Private Tales Empty Chairs and Empty Tables

[Fingal]

He had taken her from her people. He didn't feel particularly bad about that. They had stuck him as the worst kind of small minded mortals.

Still, he respected the fact that it had been a complete change in her life. Her people had been damaged. They had turned on Fingal and they had turned on her.

"Faunrock isn't a big town," Fingal explained as the walked down a worn dirt road through a loose wood.

"But it's near a portal stone and has a bridge. Musicians tend to come from Elbion and play at the Three Wheatsheaves."

Fingal enjoyed the arts. He still had a promise to his patron to collect pieces of art from the mortal world before they were lost.

As they crested the hill and emerged from the woods he tilted his head to one side. It was quite a canine gesture.

No smoke rose from the houses they could see in the town.

 

[Anais]

Anais glanced up at him, her expression briefly betraying the wariness she still carried. A flicker of green fire passed through her eyes, an old anxiety resurfacing.

“Never seen a portal stone,” she murmured, her voice soft and laced with unease. “We always worried they’d take us somewhere terrible… or that they might separate us.” Her brow furrowed, and then, almost too quickly, "We're not using it, are we?"

She cleared her throat “Music sounds nice, though,” she added, with a faint smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes as she tried to pull herself back to the present. She followed his gaze over the dip of the hill, down toward the town.

But the quiet struck her as odd. No scents from open hearths. No chatter. No carts creaking over cobbled paths. No children’s laughter or stray dogs barking. Just the wind whispering through the trees, brushing too lightly against a silence that felt… wrong.

“Seems a little quiet…” she echoed, slowing slightly, her fingers tightening around the worn strap of the satchel that held all of her worldly possessions. A chill crept along her spine.