Eleven

"Mm, one more thing about towns that always draws me back," he said after a while. "The music. Often more or less the same songs are sung everywhere around a country or county, usually by the same travelling drunkard minstrel, but sometimes it happens that there's a certain song or minstrel that can only be seen in one certain town." He thought for a moment. "Maybe I should make a list of these things one day so I can say it all in one go..." he shook his head, blinked and looked at the river.

He supposed now was as good a time as ever. But maybe it wasn't, Sebastian thought and chewed on a root. The little bit he had told her earlier had been about as direct as he had allowed himself to be about it - any more clarity and it would have undermined that very same, delicate act he had been talking about. He shook his head a little, deciding that he just couldn't talk about these things.

But there were some things. Even those he had to consider. The half-elf reached out for the flask and took a sip. As he set the flask down again, he fished for his hat and lay it next to him.

"So, stories, gossip, things people tell and music? That sounds like you do a lot of listening."

"I do a lot of talking too. But a person has to be able to hear first if they want to be able to blather away." That and spreading - and complicating - rumours is always a blast. "If you think I've been chatty now, hah, you've yet to see how bad it can be."

That made her chuckle.

"It can't be bad... provided you let other people join in if they want to." She gave him an inquiring look.

"That depends entirely on if it's a debate or just polite conversation or the likes," he replied, meeting the look.

Sylvie looked confused.

"And in which would you not... Ah, do you mean someone from outside the conversation being added to it?"

He smiled. "I mean both talking over others present and disallowing others to join. It's hardly fair for anyone to suddenly be added into a debate, for example. When exchanging thoughts, views and engaging in normal polite conversation, the more the merrier - and I'll patiently wait for my own turn, too."

Sylvie knew she'd said "if they want to", but she did not want to continue splitting hairs over trifles, so she just smiled back and nodded slightly, and returned her attention to the food. She wondered if his style of speaking had really changed somewhat, or if she was just getting tired from doing nothing.

For some time, they couldn't find anything sensible to talk about.

Meanwhile Ayu-Asra made a decent attempt at out-roistering the local birds. Luckily he had moved into a nearby tree, thus not causing any ringing of ears. When he returned, some time after the meal was finished, he was very happy with his performance, and the day in general. He cricled the little "camp" and landed next to Sylvie's backpack, and started humming.

She gave him a glance and a frown, and then tried to ignore him, until he started worrying the closure of the pack. Sylvie sighed. All right. No reason to be funny about it. She got the square box and opened it for Ayu-Asra. The dragon crawled along her arm and patted the green glass orb inside, which started to hum. Sylvie set both on the ground and left them to their little choir.

Sebastian had parked himself nearer to the water and sat relatively still ever since the meal had been eaten, only occasionally moving to turn the pages of a tiny, dusty book he had taken from his messenger bag. In the book were drawings, words, things that had been glued to the pages. There were scarcely any explanations written in the margins for any of the things the book contained.

Then the dragon's antics breathed new life into him. He actually flinched a little when the humming began and turned around to watch. His reaction to the little choir, however, was to smile, put the book down and look at the choir for a while. The familiar melody sent chills down his spine: it orb alone had never done that, but with that strange scoundrel of a lizard the melody sounded more vibrant to his ears.

The half-elf sat still for a while as he watched the pair, after which he finally got to his feet and walked back to the satchel to put the book away. The sky was his next concern: sundown was in the near future, but he was contemplating the weather instead of that. He didn't know it, but his foot was tapping a rhythm for the humming.

Sylvie chuckled when she noticed that she was apparently the only one present with no particular interest in music.

When the dragon switched from humming to a soft, quite chaotic twittering, she remarked, "I think sometimes he tries to teach it birdsongs he picked up. Occasionally I believe it works, but I'm not sure."

She tilted her head slightly and asked, "Say, how did you get this orb?"

The twittering had earned a look and a smile from the half-elf. He wasn't surprised. The question, however, got him to look at Sylvie. Sebastian smiled a little, but took a while forming the words. How to say this?

"I found it in a half-crumbled tower, which itself was in the middle of a city that had just... died." Sebastian looked toward the orb and dragon, head tilted. "That was possibly a few hundred years ago. There were no bones, no signs of human life when I went through the tower.

"I guess it says something if the city's name used to be Allmer-on-Sea according to locals. They began to call it Allmer-off-Shore after something happened... they never told me what, but the city was mostly underwater."

He shrugged, indicating that was it.

"And may I ask why you were in that dead city?"

Sebastian hesitated visibly. "I was trying to find a couple of smugglers to tell me exactly who they worked for," he said quietly and sat down on the sand, tugging on his fingerless gloves as if they weren't fitting properly. "I knew they were holed up there somewhere. So I waited in the tower."

Sylvie shifted position, pulling one leg under and leaning forward. She watched Sebastian intently, and was very, very calm.

And why don't you want to talk about it? "What did you want their leader for?"

Sebastian narrowed his eyes a little at her reaction and placed his hands behind him on the sand. "Because I needed his help getting someone out of the country... I mean..." Sebastian sighed.

"I'm a man of my goddess. She felt like she wanted to drop a certain man off the ladder he had been climbing up, higher and higher in the society." He paused and raised an eyebrow at Sylvie. "Personally, I had a burning desire to, ah, place my boot in his face and see if that would make it any uglier, just on the off chance that it was possible. I later found myself in the position to perform this test, and of course as I had to be certain it would work, I did a few times altogether."

He twitched a little. That hadn't come out so well, had it? Sebastian shrugged again - this time the shrug was a gesture of indifference, and he continued talking. "But I needed someone's help to be able to do that. But he had a price. He wanted to get out of the country, but I certainly wasn't going to do that myself. So I turned to smugglers."

Sebastian smiled a little. It looked like an easy smile, on a face with features made for happy expressions. He had a slightly challenging gleam to his eyes, though - at the same time it was expectant.

Sylvie tensed a little as she listened. The possibility of something like this was why she had hesitated to bring up the topic earlier. Well, at least we're getting somewhere...

She turned her face away just for long enough to take a deep breath and gather her concentration, before meeting his eyes again.

"And what caused the desire to rearrange that gentleman's face?" A bit of sarcasm in the title, a bit more tense over all than in the last question.

"Because he was anything but a gentleman," he said a little bitterly and was quiet for a while, looking away. Careful, Sebas. "He was the sole and single reason the person whose help I sought wanted to get out of the country. Understand: people were suddenly going missing. Some select, certain people. Gone to visit faraway family. Eloped with some young lady from a pig farm. That manner of thing - although of course there would be no faraway family, no pig farm...

"And so. If people go missing and there's, hm, nobody to tell the tale, the law can do next to nothing. Maybe the law might sneeze when people wipe the dust off the lawbooks, but that's it. A single sneeze." He picked up a pebble and tossed it into the river. There were other things, too, which he would have wanted to mention. It was too bad they were too personal and painful.

"Of course there's always stories, but they only get whispered in the corners of certain establishments, in hushed tones. Not to any officials, of course. Well. That particular story needed an ending, too." A pause. "No more deaths, though. He was arrested on a cold winter morning, caught stealing red-handed like a common thief."

He picked another pebble, fascinated by how he would have loved to see that one last death, though. So very much.

The half-elf shook his head a little, forcing himself to look at Sylvie. "I certainly wasn't joking when I told you about those stories during the festivities," he said quietly, measured her expression for a second and then looked away hurriedly. The pebble whistled through the air and fell into the river.

"Sounds a bit more serious than 'fluff', though," she answered flatly. It certainly sent shivers down her spine.

Sylvie didn't get the impression he was lying, but considered the possibility. However, he wouldn't have had to tell her anything of that, so assuming only the justifications were made up didn't make sense. In the end she could not imagine a convincing reason why he would lie.

Odd where a bit of curiosity could lead to when after starting you couldn't let go of a loose thread.

She sighed and relaxed a little.

What could you say to all that? "That sounds to me like the best possible ending for that story, if he was the kind of bastard who'd rather die than lose everything he had." It seemed callous to put it like that, but, well, he had been the one who started to talk about it as a story.

"I suppose it is. But the church's fluff still has little to do with anything," the half-elf said and crossed his arms in front of his chest. Then, silence for a while. Her words didn't sink in immediately - for a moment he wondered if he had been overreacting.

Finally he shot a surprised look at her. "He was. And I hope it is, too," he said softly, but looked slightly relieved. He still felt there were matters that could have been resolved better during that certain case. But there was another matter to resolve right now, and the past was hardly worth mulling about.

Sebastian scratched his chin. "That's in the past, though. It's just another story for talespinners to tell."

He had said that new tales emerge all the time, though; she remembered that. Even allowing for some stories being spun of thin air, that left questions.

"And is it a typical example for the... requirements of your goddesses?"

A faint smile had settled on her face when she had noticed Sebastian's relief.