Nineteen

Outside, Sebastian-Kai contemplated the past few days of his life as the rain came down, soothing. Though he had enjoyed the sun and the warmth and the breeze for as long as it had lasted, the weather now felt so new and fresh. It certainly smelled fresh. He also felt slightly cold after standing still for a while, and so he set off.

Ten paces later he stopped and gave a parting glance at the shop he had just been inside, thinking he had come to a few conclusions: it was maybe best to let things be, but at the same time there was a debt to pay - if it was a debt - and a lingering feeling of significance. Yet the more he thought about those conclusions, the less certain he felt about them. He shook his head, walked on down the road the way Sylvie had told him. There would be time to think. Yes. Plenty of time to think.

It was curious, wanting to stay and to leave for the same reason.

Very curious indeed.

Sebastian-Kai was still mulling over this when he arrived at the House Crow and proceeded to leave a wet puddle behind him as he walked over to the proprietor. "I don't suppose you'd know the way to Fortuna's shrine?" It turned out the proprietor did. "Great. Do you also have room?"

Less than ten minutes later he had ditched his things into a room - small but clean enough as Sylvie had indicated - and was on his way to the shrine. The shrine was, as he had expected, in the poorer part of Canyet, right next to a gambling lair Sebastian-Kai guessed was actually run by the same clergy. The door was locked.

He smiled, stuck his hands in his pockets and circled around to the back of the row of buildings.

The backdoor wasn't locked, but then, nobody had taken the trash out either. He had come straight into what appeared to be a dark kitchen... or dining room.

It was full of empty bottles of beer.

He sighed and walked over to the single table in the room, pulled his foot backward a bit and then launched it forward into a sleeping figure. "You've won the Canyet lottery, sister. Wake up." She didn't, but a pair of dice fell off the table when the good sister's arm nudged it.

Sebastian covered his face with one hand and sighed. Typical.

Then, seeing there was little else to do, he walked over to the fireplace and decided to at least make himself comfortable. Once the fire was burning and he had sat himself on a chair (at least somewhat dressed) with a bottle of something that tasted godsawful but left him feeling warm nonetheless, he began to wonder what Sylvie was up to.

After the shortest decent greeting possible Garren and Sylvie set to work, starting with a fleeting check if the notes had been damaged by the rain ending with a negative.

Then they started comparing Sylvie's materials, augmented by observations she had not written down yet, with older works. Garren had been quite appalled when she called some of the descriptions and illustrations in respected publications outright "sloppy", but he had to admit her observations were meticulous.

If Gemma had not insisted, they would have forgotten about supper; as it were, they returned to it and continued into the night, until Sylvie's vision started blurring.

It was around midnight that the good sister Auker shifted and cracked her eyes open, blinking at a pair of square objects right in front of her face. A pair of ones stared right back at her, unblinking while she blinked and blinked a few times. "Oh... right," she chuckled and pushed herself to her knees.

Auker sniffed a few times. There was a scent of smoke in the air... she hadn't lit the fire, though, so her first order of business was to check if she still had her matches. No, she didn't. Sister Auker squinted in annoyance as she got to her feet and turned toward the fireplace. "Oy! Rosz! What have I told you about filching my -- hey what the hell and who the hell are you and where's...?"

Sebastian turned a look over his shoulder, grinning at the good sister. She wasn't a looker, but came close enough. Too bad about the bad hair.

Sister Auker decided to try again, this time with her knife in hand. "Who are you and how did you get in?"

"You forgot to lock the backdoor," Sebastian said, tossing his braid over his shoulder. "I'm a disciple. I've got a message for you."

Sister Auker considered this information very carefully for a while, playing with her knife in a manner that seriously tempted fate. Sebastian was quite impressed. "Right, right, I hope you've got a name, too, does it start with an S?"

It was easy enough to smile at the humour in her tone. "Nice guess."

She pulled up a chair and was silent as an answer. He hadn't picked up on the hint to tell her his name, but she wasn't going to push him, suspicious though it was.

They were quiet for a while.

Sebastian said: "That's an impressive amount of beer. Looked like some wine bottles, too."

"Oh, yeah. I won the lottery."

"...oh."

Auker snorted. "Don't be so doubtful. Doesn't look good on you." She paused and sized the half-naked half-elf up. "Want me to make a cheesy comment about luck here?"

"No thanks, I'll pass," Sebastian said and offered her his flask. "Cider."

"No thanks. No headache. So what brings a pilgrim home aside from messages?" Then she looked toward the door. "When the hell did it start raining?"

Sebastian fixed an admonishing look at the woman - then blanched when he realised he was doing such a thing. "Mid to late afternoon... uh, yes, about my being here..."

"Spill it."

Sebastian held an indignant pause.

"Please."

"Thank you." Uh. "I wanted you to tell the Lady Luck a little something for this pilgrim."

Sister Auker blinked at the half-naked pilgrim that had such a serious look on his face. Lady Luck wasn't supposed to be called by that title unless you were looking for trouble. He had her full attention now.

Sebastian considered his words for a while. "I've tried praying to her and telling her this myself, but as far as I can tell she hasn't listened to me. So tell her... I'm getting tired. This passing week I've almost been hit by a giant bell, run away from two stampeding herds of cows in two opposite directions, almost slept on a nest of bees..."

The list went on for a while.

"And I would just like to know, what the hell have I done to deserve an entire week of nothing but bad luck?" Pause. "Well, aside from getting here. That was pretty smooth. But the six days before..." He stopped, wondering about that one random encounter with a dragon.

Sister Auker grinned. "She works in capricious ways, pilgrim. Sure, I'll be telling her. Where are you staying?"

"House Crow. I've got my things there."

"Paid for long?"

Sebastian took a deep breath and looked at the fireplace. "A week."

So much for that offer, thought Auker, shrugged and slapped the pilgrim on his bare shoulder.

They put quite a dent in her liquor storage that night.

The rain continued.

While Sebastian was thus occupied, his newly rented lodgings did not stay empty. Someone apparently had reasoned that the cover granted by heavy rain more than made up for the added difficulty it created for climbing.

Made nervous since they caused more noise than planned, the burglar did not take time to tidy up, but left the contents of Sebastian's satchel spilled across the floor, excluding the battered book, which ended up on the bed, on the far side from the window. They pushed the window panes shut, but didn't bother trying to close the latch from the outside.

Thus, they were long gone before anyone noticed.

Brilliant.

Sebastian, who hadn't actually slept that night and was feeling a little tipsy, rubbed his eyes for a while as he watched the wet puddle on the floor. It was very, very ironic, and so he flashed a short-lived smile at the chaos.

He went to close to window properly before he began to take stock of the things that were missing. After several minutes (and a glance under the bed) he came to the strange conclusion that nothing was missing. Not a thing. His book was intact and had everything he had ever put in it, not counting the things he had lost himself.

Too tired to give it any further thought, he wandered off to get some breakfast. Once he was done with that and feeling remotely energetic, head buzzing with false wakefulness, Sebastian took another moment to think about what had happened.

At first he considered the criminal gods. It certainly wasn't those common thieves. They would have stolen something valuable out of spite - like his book. A good assassin would have just remained there and waited, not to mention been quite a bit more careful. It wasn't entirely out of the question, however, that someone was gathering information, and so he took stock of the people in the common room of House Crow.

And what about that willow of a woman? Sebastian frowned. He sincerely doubted it. Sylvie didn't seem like the kind of person who could climb to the second floor. And there were other details to consider. Maybe it's the dragon, come to set a masterplan to motion, he thought and smiled ironically.

Option the third. A completely random... what, exactly? No, that wouldn't fly, Sebastian thought and rubbed his face. A sigh later he got up and walked over to the proprietor. "Can we have a word somewhere quiet?"

Mister Crow looked Kai over frowning. The half-elf did not make a very good impression after three nights without proper sleep, but he got the benefit of the doubt.

He waved Kai to follow and, after lighting a latern, unlocked the door to the cellar. Holding it open, he said, "After you." He realised it was a bit strange. "I live with my wife and son, see. Apart from that it's the quietest place in the house."

"That's fine," Sebastian said, knowing fully well he probably saw better in there than Crow, anyway.

When it looked as if it was a good time to start explaining, the half-elf rubbed his stubble and frowned. "Somebody was in my room last night and went through my things. The window was just slightly ajar and there was quite a bit of water around. I didn't want to talk about this where a customer might have overheard us, because, well, it seems nothing's missing."

The immediate answer was a surprised, indignant curse, followed by a "Sorry".

Crow shook his head. "The devils... shouldn't have to put locks on the upper storey windows. I'll have a look and get the water cleaned up." He was scowling, contained anger nearly covering the embarrassment of having something like this happen.

Then he looked at Kai confusedly. "But why would someone break in there and not even take anything?" In your room.

"Thank you, mister Crow. I don't know. If they took something it wasn't anything important... they even went through my diary and put it on the bed," he said with a slight frown that was far more placid than how he felt. Then he offered a smile. "I almost hope he or she shows up again. I'd want to have a few choice words with them."

"Not surprising." If you went by looks, he was more angry than Kai. "I'd even agree if break-ins weren't bad for a house's reputation.

"Thanks for not bringing it up in the common room. I'm sorry I can't offer any more help."

"You're welcome. I thought it would polite. There's really no damage done, so it's all fine, too," the half-elf said, smiling still. "In the meantime, I don't suppose there's a tailor you could recommend?"

Crow answered while they went up the stairs, "Karrel in Black Dog's Run works for little money, and the quality isn't too bad. For something not all that plain you'd better see Sennes Rest."
He added directions, and "Now I'd better look after that water you mentioned."

He thanked him and was off.

Unfortunately, he also got lost along the way.

After a good night's sleep Sylvie was woken up by an unusually loud dragon. After some time of trying to calm him down, help came in form of the shout "Just bring him along for breakfast; some food will stuff those maws."

Gemma's voice sometimes seemed like a force of nature. Ayu-Asra went from screeching and flailing to twittering and fidgeting, maybe because of that Voice, or because if there was one word he understood, it was "food".

Again wearing the simple dress borrowed from Riya, Ayu-Asra sitting on her shoulder, Sylvie made her way to the kitchen.

Friendly faces greeted her in the kitchen, those being Riya, Mael and Garren in addition to Gemma. The breakfast consisted of bread rolls, jam, tea and boiled eggs.

Riya, who took more after her father, was the first to say good morning. "Slept well?"

"Better than how she probably woke up," muttered Mael, but looked at Ayu-Asra with bright eyes nonetheless. He had wanted to ask for one like him until he had seen the dragon in action, but the final nail in the coffin was when he had heard the dragon wouldn't grow any larger.

"Yes on both counts, thanks," she answered, grinning.

More "good mornings" were exchanged, Sylvie joined the round, and Ayu-Asra got a boiled egg on a plate on the floor all for himself. The plate was a bit of a waste, considering soon things were bouncing. Parts of the egg nearly got away, making cunning use of scatter tactics.

"Did anything interesting happen while I was away?"

Riya looked at Ayu-Asra with a hint of disbelief. "Oh, it's been very quiet."

Mael took a great big sip of tea and placed his empty mug on the table. "It's still raining. Not as bad as yesterday, but still raining," he said as he poured himself more tea.

"A bit of luck then that you arrived yesterday."

Sylvie nodded, agreeing with Gemma, who went on without pausing, "And, Riya, I wouldn't say your brother getting engaged to be married isn't worth mentioning."

As Gemma said this, Mael suddenly coloured dark red, maybe because he hadn't realised Riya had completely ignored that piece of news. Riya only smiled sweetly. "I've got to tease him while I still can..."

"And me," Mael said right back at her, looking a little unhappy. There really was no need to act so jealous. He looked at Sylvie. "Yeah, I'm getting married... not soon, but I will." He practically shone with pride.

Sylvie looked very surprised for a moment - Goodness, he's eight or ten years younger than me - before smiling at Mael.

"Congratulations. Loga, right?" Sylvie hadn't met her often, but she had picked up that she and Mael were friends.