Page Four

"A bit like that, yes. His blank looks may have been a tad blanker still, though." She gave him a bright grin, unawares he had an enormous supply of those himself, on other occasions.

"Sebastian, do you play the piano?" Sylvie asked. She had the feeling someone there needed rescuing, even if she wasn't sure who.

He gave Nico a faintly amused look - and then a slightly more startled one at Sylvie. "Some, yes. It's been a while, but, hm, if you don't mind disharmony and whatnot..." he left it hanging in the air and kept warming his fingers. A blink. "Nobody else of us knows how to?"

"So far, not really."

"Nobody has asked Baskerville's friend yet. What was the name? Sarina?" Nico turned and smiled sheepishly. She had sounded annoyed, because she was. More precisely, she was annoyed about having no idea why she felt the urge to stick out her tongue at the elf, or whatever he was.

"I don't know either --" a glance at Sarina "-- but hey, I'll see if I can remember something. Just, um, give me some time." Then he squinted at Nico suspiciously.

"Hmm?" she made, smiling up at him. Then she raised her shoulders in a slow shrug. "Don't look at me. Sylvie asked you, and I think it's Suitov and Perry who most want to see their present put to its proper use."

There was a glimmer of something in his eyes, but he simply shrugged and just settled for appreciating the mulled wine.

"Fine by me," Perry said, bouncing to her feet. "Though someone said there'd be a band too. Anyone know any folk songs?"

The mage chuckled. "Only trollen and roccoa ones, and definitely not." Even with the words left untranslated, some of the accompanying gestures...

"I do," Sebastian admitted a little dreamily - his head was beginning to warm up again, which made him feel unreal and detached from his own body. "Back where I come from, they tend to be racy, but there's a healthy amount of the more lilting, gentle and pure ones," he murmurred.

Nico got over the impulse of saying 'where's the fun in that?', and then the one of asking 'what exactly were you smoking?'

"That reminds me," she finally said, regretfully, "if certain authorities judged you too naughty this year, you might consider taking a pass when it comes to the illusion bottles. I have reason to believe it would be not a nice surprise in that case, since there's a bit of the season spirit involved."

Might have been fun, but the poor sod seemed derailed enough as it was.

He grinned, definitely amused, and fixed a very long, piercing stare on Nico. "Authorities, hm? It wouldn't do to follow authorities, would it," Sebastian said with a smirk and stretched red, cold fingers. "What are illusion bottles?" he finally asked in a curious tone.

Nico grinned back. "Wouldn't do to go out of your way to get into their way just for kicks, I think." She sniffed and added as an aside, "Unless you'd be terribly bored, of course."

At his question she pointed at the box. It held a smal palette of bottles. They were twisted into interesting shapes, the glass coloured, the stoppers bound down with a bit of wire.

Sylvie took over the explanation. "Nico found the instructions, and one of her friends helped us with them. They're supposed to show a nice surprise for the person who opens them." She shrugged, looking a bit worried. "We have no idea if they work; we couldn't test them, because they need to be given as a present."

"And we didn't give one to someone else becuase we thought there'd be more people here," Nico added.

"Oh, I can get that bored. Most of the time... I don't have to even be that bored, of course - I seem to attract fortune and misfortune alike. But that's living." He mulled over the whole bottle issue while he sipped his wine, eyes narrowed halfway to closed, fixed on the box. In a way, he seemed a little apprehensive about the idea - and just as curious and excited. Childlike, almost.

Sarina felt a little awkward. She grinned sheepishly at the bouncing canine's enthusiastic greeting. She'd been away so long she'd expected to slip in and quietly observe from the shadows. She should have known better. When the suggestion was made about the piano she just looked horrified and shook her head. She was considered in some rather wide circles (those including anyone with an intact sense of hearing) to be Public Enemy #1 of musical instruments everywhere. She shouldn't even be allowed in the same room with a musical instrument.

She was keenly interested in those illusion bottles that someone mentioned. Sarina liked magic. She liked magical things. Too bad she was so bad at it.....

"I want to try it! Me, me, oh, me!" Baskerville skipped up to Sylvie and performed his best sit-up-and-beg routine. Baskerville was not one to wait politely for everyone else.

Perry grinned, happy to let someone else be the guinea-chair for once. Her opinions on The Powers That Be remained mercifully unvoiced. So did Suitov's; he hadn't yet reconciled his distrust of authority figures with the fact that he was one.

Sylvie was glad about that distraction; maybe it had come in time before anyone noticed she'd been staring at Sebastian.

"Of course, that's what we brought them for. I hope opening doesn't get too fiddly..."

The glass was drawn into rings both on the bottles and on the glass stoppers, and the latter tied to the former with shiny wire. Easy to remove if you had fingers, but somehow they had not considered Baskerville there.

Sylvie found one where the wire wasn't wound that tightly, and loosened it for Baskerville before handing him the bottle.

Now, if only those things worked...

The dog accepted it, said "ooo, ankf!", lay down and pinned the bigger end under one forepaw while the wisty glass neck rested on the wrist underneath.

It took a few attempts before he got his teeth around the stopper, which was at least reasonably chunky. Tail still wagging intermittently as he concentrated, Baskerville eased out the stopper.

There was a faint rumbling sound. Then there was an explosion - sort of. An exploding ball of flame-coloured light, and smoke, accompanied by a loud boom and a smell of gunpowder.

It was not hot, and there was no shock wave.

Sebastian had actually snuck a bit out of the way without noticing the stare, and had made it as far as halfway to the piano when the rumbling started. His instinct was to look up, first, and only then toward the sound - just in time to hear and see the explosion.

He was quiet, and quite proud that he had not spilled any of the wine. A few more steps (backward) and he lowered his satchel on the ground, then sat himself in front of the piano... and watched curiously and cautiously.

Sarina flinched. She was quite used to explosions in conjunction with her own spells, although her explosions were usually also accompanied by a hail of falling cabbage. After a while, you got used to it.

"Very pretty" she said outloud, to no one in particular. She could appreciate a colorful explosion. No one was hurt, nothing was falling down on her head and noxious gases did not appear to be leaking from the bottle.

"I want one!"

Did she really say that out loud????

"Do it again do it again!!!" was Baskerville's immediate reaction. He turned a big red gaze on the girls. "That - was so cool."