Twenty

"Sorry, I really have to check..."
Gee, and she had thought students were bad about parties. At least the people she'd known back home would go to bed (someone's bed, anyway) whent he next day started. Usually.

She negotiated her way throught he house, and found a way to the attic. She left her pack and staff there, and climbed up on the roof through a big hole, shifting her weight carefully to see if the roof could bear her weight.

Baskerville's red eyes fixed blearily upon the rodent for a long few seconds. "'Ss a bunny!" he said at last. He tried to find his feet, but seemed unsure of what configuration they were meant to be in. Finally he lifted a leg and tried to scratch himself in the neck. He did succeed in kicking his own face with a boot.

"Whoopss." He looked around in what he may have considered to be a stealthy fashion, met Agueda's eyes and then giggled.

"Good morning," the bonbonly mage said, ever pleasant. "And well climbed. This is Jaina Jade, by the way, and they call me Suitov."

(Well, among other names not repeatable in mixed company.)

"Good morning", she said, raising one hand to give the dragon flying toward her a place to land. "My name's Sylvie Katamara, and this is Ayu-Asra, and if you bite my ear you will get no food from me." The dragon shrank back from her snarl and had to flap his wings to hold balance on her shoulder.
"Excuse me," she adressed the pair again with a friendly smile, "he's a bit... single-minded. Well, they both agree that food is the most interesting topic in the world. I hope he hasn't been bugging you too much?"
The dragon watched her fingers as they picked something he knew to be edible out of a belt pouch.

Jaina laughed. "Other giving me starts, he's been fine," she told Sylvie. "Have a sit while you tell us what brings you out here."

The redhead wasn't doing a very good job of acting uncurious. Dragons already interested her, but two-headed dragons totally piqued her interest.

Jaina's belly rumbled and she blushed bright red. "Um. Food does sound good. Suitov, anything in your stores for breakfast?"

"I think we'll have to call out for something," Suitov replied. "There might be time before the - never mind, the builders are here. Excuse me a minute."

Obviously somewhat reluctant to leave Jaina (or was it the fascinating dragon?), he slipped off the roof and made it just too late to stop them backing their wagon over a deceptively innocuous-looking pothole, but in time to cover it with a quick bit of magic-working.

Weft was already there, talking to the forewoman in their native language. Suitov, typically, had not told him he was hiring builders from Weft's home city.

Sylvie, unsure if they would really stay up here, stayed upright, while Ayu-Asra settled on the roof. For ripping apart a defenseless dried fig he preferred - and needed - more room than Sylvie's shoulder could provide.

"Ah, curiosity, mainly. Trying to find out if that gating spell actually works, and if there are places to go... My destination was to be a place called Everwhere. This" - she indicated the ramshackle building with a sweeping motion - "isn't it, is it?" She tried not to sound disappointed, but did not quite succeed.

She watched Suitov curiously as he left. It seemed odd to her that he had hired builders if he could fix things himself that easily.

"Squeak?"

"...you was called a bunny."

Sandwich remained quiet, aside from a few assorted choking sounds.

"Yeah, that's what I think too!" Pierce said, sniffing the air. "Did someone... say brekkie?" he said hopefully, shuffling along the sides of the room, hands searching for anything that wasn't tied down.

He found nothing really valuable, to be honest.

Jaina's colour remained high. "I don't know," she answered Sylvie. "I was distracted. Didn't think to ask, I guess." Her green eyes flickered in the direction her distraction had gone.

The redhead got to her feet, dusted off her jeans, and began to make her way down from the picturesque roof. "Suitov will know if anyone will. Besides which, food isn't going to come to us, so we should go to it." Food. Suuure.

"Liquid breakfasst?" asked Baskerville...

...who had previously tried to get up, tripped over his own elbows, narrowly missed squashing Agueda on the way back down and was now lying on his back with his legs in the air. Every now and then one would kick slightly. "Isn't he a bunny? I was sure ssomeone is one," he wondered.

Weft prowled around checking the trucks for anything suspicious. Or more suspicious than he was.

The manners of Weft's folk were such that Suitov had to pass hands with the forewoman and exchange entire punnets full of niceties and work details before she let on her disapproval. "You didn't tell me you were working with the monks."

"I'm deeply sorry for neglecting to," Suitov told her, "although I'm not working with them, exactly; this one shows up and disappears fairly frequently around me, presumably for reasons of his order's devising."

"I see." Weft being out of earshot, she broke protocol severely and added "I shall warn you; being marked by them is an even worse auspice than having business dealings."

"I see you are uncomfortable. If you wish me to, I will release you from your contract with no dishonour."

"We will fulfil it."

Suitov nodded politely. A small order-unapproved firm (he'd done his research) was never in a position to turn down work. And an uninformed person-in-the-street's grievances tended to be a solid starting point in getting to know your enemy from the ground up.

Suitov, you'll have surmised, has trouble separating work from relaxation.

Agueda took another gulp from the bottle in her hand. She'd lost track of exactly what she was drinking a while back. Drinks just seemed to keep on being handed to her, so she kept on drinking them. It was only polite.

"I was a bunny girl once... That's not quite the same is it?" she asked.

"That," said Baskerville, "that, that, I'd like to ssee, Cottontail."

"Well, that's not a bunny" she continued. "Doesn't look like the ones I looked after as head bunny girl at, ummm, school."

She couldn't quite work out what the two... no, four little fluffy things were but she leaned towards them and said "hello" anyway.

"Foooood?" the dragon begged again.
"Why don't you go and catch some mice, you lazy lizard?"
Ayu-Asra tilted his heads and squeaked.
"Yes, mice."
The dragon shook vigorously, and flew up on Sylvie's shoulder.
"Lazy, I said."
She picked the way back carefully. Sylvie wondered what would be worse, having come somewhere she never heard of, or that this ruin could be the inn she was looking for. Either way, she would need time to study and figure out how to leave. But that came after food and shelter, so she needed work.

She felt a bit stupid lugging around her backpack - especially hearing how some of the floorboards creaked under her weight - but she had a bit of healthy distrust left.

Just as she came back to the main room, the drunk woman talked to a rat. Without thinking Sylvie stopped in her tracks, curious if it would answer.

"Err... hello..." There was an indignant look on Pierce's face. Head bunny girl...? "Don't think that counts," Pierce whimpered, getting a sympathetic pat on the ear from Sandwich.

Where was the food? And why were these people so drunk?

And why was the inn in such a condition, and why was it so hard to read the compass and why was Sandwich biting him in the ear and why --

Wait a minute?

"Sandwich!" Pierce squeaked, "that is NOT brekkie!"

"Ssanwichies is good brekkie," Baskerville said. "Not z gooder than cold pizza, but perfectly asseptable."

He hiccupped and turned back into a large black dog.

"Oopss, how'd I do that?" he said.

"Have you ever tried biting him back? It worked with him", said Sylvie, pointing at her dragon.

"Yeah," Pierce said, rubbing the little wound on his ear. "But he tastes like a rotten teabag."

Sandwich protested by biting him again.

Ayu-Asra hissed in protest as Sylvie sweeped him off his shoulder to put down her backpack. While she dug an old piece of bread out, he looked for a suitable perch.

The bread was dark, and as she tapped it on the ground it made a rather solid sound. She handed it to the boy. "Here, I can't eat that, but I think it's fine for sharpening rodent teeth."

It turned out Baskerville was right about it being easier to get out of here when drunk, for suddenly, Agueda was - poof - gone. There sat a squamus presence in her place.

"Puh!"

Something in his tiny canine brain was telling Baskerville all was not right.

"Yerr, err, you aren't as ssmexy as Aggie, are yer?" he asked the wibbly thing that had turned up next to him. Or it might have been directed at someone else. The dog's eyes were having trouble agreeing where to focus.

"You don't feel like fetching breakfast, do you?" Suitov asked Weft, once the builders were busy taking measurements and other things builders do.

Weft glared at Suitov on general principle.

"As you like. Do you want anything?"

The monk hmmphed. Suitov knew he was not likely to win a game of guess-why-kitty-dearest-is-in-a-bad-mood-today, so he removed his attention entirely, picked up a palantí- uh, a seer's mirror, and phoned out for whatever dark lords eat for breakfast. Probably brioches and grapefruit juice and things.

Inside, one of the builders made flappy shooing hand motions at the occupants. "You people could leave now, kindly, please. We are going to make the walls, very not safe, soon."

Weft had disappeared somewhere yet again by the time Baskerville staggered outside to bark hungoverly at the delivery rider. Her palomino gave him a blasé glance.