Ji Yoon couldn't help but smile, in spite of the overall tone of the conversation. Though her privacy had been invaded, Raluca brought it up in a way that put her at ease - and it wasn't like Ji Yoon hadn't laid the bait. "Indeed," she replied. There was no reason to lie to Raluca when she already had the lay of the land. "Personal acquaintances. Previously professional."

The price Raluca named was high, but Ji Yoon had been warned it would be. Half of what was in her father's purse would still leave her with a sizeable amount of money, but it seemed like a great deal to spend on only a portion of the investigation. If the documents were found to be forgeries, that would be one thing, and the investigation would end there. But if not... well, there was no telling what lengths she'd need to go to. Ji Yoon had access to more funds once these ran out, but this was her father's coin, and she wanted to spend it responsibly.

All things considered, there was always more money in her father's accounts in Dhemlan, and she needed to get this underway.

"Agreed," she said finally, nodding. "A quarter now, which you can keep even if you can't get the documents. The rest on delivery. And a boon."

That worried her a little in how open-ended it was. Ji Yoon only planned to be in Dena Nehele for sure for the next three years, and while it was likely Raluca would ask for healing, she could just as easily ask for sabotage. But her own honor was worthless compared to the importance of securing Yua's freedom.

Ji Yoon tugged the coin purse open and called a few golden marks to hand.

"I'm not trying to cause trouble for Riley or the guilds," she said. "I'm trying to avoid it."

"By all means." He said to the request to tend to the oasis. "As I said. Man hands." He smiled. He grew a bit more cautious though as she spoke of her dealings with a Black Widow. Not due to the caste but that a subtle worry was proven true. The Chalice was cracked and learning it helped understand a bit more of what she was suffering from.

He nodded at her request to ask for more than what had already been done and thought on it for a moment. "For a cracked Chalice?" He pursed his lips. "To help with the dreams, unfortunately I cannot do. As far as meditation however, that I can help with I think." He spoke as he walked. "Take a moment alone, get comfortable and close your eyes. Think of it like...turning your internal noisebox down to zero for a bit. Don't focus on anything, don't ponder over something. Not even about yourself. Just relax, breathe and be in the moment."

"There is a method that helps when people are new or having difficulty with meditation." When they stepped out onto the oasis he looked around and seeing an oblong rock sticking out at the edge of the lake he pointed to it. "See that rock there? At some point while your gardening sit in the shade, relax and focus on that rock there. The only that exists is you and that rock. When your mind starts racing like it's bored and has something to do? Focus on the rock. Your mind will quiet. See if that helps. When you leave you can simply substitute any marker to focus on or feel free to imagine the rock if there isn't." He hoped the advice would work.

"As for myself I have no real duties as of the moment so I am free as a bird. The only real thing I had planned for today was tending the oasis."

Jeremiah said nothing, for all that his eyes brightened and looked sharper. It was there, in that instance, as the Healer spoke of Garen L'Voide and what he had said. Not about himself, he could care less, but about Lisichya. That he had called him pretty, that he had- The implications there, the way the world pressed outward as if to repel him but then inward and settled ... He wanted to growl but instead swallowed it.

Somewhere, further out in the endless ocean Abyss, something glinted from above but it could not reach this place. There was no argument, nothing that could be said. Males were dangerous, guidance was often needed, and he knew more than any other that his Queen calmed him as much as her own fury fueled his.

Once it was clear he was not going to step forward, that he was not going to intrude, he watched as Lisichya settled. Here there was no urge to remove his jacket and set it upon those hunched shoulders. It was a different urge that he felt but it was kept in check all the same. "Then I'll do just that," said Jeremiah, moving to find place to sit upon something comfortable and keep his focus upon the waters.

Lyoshka would be spared the queer blue-green eyed gaze. It took him a moment to settle, the place he found to sit a touch too small for him (just as the doorway had been). His fingers smoothed along his thighs a moment before they curled around his knees as he got comfortable.

"Off is likely one of the nicest ways to put it," he said, simply talking. "The other thing they called me, before my Queen named me her Shadow was her Frigid Prince. Most believe it to be demeanor but another of her males ..." A huff of breath escaped. "He realized that while we have shared a bed, I have not bedded Riley." So help him if he had to say fuck again today ...

"L'Voide was also not incorrect about my going savage. I was-" Jeremiah faltered a moment, paused and breathed and pushed aside the momentary sting. "This place of yours? It is not unlike something that was done to me but this is to help you not trap you. A Black Widow trapped me, my Self, and left something else behind that was bound by compulsions and her Webs. Foolishly I tried to break the web myself but I lacked the skill and only tightened the noose. I went savage because I was fracturing." Dying. Slowly bleeding out. What latent talent the Mercers had against webs had meant nothing in the place of someone who had put backdoors and holes within his mind.

"The Master of the Guard just happened to be the one that triggered the final spiral, pushing me to the Killing Edge." Jeremiah's voice softened then, his attention upon the water and not at all looking at Lisichya. There were things in the water and if he focused they could be seen. "He was my brother, we trained under the same man, and I nearly killed him." The raw emotion could not be hidden for all that he would have preferred it. "If not for his Queen, I likely would have." He still, when true dreams found him and not the Abyss, dreamt of his hands around Sebastian's throat. Except Nova did not come, no one did until it was too late, and then he would wake up with a scream caught in his throat that could never be released.

"Ultimately it was resolved but it is one of many reasons why I am training to become a Black Widow." His fingers twitched, a need there to work thread between them but ignored. "The training takes up a portion of my day, when I study and go over the things I need to know in-between the times that I have instruction." Wasn't he doing exactly what Arkadie had said? Simply talking? It was not providing a willing ear but Lisichya had not asked for that. He asked for Jeremiah to speak. "That is assuming that I do not find myself with wards to look after or something to handle for my Queen or the Court itself."

"Bidea, that's..." Artemisia frowned. She'd spent so long in one place that she had trouble grasping the distance between places. She'd had to trek nearly a whole day from her village to a larger town to reach a landing web when she left for Sevastopol. "That's far, right?" She'd have to make a whole thing out of it if she wanted to visit, at least by Landen means. The winds were faster, but... the winds were expensive, and everything Artie earned went right back to her aunt as thanks for feeding her and taking her in.

The main thing holding her back was money, but she didn't want to say so. She knew that if she did, Raluca would find some way to take her there, but... That just seemed needy. But she'd get there on her own one day, even if it took a lot of scrimping and saving.

"I mean," she added, brightening determinedly, "I would love to see a show. In a real theater." As opposed to the little skits Raluca and her companions used to stage in her parents' kitchen, which was definitely a fake theater.

They arrived at the riverside promenade, and Artie scanned the grass for a good place to set up their picnic blanket. "Over there," she said, pointing to a spot of grass by the water.

As they got settled, she gave more consideration to Raluca's question about how she was doing. "I'm okay, really," she said, eying the basket. "Most of the time. I mean. I hardly knew Aunt Bogdana before this, but she's been so kind to me."

She paused, chewing her lips, and then added, "I do still really miss Mom and Dad sometimes."

She wrung her hands together, thinking of the thing she couldn't bring herself to mention. That when their killer had grabbed her, he'd felt... familiar, somehow. Like he was someone she'd always known, right down into her cells.

The tea came up clean by Ji Yoon's detection, and she left it dark and unsweet as she began to drink it. "Interesting tea," she said, trying to suggest to Raluca that she knew they might have a mutual acquaintance in an unlikely place.

She felt very much out of her depth by the revelation that someone besides Carson's Jacks had been keeping an eye on her. This sort of thing had never happened to her rural practice in Kaesong, and she'd worked directly under Yuki in Ito... where guilds were not a concern.

Everything had been so much more straightforward in Tacea.

"Thank you for your interest," she said, trying to downplay her surprise as best she could. Raluca seemed complimentary and not like she had any ill intentions, so she wasn't... hugely concerned. But that might change. She was well aware she was wading into dangerous waters by trying to undermine a member of Rilandra Vlas's first circle.

Ji Yoon nodded. "Yes, the very one," she confirmed. "I have reason to believe something in the chain of acquisition was not strictly lawful and would like to have a Prince whose eye I personally trust examine the documents."

She set the tea down and summoned her father's coin purse to hand. She'd opened it only once, to count the contents, and now she held it demonstratively in her palm. This was why Seung had given it to her, she knew. To fund the rest of his mission - now hers. "Yes," she said. "Those documents. For the sale to Lady Dion. Name your price."