This stand alone piece is based on an upcoming book called Pickle and Jewel. Pickle is a Halfling conwoman from the Hhlarin Valleys. Jewel a Half-Orc born to a mother who was a soldier, and a father who's a blacksmith. They're somewhat stuck with each other...

Jenny Mae’s coffee shop was a welcome relief from the biting chill outside. Jewel felt invigorated from the clouds of steam that poured off the boiler in the back. It was quite welcome, and was actually bringing feeling back to her numbed face, no doubt turning her complexion to a deep, mossy green.

The giant half-orc trailed Pickle, her halfling companion, who had insisted on the evening excursion. The coffee house was a favourite haunt of both of them, although usually it was a morning destination, where a coffee and a pastry was a particularly fine way to start the day, with Pickle relishing the local gossip and tittle-tattle which could be picked up from fellow patrons.

The Hhlarin halfling had been a little mysterious and excitable all day. Although that always seemed to be her default state, there was something different about it today. With a bound in her step, she leapt on a small platform in front of the counter which allowed her and other little folk to be clearly seen.

“A couple of roasts please and coffees,” she beamed to the proprietor, the person from which the establishment got its name. Jenny Mae was a jovial woman, Jewel would say she was perhaps middle-aged, though she hid signs of it behind a thick application of makeup. Not for the first time, Jewel felt she was looking at a painted doll which had come to life.

But she was a good woman, fiercely protective of Pickle, though took no nonsense from her customers.

“I’m okay on the coffee,” Jewel said, shaking her head, which seemed to shock both the proprietor and halfling, who cast her an askance look of disapproval. They seemed frozen in silent condemnation for a few moments before Jenny Mae finally shrugged it off and asked for payment, which Pickle gave.

The generosity to pay was all a little odd and out of character. Pickle had been a con woman and pickpocket before Jewel had met her. Whenever she could, if she could get away with Jewel paying for something, she was quite happy to. Jewel was right to think something odd was going on with her. It usually meant trouble was on the horizon.

“Come along, darling,” Pickle said to Jewel in an act which was no doubt for the benefit of the nearby clientele, taking her mug of coffee with her.

Jewel felt herself scream internally. They were absolutely not a couple. At least not by choice.

An accident with an Elviarii magic stone had bound them together. They were now inseparable, literally. If any of them attempted to get more than a hundred yards from the other, they’d slip into a catatonic state, sleepwalking back. Elves considered this a form of marriage. But then, the Elviarii had an overdeveloped sense of tragedy, perhaps for this very reason.

Pickle, in one of her many tall tales, had told everyone they were a married couple. It had caused a lot of bemusement at first, with people no doubt wondering quite how a relationship like that would work. But it had helped to explain why they lived together and were always in each other’s company. Jewel knew it made sense to go along with it, but she was well aware that the halfling thief took a sadistic delight in acting the part in public, sometimes laughing off the glare Jewel would give her as ‘Orcs don’t believe in public displays of affection’.

Finding a table, Pickle dropped a series of sugar cubes into her drink, giving it a stir. She then took another lump from the bowl and threw it into her mouth, joyfully crunching it as she did so.

“Oh, my gods, this is so good! I love sugar. I’m tempted to take some, but you know my rule about shitting in your backyard. Wouldn’t want to get barred from here,” she rattled on. “Hey, why aren’t you having a coffee? Have you gone off it?”

Jewel squirmed, “I mean, it’s lovely in the morning. But we already had three today.”

“Three! You’re such an amateur,” the halfling grinned. Jewel suspected she was internally creating a heroic internal narrative about the number of coffees she could consume in a day.

Jewel lowered her voice, knowing in a room full of caffeine addicts what she was about to say would be contentious, “When we’ve had it in an evening, haven’t you found yourself having trouble getting to sleep?”

“I mean, I’ve heard how you get yourself to sleep some nights…”

Jewel gave a grunt and flared her swinish nostrils for her companion not to go any further.

“To say nothing of the tummy troubles I’d had,” Jewel whispered. There had definitely been the occasional race to the chamber pot.

“I’ve heard a good cleanse is healthy.”

“From Doctor Quack over there?” Jewel said, indicating the probable source.

The man in a black suit and weathers top hat called himself a doctor but mainly seemed to be a salesman of cure-all tonics. He could be a bit of an all-knowing bore, especially on the healing value of either caffeine or his tonics. The coffee shop often had people delivering a lecture or sermon which could often descend into debate, and Jewel wasn’t always sure that the most authoritative voice was the most learned.

It was unnerving how heated some discussions could become. Punches had actually been thrown last month over which root vegetable – turnip or potato – had the most agricultural impact.

“Well, I think you’re being silly. You can’t have too much of a good thing,” Pickle retorted, somewhat put out, before getting excited again.

The little halfling was like that. Jewel could literally see one thought drive out another in an instant.

“Anyway, it’s a special night tonight. It’s why I wanted to come out. Back at home, in The Valleys, it’s Winter’s Veil. And I’ve got you a present.”

She was all bubbly excitement. You would think she was getting a gift. Pickle reached into her jacket to pull out an item wrapped in brown paper.

Jewel was curious, “Winter’s Veil? You mean the winter solstice? I thought that’s next week?”

Pickle laughed, “Yeah, for the big people. Do you know how much that drives up prices everywhere? We always celebrate a week early and are into our new year’s resolutions while you dummies get price gauged.”

“Well, I don’t have anything for you.”

“It’s okay, I’m a grownup. I mean, if I see something I like, I just get it for myself, anyway. I’m my own best present buyer.”

“If you see anything you like, you take it, is more right,” Jewel thought to herself. Part of it was a thief thing, but it seemed to be driven a lot by impulse as well. It was hard to accept that Pickle was over a decade older than her, but her maturity wasn’t on show much.

Jewel took the offered gift and cautiously turned it over in her hands. She’d spent the last Winter’s Veil blissfully unaware of the tumultuous upheavals that would await her in the year ahead. Her head filled with thoughts of her own family, a far away demolished home, and a much missed mother.

“Do you ever miss your home, The Valleys?” Jewel asked.

“Whenever I feel nostalgic for my dad, I just punch myself in the face. Helps me feel like I’m right back home,” Pickle said acidly. “What about you? I didn’t think Orcs celebrated things like that.”

“Traditionally, no. We celebrate the spring more and the fertility of the Mother of Orcs. But you know my dad. He was an Orc married to a human living in a human village, he wanted to blend in. And I think he liked the opportunity to make a fuss of me.”

“Yeah, he’s a good sort. Better dad than I ever had. I’d like to send him around to sort mine out one day.”

“My dad wouldn’t be like that.”

“I know. But I still like to think about it,” Pickle said with a malicious grin. “Winter’s Veil for me was fucked up. We got presents in the morning and would get all excited. Then we’d have the big meal, and dad would start to drink, and suddenly it wasn’t fun anymore. We knew what was coming… One year my brother tried…”

She suddenly went silent before deciding she didn’t want to continue, switching the conversation to ask Jewel about her own Winter’s Veil instead.

“Best gift I ever got was a bronze ring from dad when I was eleven. Most of his gifts were metalwork. It goes with being a blacksmith’s daughter. This one was made of multiple strands which weaved around. It was incredible.”

“I’ve never seen you with it. Did you lose it?”

“No, sadly, I outgrew it and gave it to a boy.”

“Mark?”

“Myles!”

“Ah, yes, the name I hear you moan when you can’t get to sleep. Are you going to open your present?”

Feeling a little apprehensive, Jewel carefully started to unfold the wrapping, which seemed to perplex Pickle, who encouraged her to just tear it open. She wasn’t planning to reuse the paper.

Inside was a knife, and not wanting to be uncharitable, not a particularly good knife, either. The blade was a tarnished with what she hoped was rust spots, and the wooden handle battered and worn.

“I really don’t know what so say,” Jewel said truthfully.

“I know, it’s great, isn’t it?” Pickle said, producing her own. “You’re always borrowing mine, and now you have your own.”

Most people carried their own knives with you. Anywhere which served food expected you to have the utensils you needed.

Jewel had tried to explain to Pickle that what was acceptable for humans didn’t really carry over for Orcs. What was considered just a dining implement for the other races was taken to be a deadly weapon by The Watch when in the hands of one of her kin.

The irony was that they often stopped Jewel in the street to do a pad down when she was in civilian clothes, something which had never happened when she was in her soldier garb when she was doing a security job for Willie. Because then she was clearly armed and armoured, and The Watch were a pack of cowardly hyenas around anyone who could actually resist them.

Turning the knife over, Jewel could see a crude inscription which had been scratched onto the handle. Being an Orc, the village she’d grown up in had refused to allow Jewel into school, so she was relatively illiterate. She could only recognise her own name, that of the village she was born in, and a handful of similarly familiar words.

This one wasn’t familiar. It began with a P, but it wasn’t Pickle’s name. She stared at it, trying to recognise some of the letters.

“Where did you get this?” Jewel finally asked, a little frustrated.

“It’s a present,” Pickle scoffed.” You don’t ask people who’ve given you a present where they got it from. You’ll want a receipt next.”

“Is there one?”

Pickle looked a little shocked that she’d even asked, “No… I just… found it.”

“Where?”

“Remember that time you kicked the arse of those braggarts who tried to rob us in the park?”

“I thought I returned their weapons to them?”

“Oh, you did. But I didn’t really want Phillips following us with a blade in his hand. And picked his pocket. No harm done. And besides, I’d rather you had it.”

Jewel’s father would probably remind her that it was the thought that counts. Although with Pickle, Jewel wasn’t sure she ever really did stop to think at all.

But their conversation was interrupted the timely arrival of their meals. Their buxom server flashed Pickle an unusually warm smile before placing a pewter plate before each of them. This caused the halfling to become joyously excitable again as she leaned in and inhaled the aroma of roast meat and root vegetables.

“I think it’s lamb,” she explained, holding the meat and cutting a strip with her own knife before tossing it into her mouth. “Oh, my gods, it is! It’s good. The one thing I miss about the Hhlarin Valleys is the lamb. Best lamb in the world.”

Jewel herself was famished, and using her gifted knife, sliced off a piece of her own lamb. It was indeed delicious – meaty yet sweet with a hint of rosemary.

“See, now I don’t have to cut your meal up for you anymore. You really have the best friends!” proclaimed Pickle as she continued to demolish her food,

Calling themselves friends was a push, Jewel thought. As an only child, she had often wondered what it would have been like having a sister, but suspected she now knew. If it was anything like life with Pickle, it was being well and truly stuck with someone who grated on you a lot. They were frequently unbearable. But you found a way to make it work. They made life more interesting, as a more charitable way of saying they made it challenging. But despite it all, you couldn’t bear the thought of any harm ever happening to them.

She smiled at her companion, “Happy Winter’s Veil, Pickle.”