Random 57

"Nah," Kaisre said leisurely, patting his pocket. "Just that... compound, you know, have to come over with a letter so they know it's business."

That all sounded rather stupid, Sebastian thought. "Which compound? Oh, do not even begin -- the Saba's. Who was it?"

For a moment it looked as though the thug finally remembered who had caused his injuries. "Umh. Some guardsman, complaining about some... dark-haired... snotty tyke?" At least it made him momentarily a bit more energetic.

Sebastian nodded, then made the same gesture as Sylvie, looking at the door. This was not a time to get discovered. So, as he knelt down to offer the man some more tea, he also grabbed the note from Kaisre's pocket. He'd checked where it was, before, but certain... evidence had to be shown to Sylvie, too. "You should be fine," the half-elf said to the poor bastard.

He didn't say, to Sylvie, that he had replaced the letter with a roll of coins. Perhaps he was getting a bit soft, these days.

"And you should be in bed," Sylvie said, rather wishing she were in hers. After a short pause to nudge her tone away from exasperated and towards sympathetic, she added, "Do you have a home?"

Kaisre stared at her with half-closed eyes, then looked at the floor. "Not really. Not since I lost... ah, no. Poorhouse." Pause. "So you're not gonna kill me?" he said, looking at Sebastian-Kai fearfully. The half-elf was only sipping tea and eyeing the letter, though. Still, the man chuckled.

"I dragged you here to get medical assistance and then expect that we'd kill you, after all she did?"

Kaisre looked blank.

"Where's the nearest poorhouse?" he asked, more from Sylvie than Kaisre.

He got another blank look in return first, until Sylvie remembered enough of the city layout. "There's one..." she pointed, "past the side of the house, first straight street to the right, and down that a ways."

Sebastian nodded and looked at Kaisre, then took him by the arm. "You and I, let us go. I promise you I will not hurt you, but your employer -- that is a different matter." He glanced at Sylvie, offering the letter before continuing. "It was nothing personal, as you said."

Kaisre twitched sleepily, but soon enough the man -- bigger than Sebastian --, was being led toward the doorway. The half-elf looked over his shoulder morosely, flashed a short smile and kept on going, then.

Sylvie took the letter and said, "And then you come back here." It was most definitely not a question. She wanted to make sure they had their stories straight.

Even with the sparse lighting she could tell that they had dragged in a lot of mud, probably more than one person paying a surprise visit would explain. With a sigh she deposited the letter on the table, and got a mop.

"Look, really, it was nothing personal," said Kaisre, as he was being led along the way Sylvie had related to Sebastian-Kai. "It's just that I lost..." Sebastian listened absent-mindedly about a story about a wife and children, a burnt-down farm, and focused on keeping his face straight and sympathetic. Inwardly, he was feeling only even angrier at the Sabas.

Nonetheless, he did escort the poor bastard to the poorhouse, went through his pockets and gave the man some more currency. "I believe you," the renegade strand of luck said and walked away after knocking on the door.

It took a while to get over all that pent-up rage and frustration again. And the shame; sure, he could have run away from the four men, but his temper had taken over. The end result? He felt about as sick and dirty as he saw the Sabas to be. Kai both shielded and rubbed his eyes at the same time as he went back toward Old Ivy, depressed... and fuming, deep down.

Someone was going to pay. This time, Sebastian was fairly certain, it was with that someone's dear life. That or beating the man into pulp, as much as his wrist allowed him to do so.

Soon enough, he knocked on the door again, wondering why all the people he fell in love with were sooner or later torn away from him, possibly leaving behind bitter children who he didn't know how to deal with.

Sylvie opened the door before the second knock fell, eyes glowing like a cat's, right hand ready to deflect something, though she relaxed a little when she recognised Sebastian. She reached for his hand to pull him inside. She was certain there was no-one standing behind him since right after finally dropping the sound-dampening spell she had replaced it with a less draining one that would alert her of any animal or person approaching.

Keeping her voice low, she said, "Seems to me like the best thing to tell Gemma is that you came here injured after being attacked. It would explain where the medicine went, as well as other traces." She looked down at his boots for an instant, before looking into his eyes again. "If we're not going to tell the truth."

Her eyes were slightly narrowed, and she stood tall, feet apart and back straight. Tense all over, but holding Sebastian's hand gently.

All in all, Sebastian had rarely been as surprised as when he was yanked inside, and that the touch persisted. For a while the half-elf, lambent eyes staring and reflecting light, was quiet. Obviously. "I doubt they'd believe me," he said in soft tones. There was an urge to touch more than her hand. Nevertheless, the half-elf was tired and feeling, once again, down on his luck. "Lie or truth? You decide. I'm mentally exhausted." A squeeze of the hand.

Not just mentally, Sylvie was quite sure. "Lie, then. Because that's a good excuse for you to here overnight, saves you one walk. Gemma would skin me if I dosed someone and sent them back on the street in the middle of the night alone." With one decision made, she relaxed a little more. "I'm sorry. Do you need anything, besides rest?"

That was a question that, for the first time in quite a while, got Kai to stare at someone in a very startled manner.

Sylvie tilted her head and stretched a little. The wound that had bled enthusiastically when he had first arrived was scabbing over, and she had never heard of delayed-onset concussion.

She finally stopped blocking his way and moved beside him and slipped an arm around his back to steer him towards a seat. "I mostly meant if you'd been injured, besides that one. You didn't say, and that ah, other patient you brought in was quite distracting." There was a bit of an ironic edge on her last words.

"I don't think so. My wrist is a bit sore, but that's only due to a far too firm slap," Kai began -- and then continued to babble, "see, the thing is, you should never punch someone. You're likely to break your knuckles and wrist, and slapping someone on the side of the head usually makes the brain slosh inside the skull, but you can hurt yourself doing that, too. And headbutts... well, the forehead is... uh... I'm... just going to shut up, right?"

It wasn't just the sudden trigger of stress being alleviated, it was also the fact that he was being touched. That and the fact that he figured she was smarter than he was.

She patted his shoulder and tried to say something reassuring. "If I don't use tricks I try hitting them with a stick. Or an elbow."

"Oh, that's how he ended up with that collarbone. Elbow. Velocity," Kai said before he could stop himself. "Ah. Apologies. Tea... more tea would be nice?"

"No problem."

Sylvie had left the teapot to keep it warm. When she leaned over to get it, Ayu-Asra, curled up on one round cover plate, merely opened an eye and made a little tinkling noise. He was warm and happy. The tea was a tad stale by now, but being herbal it was at least not oversteeped and bitter. She poured a cup for Sebastian. There was another cup on the table; the third she had cleaned and put away.

With a nod at the envelope on the table, she asked, "Do you want to have a look at that letter, or save that for tomorrow?"

He smiled his thanks as he took the cup, having taken off his gloves. The cold, aching scars felt better the moment they touched the warmish cup. "Tomorrow. I'm... I'm too tired. If I read it now, I'll get even more incensed and probably would hobble off to do something genuinely stupid in... well, not a good condition," Kai admitted, looking at her thoughtfully after a sip. "Sofa?"

"Haven't seen one in this house. There's a bed in my room."

Though he might have stopped to sputter, he still drank somewhat normally from his cup. The only hint that he was a little startled was the sudden set of three blinks. Then Kai set the cup on the table and tilted his head. Then he closed his eyes. "You're far too practical, do you know?"

"Sounds impossible, being too practical." After a moment she sighed and added, "There's also my bedroll and enough room on the floor to spread it, if you'd prefer that."