It was always labor to relocate and pack up the great hall Auden considered their primary residence back in Avalon. It could take weeks to pack the forge alone depending on how confident Auden felt regarding the availability of sourcing items they might have forgotten, things like clothes and personal items took almost no time whatsoever given how little variety there was in Auden’s dress, but the curios and memento moris they enjoyed keeping at the front of their shop and in their drafting space was always a painstaking endeavor. With news of an Aetherian invasion in the Iskaran kingdom and a likely rush of darkspawn forces only days to weeks away from a potential invasion of the Lysaran border, Auden was convinced the residency they planned to serve in Eterna’s term would last as long as the high elven dared to risk being absent from their homeland and the light of the Laurelin tree. Kingdoms didn’t fall in a matter of years, after all–well, with the exception of Iskaldrik which folded in the span of several weeks, deservedly so from Auden’s perspective. 

Miraculously, everything had made it to Eterna in one piece, no tool, skeleton, material, or sculpture worse for wear. They were not always this lucky as they traveled from forge to forge to pass the years and work their craft. Many of their favorite items had broken in their travel, but Auden felt a deep sense of relief that this was the trip where all items arrived intact given they had brought a selection of their favorite and most impressive items. 

Since beginning to settle into the new forge, the front room of the shop now contained a large hunk of an ornately carved pillar taken from the ruins of a once-great cathedral, a crystallized skeleton of a snake, a glass case of several animal skulls, a verifiable jungle of many types of plants, and a great slab of petrified wood. There were still trunks of items to unpack, and Auden was determined to finish the front room where they would confer with clients by the time they called it quits for the day–no distractions.

Until there was a distraction of course. The figure of someone passing by the front window garnered Auden’s attention for a moment, but the recognition of the woman’s profile and curtain of dark hair gave Auden reason to truly pause. The passerby stopped for a moment to peer into the window–what had caught their eye remained a mystery to Auden–but it didn’t quite matter once they caught sight of Zuleima’s face and realized her initial instinct that it was the familiar strigoi passing the shop was correct. Despite their close call with a pride demon, Auden still housed extremely high regard for their own work–there were few they’d consider equal at their own respective craft or subject matter, but Zuleima was among those ranks. Auden stood straight and unlocked the shop door, opening it and leaning out slightly to look at Zuleima directly. “Casing the joint, are we?” Auden teased with a crooked grin before stepping back and gesturing to invite the woman to step inside.