Page Three

"Sound! Like... amplification?" The dog smiled, tongue lolling (he was still silly and overexcited, truth be told, but was at least sitting still).

The rescue rangers were still on a roll. "And then when the tuner got here, he was completely nuts too."

"I rather liked him."

"That's because he was almost as big a geek as you!"

"You see, Nico, all Ffirish pianos have a team of maintenance people who hop through space and time, wherever or whenever the things are."

"And of course the piano we rescued from fiery demise was a celebrity." Perry sat down at it and pressed a few keys while they talked, gradually regaining enough confidence to play Chop Chop Waltz, a simple piece that was the first tune most children learned. Markus had taught her to play it once when they were high.

"Yes, that was awkward."

"I had to bite my lip. Almost said 'do you two want some time alone'."

"He's done a very good job. It's on pitch to a fairy's hair."

"Making things louder?" Sylvie considered that. "I think that would be possible..."

Nico asked Suitov, "How can you tell? Absolute pitch?"

"Of a sort," Iceheart shrugged. "My hearing isn't that accurate, only... I once wrote a spell to test musical notes." (He didn't even like music. It had been a dull, rainy afternoon.)

"And you could mute annoying people," Baskerville carried on, "or make their voices really funny-sounding. Could you use it to throw your voice too? Oh, think of the possibilities for scaring cats..."

Suitov's words startled Sylvie; she could not really wrap her head around his concept of spells.

Anyway, Baskerville's question was interesting.
"Muting an area isn't that difficult; muting someone is a bit trickier, since you have to attach the effect to them. And you'd have to take care you don't render them deaf for the duration, unless that's part of what you want. All of which is pretty rude." Not that she could not imagine a situation in which it would be useful and justified. "Throwing my voice I'd need more practise for. But I have no interest in scaring cats."

The door swung open and closed all in the course of three seconds. Sebastian then pressed his back against the door and twitched once. "Pardon," he mumbled through a brown scarf and gathered his hat from the floor (although he appeared to be wearing a bandanna). "Some manner of small people. Insisted I had been too naughty this year," the half-elf muttered in a state of utter confusion and only then thought to look at the entrance hall to see if there were signs of life.

He chuckled quietly. "Small... people... gods," he sighed and tiptoed onward, attempting to discard the memory of something smaller than a dwarf waving something that looked like a metallic, sharp multi-pronged horn. It was too slender to be a moose horn, but it was enough to cause him severe distress.

The distress was easily replaced by awareness of weight: the satchel he was carrying with himself hampered with his balance ever so slightly as he made his way to the main hall.

He gave a slightly worried smile when the first set of eyes fixed on him.

That were Sylvie's, since she still faced in the direction of the door. She returned a smile slightly less worried than his.

Nico noticed her reaction and followed her gaze. When she saw Sebastian, she grinned and made room for him in the circle.

"They didn't have red hair and say 'crivens' a lot, did they?" Perry asked, turning round on the piano stool with a plink from the keys. She wondered if the new guy could play.

Baskerville bounced up to the halfie, jumped around him for a few moments with tail all awag, then sat down with his tail swishing the fake snow. (This tended to repair itself whenever something disturbed it, footprints fading away over the course of forty seconds or so.)

At last, another two-legged male; not quite so outnumbered now. Suitov knew Sebastian slightly, having met him once or twice and heard a lot about him. Not from legend or rumour, as was more usual where the Fox was concerned, but from biased commentary along the lines of "He's not nearly as stupid or annoying as you".

The mage nodded a greeting, appearing comfortable and a little amused.

"No, thank the gods. Those ones would have killed me while spouting a number of nonsensical phrases and mutterings," he said a little confusedly as he watched Baskerville bounce about - the sight wasn't quite what he had been expecting, but the... uh... canine seemed friendly enough. They usually didn't, but then, this one was quite a bit different.

Sebastian then shot a quick glance about, gaze flickering from face to face - he did a doubletake at Sylvie (the eyebrows should have reminded him why she looked so familiar), then another doubletake at the room made for him. "I hope I'm not too late, but as I said, I had the damnedest time with those things," he said as he went to claim his spot, sounding a little shaken still.

"Well, considering the preparations, there are quite a few invited guests who either are not here yet, or won't come at all. That's really a shame."

With that last sentence, Nico looked at the servant who was offering Sebastian mulled wine. Since that got no reaction beyond a polite smile, she turned back to the half-elf.

"You missed a great tale about a piano rescue, though."

Sylvie was inexplicably nervous. The present she had for him had seemed like a good idea at the time, but she was not sure at all anymore. Maybe she could at least wait for the other guests being distracted...

"Oh, wonderful," he murmurred, setting his satchel down with a gleam in his eyes when the scent of mulled wine came close. After a polite 'thank you' and a grin of remembrance at the servant he sighed and allowed himself to slump a little, content with the warmth. The half-elf looked ready to melt there, like a half-asleep cat.

He stirred just as quickly and cast a look at the piano, then at the speaker. "I did? Well, that's a shame. Maybe I'll get to hear it later - that is, if it's not too troublesome." Pause. Another look at the piano and he wondered exactly how one saves a piano. He knew all about borrowing them, but saving... maybe it was the same thing.

Sarina strolled in trying to look casual about her late entrance.

Nico nudged Sebastian (see, you're not the last) and greeted Sarina, grinning and mentally filing her as a potential dancing partner - that would take care of the females-outnumbering-two-legged-males problem, assuming everyone wanted to dance, and of the getting-a-crick-in-your-neck looking in her partner's face, too.

Skerv nudged the basket nearer to Sebastian as a none-too-subtle ploy to get in a brief sniff at the satchel. "Have a pastry? Fresh veggies and yummy goodn -- it's SarINA!" The end of his statement was more of a yap. The large black dog hurtled over to the sorceress and repeated the 'jumping around like a happy lunatic' procedure.

Though it didn't look it, this was his constrained and careful manner of greeting, in which he contrived not to stand on shoes or skirts or scare delicate people by jumping up at them.¹

"Maybe I'll tell it with shadow puppets next time. And more dragons," Perry mused. She turned on the stool, restless enough to consider jumping to her feet again, and sized Sebastian up brightly. "Who are you, anyway? Haven't seen you, and I think I'd remember that mop. Isn't it heavy?"

Sarina's was another face Suitov recognised from a few years back. He beamed at her, not yet being close enough to exchange words (besides, there was a mastiff-sized bouncing dog in the way).

"Quite heavy," Sebastian replied automatically and stared calmly after the dog. Only then did he cock an eyebrow at Perry, make all needed observations and shrug. "I'm Sebastian." As if that said it all - it was said in a simple, uncoloured manner one would expect from your local country peasant. Although his manner of speech was anything but that.

He smiled a little awkwardly, as if to say there's a story or two to go with the name, but we're not going to go there because now is not the time and certainly not the company. Most certainly not the company. Or the place.

He sipped his wine and waved absent-mindedly at Sarina. She looked familiar...

The reaction from Perry was a leaping eyebrow and a laugh. "Right, like the Hat of legend? Oh sure." And actually he did have a hat, and if she remembered the stories, even the colour scheme...

Mind you, Perry herself was dressed as a very unlikely soldier. If he wanted to be an elvish Robin Hood that was jolly good by her. Perry grinned into her dark, honeyed beer and hoped nobody would come as the Sugar Plum Fairy.

The half-elf's expression was unreadable: it was just a smile and a particularly non-commital stare. He had more wine and offered no opinion on this. "For my part, I don't recognise you either. I do like the clothes though," he said quietly.

"Oh, I'm not dressed as anybody. The toy soldier chic's more of a dig - or an injoke if you prefer." She paused to cock a snook at Iceheart, who replied with what rocca called a hat salute (first two fingers straight together and touching the hat brim, an imaginary one in his case, other fingers curled, palm towards the girl).

The first response was a slightly dull blink. "Jokes are just fine. Oh, I didn't mean you'd be dressed as anyone, just that I like the look."

Sylvie folded the waxed paper up neatly, glad for something to do. She was listening closely, but had no idea what Perry was talking about.

Neither did Nico. She looked up at Sebastian with narrow eyes and narrow smile. Something about the exchange between him and Perry set her teeth on edge, and she spontaneously threw the first thing she could think of in, trying to change that.

"You know, your manner reminds me of a werewolf I know."

On second thought, it might have been better to have had a second thought before talking.

Sebastian turned a contemplative look at Nico: then he blinked and smiled faintly. He was waiting.