![[No profile available]](http://profusion.hellhound.net/icons/tree_j.gif){kind=icon}
He shook the hand, restraining the urge to kiss it instead. (Upbringing...)
"Even more of a pleasure now I am not distracted by trying to compose two sets of rhyming speech at the same time. I'm Suitov."
He smiled and nodded to the timid snowy owl.
"Hi, nice to meet you. I'm Shii. Sebastian here is my granddaddy", she said rather informally, pointing at the culprit with a thumb. "Sorry, did you have a speech ready?" she asked over her shoulder. "Besides, if there was anyone better suited for stopping me, it'd be you." She even let him get behind herself without qualms. "Though I already have your eyes."
"No, maybe and yes," Sebastian replied to her, inspecting her braid for a moment. As good work as ever, as far as he was concerned. "And the hair, too."
"And the repartee, judging by this evening's performance. Yes, so, um... nice to meet you too. I'm Weft. Your grandfather and I shared a pantheon briefly, but it all got sorted out in the end."
Her brain depleted a large portion of her heightened blood-sugar levels to process that last comment. Outward it showed as ascending eyebrows and painfully inquisitive eyes. "A pantheon, you say? It's the first I've heard of it, I don't suppose you care to elaborate?"
Hm, some or other kind of telepathy involved, then.
"Very impressive! This was for me a truly unique experience." Suddenly her bright smile turned into a small, nervous one. "I hope I wasn't being too... morbid. Somehow it just needed to be said." Her voice grew thoughtful at the end.
It was true, wasn't it? Odd, that.
Sebastian grinned and left it to Weft to explain this, instead glancing at Vampir-- Serpentine.
The winged person shook his head a few times at Fara. "I don't suppose you'd want to retire, kid?" he asked tenderly, expecting to hear another 'I'm not sleepeeeeeee'. He also looked like he wouldn't stand for it.
"I am not the retiring ty-y-y-yppe..." Her voice faded almost to nothing.
"Not at all. It was an enjoyable twist to the playacting, from our point of view."
Keeping an open connection to the psionically incapable Weft for an hour while trying to be witty and make it rhyme... well, put it this way: any little hamlet-class telepath could have kicked Suitov's rear all over the Cross'd Roads right at this moment.
"Well, you know, it's the usual story. Monk meets swashbuckler, swashbuckler and monk get stranded on an island paradise, natives mistake them for gods and a lot of people get stabbed."
"That's good.
"Hm, almost a pity it was just playacting, though... They might really appreciate hearing that." She was speaking slowly and quietly, nearly thinking out loud, with a look in her eye like someone looking forward to a challenge. "Or I might be completely off. So, meeting Death would be a great adventure." Nico grinned. She meant exactly what she was saying.
"If they exist as persons, perhaps so." He smiled. "Sounds an interesting experience at least. Assuming Black didn't take exception to my portrayal and slug me."
Nico laughed. "Way to shoot down the idea. If they knew your portrayal, they'd know what I said, too, so there'd be no need to tell them face to face."
She shook her head, wondering if she had confused herself with too many what-ifs already.
"Say, did you make up the Death of Birds on the spot, or is she part of your tradition?"
"Weft's idea." He indicated the monk in the red. "I don't know where from. But according to the mythology we were ransacking - er, that is, inspired by - there are only separate figures for different causes of death. Blue for drowning victims, Black for sickness and age, White for children, and so on."
The de-hatted rogue seemed to be brimming with the need to know more, but ended up demonstrating unusual self-control against her curiosity. (Unusual for her, at least.) She decided to let it go after figuring out that she could always try to extort the full story afterwards from Sebastian.
"That sounds like a story that could easily expand into epic lenths if elaborated on, so I'll save asking about it for later on. I don't want to miss out on any details." She seemed rather sorry though.
The monk seemed rather laid back about killing people, she noted. "You're a monk, then? What kind of order do you belong to?"
"The terribly mysterious, sinister and yet boring and bureaucratic kind. Are there others? Well, anyway," he shifted off the back foot, figuratively speaking, "speaking of vocations, what about you? Somehow I get an impression that you take after your ancestor in other aspects than the physical."
"Green for poison victims?" Nico speculated, for a change not smiling.
He patted Shii on the shoulder and gave Weft a grin. "Ancestor," he chuckled, then patted Shii's shoulder again. "Don't worry. I'll tell the story with as much flourish as you want: plain facts or braggart's tales, however you prefer."
"Oh, I'm a traveling salesman", she spoke in earnest tones and continued without missing a beat. "There's a demand for potions I make. I supply other wares as well, magical objects for instance. Look me up if you're in a need for specialty love potions, energizing concoctions or strange non-lethal draughts to bother your enemies with. It might be a bit difficult to find me without the right contacts, though, as I don't have any fixed offices."
It was all true, too. She just left out all the other things she did to support her occasionally expensive lifestyle.
Yes, and Weft was a harmless, institutionalised ascetic anchorite. He at least seemed to have the unworldliness requirement sewn up, judging by the jump he gave when Shii suggested he'd want love potions. Ewww!
"An interesting life, is it?"
"That I don't know. Possibly," Suitov said. He seemed to sense a change in the air and had begun casting around for less morbid topics.
Nico shrugged and resumed smiling. "Pity. Stories interest me." But maybe not everyone here was quite that interested in stories about Death(s).
Was that so? Apparently he'd misjudged the reason for her interest, which was all to the good. It didn't do to upset female personages at parties. It was to be avoided in all situations, really.
"In that case, I'll ask my accomplice what he did with the book. He borrowed it for the costume reference."
(The book was safe and sound, it later transpired, with the addition of a few ribbons marking important pages. We state this explicitly in order to put bibliophiles' minds at ease.)