plains. 

She hopes she sees him again soon. 

It's spring by the time she sees him again. On the way up into the highlands he's just there in a large town, on the other side of the inn's common room. A real inn this time, this river is at the end of the navigable waters of one of the Sacred River's main tributaries and so quite a bit of overland trade goes through here. 

He looks the same, but his scaled armour covers more of him now, a shorter hauberk almost shaped like a breastplate over scale leggings rather than just the knee-length hauberk of before. He's even got boots and gloves of incredibly small interlocking scales. Surely he has to be a Forger by inclination to have that much forged madra? He can't be forging it frequently, there's simply too much of it.

She finally gets to see him again... 

Finally, finally. 

Okay breathe, breathe girl, you are only going to get one shot at this. You have to draw his attention and do your best. You had a plan, right? What was the plan? Oh god what was the plan — 

Just breathe. Breathe and listen to your heart.

She gets up, comes over to Terem's chair, self-conciously adjusts the Iron badge that hangs from her neck, puts her fists together and bows low. 

"Excuse me, honored Jade — I — I'm Xue Meresankh, and I wanted to ask — I wanted to ask if I could speak to you?"

Honoured Jade, that's formal. He looks up at her, mouth opening, ready to tell her she certainly can, to try to salve that nervousness he can hear-

And then he notices her badge. Iron. Not, perhaps, as impressive as Jade but- yes, she just said Xue. Not a clan member out away from their usual lands but someone who managed Iron at what, seventeen or eighteen on her own? That's impressive. Oh, yes, that exact thought is one he's had before! He remembers her, if barely. He ran into her family last year. The ice merchants.

"Yes, you certainly can," he says, eyes flicking up from her badge to her face, his tone warm and the fact that he considers her a bit impressive audible in his words. It's true, but also she sounds nervous and he can't help wanting to put her at ease a bit.

Some of the tension goes from her. She gets a chance, at least. Now how to approach this...

She takes a moment to compose her thoughts, then forges ahead. 

"You're somewhat famous among the clanless, as I'm sure you're aware. I don't recall when I first heard your name, as a shadow on the horizon. I think I thought you were made up. But then I saw you last year, up in the peaks, and I knew at once from your forged armour that you were the real thing."

"Ever since I saw you then, my mind's been occupied with thoughts of you. For a clanless I'm generally considered a prodigy, but looking up at you I suddenly had a sense of someone who surpassed me entirely. Someone who, without the help of a clan or a school, had managed to make Jade when I had only made Iron. You felt... formidable. And I couldn't help but notice that you were handsome as well." 

"I know I am merely an Iron and cannot expect to beg favours even from a clanless Jade..."

"But I deeply desire to know you better, both as a person and as a challenge to my skills. I want to keep learning, keep training, keep building, and you have been my target to compare to for the past year, as I try to push further on my self-made path and build something worth calling a Madra style of my own."

"Thank you for considering my humble request."

She's brave. He's not entirely sure whether she's effectively walked up to him and asked to start courting him or whether she just wants help on her path and is flattering him, but if he doesn't miss his mark that exact level of indirectness is something she's doing deliberately. So he can just pretend not to notice, if he'd rather.

He would, in fact, rather. He has a lot of things to do, and he just doesn't have the time for a proper relationship. Not with someone who couldn't keep up with him, who he'd have difficultly bringing on his circuit, who he'd have to keep secrets from.

But he can help her. It's interesting that her path is self made, and he admires her bravery and the skill she must have to have managed what she has at her age. She doesn't have his advantages. And if she does... well, then he definitely wants to interact with her some more and find out.

"Self made, you said? Not the one your family follows? Mine is too, I can perhaps offer some advice regarding that, or consult if you have a half-finished technique. I can't imagine your family's techniques work perfectly with a different madra aspect. And I'm always willing to make a new friend, even if my travel tends to mean I see my friends less often than I'd like."

He likes friends, and he also likes having dry places to sleep. These two facts synergize pleasantly. In truth he mostly has acquaintances rather than friends, but it's close enough for the time being.

She schools her face to neutrality, but if Song Terem is good at reading expressions he may have caught a hint of disappointment.

It's okay though. She hasn't been rejected entirely. She'll have more chances.

She's just got to be honest.

She clears her throat. The words are sticking for some reason.

"Yes, that is the case, Honored Jade. My family is originally Ice madra, as you might imagine, but as I've grown I've become increasingly attached to Sword madra as well. I think my cycling technique is better than most students my age, and I've made a bit of a preoccupation with dabbling in Sword and Ice techniques to study madra flows as best I can as we travel. I cycle my madra using the blocks of ice my family gathers with their ice-saws still present, and have been trying from both the Ice side and from the Sword side to build a proper madra technique, but I feel that my path is still missing something..." 

Something like you.