Page Six

"Even in way shorter time, stories have a way of getting out of hand and changing until they have very little in common with what actually happened, I'm told." Mostly told, anyway.

She watched Sebastian a hint suspiciously. Had he just now really said what she thought he'd said?
Oh, well. No reason not to believe it, except surprise, and that was not a good one.

"You run into problems with poultry often?"

The half-elf gave no sign of noticing her suspicion and just smiled placidly.

"That's quite true, but the theme usually persists even when the story passes from, say, one country to another," the unwitting folklorist replied and stopped to consider her question.

"Not often, no. I never did like their taste, though, but my aversion began when I ran into werechickens." Sebastian paused for a moment and looked a little uncomfortable. "Whichever deity created those, I seriously do not want to know," he finished quietly, glazed eyes directed to the ground. Before she could reply, he suddenly looked at her directly. "I have to say I wasn't expecting a gift, let alone something that was thought out this well. Thank you again."

He sneaked a glance toward his satchel.

Perry had been sparing half an ear for the conversation, the tendency to pay attention to folklore having been thoroughly drummed in some years back, but when it became obvious they weren't sharing any new tales her mind wandered.

If she was honest, the Cousin Suci stories were more her sort of thing. No offence to whoever the mythical Fox had actually been, of course; Perry simply preferred an amphibious protagonist - and then there was the gender-switching, always cool.

She took another pastry and stroked the recumbent dog with a foot.

Suitov (who could at least handle chickens competently and even knew a few rearing tips, though he didn't care much for their meat either) rejoined the small group, another book in hand. The title of this one didn't waver between Montuone and Applestone languages like the mercurial book's, but was equally weird in its own way: A Treasury of Folk Lore, Mythoi and Superstitions to delight and edify the Gentry, now with Colour Illustrations, as seen on Stage. Red Death and chums could be found on page 127.

Considering the age and eccentricity of some of Suitov's library's inhabitants, he'd been lucky to track down another copy of this one - but, then, it helped if you had a companion teleporting you all across possibility space already. Anyway, as soon as Nico was free he'd hand it to her.

Sylvie blushed a little. "It was mostly chance, really."

Nico had been listening in to the conversation, pretending she wasn't, and arguing with herself if trying to find out about said legendary figure would be snooping around in Sebastian's life and therefore not decent, or mostly just some folklore research.

When she noticed Suitov watchign her, she gave him her full attention and a radiant smile.
"The book you mentioned? Wonderful!" She glanced at a few pages at random. That would take a while... "Thank you very much. Ah, just to avoid any confusion, gift of loan?"

"Gift. Perry and I managed to locate another copy... after some digging. I couldn't tell you where from exactly, because it was one of those island shops--"

"Oh yeah, I remember, that whatsitcalled nomad shop! You know, the type that are bigger on the inside than the outside. Hey, if you ever visit one, make SURE you try this: stand in the doorway, put your hand in front of the window inside and look at it from outside. Friggin' brilliant. Of course I had to drag Iceyheart away by brute force."

"You're surprisingly impatient for someone who can travel in time."

"I pride meself on my intrinsic inconsistency."

Sebastian settled for looking mildly amused. Mostly chance... and this Perry person was a riot. And the book! He thought it was marvellous and made a mental note to check if he could find that one. The title alone made him grin mentally.

But what the devil was a nomad shop?

"I made a habit of getting through the door quickly... See, once I had my foot still outside when the owner picked just that moment to move. He was terribly apologetic, and we managed to track down the foot and, ah, convince it to return to its proper place instead of hopping around alone.

"In hindsight it's more of an odd than really bad experience, but still not one I want to repeat, particularly since people tend to get upset about autonomous body parts, so they might get... damaged."

Nico grinned. "Anyway, thanks again for the book." She meant both Suitov and Perry.

Sylvie looked from Perry to Nico and back, wondering if they had slipped into spinning tall tales.

Perry didn't seem to care either way; her reaction was positive and just a bit gleeful.

"The author is an odd duck," Iceheart said, "and I make no guarantees of any kind to do with accuracy. Still, for costume ideas if nothing else, it's interesting to browse."

Smiling inwardly at the odd duck remark, Sebastian made his way back to his satchel, took it to the piano and fished through it for a while. He began setting small leather pouches on the piano, being extremely careful with each pouch and ignoring whatever curiosity anyone displayed with a smile.

The last pouch, however, he did not set down. The half-elf held it in his hand and stared at it.

A very curious nose appeared over the edge of the piano from time to time.

Sylvie watched Sebastian's preparations, occasionally scratching Baskerville's neck. Behind the ears would have been a bit difficult, what with the prongs.

Nico ignored that little show in favour of talking to Perry.

"Did you say you needed a job? If your style of xenobiology is similar to your style of piano acquisition, I think I could point you to one or two contacts..."

When you can teleport and time travel, who needs to work? Perry thought. It was partly exactly that that caused the girl's perpetual restlessness and discontentment.

"Maybe," she said and polished one or two of her buttons with a cuff. "I have done some dinosaur rescue before, it's true."

Suitov raised an eyebrow at that. He'd only met a few dinosaurs, true, but they hadn't exactly been the type to need rescuing from anything.

Sebastian wondered what a dinosaur was when he turned around and looked at everyone. There were, all in all, many extra pouches on the piano as he had been prepared for more people than there were right now. Nonetheless, there were no nametags on all of the pouches.

One look at Baskerville and he fought a grin. Then he looked at Sylvie and tilted his head. "So that I don't forget," he said and offered the pouch. It was rather heavy and the size of a large tomato.

Then, looking a little awkward, he fetched his hat.

"Thank you." Sylvie took the pouch, but didn't open it. She watched Sebastian instead, confused about his behaviour.

Sebastian plopped his hat on his head, blinked a few times and then lifted his chin with a luminous smile.

Then he cleared his throat.

"My apologies for interrupting any conversations. I must also apologise for being late, because I it is because of this that I am interrupting. I believe you all noticed that I have placed a number of pouches on the piano - these are my presents to you. You may also note that there are more of them than guests at this moment.

"None of these are to any of you in particular. I believe taking chances is a great part of existence, which is how it is with the presents. Feel free to take any one pouch and claim it as your own. I can assure you they are all valuable in one way or another. And of course, if you are not happy... well, I assume we are all mature..." he glanced at Baskerville. "...beings."

He looked about. "I am sure the establishment's staff can make use of the remaining presents."

Once he was done, he set the hat down where he had picked it from and adopted his previous, calmer persona again. Having done this, the half-elf walked to the window to inspect the weather.

Sylvie hestitated a bit, not because of any mistrust, but because she wondered about Sebastian behaviour. It seemed odd to just wander away...

Nico glanced after him with a wry smile. It seemed to be a year for surprise presents. She did feel a bit bad about the surprise he had received from her, which somehow became a feeling of obligation not to hesitate now.

She picked a pouch at random and opened it.

Nico's pouch contained a strange puzzle. If it was a puzzle to begin with. It was a disc consisting of several wheels and a solid circle in the middle, made of steel that was by now tarnished. Each wheel had a series of markings in a syllabic language of some sort; moving the outmost wheel would sometimes lock it in place and pop up one of the syllables like a button. Whatever the reason behind it, it was not a five minute job to get all the wheels to lock.

Sebastian, on the other hand, noted that the weather remained unchanged. Dry. Wintry. Cold. All fine, he mused and turned around, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

... in time to see Sylvie open her present, if he cared to look.

Nico made a throaty, faint 'hrmmmmmm?' sound and turned the thing around a couple of times. Oh cruel world... She'd have to find out what it was. Her grin grew a bit sharper - she liked a challenge every now and then.

Sebastian nodded quietly to himself as Sylvie opened her present, then looked at Nico with a smile before looking back at Sylvie.

It was a slightly translucent orb of some sort that had a dark green hue and didn't feel like metal but some hard, hard crystal of some sort. It had no buttons, but some grooves and a slightly irregular surface. It was also either alive or a device of some sort: a very, very dim light pulsed in the depths of the orb. The light was hard to see unless one put it close to one's eyes, in which case it was fairly easy to see - and to barely hear a sound so low and faint, it was hard to make out that it was humming a melody.

Sylvie discovered the light when she tried to have a closer look at the grooves. The thing gave her a very odd feeling - maybe just an effect of the sublime humming. It was fascinating, but, just a little, it made her skin crawl.

She wandered over to Sebastian nad asked, "What is this?"