Four

And I was about to say... he thought when Sylvie caught on to the ambiguity of her words. It merited a grin, that was for certain, and Sebastian wasn't stopping that instinctive reaction. "Seems so, then, and that's good. Awkwardness would have been..." Pause. "More like the past few times," he conceded wryly.

He moved his feet into a patch of warmer sand and took a deep breath. It felt about as warm as the reception, which was also a plus - it was quite out of the ordinary. A part of him wondered if he was suspecting the right Lady this time.

That got another chuckle. "Exactly."

Sylvie fished for her water bottle and drank, considering things Sebastian had mentioned about himself - well, probably himself - the second time they'd met.

Questions occurred, but 'Are you more used to surprisingly meeting unfriendly faces?' and 'What do you do when you're not doing nothing?'... well.

She stretched and settled again comfortably, and would have been at peace with the world, if not for curiosity.

"Would you mind me asking whom you're planning to meet?"

"A priest," Sebastian said automatically and paused just as he inhaled more air. His lips were parted, and for a moment it looked as if he was wondering about something... "I have a message to pass on. I'm not sure if it's important or not." I'm beginning to think so, though.

"Failing that, nobody. I really don't have any plans, and I doubt the priests would have anything for me to do." That's right. They'd be too busy gawking.

Didn't he say before he had nothing to do, and now he's someone's messenger? The thought was quickly surplanted by a more important one, and Sylvie frowned.

"If it could be important, shouldn't we - or you - hurry?"

He opened his mouth to say something but again just shrugged a little. Then he smiled ruefully. "It's just... something I need to tell a priest. Or a few. I don't know yet: it depends on the church and if they have one," he said and studied Sylvie. "It's a message from me. Nothing more. I'm not sure if that's worth hurrying for."

Sylvie considered for a moment what to answer, and with a chuckle and a sigh decided the best would be saying exactly what she was thinking.

"I rather wouldn't, but I don't want to cause you trouble."

"It's no trouble," he smiled, got up and took a sip of water as he walked into the water. Not far, only until it was up to his ankles were . "When are you leaving is a much better question, I think." He would have been damned if he was going to stop enjoying the world of green - if he hadn't bumped into Sylvie, that is.

He turned a quizzical look at her, twitching a half-smile to further accentuate what he had just said.

"I was... hm." She looked blank for a moment before ending decidedly, "tomorrow morning." That had been the idea, yes.

Smiling, she explained, "Today's just too nice not to turn it into a break."

Beautiful. He agreed whole-heartedly as he narrowed his eyes and smiled up at the sky. There was a bit of wind ruffling the foliage: it was enough of a hint to remind him of the cyclical nature of weather. "I think so too," Sebastian replied and felt his stubble with his hand. That would have to go the tomorrow morning, then.

It struck him, though, that spending a day here meant a lot of questions being asked, as well as answers being given. He carefully thought about Sylvie's outward behaviour. Sebastian wasn't sure what to make of it - she was very polite, warm and still seemed to have a curious way of looking at the world. He couldn't put a finger on it. There were some questions he wasn't sure that he would answer directly, and most of them had to do with the fear of being understood... and then being exposed to the entire world.

Sylvie didn't seem like a lady that would do such a thing, though. Sebastian turned his head slightly, appearing to size up the sand running along the bank. The thought that something like that could be in the plans of a certain fickle divinity caused him severe distress. You worry too much, he told himself.

His footsteps brought him back to dry land. "So, tell a tourist, what's there to do here in Camp Sylvie?"

Did I just say that?

That baffled Sylvie, mostly because she understood "camp" only in a military sense. Rather than gawping,she made an answer of the first thing that came to mind.

"You could sweep the river bank." She picked up a handful of sand and let it trickle through her fingers. "It's terribly dusty."

For Sebastian, "camp" meant quite a few things. But what Sylvie said seemed to be the right answer. It had him squinting and smiling amusedly. "Ah," he said and seemed to think for a while. He tugged at a strand of hair. "I only have a mop," he continued a little disappointedly.

"Aw. Well, at least it's a pretty mop." After a minuscle pause, Sylvie changed gears, now smiling instead of grinning, "I think I might remember the rules of one or two simple strategy games, if you're bored."

Don't take things so seriously. "Er. Thank you," he said and blinked at the shift in Sylvie's behaviour. It was so unexpected, he found himself smiling again.

"I'm not that bored, but it seems impolite to just laze away when there's company." His eyes twinkled. "But games are always fun." Especially strategy games. Luck in those games was considerably less useful than pure skill - a fact that appealed to him very much. At least he would be losing or winning due to his own (in)competence.

Gathering enough small pebbles was no problem. Sylvie explained a sowing game with five pits per player, capturing when your turn ended in an empty pit on your side.

She hadn't played in years.

Sebastian was impressed. This was a game he hadn't played - he wasn't sure if he had even seen it before. He looked both mystified and curious as Sylvie explained the rules. "I think I've got it," the half-elf said, fascinated. He looked at the pebbles for a while and tried to think of every way there might be sudden... disturbances. Even outside the box.

He pulled his large messenger bag closer to himself and relaxed even more as he went through its contents. Some of the items it held were a book that looked to be about to fall apart, rope, a familiar looking medallion, a pipe and another flask. Sebastian wasn't interested in any of those and just kept digging. "Where do they play this game?" he finally asked and looked at the 'seeds'.

Sylvie watched him curiously.

"I'm not sure where this exactly comes from; the one who taught me sort of collected those games."

Sebastian's concentrated interest reminded her very much of her 'teacher'.

"He had rule variations from so many different places... Some or other variant is played on all the islands and most of a continent, at least."

And now here. It was an oddly uplifting thought.

"It's the first time I've come across it, certainly," he said and pulled from his messenger bag a much, much smaller bag that sat on his palm for a moment while he undid the string holding it shut.

He poured some of its contents - beads of coloured glass on his palm. They looked to be the kind of beads one would see in a cheap necklace. "I guess these would help?" Sebastian asked and left his messenger bag alone for the time being.

"They show up better against the sand." Sylvie cleared the pits of the pebbles, and wonderd briefly why he was carrying around those beads. It occurred to her that since he was wandering without a base, some more odds and ends than in her gear wouldn't be odd. She'd left a few back in Canyet herself.

Five pits per player, five beads per pit to start with...
"Have you ever been in a place with five moons?"

He replaced the pebbles with the beads and smiled in remembrance as he thought about the question. "No. Two at the most, I think. The thought of five moons... I don't know. Those moons must have benevolent patron deities if they still move peacefully," Sebastian replied, sounding the slightest bit joking, and looked up at her. "You mean you met the man who taught this to you in a world like that?"

He was curious now that it seemed they were past the awkwardness. Stating it had been relieving, but he still wondered if he thought too much about how he was behaving. It brought back an early, early memory of cutting someone out of a bush full of thorns... ah, ancient history. Curiosity, however: he remembered her features from their first two encounters, but he had never stopped to analyse her properly. Sylvie was just a nice, helpful person - much to his surprise, in fact. There was a lot more to her than that, and Sebastian had been watching the signs ever since bumping into her.

It was proving to be an interesting, not particularly easy thing to do.

"We were both born there, as far as I know." Sylvie grinned. The chatter had put her at ease, and noticing Sebastian relax helped, too.

She gestured at Sebastian and the game field for him to take the first move.

In a thoughtful tone she remarked, "As to patron dieties, if there are any, they never said. I'm not sure I understand the concept, really."