Autumn Party 10

Nico's smile grew a bit wider for a moment, acknowledging. Pointing at the glass she asked, "And how much about is enough, at this size?"

Ebani found himself watching Serpentine, wondering if he was an Angry Drunk or a Quiet Drunk.

"I've barely started getting somewhere," Serpentine answered, watching for Nico's reaction. He wasn't bragging -- despite his strange body language at times (his wing-stretching meant he was relaxed), Serpentine was easy to read.

All the same, he hoped she would mooch off the snake and not him. Or Silvermane.

The dragon twitched about for a moment, then jumped into a seated position and began scratching his neck vigorously. There was no accompanying jingle, since this dragon did not wear a collar and tags.

The itch was hard to get at, what with the red headpiece that was attached round his neck and extended to cover most of the upper jaw.

Mhelarn's nostrils twitched. The dragon's scent was doggish, but not quite what he was expecting.

Distractions, bah. He nudged Thiggy, then moved to address the little giant.

"Um, sorry to interrupt, but what..did..you need a shapechanger for?" He was a little worried about interrupting the winged person's conversation. The guy did not look like the reasonable type. Might not stop at a bared throat.

Show time, Thiggie thought, and treated the lot of them to a brilliant smile: professional, trustworthy, all that jazz. Or it would have been if she wasn't wearing a cute little nurse number.

The dragon stopped scratching. There was a problem.

Nico didn't show any remarkable reaction to Serpentine's answer; it was just a bit of information, and she hadn't kept track of just how much he'd had, anyway.

When he addressed her, she looked up to the harlequin and hesitated a moment - Nothing; I have one already? I want to collect the complete set? - before settling for "Chatting with? I'm just curious. Why do you ask?" She was smiling and really just curious about the question.

"Maybe about three bottles," Serpentine mumbled on the side. "Maybe four."

The monk didn't even look doubtful; he simply watched Mhelarn with a curious expression, one saying Should I know you from somewhere?

The man in black kept wondering about his neighbour, or more precisely how to put his idea about her identity to a test without, if he was right, giving away her name. He had understood that much about the masquerade. Eventually he said to Azra, "It's been a while..."

"Sorry", she answered, startled, "I don't think we have met?" Just for an instant a little self-satisfaction crept in his smile, and she realised he'd spoken in a language she'd last heard years ago. She recognised the voice, too, and gave up, wondering if he could tell apart people by smell. "Ah. Yes. Yes, it has."

"How have things been meanwhile?" He followed her example and switched to the local Common again.

"Oh, a bit... windblown," she answered, gesturing vaguely, meaning aimless, "but looking up. And for you?"

He considered for a bit, then answered, smiling wryly, "'Windblown' seems to fit." He wondered if he should have left her alone, because she was not quite managing to hide a certain uneasiness. "It's nice to meet old acquaintances again, it's so rare."

It worked, she relaxed again. This was complicated. "Yes, I guess."

The man in black sighed quietly. Well, maybe they could talk - he reflexively turned his head when he heard a thump from behind the door that had arrested Nico's curiosity before she got to talking.

The dragon's difficulty became apparent. His adorable, stylish little claw-boot had somehow become inextricably tangled with the lower edge of his mask. It was quite the unlikely occurrence, in point of fact. For it to have happened by chance was... one might go so far as to say... inconceivable.

He waggled his hind leg forlornly.

Kinta neither commented nor stared. As far as he knew, that strange hopping might be perfectly normal behaviour. Ebani, on the other hand, leaned back, grinning under the mask, and watched.

Azra and the man in black ignored the dragon's problems for reasons of their own (being tired of helping stupid dragons out of messes they got themselves into,and being tired of stupid dogs, respectively), and instead looked at the door, then back at each other.

"Shall we...?"

He answered with an ironic little smile. "I'm still not sure if curiosity isn't a bad habit."

"Better than having something nasty in your back."

"Right."

As they got up, Azra addressed the monk. "If I did not misunderstand, that room is a library. Are you interested in books?"

The monk smiled and gave Serpentine another glass of wine (the winged one took it without as much as a thank you). He held on to his own one. "I find that I am curious about a great many things," he said, still smiling -- looking at both Azra and the man in black as he, too, rose to his feet.

While the other two went for the door, the man in black quickly walked over to the table, where a servant was busy unloading a tray of empty glasses. He helped to speed it up, and took the tray - rectangular and with a high rim - with him as he caught up with the others.

The monk made note of this, but said nothing. Instead, he paid more attention to what lay beyond the door.

The room was furnished with bookcases along the walls, uphosltered chairs and small tables irregularly arranged in the center. It was brightly lit with ivory-coloured magelights.

One heavy folio had apparently spontaneously fallen off the shelf and lay on the ground. Like many of the books, it had a cover decorated with strange glyphs.

Azra smiled under her mask when the man in black came in, because the first thing he did was making sure the door would stay open by putting the tray on the ground in its way, and closing it as far as it'd go with that obstruction. Then she continued observing the room thoroughly. She did that while turning around slowly some distance away from the wall and any furniture, hands clasped behind her back.

"I can't even work out how you got it tangled up like this," Lamia said, on her hands and knees trying to disentangle the dragon's claws from his padded silk costume.

"I'll kill 'im," the dragon muttered.

"We're also curious, you might say," Thiggie said, tearing her eyes off what was plainly a great big talking dog dressed up as a salamander. She concentrated on Nico again. "This young gent and I have just discovered we have a mutual interest in the subject. Do you know of anyone with any expertise? We have something in the way of a business proposition."

Serpentine snickered and paid no attention to the young gent and Thiggie.



The monk on the other hand, shot two evaluating looks at his companions. He was close enough to reach out for a book that looked familiar to him; he opened it and leafed through a few pages, head bowed over it as if it were a prayer book. "Quite the collection our host has," he said after a glance at the bookcase.

"Very impressive, particularly for a private collection," Azra conceded. The man in black meanwhile examined the gap the fallen book had left on the shelf, finding nothing of interest.

What the monk found was a page that was blank apart from an eye in the focus of it. Its bulge should have been noticeable before, but hadn't been. It blinked blearily up at him, as if waken from slumber. The skin of its lids was tan and knotty, the iris brown.

---

Nico radiated an air of eager helpfulness, while being not immediately helpful. "What kind of expertise exactly? Or needed for what?"

Ebani, sounding very amused, asked the dragon: "Kill who? Your pet tailor?"

Meanwhile the servant who had provided the improvised doorstopper had finished some consideration, and followed his fellows. He dropped the sleepwalking act halfway up the stairs.

There was a sound like clockwork inside the monk's head for about a quarter of a second. "Begging your pardon," he mumbled to the book and closed it. Then to the others, in a contemplative tone: "I'm not too sure about the content, but I suppose it's not my genre."

"Ah? What do you prefer?" Azra asked. She had caught a glimpse of the eye, but wasn't alarmed.

"Oh, a certain type of lucid portraiture of life. Just stories, thank you," he said with a smile, gingerly putting the book back into its place.