Bring on the Meowtal Mix!!!!  

Tecla eyed her mistress closely as the sounds of the manor’s incursion began to float from the grounds and into Adedre’s chambers. The rattle of bone and clatter of steel that rose from the gardens seemed not to bother her at all. Of course those sounds were more than expected when the Thread Witch had informed them that the cat-beast would be returning with friends, no less. Neither the tuneless song of the Sylvari Bladesinger that rose on the air, the golden pulses of divine power that shocked at random through the dark, nor even the fearsome roaring of the Kazari gave Adedre cause for concern, it seemed. The mistress simply lounged in her chair, leafing absently through a dusty, skin-bound tome, pointedly ignoring the cacophony of chaos that swelled about them. Even when the manor was breached and those same noises reverberated through the corridors, Mistress Undolithe appeared unmindful of them let alone what they could possibly portend.

How is she so easily confident in Morgana’s machinations, Tecla wondered as an uneasy silence fell upon the manse’s halls and her gaze slipped away from the witch to the guardsmen that flanked her chamber doors, so certain that some assassin’s power can do what her own should be more than of achieving?

Her fingertips brushed over the leather-wound hilt of the dagger in her lap and a breath whispered between her lips and the mask that covered her face. You shouldn’t doubt her, she scolded herself, taking cold comfort in the feel of the blade that she hoped she wouldn’t need, The power she has already shared with you, the power she will have all the more to give should this trap deliver the monster back into her hands. Her eyes went back to Adedre, then, the mask turning with them, and another breath escaped. Certainly she knows what she is doing?

The Mistress’ yellow eyes deigned a glance over the top of the book as she flipped another page. “Sigh like that, again, girl,” her dry voice scratched through the tension in the air, “and I’ll happily send you out to see all the fuss first hand. Would you like that?”

“No, Mistress,” the girl answered, bowing her head, “Unless that is what you would ask of me.”

“It very well may be if you can’t keep from fretting,” Adedre returned, not bothering to look up from her book, this time, “Perhaps it would go some way to aleving your doubts.”

“I… I don’t doubt you, Mistress,” the girl kowtowed, secretly relieved that her mask hid the expression that might betray her, “I…”

“You lie,” Adedre scoffed over the rustling of her book’s pages. “You doubt my faith in Morgana’s work and word. You doubt her plan and her wisdom in letting the Kazari and his friends get even as far as they have…”

“Mistress, I…”

The witch snapped the book shut, then, silencing the girl and sending motes of dust whirling madly through the flickering light provided by the candles on the small table between them. “If you doubt her, girl,” the witch hissed, “you doubt me, and that is something I will not tolerate!”

“Your sister had doubts,” Adedre’s coo was equal parts menace and mischief as she stretched boney, sharp-nailed fingers to stroke the cheek of Tecla’s mask, “You recall where they got her, hm?”

“Yes, Mistress. Forgive me. I only thought to suggest that you might be safer in the tower,” Tecla trembled, unaware that her fingers had wrapped themselves around her dagger’s hilt until she found herself gesturing toward the hidden stairway with it. “Just in case,” she added softly, folding her hands over the dagger as she pressed it back onto her lap.

“In case you are right and Morgana’s trap fails?”

Tecla offered a fractional nod but dared not say anymore.

“Hmph,” the witch smirked, her fingers drifting away from the girl’s mask and over the bare skin of her neck, now, “Still dubious are you, child?” A spiky nail pressed into the flesh of Tecla’s neck, coaxing a rivulet of blood to follow as it dragged slowly downward. “The trap will not fail,” Adedre whispered harshly, turning her hand so that the girl’s blood pooled into the concave underside of her talon. Her hand withdrew then and she poured the taste of Tecla’s blood onto her tongue. 

As if cued by Adedre’s words, the quiet of the manse was torn open, once again, by shouts, roars, and the clatter of steel and bone. The bladesong, though, was curiously missing from the discord.

“Remind me to issue you a suitable punishment when this has ended,” she moaned, licking an errant drop of blood from her black lips. “The trap is sprung.”

“Of course, Mistress,” Tecla surrendered, not bothering to even try and stem the flow of blood that slithered along her neck and into her robes. As her mistress settled back into the musty wings of her chair, Tecla’s gaze tracked back to the file of guards and the barred doorway just beyond. She managed not to let go of her sigh, this time, contenting herself, instead, by warming the dagger’s blade  petulant petting of her fingertips.

As the sounds of struggle in the study on the floor below grew louder and more frantic, a satisfied sigh and sinister snickering hissed from Adedre’s lips in odd harmony with the dry rustling of her book’s pages. “Still nothing from the elf,” the witch mused scarcely loud enough for anyone but her masked attendant to hear, “I rather hope there is enough of it left to do something entertaining with…”

The dagger turned over in Tecla’s lap as she glanced back at her mistress then and, beneath the mask, a somewhat spurious smile tugged, unbidden, at the corners of her mouth. I believe I recall that one belongs to your Thread Witch, she didn’t dare or bother to say aloud, and, forgive me, again, Mistress Undolithe, but you’re right, I am beginning to have my doubts… about you and about what you might find entertaining.

“...Oh, wait,” Adedre frowned in mock-disappointment, “I promised that one to Morgana, didn’t I?

Ah, well,” she scoffed over the whispered rattling of pages, “I suppose that, once I’ve finished with the Kazari, I might have my choice of Bladesingers should I truly want one, hm?”

“Yes ma’am,” Tecla murmured from behind her mask, “I suppose…”

The scent of smoke wafted on the manor’s stale air, then, and, behind it came a shriek the likes of which none in the house had heard before. After that, there came a sound much like wind blowing through bone-chimes, then the pounding and splintering of wood. Then there was an otherworldly scream, even more unsettling than the shirek that had preceded it, echoing through the hallways and, even before the look of abject surprise could fully cross Adedre’s features, Tecla was off her knees and on her feet…

They’re coming, the girl thought, feeling her palm beginning to sweat around the hilt of the blade she held, the Thread Witch’s trap didn’t work. Eyes wide behind her mask, Tecla tore her gaze away from the guardsmen who readied themselves at the chamber doors and turned to Adedre.

…“Don’t you dare say a word,” the witch snapped, holding up her still blood-slicked finger in warning. “This is far from finished!”

Tecla nodded weakly, her eyes flitting to the bookcase that concealed the stairs to the tower.

“No,” Adedre objected, her own gaze tracking her attendant’s, “not just yet. Our guests still have much more before them and, in spite of their having foiled Morgana’s snare, I’m sure that the Puppet Mistress is far from finished. We wait here.”

((OOC: Thought of going a bit farther but decided that I'll save the next bit for when our lot of interlopers get a biiiit closer.  ))

DI: "WTF is a McBroom?"

Me: "Sir! A McBroom is what the McJanitor at McDonald's uses to Sweep the McFloor, sir!"

DI: "Get on your face and push, private!"

Ara is next!

Try having a last name like McBroom. First, you get all the "make fun of it" things (until you start making fun of it yourself, which, I suppose, takes the fun out of it for others), then, you get the folks that just don't want to believe that's really your name and/or just can't read.

I think the best one I've ever had, though, was the telemarketer who called and asked to speak to Robert M.C. Broom... M.C. Broom? Nope... noone here by that name but, here, talk to D.J. Dustpan!

Okay, since I've come to LOOOOVE the characters so, I've decided that they deserve their own artwork... starting with poor Kithran, Sooo, here you go. Still needs some work but...

*Cedric glances up from his book*

*Shiv sips her dark roast*

*Ch'dau pulls a hook from his forearm and snarls in irritation at the Viking*

*Ara enters the Bent Copper and sighs* "Must you get bloodied everywhere we go, m'une?"

*Gib scratches at the stubble on his dome and wonders if he has time for a wax*

*The nerds go back to reading*

Such adorable little nerds! I love them!

In the words of the immortal bard: "Ooo-wah-ah-ah-ah-AH!"

...but I think most of you already knew that. 

Looking forward to the Gib post, of course... and I think the cat and the viking will be just fine. Just don't let them talk too much.

Edit: Oh... wait... CTP and I were just discussing a collab in which there'll be quite a bit of chatter between the two... ummm... *passes out earplugs*

*nudge,nudge*

Eh?

Eh????

...

...did I have a doubt!  Can't wait!

Fair warning, though... If my wife catches us mid-tussle, we might get our butts beaten with a broomstick. *glances at Sara to see where she might be* Riiiight, m'ke?

...that got a bit lengthy!

It was fun to write, though!

Feel free to use that last as Einar's cue, CTP. You practically spoon-fed me the idea, sooooo....

Early to Mid Evening; 26th Bre Taola; 453 E.R.
The Bent Copper Tavern, Calestra, Coria

“…wait! What?!” Evin exclaimed, drops of ale sloshing from his tankard as he banged it on the table and trickling into his beard as his mouth fell open in disbelief, “You’re telling me you tore the leg off a necromancer and clubbed her to death with it?”

Beside him, Garion chuckled quietly into his cup of mulled wine as the Kazari across the table offered a faint shrug and nodded.

“I do not know that she died in that moment,” Ch’dau rumbled, “but she had stopped moving, at least.” He took a slow pull from his own mug before continuing; “There was much blood and the place was burning already, so we did not linger to see if she would open her eyes again.”

“Merca’s dugs,” Evin breathed, shaking his head as he took up the tankard again. “If you don’t mind me saying so, friend, you were barking mad, the lot of you, to even have gone back in to that place.”

“I said as much, myself,” the Silver Cat chuffed, “but Kithran was determined to have that book and, as I owed her my life, I could not let her go after it alone.”

“Kazari honor,” Garion said simply, forestalling any words that might have threatened to spill past the human’s lips, then. To his credit, Evin drowned whatever he had been about to say with another mouthful of ale as Garion’s gaze returned to Ch’dau.

“What happened then,” the Syl asked as Evin signaled the serving wench for another round.

“We left,” Ch’dau shrugged, his own eyes warily skimming the tavern for perhaps the hundredth time since he’d sat down, “Kithran had her book, the place was in flames and the streets were in chaos as a result. It seemed the best time to put Davnor and all of Sendria behind us.”

“I should think so,” Evin chortled, still trying to wrap his mind around the entirety of the tale, “Gods!”

Garion was chuckling, too, though it was more at the Kazari’s matter-of-fact response to that last question than in any sort of disbelief. He’d had the terrible pleasure of having seen Ch’dau in battle on a few occasions, after all, and was far from doubtful that the Silver Cat had embellished the tale. “So, I assume you accompanied this Kithran back to her employers, then,” he prompted, sipping away the dregs of his wine, “What became of the Bladesinger and the Pick?”

Ch’dau waited until the serving girl had refilled their cups and vanished from their tableside before answering. “After Mosic saw to tending our wounds, he chose to return to Davnor,” he began, turning the wooden mug of liquor-laced milk between his paws, “His god, he said, still had work for him, there. I have not seen him since.

The Bladesinger, though, stayed in our company,” the Kazari’s tone seemed to soften and something of a smile played on his feline features as he carried on, “She travelled with us from Davnor to Felarin, where Kithran delivered the witch’s book and collected her payment, and stayed with us in the weeks after as we sought other employment…”

Ch’dau might have sighed, then, but it was difficult for either of the guardsmen to tell over the buzz of surrounding conversations and behind the mug that the cat-man had lifted to his lips.

“…In fact,” the Kazari continued, turning the mug between his paws, once more, “she became the leader of our company when we, at last, found a job, elsewhere in Ertain.”

“She became your… your…” Garion’s features twisted in concentration and he snapped his fingers as he tried to remember the word, “your Khan… that’s the word, yes?”

“Khatun,” Ch’dau corrected, “but, yes, Garion, it is the same idea.”

“And what sort of job did you pick up, then,” Evin asked, “More burgling from wizards, was it?”

“Hardly,” Ch’dau snorted, shaking his head, “We took on a much simpler task, then; more the sort of work to which the Bladesinger and I were accustomed. Along with a pair of clerics – one of Therassor and one of Solanis – we were hired to clear a road of bandits and eliminate them altogether if we could…”

“And, of course, you did,” Garion assumed.

“Well, sure they did,” Evin half-belched and half-laughed out his own interjection, “Wiping out a nest of highwaymen’s easy as falling off a horse compared to tearing a witch’s leg off!”

“To be fair,” the Kazari smirked across the table at the monkey, “that leg didn’t belong to the witch to begin with.” His blue-green gaze ticked to the Syl, then, and he nodded. “Yes, of course we did.

Our next job,” he proceeded in the wake of Garion’s grin, “still in the company of those same clerics…”

Evin rested his elbows on the table, tankard tottering between his hands, and raised questioning brows; “Whose names were?”

“Gib and Cedric.”

“Which was which?”

“For Adaron’s sake, Evin,” the Syl scolded, “will you shut up and let him tell the story?”

“What?” the human managed to grin and look indignant all at once, “I’m just trying to get the whole picture.”

The Kazari snorted in amusement and held up a hand to the Syl. “It is all right, friend Garion,” he rumbled, “Evin has paid for all the drinks, so far. I suppose it only fair that I provide him the details he wants, hm?”

Garion threw up his hands in mock exasperation. “Very well,” he chuckled, “but only if he buys the next round, as well.”

“Done,” Evin agreed, his eager gaze crossing the table again.

“Gib is the cleric of Therassor,” Ch’dau offered, lifting his mug once more, “and Cedric is Solanis’ man, yes? In our dealings with the bandits, we had taken on a pair of mages – a human called Atharis and a Cidal called Midge,” he nodded pointedly at Evin, “and, at the request of their order, we were to escort Atharis to Crandel so that he might meet with another wizard of their kind.

Again, a simple enough task when the sound of it reaches one’s ears,” the Kazari’s tone and even his mood seemed to darken, then, and he took a healthy pull from his mug before continuing, “and, yet, it is one we failed…”

For the next while, Garion and Evin listened in fascination as the Kazari related the tale of the events that had transpired in Crandel. Food was ordered but, as the tale became more and more gruesome, it went mostly untouched. Libations, too, were kept flowing, though Ch’dau seemed to have stopped drinking in favor of staring into his cup and, by the time the story neared the end of its telling, Garion, at least, felt he understood why.

“…It took days, perhaps weeks, for us to dig out of those ruins,” the Kazari rumbled somewhat wearily, “and days more until any of us were fit to leave the place. When we were well enough to do so, both the Bladesinger and I had lost our taste for adventure, I suppose…”

“And that’s how you came to be a blacksmith’s apprentice in far-off Meadowbrook, then,” Garion queried quietly, almost timidly.

“Mmm,” Ch’dau nodded, “Gib and Cedric set off to see what more they might learn of Davena’s cult and where she may have taken Kithran. I escorted the Bladesinger home and found my way to Meadowbrook…”

“Where you met and married Sara?”

At that question, the Kazari, at last, tipped his mugs to his lips again and then shrugged as he swallowed. “I… met Sara… along the way,” he didn’t quite lie, “and she accompanied me to Meadowbrook, but, yes, we were wed there.”

“Bloo… hic… Bloody f***in’ hells,” Evin blinked, weaving unsteadily over his tankard, “Shhoundsh like you need t’ quit get… hic… gettin’ y’shhelf tosshed in front o’ D’h… hic… D’hrugen, m’fren! Tha’ shyte’s obvioushhhly no’… hic… healthy…”

“Evin,” Garion snapped, nudging his partner enough that Evin nearly toppled from the bench, “what’d I tell you about not making a fool of yourself?”

“Welll, I’m sshhorry,” the drunken monkey slurred, clumsily righting himself in his seat and blinking at both Garion and Ch’dau, “but tha’sshh,” he waggled his fingers in an attempt to indicate the invisible words of Ch’dau’s tales, “tha’sssh f***ed up!”

“And so are you, mellonamin,” the Syl sighed, casting an apologetic look at the Silver Cat.

“He is not wrong,” Ch’dau admitted in answer to and dismissal of Garion’s unspoken act of contrition, “and, perhaps when I have found and freed Kithran, I will go out of my way to heed that advice. Until that happens, though,” he lifted his mug in salute and, before draining its contents in a single swallow, said, “K’wa uw’ndaji na damu kw’a Rrowl!”

“I dunno wha’ tha’ meansshh,” Evin chuckled, hoisting his tankard and nearly spilling whatever remained inside, “but here’ssshh to it!”

Garion shook his head, rolled his eyes, and hauled himself out of his seat. “I’ll tell you what it means as you puke up your innards on the way home,” the Syl said, trying to lift the drunken Evin to his feet, “but we should leave now lest you start doing so on this very table.”

As Ch’dau chuckled at the scene, Evin rose and wobbled between the Syl’s ready hands. “Fine… hic… fine,” the monkey chittered, “It wassshhh good t’ meetcha, Sssh’d… Ssh’da… hic… cat-man! I’nnng goin’ home, now, ‘parently…”

“As well you should,” the Kazari chuckled, “Us’ku m’wema, t’mbili.”

“It was good to see you, Ch’dau,” Garion smiled, shaking his head as he tried to get Evin pointed toward the door, “I’m sorry our visit couldn’t have lasted longer…”

“Monkeys and alcohol, yes,” Ch’dau chuffed, “It was good to see you, as well, Garion.”

“I won’t tell anyone of you,” the Syl promised in a lower tone, then, “it sounds as if you might prefer it that way.”

“I would thank you for that, m’rra’fiki. Perhaps we will meet again.”

“I do hope so.”

“Wha’…wha’d ‘e say,” Evin asked, finally getting his legs to cooperate enough to make for the door, “Wha’s ooshkoo mama tumbly mean?”

“He said, ‘good night, monkey’,” Garion translated as he followed Evin to the door, “Keep walking.”

“He called me a monkey,” the human giggled, grinning as his head wobbled around to squint at the Kazari.

“He calls all humans monkey,” the Syl returned, “it’s a Kazari thing.”

“Tha’s’shh brilliant!” Evin would have turned around and staggered back to the table had Garion not caught him and spun him back toward the door. “Shhooomebody buy that giant pusshhy ‘nother drink! He’shh fought death, y’know!!!”

“Will you shut up,” Garion sighed, shoving Evin through the door as Ch’dau laughed in their wake, “Get outside and start throwing up before I decide to leave you in the gutter.”

As the two guardsmen disappeared into the streets of Calestra, the serving girl reappeared at the table as if she had taken the drunken Evin at his word. “Another, sir?”

Ch’dau’s eyes flitted about the place and, still finding no sign of Aranwen, returned to the girl. “Why not,” he returned with a shrug, “One more as I wait for my wife, hm?”

“Vera well,” the girl said, dipping a knee, “rum and milk, was it?”

“Unless you have any goat blood to mix in, as well,” the cat-man grinned.

An anxious, almost uncertain, smile flitted across the young girl’s face, then. “N-no, sir,” she tittered nervously, “I don’t think we’ve any…um… goat’s blood… I can… ask…”

“Rum and milk is fine,” Ch’dau assured her as he, at last, reached for a strip of bloody meat that had spent the last hour cooling on the table before him, “Thank you, kibibi.”

As the little monkey girl scurried away to fetch his drink, Ch’dau picked at the food that remained on the table, happy to be filling his belly enough to absorb some of the alcohol he’d ingested. Just before she returned, though, his ears pricked up having caught the sounds of scratching, scraping, and the occasional thump from somewhere above. When the serving girl sat his drink down before him, her eyes followed his gaze to where it was fixed somewhere between the rafters above…

“Do you hear that, t’mbili m’chana,” the Kazari’s voice thrummed.

“Hear what, sir?” The girl queried, still blinking into the shadows of the ceiling above, “I don’t hear any…”

A violent crash, issuing from the tavern’s upper floor, echoed down the stairway and into the common room, then. This was followed by grunts, curses, and more clashing noises that, now, Ch’dau could not fail to identify as the sounds of battle.

“A fight,” the Kazari snarled, getting to his feet and pushing the girl behind him as the sound of bodies tumbling down the steps drew his narrowed gaze to the stairway.

"Swallow the hot coffee before venturing a look at Bree's posts! It feels better in the tum than it does shooting out your sinuses!"

One of my favorite scenes, right there, btw.

...I've watched about the first 45 minutes of "The Book of Knowledge" and I've gotta say I would totally love to play with that group! Hoping to catch the rest later this evening. Thanks for sharing, Raven!

"Don't stab me with blade-mum's sword and run off with a necromantic slitch, then!"

*smoochity-facelick*

There's another drop in the bucket... another little collaborative piece between Rer and myself.

Up next, a scene from inside the Bent Copper, perhaps?

26th Bre Taola; 453 E.R.
The Market; Calestra, Coria

The reception he and Aranwen had received at the gate earlier in the day had, at once, relieved and unsettled Ch’dau. For the one, the recognition that Garion had displayed had made gaining entrance to the city much easier than it had been since he wore the colors of the Silver Wyverns but, for the other, there was the fact that such recognition might yet be a danger. Davena still lived, after all, and, as far as he and Aranwen, and any of the rest who might be aware of the events in Crandel knew, Kithran Aldeath was, as well. If either of them had so much as a sense that any of the party that had ventured into D’hurgen’s Temple all those months ago still breathed, surely there would be hunters in pursuit. Surely, neither of them would think that any of them would stop looking.

“Something bothers you, m’une,” Sara cooed, turning her warm golden eyes on her husband as he drove Rakiim’s wagon to the fringes of Calestra’s market, “Tell me.”

A soft grumble of protest welled in Ch’dau’s chest, then, only to be quelled an instant after, when Sara’s fingers rippled gently, soothingly, through the fur of his shoulder. When those delicate but strong fingers reached the crook of his neck and lingered lightly, the grumble melted to a sigh and, on that breath, he turned his gaze to meet his wife’s. “I fear that bringing you here was a mistake,” he confessed, “Garion did not recognize you, m’penzi, but he did know me… by my own name. Such things worry me.”

“Because you think that news of you may lead to news of me,” Sara smiled knowingly, leaning farther into the Kazari’s chest, “I know.”

“Hmm,” Ch’dau nodded, letting go of the reins with one hand in order to wrap that arm around the Sylvari woman. He said little else in the short distance from the Captain’s Gate to the stables of Market’s Edge but, as they drew close enough that he started reining in the team, again, Ch’dau felt Aranwen’s head shift against his fur, again, and looked down to meet the gaze he had come to expect.

“Do you worry more about Davena,” she asked, “or hunters from Megilindar Nost?”

“I worry about, neither, melamin,” he answered, “and both.

Let either of them send their best,” he snorted softly, “and I… we… will manage well enough. At the same time, for either of them to know we still live is more trouble than we need now.”

A tinkling laughter that Ch’dau had not heard in quite a while escaped Aranwen’s lips, then, and she plucked a single hair from his chest in response. “Do you think me unready for whatever trouble you might bring us, cat-beast,” she teased, “Do you think I will not stand at your side?”

“Never do I doubt either of those things, m’ke,” Ch’dau purred, wrapping her tighter in his one-armed embrace, “I would prefer, though, that neither that slitch, Davena, nor the Bladesingers become aware of us before it is due, hm?”

He regretted the words as soon as he had spoken them and, despite his best efforts, the heavy sigh he heaved in the wake of those words betrayed his thoughts. He hadn’t intended to question Ara’s readiness for battle with either faction, of course, but he had spent the last months with her, all but alone. He heard the fretfulness of her dreams when she slept. He saw the way her hands trembled when they reached for anything resembling a blade. Both of these, it seemed, had worsened following the fight he had unknowingly provoked with Simon and…

...An elbow to his ribs jarred him from those disheartening thoughts  and, as he blinked into Sara’s eyes, Ch’dau recognized the good this trip had done her for the first time. There was a light behind her eyes, again. A flicker of hope and inspiration and, perhaps,mirth, that, it seemed, he had not glimpsed in a hundred turnings.

“I know what you meant,” Sara taunted on the end of that elbow, “Have you still not learned sarcasm?”

*** 

"Have you still not learned sarcasm?" Kithran’s eyes widened in surprise as she regarded the Silver Cat before her

"Saying things that are the opposite of what one means,” Ch’dau chuffed, crossing one paw over the other, “It does remain a strange concept to me…” 

"That's what it is, but not really what it is like, it's like, uhh" Kithran paused at her attempted explanation, feeling eyes on her and turning to see Aranwen staring with what she could only guess as confusion in those golden eyes, "Don't tell me you don't get it either!"

"I understand, I think,” Aranwen offered, unconvincingly, ”but sarcasm is seldom employed in the Sylvari forests, less so by patrols or at Megilindor Nost. I do have to admit that it is rather different to hear in person."

"Are you serious? Of course you are; you're always serious," Kithran brought a hand to her forehead in disbelief, until she saw Aranwen smirking at her, "Wait. That was a joke. So you can joke!"

"Only when circumstances allow, Kithran," Aranwen smiled.

***

Sarcasm, playfulness, laughter… Ever sharp witted, Kithran seemed to make the wordplay into an art form. Another way her absence was felt ever keener. As soon as she had asked the question, Aranwen felt as if the question was not with her voice, and as she looked into Ch'dau's blue eyes, she saw that he, too, shared the same thoughts. 

Both Ch’dau and Aranwen swallowed hard, then, and each one’s grip tightened on the other as the wagon clattered to a stop.

“We will find her, Ara,” Ch’dau muttered, holding the Sylvari woman closer to him, still.

“I know, melamin,” she whispered in reply, her fingers still twisting themselves, anxiously into the fur that covered his chest, “I only hope it is soon...”

“...And we are not too late,” Ch’dau finished, squeezing his wife tight and completing the mantra they had shared for the past months.

“You should take advantage of what remains of the trading day, vernoamin*” Sara chirped, lifting her head from Ch’dau’s chest to plant a kiss on his cheek, “and then go meet up with your old friend…”

“You are not coming,” Ch’dau asked, his head swivelling to frame Ara’s eyes with his own.

“Not right away,” Sara smiled softly, “I will find us lodgings while you tend to Rakiim’s business and, then,” her golden gaze drifted skyward before sweeping over the city, “I may pay a visit or two…” She felt her husband’s skeptical gaze fall upon her, then, and, with another giggle and nudge, continued; “Stop worrying, melamin. I’ll be fine… and I promise to meet you and your friends at the Bent Copper when I’ve finished.” 

She kissed him, again, as the wagon came to a stop and, as she hopped down from the buck, she flicked him a playful wink. “Besides,” she quipped, throwing her arms wide as she backed away into the crowd at the market's edge, “however else would you find your way to our bed if I didn’t lead you?”

An explosive laugh escaped the Kazari, then, and, if a cat-beast could blush, Ch’dau did in that moment. “I’m sure that I would find a way, m’penzi,” he called as she melted into the crowd.

“You had better, Kazari,” the now disembodied voice called over the hum of the market, “Na’ku’penda, m’une.”

“Na’ku’penda, m’ke,” Ch’dau answered, climbing down from the wagon, now, and studying the list that Sara had translated for him on their trip. The first order of business seemed to be delivering a crate each of locks and hinges to a shop called The Brazen Bolster…

Nearing sundown - The Market; Calestra, Coria

As the din of the market dimmed with the dwindling of its crowd, Ch’dau lumbered back toward the wagon for what would be the last time, today. He grumbled softly under his breath, rolling his shoulders against the ache that had settled into them from carrying crates and bundles to and fro for the past hours, and leaned against the van’s stake-board for a moment, watching as the merchants began to shutter their shops and close their stalls. Despite the pitiful few hours he’d had to do so, the kazari had reduced the wagon’s load by better than half and, he imagined, were he to get an early enough start, tomorrow, all of Rakiim’s deliveries could be handled before Khr’a’s Right Eye was highest in the sky. He stifled a yawn, then, and tugged the Khord’s list from his belt, again, glancing over the deliveries that still needed tending but paying closer attention to the items that he was expected to return to Meadowbrook.

“Mostly ingots and ore,” he chuffed quietly, nodding his head as he tucked the list away and shoved himself off of the wagon’s flank, “I can likely secure the rest while the wagon is being loaded and we can be off and away by sundown…” He chuckled softly, almost mischievously, as he rounded the front of the wagon and undid the feed bags from the horses. “...Or, maybe, Aranwen and I will take another night in whatever rooms she finds for us and we can leave the morning after.

What think you, Meat,” he rumbled, scritching the neck of one of the draft-beasts, “You would like an extra night in a decent stable, yes?”

The horse nickered at him and he nodded in reply.

 “I thought as much,” he chuckled moving to the next animal, “and you, as well, Pili Pili?”

The big roan snorted and snapped it’s large teeth at the furry paw that sought to stroke her neck.

“Sa’wa,” Ch’dau snarled back, shying the horse a bit, “stay on the yoke for all I care! Snap at me again, though, and I swear by Rrowl’s whiskers I will bite you back!”

The horse he called Pili Pili snorted again but, this time, simply nudged him with her muzzle.

“As I thought,” he rumbled, still teetering faintly from that playful push. He didn’t try to touch her neck, again, though. Instead, he slung the feed bags over his shoulder and, en route to the wagon’s seat, patted her withers as he passed. “I would only eat you if I had no other choice, girl,” he assured her before tossing the feed-bags into the wagon bed and tying the tarp down again, “Rakiim would take it from my pay, I am sure.” He climbed up onto the wagon’s bench, then, and, with another glance at the sun where it started to disappear beyond Calestra’s rooftops and walls, flicked the reins and goaded the horses south and westward from the market.

The route he chose to follow from the bazaar to The Bent Copper tavern was relatively discreet, winding through less trafficked thoroughfares and side streets in order to allay any undue attention or alarm that might arise from too many of Calestra’s citizens catching sight of a Kazari wagonning his way across the city. As tactfully plotted as the path was, though, it still took him past or, at least, within sight of some of the trade city’s more recognizable landmarks. The last rays of Khr’a’s waning Right Eye gleamed brilliantly from the smooth faces of The Mirror Towers before the wagon rattled over the cobbled streets and past the Lysoran temple known as the House of Care and, then, turned on a more westerly course to pass The House of Bells before crossing the broad avenue that bisected the city from north to south. On the western side of the city, then, the road angled southward again and, in the distance, atop a small hill, The House of the Rising Sun shone out in it’s splendor despite the dying of the light.

Ch’dau’s gaze lingered almost wistfully on the Temple of Solanis for a moment and he couldn’t help but sigh as the sight of it called to mind memories of young Cedric. He couldn’t help but wonder, now, about where the cleric of Solanis might be and what information he might have found regarding Davena’s D’hurganite cult and, more importantly, Kithran’s whereabouts. “Wherever you may be, my friend,” the Kazari rumbled quietly, blinking his gaze free of the temple that had transfixed it, “Rrowl’s heart is with you. Let us hope we meet again, very soon.” 

Turning the wagon south, again, he followed a road that took him past The Long Gamble and, catching sight of a crimson-clad Maiden as she disappeared through the inviting doors of the place coaxed yet another pensive chuff from the cat-man’s mouth. The sounds of mirth and excitement the swelled around the place brought joyful memories of his Little Kitten to warm his heart and, at the same time, caused the scar where she had run him through with Aranwen’s blade to go cold enough to ache. One paw fell unconsciously to that scar as the other drew the reins taut, causing Meat and Pili Pili to come to a stop and, for a long moment, Ch’dau sat and watched from the wagon as folk from all walks bustled in and out of Shinara’s temple. More than once he gave thought to delaying his arrival at the Bent Copper in favor of entering the Long Gamble, himself, if for no other reason than to be surrounded by the unbridled joy and enthusiasm that his kibibi had once… to lose himself, if only for a moment, in the carefree exuberance of the Laughing Maidens’ company and imagine that it was Kithran by his side once again… When Ch’dau realized that a low growl had crept into the soft purring that the sight of Shinara’s temple had evoked from him, though, he thought better of the detour and loosed the reins, again, urging the horses onward even as his gaze lingered on the place.

“We will find you, Little Kitten,” he promised before turning his eyes back to the road ahead, his growl still coloring the breath on which those words escaped, “I only hope that it is soon and we are not too late.”

Yum!

Say no more!

I know how to do that, too!

Do you expect me to polish the brightwork (copper), too, or is it just a mopping?

...in boot camp! Sign me up!

I did reference Khr'a dreaming, of course, just wasn't sure that I had really connected it in any fashion with the moon. So, I went back and scoured the text and found this snippet:

"Khr’a watched these things until her left eye, too, began to tire, and, as she fell into slumber, once more, she sought to dream of what she might see when next she gazed upon them."

So, that definitely cinches the "Dreaming Eye" connection... especially if the moon is in a waning or new phase, I would think. 

...I was looking at a Chindari, at first, not a Vidarak. Anyhooo...

And whaddya mean "less special"? I think Einar is pretty fantastic, myself... I mean just the idea of a one-handed rogue struck me as a downright unique concept. I'm anxious for he and Ch'dau to meet, for sure, and am super excited for the whole group to be brought together.

Now... who wants to come and work for me so I can goof off properly?