Chuckling, Lanaya obediently began sipping at her own bowl. "Very good," she agreed with another small laugh, nodding at him. "I do believe you've a talent for mixing concoctions of all kinds, apprentice."

Gale hooted softly, an owl's laugh--then suddenly fluffed up her feathers and made a chuffing, clucking sound that had Lanaya snapping her head up.

"What--really? You're sure?"

"Wooh-hhooo!"

After all the time they'd spent together, Adri liked to think she'd gotten fairly good at being able to tell when Idris was sunk into his own world--there were different levels of it, that she'd noticed. Sometimes she could draw him back out, but others he was just too deep in rumination.

This seemed to be one of the latter moments--rather than futilely attempt to draw him back out into conversation, she huffed, rolled her eyes fondly, and devoted the rest of her energy to making sure he didn't stray off path or walk into anyone else passing them on the street. It was something she'd gotten quite proficient at, and required sort of "herding" the smith without actually touching him.

Then they reached the shop, and he seemed to come back to himself abruptly. "I guess we are," she chuckled lightly. With a dip of her head, she extended a hand. "After you."

She found herself watching fondly as he fussed with his clothes--maybe she should have been more concerned about her own appearance, but honestly she was still just too tired from the last few days to care overmuch. Since starting to live with Idris at the forge, she at least had taken to wearing modestly flattering dresses, rather than the thread-worn and ragged affairs that had been the best she could do as a street-corner flower-seller.

She followed him into the shop, looking around curiously as a tiny silver bell tinkled cheerfully to announce their arrival.

Shae found herself shifting awkwardly in place, shrinking back against the edge of the window, as the stranger seemed to cut his eyes up toward the aerie. Surely he couldn't see her from this distance?

"Oh, there will be time later for talk of business," Alstead said, waving his hand carelessly--but there was a hint of tension at the corners of his mouth and eyes. "Suffice to say my estate has proven quite safe; your services will be required most often when I leave the grounds."

He beckoned to one of the servants who had accompanied him, an older man in a well-tailored though sedate household livery, and said, "This is my steward, Ranolf. He will make sure you are properly settled. We can speak more of your duties afterward." To Ranolf, he said, "Show him to his chambers, and then to my study, if you would."

"Of course, Ser." The steward gave his master a half-bow, then turned to Zjhe. "If you'll follow me?"

Hana rolled her eyes and muttered something under her breath about Thrax being too heavy for her to cart through the desert when he passed out, but she was smiling, and downed her own glass nearly as quickly.

"Well, we're grateful for the lift, regardless," she said to the captain with a lopsided smirk.

"We'll be fine," Nani huffed. Vander was letting his tongue lull happily as she awkwardly hefted him around so his front paws dangled over her shoulders. At least he wasn't fidgeting.

She jerked her chin toward Ein. "Go on then, we're right behind you."

This was so so so far out of the minute princess's realm of expertise. She honestly had handled the revelation of a massive, chimeric beast hiding close to the border of her homeland with more confidence than this situation.

"Errr...chin up?" she offered awkwardly, and immediately winced. "I mean, ah...it'll...be okay?"

"...Adelaide?"

"Yeah, Da?"

"Did you take in another stray when I wasn't looking?"

"What?" Addie poked her head around where her father was standing in the doorway to their personal tent, brow furrowed. It didn't take her long to see what he was referring to.

"Awwwww, aren't you darling!" she exclaimed, rushing into the tent where an orange cat she certainly didn't recognize was curled up on one of her silks. "Oh, poor thing, you must be tired from rushing about," she cooed, reaching out to offer her fingers for the animal to sniff.

Behind her, still hovering in the entrance of the tent, Viserian "hmmm"ed quietly and eyed the creature critically.

Morgana couldn't feel the magic, exactly, but it was like there was a soft buzzing wherever her skin touched Nik's. It grew steadily stronger, and in turn grew harder and harder for her to keep her grip on Nik as the glow around him became more intense, until finally she was forced to let go and stagger back with a small cry.

"Nik!"

He collapsed back into the chair and she stumbled forward to land on her knees just beside him, reaching up automatically to search him for injury. "Stars and seas, are you alright? What--how do you feel?"

She heard the soft thump as Cora collapsed behind her, and managed to spare the sorceress look over her shoulder.

She sighed. "I...should help her," she muttered, but seemed reluctant to move away from Nik's side.

Kiara nodded briskly as she slid down from Kit's back. "Keep watch for me?" she asked the dragon quietly. He nodded with a small huff, curling his body protectively around her, and she knelt to place one hand on the earth.

She could do this. Her father had explained it to her--years ago, but she remembered how it was supposed to work. She was fae now, properly fae. She could do this...

She closed her eyes, then let her magic start to spread out from her fingers, bleeding into the dirt, then the roots of the trees around them, then further.

Where are you...?

---

"Right." Kiara bit back a small smirk. Looking to their hosts, she assured, "We'll be back as soon as we can--but you should start getting your people together, get them ready to move."

"Yes, I believe that's what humans call them," Lanaya replied thoughtfully. "I can't say I've ever been that far myself."

She never left the woods, really. She got most of her news from traveling birds, who heard it in turn from other birds and creatures, and so on and so on--like an incredibly long version of a party game where players whispered a phrase to each person down a line one at a time.

"Eh, impulse control is overrated," Hana scoffed, grinning as she took the offered glass and lifted it up. "So! What are we toasting to? Friends? New journeys? The spectacularly hilarious awkwardness of finding out that both Thrax and I courted you at one point?"

"Better you than me," Adri chuckled wryly. "I can barely keep all that stuff you told me about different grades of ores and ingots straight." She shrugged again. "Ah, well. I'm good at being able to tell when someone's trying to cheat me, even if I can't assess stone quality--I'm sure we'll do alright."

She glanced up at him sidelong, then bumped her hip into his gently. "Hey," she said in a slightly softer voice. "You've got this. I'm right here, okay?"

"Thanks." She whistled for the hound and tossed him a treat when he perked his ears up, clearly knowing that he was about to get food.

"C'mere, you," she chuckled, giving the treat a few moments to begin working before she bent to heft him in her arms. "Woof." She staggered a bit. "Well. He's lighter, but he's still big," she half-laughed as she tried to finagle them into a position where she could at least somewhat comfortably keep a good grip on Vander.

"...I'm sorry," Krysta offered, the smirk bleeding from her tone. She didn't have much experience in the field of romance--or, well, any--but she'd certainly seen a lot of it, both as it unfolded between her two closest friends and in the way her parents were nauseatingly besotted with each other.

Which meant she didn't really know how to offer condolences for this sort of thing. "She, ah...sounds nice?"

Shae found herself sitting up a little straighter and leaning into the frame of the window to get a better look as the new guard emerged from the carriage.

What...?

She'd never seen anyone like him. She'd never even heard of anyone like him--she had to assume he didn't have any magic, or he likely wouldn't have risked taking a job in Connloath, but still...she could come up with no other plausible comparison to his appearance than perhaps a fae creature.

She watched as Master Alstead detached himself from his small retinue and stepped forward to offer the stranger his hand. Though the aerie was located at the highest point of the manor proper, it was still only three stories up, and it did border the interior yard. On a day like today, when the wind worked in her favor, she could faintly hear conversation in the courtyard below, so long as the participants spoke loudly enough.

Which Alstead often did. "jovially booming" was probably the best descriptor of his typical tone. "You must be Ser Zjhe," He said in welcome, despite stumbling a bit over the pronunciation of the name. "Well met, well met. I trust you had a speedy journey?"

Della skittered back from his lunge instinctively--and her hand snapped out to grab the insignia off the dirty floorboards just as automatically. If this stranger was that intent on getting it back, it was clearly valuable.

She had no interest in stealing it, but in this city there were really only a handful of things an insignia like this could be. And one of them might be very useful to her current job.

She straightened up and took a step back, fingers curling tight around the prize. "What is it?" she demanded sharply. "Why do you need it?"

Varyyn eyed his extended hand for a long moment, then looked up with a wryly arched brow.

"You do know the risks involved in making a deal with a demon, don't you?" It was difficult to tell from his tone if it was said in jest, or a true warning.

@wandering_giraffe

---

It had been months since she'd been stuck, been forced into a form she didn't want--and now there was this.

The potions she'd been using to control her shifts were losing their potency, and she didn't know why.

The small--relatively speaking--dragon was hunched over an almost perfectly circular jungle pool. Well, "puddle" might have been a more accurate descriptor; and it was certainly too regular in shape to be natural.

Such features were rare, and she'd been lucky to find it--she thought it might be a remnant of whatever lost culture had crafted the crumbling ruins around her. She honestly had no idea what they would have used it for, but she had a very specific purpose in mind for it.

She craned her head back, trying to peer up through the think canopy to find the crest of the moon. The jungle was thinner her--again, thanks to the ruins--but there were still enough trees that she knew she would only have a few minutes of full moonlight on the water.

She just had to hope those few minutes would be enough.

Della didn't normally take jobs linked to the Ruby Hilt--then again, she didn't normally get offered jobs that paid as much as this one did. Apparently, the heir apparent to the second-largest smuggling ring in Zantaric had been found dead just a few weeks back, and his associates had put a retaliatory hit on his assassin.

Pretty standard for how things worked in this city, all things considered. And while Della didn't usually like to take jobs from the organized gangs, for fear of looking like she was choosing sides, well...she was running low on coin, and the Hilt was offering a frankly offensive amount. She'd just keep clear of the city for a few months once the job was done, leave things to settle themselves. Should be simple enough.

Problem was, now she had to find a contracted killer who no one had actually seen.

She exhaled sharply as she ducked through the tavern doorway, automatically turning her face away from the raucous group of three who were stumbling out passed her into the rain-slicked street. Even for this place, she tended to be eye-catching, which was not exactly something she wanted right now.

She dodged her way through the scattered tables to make for the bar, doing her best to keep a low profile--but she was so intent on keeping her face hidden (and her tail tucked up under her cloak) that she missed the slightly crooked leg of a chair and caught her foot on it.

"Shit." She nearly fell to her knees, but managed to catch herself on the edge of the table. Praying that the table's current occupant wasn't going to be a special brand of asshole, she started muttering apologies as she pushed herself up with one hand and tugged her hood more firmly forward with the other.

(M for probable violence)

@wandering_giraffe

---

New additions to the household staff were rare--Finian Alstead was not a man so well enough in means that he was frequently adding to the manor's relatively sparse collection of servants, save to replace those who were leaving their posts. Or those who had died, as had been the case with Shae when she took over for her mentor in the aerie.

So it was no small subject of gossip amongst the housekeeping staff when Master Alstead's new bodyguard was set to arrive. No one knew anything about him--only that he'd come recommended to Alstead from a contact outside of the country as "the best you'll find for what you're willing to pay".

Shae didn't pay the gossip much mind, though she would admit to a niggling of curiosity. But she kept to herself--she rarely interacted with the master of the estate, except when he needed to send a direct message by raven. Aside from taking her in as a girl, he really didn't seem to have much interest in her. He let her be, and she returned the favor.

Still she couldn't stop herself from moving to the window of the aerie as the sun crested toward noon, when the newcomer was meant to be arriving. She had a fairly good view of the main courtyard from here.