Darkening Light

As Darkness Behold: Beginnings

Year 1425

"For someone who has the talent to create wonderful crafts of beautiful creatures, you really go for the dark and creepy ones, don't you?" Cateline wasted no time pointing out what Eliot was busy crafting. She knew him well enough to know he wasn't going to make something normal.

Eliot looked up from his work rolled his eyes and shrugged, "Are you going to just stand there and be all high and mighty, or are you going to finally appreciate my work for once?"

Cateline placed her elbows on the table, resting her head on her hands as she tapped her cheek with one finger as if she was contemplating something.

"Hmmm," she hummed, pretending to be deep in thought, "Ya no, I prefer butterflies and bunnies."

Eliot shot her a playful look, "You could just ask me to make you some. Besides," he put down his carving knife, and the figure that was far from finished and looked her in the eyes, "I figured you are the bunny loving type."

"Hey!" She straightened herself, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"What? Don't all girls like that?" He teased, standing up from his chair, leaning forward and poking her forehead. Cateline reacted and tried to slap his arm away, but he was too quick for her liking. Eliot only laughed at her slow reaction as she shot him daggers with her eyes.

"That's very small minded of you to think that all women like bunnies." She crossed her arms. Eliot couldn't help but find her quick to take offense amusing. He didn't mean it, but he knew teasing her about it would be worth it.

"You are wrong to think I only meant bunnies, my dear." He smirked which in turn got him an eye roll, "Anything cute or flowery wins over all the women's hearts."

She opened her mouth to argue back, but stopped. He watched her trying to form some way to prove him wrong, but by her brow forrowing, he knew she didn't have any comeback. Eliot sat back, feeling victorious and started carving again, making a mental note to get some new carving knives.

She could've dodged him by saying not all women are the same, but he knew her too well. She probably knew but didn't want to end up in an endless loop of his comebacks and loopholes.

"I assume men also like cute things." She finally spoke.

He felt a small smile formed on his lips, but he didn't look up to meet her gaze.

"Knew it."

He finally looked up as they shared a smile, "Us men don't show it though, but sometimes we wish to get flowers too." He meant it as a joke, but if he was honest with himself, he wouldn't mind receiving flowers from someone. "But we need to be strong and masculine for wars and brutality, striking fear in the eyes of the enemy!" He mocked a deep voice, that of a soldier, as he hits his chest with his fist and having a stern stare.

Cateline laughed, "For Sol's sake, seeing you as a soldier would be the day dragons could be tamed."

He laughed with her. He can not imagine days without his best friend. They both grew up together, and they were basically like siblings, though his and her parents would think otherwise. The multiple times he had to stop his parents from teasing him into the idea of marrying her was almost as much as his grandpa liked to brag about his past as an adventurer, which was almost every week.

"But why?" Cateline asked.

He frowned after recovering from laughing at her silly comparison. He actually believed dragons could be tamed, which made it even funnier than it should be.
"Why?" He asked, unsure of what she meant.

"Why create stuff like this?" She pointed to the other things he crafted that was placed on one of the shop shelves nearest to his table he was working on. She asked him this question before, but it never seemed to satisfy her.