The darkened streets of Ketra hummed with a low buzz of activity. There certainly wasn't as much bustle as mid-afternoon, but the darkened roadways were far from silent or empty. People moved quickly in between buildings and along the streets going about there late-night business as fast as they could. Ketra was usually safe at night but it always paid to be careful.
Unless of course you were a six-foot tall lizardman armed with two wicked-looking axes. Then people had a tendency to stay out of your way. It was worth it to be intimidating. Phintil was able to walk with a leisurely pace, quite sure that he wasn't going to be waylaid. After all, who would attack him, and why?
Thus assured, the lizardman continued his walk from one tavern to another. He hadn't found anyone hiring at the last one, but maybe his luck would change at the next. Or the one after that.
He'd find something eventually. There was always somebody who needed a bruiser to do something. Until then, he'd keep looking. What else was there to do?
As he walked by one particularly dark alley, he got his answer. The sounds of a scuffle came to him from the opening. Curses, clattering weapons, shuffling feet, Phintil recognized all the sounds. He considered. There was no good reason to go down there...
But what was the harm in investigating? Carefully, the lizardman stalked down the alleyway, unhooking his right-hand axe as he went.
"It's bust. I told you." Ori turned her head up at the sky. "Boss is gonna give you crap for it, you won't be able to sweep."
"It's just sprained. I'll be fine!" Enedith growled, slowly walking behind her. It was getting dark...
"He'll find out we went roof-climbing again! And ground us." she sighed.
"I'll make something up. He doesn't have to know." Enedith shrugged, and rolled his eyes over. He gripped his right wrist and tried to move it, but his face shifted into a pained grimace after that. "Damn. Maybe you're right." he muttered.
They walked forwards for a while, passing through the dark (and often dirty) alleyways, talking about this and that, till a man appeared in their way. Ori ran straight into him, deep in her daydream, and stared at him like if struck by a lightning. He appeared rough and he was stinky...
Another four appeared around them. The first one grabbed Ori by the shoulder, and pulled the scared girl up. "What do we have... Today's a lucky day. You're pretty like a little flower, eh!" he laughed, and licked his lips. Enedith growled at him, taking an attacking stance despite his injured arm, and he pierced him with a sharp look of his cold eyes.
"Let go off her!" he burst out, reaching after her.
"Because of a punk like you?" the brute returned his look, and pushed him back. Enedith avoided his punch, thrown at his face, and kicked the man into the shin. However, despite the strength of the attack, he received no reaction. Holding Ori with one hand, the man grabbed him by the wrist, and pulled him up. He let out a growl of pain, and twitched, kicking into the air in a desperate attempt to get free, but his mind was clouded. Too clouded to do anything meaningful...
"Someone! Hey, someone help! Please! Help m-" Even Ori's screams were silenced by the palm of one of the men. Someone come and help...
Suddenly, screams emerged from the alleyway. Grimly, Phintil unhooked his other axe, arming himself completely. he stepped around a corner and came upon a disturbing scene. In the low-light, it looked as if five grown men were assaulting a pair of kids. Or teenagers, the lizardman could never tell with mammals.
Well, either way, one of the two being attacked was obviously a girl, he could tell those apart easily enough, and that grated on Phintil's nerves quite strongly. The lizardman advanced on the nearest man, and his approach elicited a shout from the man holding the kids. "What the hell is that!"
The men turned around to look at Phintil with startled curses and shouts. The four tried to draw their weapons, but the lizardman didn't give them a chance. He brained the two closest men with the flats of his axe blades and he then proceeded to body-slam the third one into the wall. The fourth actually managed to get a rusty sword out of it's sheath, but the weapon did him little good as it shattered under a single blow from Phintil's well-maintained exes.
He gave the man a huge kick which sent him sprawling before turning his attention to the man holding the two kids. The frightened thug released the boy and threw the girl at Phintil before bolting down the alleyway, his comrades groaning and laid out behind him.
The lizardman dropped his axes so he could catch the girl. He didn't bother going after the last man. Not worth it. Carefully, making sure not to scratch her with her his claws, Phintil set down his surprised charge. "You okay?" he asked her with concern.
Ori blinked at him with her large grey eyes, and slowly nodded. "T-thank you, mister..." she muttered, still obviously confused. "I thought they're gonna... Uh..." She blushed, and grew silent.
Enedith fell to his knees after the brute let go off him, gripping his wrist. That fist messed it even more than it was before... He could feel tears, streaming down his face, but he ignored them. Oh, the agony...
Eventually, Ori remembered, and turned towards him. "Enedith, are you alright? Did he hurt you? You don't look good..." she asked, bending above him in concern. He gave her a nod. "I'm fine." he mumbled through his clenched teeth. An obvious lie, but...
"Thanks for saving us, sir." For a moment, his glance ran up the lizardman's tall figure. Not one to mess with, to say the least.
Phintil grinned at the two kids broadly. "Don't mention it," he told them with false modesty. He was actually feeling quite proud of himself, but there was no need to gloat.
His grin however, turned to a frown as he stared at the two young humans. Well, maybe humans? It was too had to tell in the darkness for him to be sure. "What are you two doing out so late?" he asked them. "The streets an be dangerous," he paused to look meaningfully at the groaning men laid out in the alleyway, "especially for youngster in back alleys."
While helping Enedith stand up, Ori threw a confused glance at the lizardman. They looked at each other, and laughed nervously. "We... Were somewhere out... And we didn't realize it got so late so soon when we were talking... So when we finally went home... It was already late." she explained, scratching her head. He nodded. "And then I fell... And it took us another while kind of... Getting me back together." He held his hand up to prove he was speaking the truth, and leaned onto Ori.
"When we got on our way, it was dark already." she looked down sheepishly.
Phintil stared for a bit longer at the pair almost suspiciously, but then he laughed. Well, laughing for him actually involved opening and closing his frill rapidly, but he'd found that most mammals didn't get the gesture so he'd taken to throwing his had back in a silent imitation of human laughter. His vocal cords couldn't produce the noise, but he could visually mimic it.
"Well alright, seems like a good enough reason to me. I can think of a few times myself when I was out later than I should have been for shaky reasons."
He looked around him in the darkness. "Why don't I take you two the rest of the way. I'm not doing anything right now anyway, and I think that you folks could use an escort." He did the laughing thing again. "I do a lot of work as an escort actually. Well, escorting caravans anyway, but hey, that counts, right?"
"Thank you so much, mister!" Ori gave him a wide and warm smile, and hung one of Enedith's arms over her shoulders to carry him. "But I'm afraid we have to find a healer first, and only then go home."
"I'll be fine, Ori. I can fix that myself. Let's just go home..." Enedith muttered.
"No! I won't let you to be as careless as this... You have to see a healer, and I'll drag you through the street if I'll have to!" she opposed him. He just rolled his eyes over.
"Well, explain him, sir. He'll only hurt himself more if he won't let someone who understands it better than himself take care of him, won't he?" she inquired towards Phintil.
The girl's words had Phintil nodding. "Listen to your friend, boy. Having an amateur tend to injuries can end, well, badly." He thought back to a few times he'd seen comrades attempt field medicine on themselves. "Take my word for it. You should see a professional if you have the opportunity."
Phintil looked around the darkened streets. "I don't really know a professional healer in Ketra," he said sheepishly, "I'm not here often. I assume you two know someone that you can go to?"
They exchanged another nervous look. Ori nodded, and Enedith shook his head. "Well, we do, but..." she begun,
"It's not that much of a professional." he finished her sentence.
"But I guess it will do. Ene's not dying..." she attempted to joke, softly poking him into the ribs.
"I'm not that soft." he growled back.
Phintil looked at the pair suspiciously. Curious how interconnected they were, they must spend a lot of time together.
And what about this healer they were talking about. Not that much of a professional they had said...
Well, something was better than nothing. "Alright, well whether he's a pro or not you should see him. Why don't you two lead the way? I'll follow you close behind."
"Yeah... That's all we can do, I guess. Hell, it hurts." he growled, and let Ori lead him forth. She gave both him and Phintil a soft smile, and started walking.
"Mister, it's a real luck you found us! Is there anything we can... Do for you in exchange?" she asked after a while, looking back at him. Without this man, they'd be as good as dead.
The young girl's question elicited a look of surprise from Phintil. Something they could do for him. He laughed uproariously. Well, as uproariously as he could considering his laugh was silent. "Don't worry about it, call it a favor that doesn't need repaying. I don't think there's anything you kids can do for me anyway, unless you want to join a mercenary company."
He spoke his last words completely in jest, and laughed again after completing his sentence.
"We would." Enedith burst out, almost without thinking. "We're old enough for it, and we can fight."
Ori stopped, shooting a confused glance at him. "Ene, do you really...?" she muttered.
"Yeah, totally. I'm no porcelain doll and only sweeping up like an idiot just isn't satisfying." he growled.
"You're such a jerk..." she whispered, and shook her head. "But you'll ask master. I got to think about it."
The boy's serious answer to his jesting question made Phintil look at the young man in surprise. He was about to reject the kid's words outright, but he said he was old enough, and it wasn't like the lizardman could make a good estimate to the kids age.
What should he do? He had someone on the hook, but he didn't know if he wanted the catch. The girl, Ori, said that he'd have to ask someone called "master" first. Well, that seemed like a good place to start. "Alright," he told the boy, "we'll talk to your master and see what he thinks of the idea. But first, that healer, you mentioned."
He kept walking for a few moments before pointing at the young man's wrist. "What happened there anyway?"
"I fell." Enedith growled. It was a plain statement, and it was apparent that he didn't want to say more. Ori gave him a nervous glance, and turned into a backstreet. "It's right here, mister..." she informed Phintil, pushing Enedith into a door, and immediately closing it after him.
"He may be twenty one already, but sometimes he behaves like he's twelve..." she chuckled nervously, raking though her hair.
The sound of her forced laughter was hollow, and left a heavy emptiness in the air. She sighed, and sled down to the ground, leaning onto the wall with her back. "I'm worried about him." she whispered.
He followed the pair into the shady back-alley with some suspicion. Not a professional sounded right. He watched Ori force Enedith inside, and listened to the girl when she started speaking.
So he was twenty-one. Certainly old enough then, thought Phintil. He hadn't made a good show of himself back there in the alley, but maybe his injury had hampered him...
He was so lost in his own plotting that he almost missed Ori's whispered sentence. He looked down at the young girl, considering the implications of her statement. "How long have you two known each other?" he asked her carefully.
Ori looked up, gazing straight up at Phintil. Her eyes were nowhere close to careless, or even happy...
"I was six, he was eight." she replied, bowing her head down. At that, a few wisps of her hair fell into her face and hid it in their shadows. "He saved me... We were living in the streets on the outskirts of Ketra. Those aren't a safe place, to say the least... Everyone who lives there is a criminal or a thief. What's the same, if you look at it like that. The good, rich people live in the center, and the poor and dirty are left... There. The adults are horrible, and the children are like stray dogs."
She made a deep sigh, and looked up into the lizardman's eyes again. "He saved me. I was running like hell from a man I had to steel a piece of meat from not to go hungry again. He was catching up, and then Ene came. Tripped him over, stomped onto his back, and dragged me along."
That was how it was. They met in dust and dirt...
"He saved my life. Not once, but twice. I owe him more than I can ever repay." she whispered.
The lizardman kept his gaze on the girl a little longer before looking away. He couldn't tell if Ori's concern for Ene was simply out of gratitude, or something much more...
Well, either way, it wasn't his business. "It sounds like you two had a tough time," Phintil said carefully. "I can't say I've had a similar experience," he paused here for a moment, but it seemed only fair that he open up if she did, "I grew up in a tribe of lizardmen in the plains. My childhood was a good one, I guess. Plenty of fighting and chances to learn about war, so about as much as a kid can ask for. Yeah, things were good..."
Phintil's eyes began looking at something far away, and the seemed unfocused. He was like that for a few moments before he shook his head, clearing it of thought. "But anyway, that's who I used to be, and I never place much stock in what people used to be, only what they become."
He grinned toothily, dropping the cheesy line with casual abandon.
"That's a nice thing you said." Ori smiled bleakly. "And I guess it's true, too... People change." she shrugged, and for a moment, remained silent. Her eyes studied Phintil's figure instead, half lost in a daydream, wondering.
"What's it like, to belong somewhere, or to have a family?" she asked eventually. "I never had any. Neither did Enedith - believe me or not, that's his full name - as we've been in the streets for as long as we remember. I guess... I guess it's nice, huh?" she smiled.
"Dirty bastard! That's how you pa-" a voice sounded from behind the door, but it was silenced by a thud - apparently, the thud of Enedith's boot on someone's face.
"Stop talking nonsense." he stopped her, accompanied by the sound of a closing door, and pretending that nothing's happened. She quickly turned over to see his figure, tying his hair up with his left hand, while his right lifelessly hung by in a sling. "We gotta get moving. You know far too well that if we arrive after ten, we're gonna get twice the crap on our heads. And twice the sweeping the morning after." he growled. He didn't look as haggard anymore - he was just angry.
She shrugged, and slowly stood up. "Alright, alright, you don't have to bite my head off for it." she groaned, scratching her head. "Geez, Ene, you can be such a jerk."
"And you don't do anything but stare! Gods, Ori, be useful for once."
"That goes for you, too! I wanna see you doing anything except for fighting. You know, kicking someone's ass won't cook you a dinner!"
"Neither will you, cause you can't cook." he shut her up, and finished tying his bright crimson hair up.
"I'm sorry for this, mister." he shrugged at Phintil, and gestured for Ori to move. "We will get going soon. And I'll let you know about that offer of yours... Though, let me ask you a question - "
He glanced over his shoulder, "You don't look like a local. Do you have a place in an inn or what? Cause if you don't, we might have a free room at master's. To repay the favor."
Ori's question made Phintil look off into the distance again. "I guess it was nice..." He mumbled in response. He was going to say more, but the commotion from within the shop distracted him. Enedith came out with his arm in a sling, which was a good sign. Phintil chose to ignore the sounds of a scuffle that had directly preceded his egress from the building.
He watched the byplay between Enedith and Ori with some interest. Their banter seemed heated, but the lizardman was pretty sure that it neither fully meant everything they said. Still, he came back to his standby, none of his bussiness.
Enedith's question about his lodging however, that was his bussiness. "I was going to find an inn to stay in, but if your offering, I'd gladly take a free room for the night." He laughed a little bit in his silent imitation of the human motion, "After all, free is always better, right?"
"Sure is." he nodded, and pointed at his pockets with his free hand. "Especially if you're broke!"
Ori chuckled at his joke, and followed him further through the complicated labyrinth of backstreets. They passed a few back gardens, even climbed through a pair of fences, till they stopped before a narrow entrance to a two story building, squeezed between two other of the same kind.
"We're here. It looks a little dull, but it's fine." Enedith assured the lizardman, and he was the one to initiate the entrance this time. He knocked onto the door loudly, and waited till it opens, gesturing for Phintil to step back a little. It opened soon, revealing the figure of a man, entirely hidden under several layers of coats and robes in green and black. The scruffy hair around his head had the color of hay, but he didn't appear much older than the two.
"Ah, come in you two. You're late... Pretty late, but as I see, you have an excuse, eh?" His eyes narrowed into slits as he grinned, and pointed at Enedith's arm. He, in response, made some kind of grunt, and nodded his head at Phintil. "We got someone to give a room to... We'll explain it inside, okay?"
The man nodded, and gestured at the lizardman to follow them inside. Only when he stood next to the two in the narrow corridor it was visible that he was actually almost as tall as Enedith.
Phintil had to follow the bickering pair closely to avoid getting lost in the maze of backstreets. It took some innovation on his part to get his large frame through some of the obstacles they encountered, but he managed too stick with them until they stopped at a two story building.
The lizardman watched as Enedith knocked on the door, and stepped back when prompted. The figure who opened the passage was not who he was expecting. From the way that the kids had been talking, he'd thought that the "master" would be someone of advanced age, but even to Phintil's untrained eye this fellow didn't look all that old.
Phintil followed the three into the home when invited, and he couldn't help but notice that the old man was pretty tall, same as Enedith. Odd for humans to reach that size.
He looked at the man for a moment longer before realizing with a start that he was staring. And that he hadn't introduced himself. "It's a pleasure to meet you, and thanks for taking me into your home. My name is Phintil Sargus."
"Nice to meet ya, and tha's alright!" the man gave him a smile. "As long as Ene and Ori can vouch for ya, you're welcome in." he assured him, waving his hand at the favor, and led the three into a small dining hall.
The table was low, and there were only ragged pillows placed around it, not chairs as it would usually be. The room itself was a little dark and a little dusty, with a few lanterns hanging off the ceiling, and three candles on the table itself. The 'master' sat on the other side - only then it became visible that all along, he was walking barefoot - and Enedith and Ori took two places one side. The man gestured Phintil to sit opposite those two.
"Now, though I don' have any objections agains' you staying here, mister, I'd like to know why... Ene, Ori? I guess you gotta say me somethin'." He pierced those two with his glance. Ori nervously bit her lip, while Enedith just stared straight down.
"Well... We were walking back home when we got ambushed by some thugs. And they were going to drag me off... Till here mister Sargus came and helped us. He knocked them all out." Ori explained eventually.
Her words were met with a raised brow of their master. "And couldn't Ene do something about that? Did I train you to be so useless, Enedith?"
"I couldn't. Before we got to go home, I fell and broke my wrist." Enedith growled back, avoiding any kind of eye contact. He received a sigh, and another wave of his master's hand. "Then you got an excuse... Sorry for blaming ya, Ene. Are they telling the truth, mister?" His wide eyes were turned at Phintil, and he crossed his arms on the table.
Ori and Enedith exchanged a glance. She sighed, and he gave her a very upset look.
Phintil followed the three into the tiny dining hall, and sat on the pillow when the man gestured. The lizardman didn't miss having a chair, they were hard to sit in with his tail anyway, so he plopped down and sat cross-legged totally at ease on the floor.
The lizardman listened to the back and forth between three people who were obviously very familiar with each other's company. He was following along pretty intently, so he was able to answer Master's question promptly. "That's the truth as far as I know it. I can't say for sure about the arm, but the part thugs I can vouch for."
The master nodded. "Very well... I'll leave checking the rest out for later." His hand reached up to scratch his head and mess his hair up even more. Enedith and Ori both let out a sigh of relief - for now, they were out of trouble.
For now!
"Ori, come bring the food. I don't want to let our guest to go hungry once you brought him there. There's something in the kitchen..." With a wave of his hand, he sent the girl off. Enedith managed to turn around and grab her by the leg before she'd be gone, though.
"Bring the bottle of fruit wine from my wardrobe! You know where it is." he muttered, and released her. She giggled, and ran out of the door.
A long awkward silence between him and his master followed - right before Ori returned, balancing several dishes on a tray too small for that amount of bowls, and a bottle of wine atop that all. It was mostly leftovers - some pieces of chicken, salad, various pieces of bread, three pancakes, a jar of honey, and other bits of varying kinds of food - along with four plates that she somehow managed to set onto the table.
"Dinner... We don't have much today, mister, I have to apologize." she mumbled through the sound of clinking dishes, desperately trying to stop the salad from falling into Ene's lap. "Cooking day is tomorrow... So today we have mostly leftovers."
Something clinked, and Enedith ended with a whole load of bright green salad on his bright red hair. To say the truth, he didn't look amused. Their master smacked his head against the palm of his hand as she tried to eat it off his head, with little success. In the end, she had to scoop it up with her hands and drop back into the bowl.
"Don't eat the salad!" she warned them all.
Phintil watched the antics with a sort of detached amusement. The three were obviously very close-knit, close as any blood family, and the lizardman felt like a bit of an outsider. The food was good, though obviously not fresh. Still, he wasn't a picky eater and he put away what was put in front of him with gusto.
"It's alright Ori, this is plenty good," he told her in response to her concerns about the food. "Who cooks here anyway?" he looked at the three. He seemed to remember both Ori and Enedith complaining that the other could not cook, so he looked to their master as the most likely candidate.
Two hands pointed at the master, and his own hand arose. "I do." he admitted, taking a piece of the cold chicken into the other hand and nonchalantly taking a bite. "Each of them complains when I let the other one cook, so I do it myself instead." Enedith and Ori exchanged a quick glance, and continued eating.
"I always burn it and Ori puts honey onto roasted fish and who knows what other crap." Enedith explained, taking a big bite off his pancake. For that, he received a sharp poke into the ribs, immediately followed by a fit of coughing. Ori responded by smacking his back, and it seemed to work, as he stopped, instead trying to catch his breath. "You wanna kill me?" he burst out, staring at her in horror. "First you tell me you hold me and you let me fall and now this..."
Her terrified look reminded him that something is wrong. Ohhh... He should not have said that. He should not have said that! Both of them gave Phintil a look of utter desperation as they met the hard, suspicious gaze of their master.
Satisfied with the answer, Phintil resumed eating and watching the shenanigans. He saw no reason to say anything until the conversation abruptly came to a halt. The lizardman looked up from his mea, confused about why the trio had stopped speaking.
He had to review his memory of what had been said to figure out what had caused the silence. Something about Enedith falling had earned a suspicious look from the pair's master. Phintil decided that maybe this was the time to broach a different topic of conversation. "So me and Enedith were talking earlier about the possibility of him joining me in, ah, well... maybe it's better if he tells you himself," he looked to the young man expectantly.
Enedith raked through his hair, dropping the cutlery for a moment, and grinned nervously. "Yeaaah, I guess... I wanted to join here mister's mercenary business... Thing. I mean, having to sweep up the back yard all the time does get kind of boring. Besides, I've been training for quite the time, so I guess it would be pretty worthless to carry this," he pointed at the large sheathed sword at his back, "around without putting any use to it." he explained hastily. Ori secretly gestured to him something that could have been thanks.
The older man gave him a mellow shrug. "As long as you don' neglect what you gotta do 'round here, that's fine with me." he replied in a nearly careless manner, picking up a piece of food, and stuffing his mouth with it. "It's not like you're still seventeen or what. I ain't gonna stop you in this."
The exchange left Phintil a little bit surprised. That was much easier than he'd been expecting. Still, the lizardman wasn't about to complain. Easy was fine by him.
He inclined his head in the direction of Enedith's master. "I can see that you care a lot for Enedith, and I promise you that I'll do my best to keep out of trouble. Well, as much out of trouble as a sell-sword can be."
((OOC: sorry, short post is short.))
The man cackled, and shook his head. "Keep 'im outta trouble? Mister, don't be funny. He'll cause you more trouble than he's worth with that kinda attitude. But I ain't gonna stop him, anyway. He can take care of himself... Though it doesn't look like it."
Enedith gave his master a somewhat annoyed look at that statement, and scoffed. Ori sighed. "That's not true!" she defended her friend. After all, she knew him all her life - and somewhere deep inside he was actually nice. She smiled widely and tugged a string of his bright red hair. "Ene's actually really nice, right?"
He groaned at the pull at his hair, and forced her hand off. "Not if you pull my hair! That doesn't really count as nice, does it?" he complained. She let go off it, and backed up. "Sorry! Didn't mean to pull it too strong!" she apologized. Though, before they could continue in their antics, they were interrupted by the 'Old man'.
"Ori, you wouldn't mind letting Enedith in your room for the night, so here mister can stay in his room, would ya?" he asked, pointing the bone from the chicken he ate at her. She nodded. "Fine with me as long as he doesn't mind." she responded. Her friend let out a sigh. "What about the guest room?" he asked. As a reply he, however, just got a shrug. "Full of my stuff. Mister Sargus - you wouldn't mind sleeping in his room? It's pretty much empty..."
Enedith grabbed the bottle of fruit wine and drank straight from it. Fine, he could sleep in Ori's room for some time...
"Oh, uh," Phintil hesitated, "That's fine I guess. It's not as if I need a bed, they don't really agree with my constitution, so I'm okay as long as there's enough space on the floor to lie down."
He looked to the master, than to Enedith, to Ori, and back to the master. He was happy to have gained a new recruit, but he was a little sad to be breaking up this eclectic family of people who clearly cared for one another...
He shook his head to clear it of those thoughts. It was alright, it was Enedith's choice and not his concern. He waited a few more beats before speaking again. "So, if you don't mind me asking, how did this little family form?"
"No worries. It's not like we really have that much of a bed in any room. It's more like mats on the floor, but it's comfortable!" Ori assured Phintil enthusiastically, and smiled at him. Enedith shrugged. "It's better than the ground." he admitted, handing the bottle to Ori, who took a drink, and passed it back.
They all looked at each other with the lizardman's next question. Enedith reluctantly scratched his head, turning his glance to his plate. "Uh..." Ori muttered. It was a difficult subject.
"I found 'em." the Old man replied after a few moments, breaking the awkward silence with another of his wide, but slightly creepy grins. The two redheads nodded, adding two slightly nervous smile to that of their master. Ori handed Enedith a bowl of dried fruits, and he stuffed his mouth with them.
"About... Like that." Ori agreed.
The tension in the air was thick enough for even Phintil to notice that he'd brought up a touchy subject. He decided that it was time for a change of topic. However he couldn't really think of anything else to talk about...
He gave up on finding another conversation topic and instead stood abruptly. "Thank you again for the food," the lizazrdman started, "it was delicious, but it's gotten quite late, and I think that it's time for me to turn in. I hope that one of you wouldn't mind leading me to my room for the night?"
"It's alright! A friend of Ene and Ori is my friend." the master waved his hand at it, and smiled, finishing the rest of his food. Enedith stood up, still with the bottle of fruit wine in his hand, and gestured for Phintil to follow him. "I'll take you." he spoke, stretching his back from the long sitting, and letting out a yawn.
"It's kind of a small room, but you get a view straight into the neighbors. You can just pull the blinds down when you don't wanna to get stared at, the neighbors are creeps. I would've sworn someone was staring at me a few times." he spoke while he led Phintil up to the second floor, waving the bottle around in the air. Maybe he had more than he should have...
Phintil followed Enedith, happy to have a roof over his head for a change. He followed the young man up the stares, dodging the errant bottle whenever it came to close to his head. "Careful with the thing," he told his new acquaintance. "how much did you have anyway?"
That was a big bottle and Phintil didn't remember how much of it the master had drunk, if any of it. The lizardman didn't have a problem with drinking, even in excess, but he did want to know if Enedith was drunk. If he was gonna be partners with him, than knowing the young man's limit could actually be pretty useful information.
"Like..." Enedith glanced at the bottle, narrowing his eyes. "Like, three quarters of the thing. But damn, innit awesome? Did you have any?" he asked him, grinning. He wasn't too drunk, but the slight blush at his cheeks was a clear proof that he wasn't sober, either.
Finally, he led him to the room that actually belonged to him. Clothes were scattered around it, but the space around the sleeping mat was clear enough to sleep on. "Just... Lemme grab what I sleep in, mmkay? I don't wanna lay next to Ori naked." he cackled, grabbing his flowered night clothes from where they lay, and putting the bottle down on the place instead.
Phintil watched slightly bemused as they walked along the corridor. "No I didn't have any," he answered Enedith's question, "though now I'm wondering if I should have considering how much fun it looks like you're having."
When they arrived at the room, he watched Enedith pick up his, questionably patterned nightclothes, and listened to his statement. The lizardman frowned, or did the lizard approximation of a frown. "Wait why wouldn't you want to? Aren't you two, you know, um, together?"
Giving Phintil a slight, and very confused frown, Enedith took a step back into the door. "Together? Like... Like... That kinda together?" he asked, narrowing his eyes, and then shaking his head. "No... No way!" His cheeks flushed with an even brighter crimson, getting closer to the color of his hair, and he took another step back, still vigorously shaking his head, and making the mop of crimson hair swish from one side to the other.
"We're only friends. I mean... Only friends!" he assured him, pointing a finger up as he held the night clothes, and with a nervous cackle exited the room.
Phintil wasn't exactly an expert when it came to reading people, especially humans, but even he could tell that Enedith wasn't being entirely honest with him about his feelings, or even with himself. Ah well, none of his business.
The lizardman set himself down on the sleeping mat and laid sideways to accommodate his tail. Time enough in the morning to deal with... wait, it was none of his business. He was pretty sure that Enedith wouldn't appreciate meddling, and besides, it wouldn't matter much after the young man left home.
Phintil once again experienced a pang of guilt about breaking up this makeshift family, but he put it firmly out of his mind, and it wasn't long before he drifted off to sleep.
Enedith and Ori, too, soon fell asleep. But although she slept like Snow White all through the night - easy to fall asleep, easy to wake up - his case was different. He hardly managed to put his night clothes on before he dozed off, and in the morning, he didn't want to open his eyes for the love of all the gods.
It was Ori's tugging that finally woke him up. And he was forced to look up into her face, appearing hazy and blurry to his confused brain, to see her hands waving in front of his eyes.
"Ene, wake up! You gotta bring breakfast to mister over there!" she remarked, and kept trying to get him up on his feet.
What bright light... Oh, dammit. This was awful!
His head was pounding, and his body felt like lead. Did he really have to down that whole bottle? Wait, did he even down all of it?
With a groan, he raised himself to his elbows, and kept staring at her blankly. "Mister?" he mumbled.
"Yes. Mister Phintil. He's in your room!" she reminded him, waving her hand at the tray with food. Hurry up, you were supposed to do it already! We'll have to sweep up again..." she sighed. Enedith's eyes widened. Sweeping? No way!
Scrambling to his feet, he grabbed the tray with his healthy hand, and bolted through the narrow corridor to deliver it to Phintil in his room as fast as possible, only by some kind of miracle not entirely covering all of the floor in salad, eggs, and pieces of fish. Who knows what kind of miracle that was, but it was definitely effective - when he finally arrived to the doorway, somewhat pale and more scruffy than you'd ever expect a person to be, even in the morning, the breakfast was still whole. He laid the tray down, immediately after bringing his hand to his hair to rake through it and attempt to tame it, although it kept escaping and weaving around his fingers.
Phintil, an early riser by habit, was just starting to get ready to leave the room and find out what was going on when Enedith showed up at his door with food. "Oh, excellent, I was wondering whether or not I should leave for food. Thanks for bringing it."
The lizardman walked out to the young man and picked up the tray. "So how's the hangover," he asked Enedith with a slight chuckle. It looked like the young man was holding his head, as if he had quite the headache.
"Man..." Enedith groaned, pressing his fingers onto his temples and closing his eyes. "I didn't expect that wine to be so strong..."
Leaning onto the doorway, he allowed himself to lift his eyelids, and watch Phintil through that narrow gap. "Sorry that we only got leftovers again. We... Rarely have anything but leftovers." he sighed.
Phintil looked up from the tray, he was already eating the food, and shook his head. "Trust me when I tell you that your leftovers are way better than what I usually eat." He paused for a moment, thinking. "Huh, I guess I'm not selling the mercenary life very well, am I."
He chuckled in his peculiar way for a bit and continued to eat. "So Enedith, I haven't really told you about what's going on with the company yet. Unfortunately there's not very many of us, but my plan is to have each member work independently to recruit, and soon we'll all meet up and compare results. Hopefully by the time we group up there will be many of us."
He paused his speech for a second to down the last of the food on his tray, and then spoke again. "And on that note, do you know anyone who might be interested in joining a mercenary company?"
"Leftovers is good... Better than scraps!" Enedith laughed nervously, scratching his head. "And stolen food, too. At least you know that for leftovers, you won't get chased by the guards!" The times when that was a daily routine were still fresh in his memory. And not pleasant at the slightest, considering that a few such dinners almost cost him his head!
At Phintil's inquiry, he just shook his head. "I don't really... Know that many people." he shrugged. "It'd be better to ask Master about that..." A sigh escaped him as he dug into his hair with the pale fingers of his left hand.
Phintil listened as Enedith talked and watched as he kept messing with his hair. The lizardman thought idly about how humans always seemed so preoccupied with hair. Such a weird thing, it was...
But now was not the time for such pondering. "Maybe I will ask him, at that. Is he downstairs? Maybe we should start heading down ourselves," Phintil stood up holding the tray. "It doesn't do us any good to dally."
"Yeah, he's downstairs." with a nod and a groan, Enedith raised himself up to his feet, and picking up the tray he led Phintil down the narrow corridor and stairs, creaking under his feet. At least he thought he was downstairs.
Ori was already awake and sweeping the floor in the shadowy, dark room downstairs - but there was no one else there. Enedith swore internally. "Ori, where's Master?" he asked. The ginger girl raised her head from the broom, and shrugged. "He just said he went out." she responded.
With a sigh, Enedith leaned onto the closest thing - a wall. "We gotta wait, then. He should be back soon."
"It's not safe to leave you two alone for a long time." a voice sounded from behind him, from the open door. Enedith gasped, immediately springing up at a speed that almost made him fall over. And who was in the door?
"For gods' sake!" he burst out, staring at the snickering figure in the doorway.
Phintil followed Enedith down the stairs. When he saw Ori, he gave her a quick smile and nod in greeting, though he didn't speak since he'd be interrupting one of them. He was a bit disappointed when he heard that the Master was gone, but he didn't mind waiting that much. "It's fine Enedith, I'm in no hurry." He was about to say more when he was cut off by a voice from the doorway.
He followed Enedith to the passageway, curious about who was making the boy react like that.
The snicker belonged to no other than their beloved master. His lazily narrowed eyes connected with Enedith's and Ori's confused glances, and he laughed shortly. "For gods' sake, you two should have been swiping the courtyard, ain't I right?"
With a faked sigh, and leaving his two 'children' blushing from shame, he moved over to the other side of the room to take some of the food Ori left there.
Hearing the conversation, Phintil looked up to witness Enedith's Master chastising him and Ori. He couldn't tell how serious the man was, and he wasn't sure how the pair took the admonishment.
When the man came and sat nearby, Phintil spoke, "I know this might be forward, but I have a question. I'm still recruiting for my mercenary company, and Enedith said you might have an idea of some other people I might be able to ask about joining up. Do you know anyone who might fit the bill?"
"If I know someone." he grinned, stuffing his mouth with the food. He didn't seem to mind the unusual combination that it consisted from - attained resistance to Ori's cooking, maybe? "I know a couple of folks you can ask, but I can't guarantee they'll accept. Or even talk to you. Or that they'll even be alive when you ask."
He leaned against the wall, chewed his bite for a while, and only then resumed talking. "There's this Aida... No, Aidu guy I met a few times. He ain't as much of a mercenary as he's a killer for hire, and I don't think he'd wanna join, cause he's way too much into money, s***s and booze, but he's got skills. If you ever need any sorta... Service from a shop, an acquaintance of mine that goes under the name of Iaranase lives all the way east in Thanatos, in the port. Got a little shop in the streets there. A pretty clever fellow for as far as my knowledge goes. And once there was this guy that sorta looked like my Ene over there. Didn't tell me his name, but he was all white, and his left arm was all metal. But I didn't get the feel he'd want to join any company from him. One of 'em solitary fellows, ya know." he explained once the two were gone far enough with their broomsticks.
As usual, Ori was the one sweeping, and Enedith was, for the most part, frowning at something in the distance and leaning against the wall, doing nothing.
Phintil listened to the options, however none of them really appealed to him. "I'm not really looking for a straight-up killer, Thanatos seems pretty far, and that other fellow you mentioned doesn't sound like the type, like you said." He sighed. "Well thanks for the help."
He pushed his tray away from him and stood up. "I'm gonna go talk to Enedith for a bit." And so saying, the lizardman walked over to where the young man was standing. "So is there anything you need to take care of? I want to arrange a meet-up soon with all the people I've recruited so far, and I want it to be soon. If you have something that needs doing around here, you might want to get on it."