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“I think I’m going to retire.”
As predicted, Ylin’s head shoots up from where she’s sitting across the fire. Lutari watches the wrinkles on her old rival’s face as she gives her a withering look. Casually, she examines her own scarred fingers.
“You? Retire?” Ylin’s skepticism is palpable. “I thought you wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. Or more likely, doing something spectacularly stupid.”
“Alas! My body isn’t what it used to be." Lutari spreads her arms, theatrical. "At this rate, my joints are more likely to do me in. Can’t an old warrior spend the last of her years in peace?”
Ylin scoffs, blowing a strand of greying hair aside, and keeps stirring the stewpot. “Disturbing the peace, more like.”
“Oh, definitely. Seeing as you won’t be there to stop me.” Ylin is silent, but Lutari knows better than to get complacent. She watches the fire and waits for the argument to come.
“I’ll come with you, then.”
Lutari’s brain grinds to a halt. “What?”
“I said, I’ll come with you.” Ylin meets her bewildered gaze and smirks. “Who else is going to make sure you don’t buckle under the weight of your own ego?” She levels the wooden spoon at her. “If you go, I go. I swear to all the stars, Lutari, if you settle down, I am going to move into the cottage across from yours and we are going to come out every day and argue insufferably, to our neighbors’ chagrin and/or entertainment. That’s just how it’s going to be.”
For a moment, Lutari just blinks at her. Maybe she hated Ylin once, for her lofty manner and her bossiness and her disdain for uncouth jokes. But after decades adventuring together, the bickering’s an easy comfort. She struggles to imagine her life without it.
“Alright.” She grins. “But you should know I’ll never retire from the time-honored craft of making your life difficult.”
Relief flits across Ylin’s face before she looks away, suppressing a smile. “Wouldn’t ask you to.”
And if, for once, Lutari lets the sincerity go without remark, neither of them pays it any mind.