Open Chronicles When in doubt a Tavern will do.

Now, the time had struck. He had built enough courage to toss a coin into this ring and see what he could snoop. Curiousity, more than anything, could be a delightful draw, and what better occasion to practice this bit for the future?

Rae'twyn rose in one, fluid motion, merging with the clustering crowd as they dutifully toasted the commander. He touched his silver pendant with two fingers and whispered gentle words of magical potence. Words of home, in a realm where they didn't belong.

With his whisper, the pendant worked its magic. A slight spell, the most minor of illusions, but enough for his desired effect. It altered him only below his hood, to render his midnight skin a shade more sun-touched, dark and brown, without its alien blue tint. His hair retained its silver, but turned grimier, greyer and grizzled. Wrinkles beyond his dimples added to his cheeks like waves in a dirty river. Likewise, his visible clothes and shining rubies dimmed into a beggar's cloth.

Through this transformation, Rae'twyn walked through the forest of other bodies, altering his stride. Bent and crooked, an old man shambling through, picking up a nearby drained cup as the final panache to his performance, dropping in a single coin.

His disguise complete, he staggered up to Afanas and Feyrith, cup shaking and clattering, as if he'd already made the rounds outside.

"Spare some coin for an old, haggard soul? Just for a night of shelter, out of rain and wind."

He had always wanted to play this part. And what better time to judge the character of this fellow drow and stalwart commander? He attempted to mimic the scripted and weary tones of other vagrants he'd seen similarly beg, and turned, quivering head and rattling cup in their direction, curving like a tilted U.

Despite his best thespian efforts, a mischevious smile crawled involuntarily up the sides of his mouth. His own glee could be worked into the clay of vain hope of a beggar.

"Perhaps you, brave, brave commander? I will sing your praises far and wide."

The cup clinking with a single coin made its rounds towards Feyrith.

"Or perhaps you, daughter of the deep? Ahh, I recognise a wayward drow when I see one." His smile quivered and widened, much like his voice, eyes hidden by the hood. "Only a generous soul would be so far from home."

Though he could hide his appearance, he could not alter his voice - beyond a theatrical croaking of age, but that didn't shroud his unique accent. Those versed in its tones might recognise it.

Afanas
Feyrith

Feyrith
Rae'twyn Suvalissaere

Afanas watched the old man’s crooked advance without moving, as one might watch wind push at a door one has already decided to open. The hood hid a face, but not the voice; the accent slipped through the rags like a bright thread through dull cloth.

Around them, the tavern swelled and ebbed with toasts and laughter, the commander’s name breaking against the rafters like surf.

His eyes, dark as flint, took the measure of the bent shoulders and the rags, and something quick and keen behind them. Slowly, his large hand dug into the pocket of his pants. He retrieved three gold coins. He dropped them in the man’s cup, a gesture followed by the sound of metal clinking against metal.

“I do not require recompense. You seem to need this money more than I.”

A pause. The crowd’s cheer fell to a low wash; somewhere a stool scraped the floor. Afanas’s gaze did not waver.

“I haven’t done much worth singing of. You’d be wasting your breath on my meager accomplishments.”

He straightened, though the weight of years lay in his shoulders, and the corners of his eyes softened, as though he accepted, at least for now, that small kindness might rest between strangers.

Rae'twyn rattled the coins in his cup, pouting his lower lip and tilting his head in surprise.

"Well, I'll be damned." His older voice almost slipped, warbling with Rae'twyn's playful curiousity, before returning to its previous cadence. "Ah! You are most kind, commander. I shall sing your praises far and wide, indeed, in spite of your modesty--" a curled finger (shaking for dramatic effect), once pointed at Afanas, swung like a compass needle towards Feyrith, finding north. A full-blown grin, all impish glee, cracked through his features, and he lowered his hooded head to half-heartedly hide it. "Since this is demand of your enchanting lover here . . . I dare not refuse it!"

Of course, Rae'twyn made sure to belt this last part out loud, involving the whole tavern in his declaration. However absurd the notion might have been, hiding under his cloak of doddering madness, his words were certain to send the rumour mills flying. If Alliria was anything like Zar'ahal, all gossip needed was a spark, sometimes even from a clumsy hand, and it could start a generous fire.

Afanas
Feyrith

Feyrith
Rae'twyn Suvalissaere
Afanas stiffened, as if some small offense had set a blade of ice along his spine. He stared at the beggar. He blinked—once, twice, again—and the line of his mouth went taut. A color like bruise-purple rose under the porcelain of his cheeks, the only confession his face would grant.

“I’ve only just met Feyrith,” he said at last, each word laid down plain. “I’d hardly call her a friend, much less anything so… intimate.”

He let out a short breath that was not quite a laugh. Whatever path of fancy the man had taken to arrive at such a notion, Afanas could not see it, and would not follow.

“I have been a bachelor; I am one; and I’ll likely die one.”