Fable - Ask Not Much Room for Decent Hearts

[Vida]

It was a valiant attempt, but just because Vida found some small solace in the venom she laced her words with, it did not mean she was poisoned by it. Her caution was never wholly disregarded, no - she was already well aware of the Nordwiir's own brand of cunning.

Skad may have dropped her bluster, but it did not mean Vida was any less confident in her evaluation of the woman.

​

As it did her no favor in calling it out and risk breaking the fragile ceasefire, she decided instead to stay her hand, so to speak, choosing for once the path of peace. She was more than happy to permit Skad to play the role of a pleasant fool, and so long as she did not try to duel with her words it mattered naught what pretense the Nordwiir wished to convey. They could think whatever they wanted of her, so long as she didn't have to listen to those complaints.

What wouldn't do her any good was for Skad to actually be a fool, as the last thing in this world she desired was a minion dull or duller than some blunted gardening tool. Having those who couldn't think for themselves under her command was far too much hand-holding than she was comfortable with, so no matter what she said and how she might have said it; the only ones hired for this task were those with a head on their shoulders. Preferably a head they can use to some efficiency.

If they did not speak too loudly, nor too proudly, they could indeed think what they like.

Which meant she was in a more than gracious mood in accepting Skad's faux apology with all the pomp and ceremony one could have expected from a person so cleverly dubbed as Pride.

However where the Nordwiir took a figurative step forward in apology, she took two back, maintaining a distance undiluted by the illusion of inferiority being demonstrated. "You hardly have anything to thank me for."

There wasn't a very good reason to be thankful for an answer to an unspoken question, in all fairness.

Seemingly placated by Skad's ignorance, her tone remained levelled, even tempered into something far more affable than the outright condescension exhibited earlier. Her smile still remained; though it lingered with the same grace of a decaying corpse, one whose perfume of rot was the only thing left to fill the space where a living, breathing thing should have been. It endured only because she had not deigned to remove in the aftermath of this so-called verbal skirmish.

It seemed she was still very much aboard the 'kill them with kindness' train of thought.

The next thing to come out of Skad's mouth was a little more surprising. Oh, not because she thought the Nordwiir cared a fig as to whether or not they were friends beyond the cynical probing for weaknesses to exploit; the surprising aspect lay instead in how and why she asked in the first place. First off, the utterly foreign tongue speaking of 'friends' was so artificial as to be laughable, leaving her to fulfill the role of a dull ox better than Vida had ever expected. This Nordwiir certainly stayed true to the role she was attempting to portray.

The second point however was in the query itself, as it was probably obvious they were hardly a cohesive unit. None of them seemed to even particularly like one another - in fact there was hardly the smallest trace of a deeper, lasting friendship beyond an obvious familiarity.

But she supposed it was the type of question one would ask as an outsider looking in.

The taste of the word turned sour on her tongue before she even had the chance to repeat it. Friends? Vida didn't know. She didn't think so. But then again, she was as ignorant in this topic of discussion as Skad no doubt was. Friends were for the sharing of confidences on the foundation of mutual trust, on the care of being entrusted with secrets; when in Vida's case there were far too many, piled atop a trove of vulnerabilities she could not afford to let anyone touch.

Certainly not by the likes of Skad, that much she knew.

And for a moment she seemed... almost introspective, almost innocently curious. Way too curious for her own good. There was a reason she preferred to keep things casual, at an arms-length. She couldn't even entrust her name, it seemed, to an ever-compromising Masile who was currently at the forefront of the race for the biggest fucking mouth known to mankind.

It was a pity, the expression might not have suited the sellsword but it was one that temporarily softened the harshness in her eyes. Only for a moment before it was gone again, doubtful to ever return.

Too much thinking. Not enough wine. This was never a union that boded well.

"You're asking whether we are friends? I won't deny that working together breeds familiarity,"

Vida didn't even bother to look in Masile's direction. She didn't have to in order for the other woman to hear the implicit tone behind her phrase of choice. Too much familiarity. Be careful you don't drown in it. "But as for friendship? That's something which requires a great deal more time and effort than I'm willing to invest. What we have now is far more practical," which was only technically true, "with far less intimacy involved, for the most part. What matters most is that, yes, everyone performs the task required of them in order to get paid."

'For the most part' did a lot of the heavy-lifting, in all honesty.

Still, she didn't find anything inherently wrong about the nature of her pragmatism, even if it left those who might have desired more from her sorely disappointed. It was hardly her responsibility to cater to their feelings after all, nor her burden to carry their disappointment. She wasn't the one to invite them into her heart to make fools of themselves, and the day she prioritized these kind of relationships was the day she threw herself off a cliff.

Yet the cognitive dissonance lingered somewhere deep, deep down in that heart she apparently possessed. She didn't acknowledge the roots that grew heedless of all her warnings, didn't think to recognize how the answer lay in the way she treated her not-friends as opposed to anyone else in the world. Like Skad, for example.

Not to say they would ever hold hands and braid one another's hair, but... still.

"Have you ever become close to those you've worked with in the past?"

Well, the present company aside. It was a simple, harmless riposte meant only to shuffle the question back into Skad's court.

In the background Varnehy finally made himself known - even if only Masile and Skad could clearly see him at present - paused in the doorway to the kitchen with folded arms, taking his time in acknowledging whoever shared his gaze. He didn't move from the position he maintained. He was waiting for something. More specifically he was waiting for the innkeeper who was, with an agonizing slowness, finally bringing his kitchen to order. The clatter of clay bowls and dinnerware accompanied the process, almost intentionally loud as if to say, yes the food is still coming.

Soon, hopefully.

 

[Skad]

Well, she had asked.

Skad tried to remain outwardly stoic, but she could feel her guts grimace as a fresh floodgate of words was unleashed upon her. What familiarity was and why it was breeding was one follow-up question to be condemned to eternal mystery. Perhaps had she not demanded Vida to use fewer words in the first place, the woman might have been more succinct. That pettiness would not have been out of character.

Ultimately, it was Skad's fault for asking, but getting a better vision of this peculiar group dynamic was important. If things were to go wrong, a gap in their proverbial armour would be good to know, especially those gaps between Vida and Basil.

On the surface, it seemed they were not friends; indeed, the lead mercenary's mannerisms attested to that. The way she spoke with caustic regard indicated a preference for business over any pleasure, and on the other hand, who could call somebody so callous a friend? Kin-Slayer could respect the stance, and it suggested purpose over trivial matters.

Whether she believed the stance was another question.

There were too many strange glances, and the silent communication between the women indicated something more. Tension? Or secrets hidden from a feral stranger fresh from the prison wagon.

"No."

Her answer was blunt in direct opposition to Vida's lengthier spiel, spoken without much thought because there was little thought to be had. She did not need to divulge her nature as Kin-Slayer, doubting any of them would sleep easy in the knowledge that she tended to murder those who did not live up to her standards.

"I am only caring that people have use," she continued, offering a further crumb after her short answer. The Nordwiir decided against clarifying her stance on the importance of faith in her kin; avoiding talk of Hinir Myrku was necessary to avoid offence and violence, as they had already found out.

Her eye drifted lazily over to the third member of the trio, who had taken to menacing the kitchen doorway. How much longer was she to endure an empty belly? Any longer, and the option to eat the innkeeper might have seemed promising. Too fatty, perhaps.

Looking back to Vida, her lower jaw flexed and displayed those jagged lower teeth, signifying her growing impatience.

"This inn man has no fucking use."

 

[Vida]

An answer to Vida's original inquiry in all its brevity and bluntness. Even if Skad's reply just told her what she likely already knew; what was she expecting otherwise? Skad never struck her as someone who placed a great degree of value in social bonds, and that was the generous assessment.

Her head cocked ever so minutely to the side as the Nordwiir opted not to expand on the subject.

​

Instead of continuing to discuss her philosophy directly, Skad put her ruthless logic into practice rather than mere theory. The innkeeper was useless, and therefore by the way she saw the world, his current existence was apparently an affront to the woman with a stomach that was beginning to growl louder than anything that ever could've come from her mouth.

There was truth in what the Nordwiir said, even if Skad's idea of the world did not always align with her own.

He really, truly was useless. Vida was certain of a world where there existed subtle nuances for every topic under the sun, some viewpoint of how nobody was entirely without use; the crippled could sew, the blind could be public speakers, the ineffectual innkeepers could serve as a backdrop for a narrative tale meant to entertain the youth and elderly alike. But Vida didn't see the world with such multifaceted generosity, nor in the potentialities that no doubt lurked behind everything that crawled, walked, and stirred soup pots.

So yes, she actually did agree with Skad on this particular issue. And in her eyes glowed the spark of a common thread where her frustrations could, albeit temporarily, be directed with a little more distinction than whoever was unlucky enough in the moment to be subjected to her aimless temper. Not just her temper but also her unadulterated, undiluted boredom.

"Then we share something in common. I have no interest in useless things, especially if those useless things find every excuse about why they have to drag their feet. How they must drag their feet, otherwise they would what, fall off?" Vida finished her directionless diatribe with a caustic glance towards the conveniently approaching innkeeper who was alongside none other than Varnehy, always acting as the perfect helper with hands perilously occupied by sunken ceramic plates.

She echoed her earlier sentiment with a deep, rueful laugh nearly drowned out by the clattering of pots, bowls and spoons. "I don't disagree with you, Skad."

Well, Vida actually using the Nordwiir's name with some respect was certainly evidence of - if not the beginning of a deep and meaningful connection - then at least a mutual and equally cynical understanding of the world where both women could agree. They could only wait and see if that fact would prove to be a boon, or a burden.

It seemed as if everything stood to a standstill in this little mushroom of a town and, while it was distasteful to admit it, made her want to pull her hair out of frustration. To have any outlet at all to relieve all the fragmentary emotions and countless doubts swirling around like a maelstrom inside her head would have been a godsend. Her restlessness growing more in every passing day while she sat, sweating as she waited for that moment of clarity existing only in a vacuum of unrestrained, utterly unchecked adrenaline.

Where she was allowed to act, allowed to flourish. Here she did no such thing, this was a place where you went to wither.

Masile took the subsequent interlude as permission to finally speak up, choosing to ask the pertinent questions first. Her eyes were uncertain, but for once that uncertainty wasn't aimed at the other two women. "May I ask what that is?"

She meant the handheld pot carrying... what was presumably their supper.

Vida's eyes may have told one story, but her smile was amiable enough. One meant to disarm even when it was at a disadvantage with everything else happening on her face. The wan and sweating proprietor, sweating all the more after his stint in the kitchen accepted it without the burning desire to look a gift horse in the mouth.

He did however wrinkle his nose in direct correlation the closer he came to the quite literal stench of horse. Making sure to fill the bowls being placed at their table with as much distance as he could muster without coming across as a completely ill-mannered innkeeper.

"I believe it's some kind of eel in stew. I don't exactly know, it's a little difficult to tell."

As they spoke, there was a thin sheen of oil that was actively decanting to the top of the bowl, forming a congealed top layer.

 

[Skad]

Skad had hardly required Vida's confirmation that they were of a similar disposition to not tolerating those with little purpose. Their first conversation was testament alone, and since the prideful woman of a thousand venomous smiles held the coin, that was good enough.

The Nordwiir could respect her in that regard, and in turn, she had garnered enough respect that the woman even bothered to use her name, never mind committing it to memory.

However, she felt that her tendency to dispatch the useless with little afterthought might have been too extreme for Vida's taste. She held the airs of a woman who would rather belittle and emotionally destroy those she found lacking. A waste of time, frankly. A person without use would drag you down, whether they were browbeaten or not.

Their meal finally came, and the anticipation had grown to such a fever pitch that Skad found herself staring longingly at the pot as it approached.

<"Slower than the morning frost,"> she muttered under her breath in Wiir, eye never moving from the promise of food held within.

She didn't wait for Vida to analyse the strange grey meat lurking within her bowl, nor did she faff around with cutlery. When the Nordwiir's bowl was filled, the rest of the room became irrelevant as she plucked a hunk of jellified flesh with her fingers and stuck it straight into her rotten maw.

It wasn't as offensive as it looked, at least not in taste. The presumed eel absorbed the salt of the stew that it sadly wobbled in. The texture, on the other hand, was questionable. The meat was firm but swallowed by a gelatinous layer that coated her mouth with an unpleasant oily film. It was food for the infirm, the toothless and perhaps somebody with a broken jaw.

Was such a meal a delicacy of these southern lands? Or would this be an affront to the mercenaries? She supposed it didn't matter. As long as it wasn't poisoned, it was sustenance.

"It is fine," she commented plainly, the word 'fine' a substitute for 'edible' given her limited vocabulary in the common tongue.

Scooping the bowl into one hand and lifting it below her chin, Skad committed herself to the jellied fish and her rejection of the spoon, which sat neglected on the table alongside her blade. At least in this respect, she perfectly fulfilled her role as the untamed savage amongst civilisation.

 

[Vida]

For all of Vida's flaws, the one thing Skad could now attest to was the fact that being a picky eater was not one of them. As she spent comparatively little time to her two other companions when it came to wielding one of the spare wooden spoons, proceeding to shovel the bland looking fare into her mouth with a briskness that both disturbed and impressed them.

They hesitated; waiting, watching with baited breath as if the possibility of poisoning was already a foregone conclusion.

When that didn't turn out to be the case, the two of them eventually followed suit. First it was Varnehy with surprisingly little of the previous trepidation writ upon his features after having concluded that it was indeed edible, or at the minimum safe enough to eat. Nonetheless his face still twitched ever so subtly in reply to the first bite; then the second; then the third while he fought the revulsion that in turn wracked his rebelling stomach with churning, unwelcome convulsions. Whether that stemmed from the actual taste of the food or was merely the result of his utter distaste in swallowing down the resplendent texture of gelatinous, rubbery eels was something nobody could answer in all certainly.

The overly liberal application of salt may have also had something to do with it. Or perhaps it was the chunks of still remaining bones that he took exceptional care in chewing around, not as certain about their edibility. There was a lot of potential 'whys'.

More than anything it was just downright poor fare for city dwellers, or at least it was to city dwellers who weren't of the pale, starving Victorian orphan variety. Of which, Masile was most emphatically not. Neither was she completely ignorant about the complexities of cooking, and could surmise the moment she brought the spoon of soup to her mouth that it was meant to be served cold, or at least colder. The collagen solidifying to the top was very much incomplete, and so the result was a mouthful of what could only be described as a thicker broth, mildly spiced with salt, lemon and a few other less apparent seasonings. This lack of any distinctive flavoring only really served to accentuate how spongy and unappealing the primary dish was--when she finally mustered the necessary resolve to try it.

If only not to be the single person present at the table to outright reject the meal that was prepared for them.

"It is fine," said the Nordwiir; a clear adherent of gourmet sensibilities.

Not content with the sole approval of a savage woman, he asked the others: "How's the meal treating the rest of you folks?"

Vida's only reply was in the raising her spoon in the direction of Skad, assuming her message of pointing out the other woman who was seated with her hands free of cutlery and face splattered with fragments of sauce was answer enough. He still looked lost. Still hovered. She could feel the prickles on her back and knew they wouldn't entirely disappear until he did. At least from the table.

"I'd like to think it's treating us fine. It's a little cold, but that's fine too."

"That's the way they serve it here, aye. That's how I was always taught to serve eel. Leave it to rest a bit, it adds a little substance."

"Is that how it's meant to be served? I never heard of the recipe," a lie, of course it was a lie, for wherever there was eel there was bound to be questionable ways to serve eel. She knew the fact all too well. Her childhood had seen its fair share of seafood served cold, hot and every other creatively vile way people could think of, yet she pretended to appear almost scandalized by the newest revelation, "so I simply assumed it was... don't mind it, really. It's here now."

She flashed that smile of hers again, went back to eating while the innkeeper reddened; trying to think of a reply that wouldn't fall flat on its face. When nothing ever came, he chose instead to nod in gruff agreement with the verdict, ending the interaction - moreover the presence she felt on her back disappeared as well. She finally heard the sounds of him departing back to the kitchen. Or wherever he hid when he wasn't being a bother.

On the other side of the table Masile couldn't help but notice how Vida, despite all her pretensions, appeared completely unperturbed, or was elsewise too hungry to really care what she was eating. Whichever it was, Masile found a little confidence in the display. Enough confidence to try it for herself if someone like the famously picky sellsword discovered an exception for what were normally absurdly high standards.

It was a mistake. A mistake seasoned on the side with not a small amount of cognitive dissonance.

Somehow it was more insulting to Masile's taste buds than she could initially imagine; wondering briefly afterwards how Vida could tolerate something so violently alien, so atypical to the cuisine they'd come to - perhaps foolishly - expect when travelling with a woman like the blonde-haired mercenary, who was still very much in the process of enjoying her meal without any immediately recognizable signs of rebellion.

Perhaps the cognitive dissonance might've been waved away had they been made aware of the circumstances surrounding her starving (and still pale) orphan child upbringing. But, unfortunately, without that piece of salient information all Masile in turn could think to do was raise an inquisitive brow in both wonderment and puzzlement. And she did. Look on with wonderment and puzzlement, that is.

Even when she had to restrict her curiosity solely to what she could express in her eyes, as the alchemist's mouth at present remained too puckered to make any comment; caught at a crossroads of whether to spit or swallow. An unenviable decision to have to make, with either option coming with consequences that were as embarrassing as they were distasteful.

Surprisingly, Vida didn't seem to mind the looks, or if she did, she took great pains not to let it show in any meaningful way.

She was the one who suffered the innkeeper's cooking the longest, so it stood to reason that she no doubt built an impressive tolerance with time and desperation as days turned into weeks. That must have been it, what other answer could there be? Masile noticed how even Varnehy appeared tapped out after his second or third helping, content enough to idly stir the contents of the bowl with his spoon like a child - that's how children did it. To look like they were actually eating.

The answer wasn't all that exciting. Vida was able to sit there and tolerate the slop solely out of pragmatic determination not to draw it out, not to torture herself with every single bite, something both Masile and Varnehy were clearly making the mistake of doing. She honestly couldn't have all that much sympathy.

For all her flaws she never did find food to be a luxury to be indulged in, nor did she understand the epicurean sensibilities of her clientele, despite making it a point all the same to ply them with expensive foods and vintages. To partake where it was necessary in their feasting. To spend the necessary coin to earn her way through these respectable circles, coin where blood proved inadequate in proving her worthy of entry.

To be honest she spent... so much coin, so much money on slugs and snails and spirits.

Well, now they could do without opening her coin purse for unnecessary creature comforts. Even when Vida might've been one of the few sellswords in the world to at least attempt to apply that "black shit" as Skad most helpfully described it, she was no stranger to strange, bland and outright off-putting foods. They could bloody well eat what she ate. They weren't paid to enjoy the privileges she only doled out as a business expense, and if they wanted to complain too loudly, she'd just let Skad eat them too. Or something. Right after she was done devouring her own bowl with what looked like an unhealthy relish.

So they sat and they ate, because she sat and ate. At least they weren't complete fools - there was wisdom in this route.

Masile for her part made sure to keep her mouth shut, not trusting it enough to do anything else in the moment. She knew what the look on Vida's face after the innkeeper had left meant, knew well enough to leave conversation to the wayside for a little while longer.

Yet as the seconds turned to minutes, interspaced with a few more rather valiant attempts at stomaching the mystery meat, she could no longer endure it. Her head had begun to sway, almost hypnotically, while she let her eyes wander the tavern before finally deciding to speak up. Everyone seemed content to ignore one another and she usually liked it that way; being ignored in the right setting was a blessing, and it soothed her to remain unnoticed by prying eyes.

That was for fleeting, noncommittal interactions. Here they sat as colleagues. Completely and utterly silent.

She cleared her throat, mostly to make sure it actually worked. Then followed it up with an oblique and earnest grimace. "I know everyone has their own idea of what is fine, but I'm curious if this is what you might've eaten in Eyjarnar, willingly." Masile made a point of spearing her spoon through a particularly oily sliver of skin that had clung to the top of her meal. "I know you might want to say that the only reason for food to exist at all is to stop your body from starving, yet I still must ask if you would rather something else than what's in your bowl. There's very little to like about it, there's no shame in admitting that. You cannot even describe it as a warrior's dish to be eaten out of necessity, unless they went out of their way to do this when they could've done it so many other ways."

Good gods above those were a lot of words, but there were fewer big words than what Vida might've otherwise used, so it could be considered a victory, however small. She also remembered the name of their island as well! Making it progressively clearer that very little escaped the alchemist's memory, not even the proper pronunciation for a word vehemently foreign to the tongues of most mainlanders escaped her grasp.

"Ah, there it is. I was beginning to wonder." Varnehy spoke up, disregarding the hypothetical completely.

Vida's happiness was only a little more palpable. "Yes, there it is."

If Skad had wanted an easy answer, now all she needed to do was point at the re-approaching innkeeper with a ceramic dish loaded with a curved jug and probably what he considered some of his finest cups and grunt "ale". No doubt it would've been an answer that anyone, even Masile, would've taken pride in accepting.

 

[Skad]

Skad abstained from deep thoughts about the nature of their meal, choosing to take the course of sanity. Which was to say, she ate it.

She could, at the very least, respect that Vida also decided to eat rather than awkwardly contemplate the questionable textures. The other two seemed to be playing mind games against the flesh of a dead eel, a game that could not be won, considering their opponent was not playing.

Tipping the bowl upwards, she noticed the slow descent of the sauce intermingled with the tragic wobbling jelly, how it oozed towards the lip at a glacial pace that needed assistance from her fingers to move along. It wasn't her most dignified meal, but it was the saltiest. All the flavours of the mainland there was to experience, and she had gotten salt. It might have been funny had she held a better sense of humour.

At one point, an errant bone got caught in her throat, signified only by the halt of the Nordwiir's singled-minded feasting. That was until a small hork erupted from her throat, and the offending obstruction was promptly plucked from her festering mouth and placed on the table.

Eventually, Basil piped up, filling the void with a question—or at least what Skad thought was a question, as it took the one-eyed woman a few minutes to parse the sheer volume of words directed at her. A small mercy that they were small words.

Paying no mind to the approaching drinks, Skad chose to engage the curious woman, who, to her credit, had pronounced Eyjarnar perfectly.

"I having eating other Wiir," she stated after lowering the bowl from her face as if cannibalism was as benign a topic as the weather. For a moment, Kin-Slayer almost elaborated, her mouth opening as if tempted to assuage potential fears. Cannibalism was a product of only the harshest winters, something to be resorted to and not something that civilised Nordwiir practised daily. Likami's mongrels were another matter entirely, but they were excluded from contention given that they were absolutely not civilised, "This is not so bad."

Of course, Basil was also correct in her more pragmatic assumption. Food was the fuel for survival, making gelatinous eels easier to swallow. It did not, as comfort might have dictated, exist for pleasure.

The innkeeper might as well not have existed, as Skad had already decided that the ruddy little man was not worth her attention for his failings so far.

She would get a drink whether she engaged him or not.

"It is seeming that you are talking to avoiding eating, Basil," the Nordwiir stated, her words accusatory despite the flat nature of their delivery, "Has Vida not paying for this meal? Would be rude not to eating."

 

[Vida]

Green eyes nearly the same subdued color of Skad's own followed the story told by the Nordwiir with nary a word in response; from the violent motions of her gullet while she attempted to expel whatever bone, gristle, or otherwise unwelcome intruder that had been wedged in her throat to the point of Masile's cross-examination. All with the same faintly bemused expression stalking from the shadows of the ungentle planes of her face.

Had she expected anything in Skad's likeness when first hearing of who Varnehy had released from the prisoner wagon. On its way to the bowels of whatever prison it was destined? As tall as she was proud, bloodied as she was scarred, and now apparently one with a taste for cannibalism if her dietary inclinations were to be taken at face value.

The answer to the question was a resounding no. She hadn't expected anything of that nature to be sitting across from her, possibly too busy responding to Masile's question to pay notice to Vida who watched, learned. Made more and more curious by how utterly out of place the other woman was and still remained; the image of a savage foreigner that most would have consigned to the annals of propaganda and children's tales. It was almost endearing in its ridiculousness. Almost. While in the same moment Varnehy arrived at her side, passing among them the tankards of wine being set upon the table by their host, the steaming jug clattering happily in his hands as he went around filling the cups with a practiced ease. An ease that belied the worries that he did very little to hide on his face.

Perhaps he did try, but it was as ineffectual as everything else about the man's presentation.

Yet he still managed - with all his fits and frights - to bring out the drinks when she was beginning to fear seeing none at all. It did a little to ease over some of her burgeoning frustrations. Not a lot of them, but enough for everyone to remain mostly polite. Even when half of those frustrations could be squarely sat upon the innkeeper's bony shoulders.

But by the time the thought had reentered Vida's mind, she was far too busy bringing the cup to her lips to pay it much attention. Let alone any serious consideration. Tomorrow she very well might, but tonight? She was all too happy to leave the grudges and the posturing to the wayside in order to enjoy what she assumed to be a sort of mulled wine as it warmed her lips and then her throat while she hesitated only long enough to not appear like a complete drunkard. Ignoring Varnehy's taunting smile that came all the same.

Masile couldn't exactly turn her attention to the next tankard being placed before her by Varnehy's impossibly long arms without coming off as dismissive of Skad's accusation. She was also having a difficult time of understanding the new dynamics here, who precisely made it so that Vida was the mother and Skad a particularly scheming sister of hers? What possessed this Nordwiir to go and tell on her?

She heard a faint sound of acknowledgement of the question rumbling in Vida's throat.

No matter the noise it had elicited, it was made abundantly clear that this on Masile alone to answer.

"I do believe you are mistaken. I am eating?" Masile wasn't sure herself if she meant to sound so uncertain; her voice shrunken under the scrutiny of now having three pairs of eyes fixed on her every word. Well, two and a half pairs if we were to go into semantics, or it could otherwise expressed as two½.

Anyway, to say the least, the additional interrogation was not to her liking.

She didn't even think to comment on the cannibalism.

"I was merely asking whether the meal was to your liking, it was certainly never my intention to suggest we waste the food which has already been served to us. But you are right Skad, we can only thank Vida for being so generous as to pay for it."

Varnehy intervened. "You needn't say more, I think Vida understands the caution. I'm not even certain if it's wholly dead."

"I understand, Basil."

Continuing with his rather uncharacteristic chattiness, Varnehy forged on. While Masile was beginning to suspect that he wasn't quite so forgiving for the earlier offense of lending the Nordwiir woman his clothes - without so much as a passing remark as she did so. "All the same, she was a decent enough woman to pay out of pocket so that you don't go hungry. Skad is indeed correct; the fare that is offered should be eaten as it ought to, drank as it should, and if not for yourself, then do it for your host." His twinkling eyes fell temporarily on Vida while she studiously avoided his gaze, making herself seem bored and idle by taking another long draft from her mug.

"I wondered why you haven't as well, it does seem like a waste not to eat," Vida was completely indiscriminate in her targeting, she finally returned his look with an ironic, lidded stare, "feel free to do it for me."

Maybe she just found the idea of friendly fire oddly thrilling, or perhaps it was the picture being painted altogether. Amusing. Bizarre. Her smile was a little warmer despite the accusation equal to Skad's own in her words. She took another sip, and as expected of mulled wines, it was warm. So much that it bordered on vaguely uncomfortable, but that was more than welcome after the struggle of tackling the eel.

She felt the flush of red to her cheeks; the familiar old warmth suffusing her face as it snaked its way through her chest. She contemplated the taste a little while longer before settling the cup down, not at all excited to be the first in the room to be obnoxiously drunk. As it happened, she was more curious as to the question of how the Nordwiir would tackle it. And if it was anything like their meal she would have liked to see it first-hand, hopefully in due time.

Masile for her part looked a little less confident about this plan, there was something uncertain playing on her features as she turned the staring contest around to examine the Nordwiir with a tilt of her head - her knuckles gingerly propping up her head by the apple of her cheek as she watched and waited. Her spoon still played around with her food.

"Have you tried the alcohol in the south? I have to say they do a better job than they do their food. I won't judge if you take it slowly, it's on the strong side."

Except through her stare which said: I will no doubt judge you no matter what you do.

The little wobbles and undulations of the softly shifting alcohol as it caught the light was forbidding, probably dangerous to one with so little experience with the one thing the continent was good at: getting proper bloody knackered. And what was Vida's intent behind all this? Simple entertainment most likely. But after that, it was no doubt yet another way to discover what kind of woman it was that they hired; what the courage of alcohol could do to loosen someone's tongue with the freedom found in the evil machinations of spicy wine.

 

[Skad]

The pull of southern social warfare seemed irresistible as Skad became aware she was partaking again. She would have preferred to keep to herself, to find peace in silent solitude and serenity upon the edge of a blade. Instead, she was bullying the physical runt of the mercenaries, no doubt to the thinly veiled amusement of her cohorts.

There was frustration in that; it made Eyjarnar feel further away, not just physically but spiritually. Kin-Slayer longed for that cold, in both wind and shoulders.

Everything was heated here, from the insidious close climate to the fraying nerves that had already loosened several threats on Skad's part. Taut. Sweaty. Aggravating. A part of the woman, primal and ill-tempered, longed to respond to Basil's pathetic defence by grabbing the back of her head and shoving her face into the bowl so that she could try a little harder. Restraint had tempered that urge to a single raised eyebrow, scrutinising intensely.

The attention of her stare finally deviated to the drink, poured in the heat of accusation, as the third, more sparse member of the trio finally took to words.

One drop of blood in the conversation and these people seemed to pounce. It wasn't a true sign of proverbial knives in the back, but fascinating nonetheless. All because two adults couldn't grin and bear their gelatinous eel. That notion of comfort kept rearing its head in the forefront of her mind. Perhaps, were they not so pampered, the two of them could appreciate that there was food to eat instead of pining for something better.

"No," she replied starkly, still staring down into the cup's contents as if the great mysteries of this realm were reflected in its ruby sheen. Vida's advice was largely ignored, mainly because Skad was confident in her discipline. The notion of being rendered infirm by soft southern alcohol seemed ludicrous.

Picking up the cup, she took a swig and immediately found the strength overstated—at least in terms of taste. Sýru was like being punched in the back of the throat by caustic flames; this, on the other hand, was pleasant. Sweet, spiced, and inexplicably warm. Perhaps the danger was not in strength by volume, but on the virtue of being incredibly drinkable.

"You are right," the Nordwiir stated, taking a meatier second gulp to ensure that the first sip hadn't been a lie, "it is better than the food."

There was something hearty about it as if it were good for the body.

"But why..." Skad began, looking up at Vida with the barest traces of confusion found in slightly narrowed eyes, "...is the food cold, and the drink hot? It is madness."

 

[Vida]

Vida found herself morbidly impressed by Skad's fortitude in the face of the mulled southern wine that the woman seemed to think nothing of, sipping at it as if it was no more than a refreshing beverage to take on a warm, sunny day. Where she lacked in caution she definitely did not lack in confidence, that much was certain.

Well, at least one member of their party wasn't going to find reasons to complain.

To her own personal tastes it was certainly nothing to be disappointed in. Every sip was an inexorable pull towards another, like her tongue was desperate to be reminded again of the sweet fragrance, of the hints of cinnamon that still lingered upon every breath. As if it had settled down on her tongue to linger, refusing to leave. Refusing to be ignored through abstinence.

Vida certainly did try to pace herself, but Skad was right; the danger came in how easy it was to drink. How one sip didn't come with the inherent bitterness of other ales, more to be enjoyed than tolerated for the sake of drunkenness. She could have reflected on it a little while longer, but she was beginning to feel the familiar intensity of the Nordwiir's stare even if she hadn't seen it with her own eyes.

Bringing her own gaze from the contents of her cup, she met it with little more than a peripheral glance as her lips were left to curve into a questioning frown. Another sip later, "I wouldn't call it madness, it isn't entirely unheard of to serve cold food with hot or mulled drinks." She paused to think on it a moment longer.

"Even if pairing it with eel isn't something I would've... necessarily suggested. Normally they'd go with little cakes, or pies."

She said all this with the same breath that came with the realization that Skad likely wouldn't have a clue what those were, either. Why would she?

Being the cultural ambassador for all things southern was beginning to weigh on her. At least they had long since passed open hostilities in their short time knowing one another, and now they were in the overly curious child development. Not quite sure how she felt about that.

At least she didn't have to answer in Masile's stead, as the alchemist made it abundantly clear how she felt about it: she bloody well loved playing the teacher. Like a hog in mud - or whatever odd analogy one could make in this situation when the question seemed to revitalize the brooding woman all over again. Her cheek lifted from her self-made perch, now replacing the absent spot with her chin instead.

"Any spiced or heated drinks go well with those sorts of things, yes - but they go well with cheeses and other seafood too."

As the alchemist spoke she used the opportunity where the attention wasn't on her to continue poking the pale filaments of her meal, letting the meat sag beneath the less than gentle ministrations of her spoon. Clearly she was still taking her very precious time in eating any further, but supposedly she would eat it - or at least whittle away the time until nobody noticed her disposing of the food. Her utensil clanked as she left it stranded in the bowl.

"Some puddings would also do well." Now she was on one of her tangents. There was simply no stopping her. "Any foods that can be complemented by something a little sweeter, really. Even if they're equally as sweet; with nutmeg, cardamom, cinnamon. It all comes together."

The smell of all those spices danced on her tongue as she spoke them aloud. Or, more likely, it had something to do with the drink before her that likely shared one or two of the flavors, with the waft of the mulled drink close enough to her to catch a fleeting whiff. And so she felt at least a little obligated to ascertain which with a polite, curious investigation of the contents.

Meaning she finally took a sip. It was enough to quiet the endless ponderings, if only for a few passing seconds.

"There are even recipes for compot--"

"I imagine she understands the point you're trying to make.

Masile took the hint well enough, her brows lifting in confirmation that she would choose to end her culinary lesson then and there; especially after Vida's abrupt interjection had suggested that nobody was there for it. Most certainly not Skad of all people. Unless she was - then all she had to do was demand further elaboration as to what compotes were and how these recipes played into the conversation.

Thankfully the third member of the party knew to keep his head down, far too busy playing the obedient eel eater to offer his own piece of advice; though his eyes did stray from time to time to watch the proceedings with an idle curiosity. Perhaps he was waiting until everyone else shut up and started drinking before offering any meaningful conversation.

Rather than indulging the no doubt thrilling debate of cold foods with warm drinks.

 

[Skad]

It was a correct assumption that cakes and pies were beyond Wiir sensibilities.

Skad was willing to let the moment pass and forget that she had ever asked another question, but unfortunately, it was too late. She could tell by the way that Basil shifted, her change in posture a bell that announced a forthcoming tidal wave of information.

Cheese and seafood were understandable, at least, sitting somewhere in the depleted culinary storehouse of Kin-Slayer's mind. However, then again, the notion of having a certain drink alongside a certain food was far too precious for her to comprehend in the first place. Imagine having the choice. Spoilt. No wonder the mainland was ripe for raiding; they clearly had too much.

She found refuge in the cup, silently vowing to ask more pertinent questions in the future or at least when the short one was absent.

Or gagged.

Perhaps by eel.

Puddings, nutmeg, cardamom, cinnamon. At some point, Skad was beginning to believe that Basil was just making things up to seem excessive. She'd actively drained half of her mulled wine in the time it took Vida to mercifully cut the eel-avoidant woman off. Learning of foreigners' ways was essential, but this information was beyond useless.

"Yes," she lied, if only to stop the word-torture. Another solid few gulps followed, leaving her cup empty.

In the respite that followed, only interrupted by the gentle clatter of cutlery, Skad couldn't help but note the spreading glow that crept upwards from her throat to her face, settling upon her cheeks in smug victory. It suggested that Vida had not lied, that this drink was, indeed, on the strong side.

She stood abruptly, abandoning the dregs of her wine to go and tend to her furs, baking in the stench of horse-infused water. The fire was a piss-poor replacement for a good cold wind, leaving her clothes damp and warm as she turned them once more before returning to the fray. However, instead of sitting down, she lurked behind Basil like a literal bad smell.

"How did you all meeting?" Skad asked with her eye travelling between Vida and the man, her hands suddenly clamping down upon Basil's shoulders like a stern hawk, "You can talking when bowl is clean."

 

[Vida]

Those constantly searching eyes of Vida's took their time to scrutinize Skad from where she stood with the backdrop of the hearth behind her, as if Vida could somehow piece the other woman's intentions with her gaze alone. Her eyes boring into the Nordwiir woman with a very evident question behind them. What are you playing at?

Quite possibly with less hostility than she originally intended, as she took some joy in watching Skad's manhandling of the other woman of the group. Vida and Masile certainly might have been friendly, even friends in their own strange way, but there was little sympathy for the little woman now resigned to eating with rejuvenated vigor. Not that she had much choice really.

When a big, hulking Norsewoman stands behind you and plants her hand on your shoulder telling you to do something. You did it.

Vida's mulled wine remained mostly untouched while she contemplated answering; contemplated whether she should even bother answering with any honesty. But she assumed a few small truths would not hurt, at least to start off with. They might certainly lead to more interesting facts that Skad would no doubt exploit had she the chance, but she was hardly worried about that.

If Skad wanted to be paid at the end of this then she would do the job asked of her and little else besides.

It was clear that she would have to answer the question herself, noticing how Varnehy remained silent in the face of it. The coward. "Our other companion and I happened to meet by simple chance when we both worked the same job. Nothing more, nothing less. Not a whole lot of excitement about that story, even if what came after was a longer partnership than I originally intended. For all his faults he's not entirely bad at the trade."

The trade being a fairly innocent way of saying "killing for pay". An apt enough description of their working relationship, and one she was freely able to admit with the expectation that Varnehy knew better than to let the praise go to his head. She knew him well, that was true. The last thing she needed was a second Masile that would go on yet another one of her lengthy stories that Skad was surely interested in hearing.

"After that we fell into the habit of working together. Not always, mind you, but he's one of the handful in our profession that keeps his contract to the letter, and as far as I'm concerned that's one of the few requirements I have when working with others."

She emphasized her point after draining the remainder of her mug by immediately resuming the intense scrutiny of the Nordwiir, as she earlier had. Vida certainly wasn't lying when speaking about loyalty, it was one of the few genuine requirements she possessed. She had a reputation to preserve and working with people that couldn't - or wouldn't - follow through with their oaths was rather toxic to the brand. One would hope the woman would understand that much.

Even Masile with that big mouth of hers wouldn't break that rule, at least not intentionally.

With Varnehy's evaluation out of the way, she turned her attention to the real storyteller in their midst, Masile who sat wide-eyed in her seat after having noticed that she was obviously next. Her eyes traveling back and forth between Vida and the man as if they were characters in one of her very favorite plays. Noticing how Vida's evaluation sat well enough with the tall, lanky drow as he moved of his own volition to refill her drink from the jug left behind by a fleeing innkeeper, and then his own, then Skad's if she welcomed it.

"Basil, well. We needed an alchemist who knew her craft well enough, and she knows better than most," Vida spoke with much less clarity this time around, her attention to the conversation contending with the second cup of mulled wine she was flattering with downturned eyes, "so it wasn't a difficult decision to bring her along for this task."

She let the smallest of smiles dance along the edges of her mouth; the message was clear. Was Skad satisfied?

"I don't recall ever having seen a native Norsewoman by herself. Did you come to these lands alone?"

 

[Skad]

As far as explanations went, it was satisfactory. A natural hazard of their profession, no doubt. Wiir society was sparse enough that if you survived long enough you would encounter the same faces over and over again. Well, that was until you inevitably had to slaughter them.

At least the tight-lipped third member of the trio received a sparkling indictment from Vida. Skad imagined that was about as complimentary as the woman got before bile overtook her.

Her hands remained firmly clamped on Basil's shoulders, even with Vida's scrutiny playing the main event. The woman's words teetered on the verge of nonsense, the more cumbersome words lost in translation. The Nordwiir chose not to bring it up, already having gotten the point in their first terse encounter. Do the job, exactly as asked.

Even if the job was ambiguous as controlled chaos.

When the grey creature, the ever-reliable hand, refilled their cups she offered him a curt nod to indicate that she would be further partaking in the warm, heavily spiced refreshments. Perhaps unwise, given Vida's prior warning, her wisdom was at risk with every concurrent sip.

The alchemist got consigned to being here by her more niche skills. Perhaps there was no one better in her craft, at least in Vida's sphere. However, it was hard to take Basil seriously when she was being physically intimidated into finishing her supper. Did she not know that there were starving children on Eyjarnar?

One hand relented, her frame towering over Basil as she reached over to the replenished cup, her lone eye searching Vida's slightest of smiles for something more. Yet all she found was a question levelled at her.

"No."

Again, Skad's face remained static and unfeeling. Her voice was level, the single word matter-of-fact and final and standing in direct defiance with Vida's lengthier answer.

A long sip punctuated her point as if that was the end of that point of inquiry. However, her mood bolstered by food and drink, she offered a crumb more.

"The boat did sinking. The rest are dead."

A very remorseless crumb.

 

[Vida]

Even if it did not surprise her in the least, Vida was no less grateful for the lack of a cross-examination. She had said enough, less than she perhaps could have when it came to her own connection to Masile, but it was hardly in her favour to admit as much. Nor in Skad's to press a pointless topic. If the Nordwiir understood little else of the other woman's long-winded explanations, she ought to at least understand that she'd likely get no more than what was already given.

And that was much more than what was offered by the taller, less talkative member of the party, to be certain.

So they were dead, were they? Almost unbidden was an accusation on her lips, but she drew back from actually voicing it aloud. She wasn't all that astonished to find a woman like Skad amongst the living of such a travesty; the onus of being the sole survivor was something that seemed to suit the Nordwiir's burly, self-assured nature that either came from overconfidence or foolishness. But how different were those two things, really? Vida oftentimes couldn't find where the differences lay, least of all now when faced with a very clear survivor of not one - but several attempts on their life.

All the more unsurprising when Skad herself made it clear the lengths she would go for survival.

The killing of those she deemed useless. Cannibalism. Would it be so surprising for her to use her crew as a raft?

"My apologies for the loss of your ship and your crew, I know it must have been difficult to be the only one to survive such a trial."

Vida's voice was warm and full of concern, almost sweet; yet that only made it all the clearer how disingenuous all the pretty words truly were, coming from someone like her. She wasn't sorry for Skad, she wasn't sorry for all the dead, she was only sorry as far as the necessary niceties she observed said she must be. Only as far as good manners dictated and little more besides. It was certainly nothing that touched her heart, nor her features. That was to say she didn't make an attempt at all, nothing in her face shifted to host even the vaguest of emotions.

Her eyes remained the same as they were, perhaps even mercifully so, as that void of any real commiseration would make it so Skad had no reason to adjust her preconceptions of the woman. Nor to dwell too long on such an apparent "loss" if she found others grieving it with any real feeling. It meant very little had shifted in the status quo, and so she could choose to avoid acknowledging it further with either thought or word.

And, to be fair, nobody in that room really harbored a great deal of illusion about the Nordwiir's opinion on it given the unsympathetic mien when she spoke of the event. To the point. As the facts were. Then another bout of silence to punctuate how little the woman seemed to think of it. At least that was how the others saw it.

That was as far as Vida would think of it, though she might have been a little biased to say the least. That black shit indeed.

As for the truth? I don't think anyone honestly bothered; they all felt their share of insults by her hand.

That was, of course, excepting Masile. It seemed as if the alchemist possessed some strength in her own, strange ways. No matter the circumstances of their relationship, or the form it was currently taking, it still seemed impossible to completely bankrupt her personal sense of... what was it? Not quite empathy, not the way most saw it, but neither was it a clinical sense of courtesy that far surpassed Vida's own. All one could say was that it appeared to be wholly unique to her alone. She resolutely carried on in that way she did, not quite entirely unbothered by the increasing pressure of Skad's grip, but neither was it so considerable an obstacle to be impeded by.

Not even the bowl of eels she had been threatened to finish would stop her - Skad would find it fairly picked clean aside from a few remnant scraps of jellied collagen and leftover broth that called the bottom of the container home. Where had it all gone? Where could it have gone in such a short period of time? It was a question that both perplexed and astounded and had an answer that was unlikely to ever be forthcoming. Oh, not because it wasn't possible to pry it from the woman, but because there'd be so little time to do so.

She spoke with a spiritedness that would far surpass anyone else in the room.

"I may not know much, but I know there are no great honours to be won dying at sea, even for how common it is."

Vida's lips pursed, and despite dreading what might come next, made no attempt to deter Masile from continuing her doubtlessly rambling speech that'd do little more than confound the Nordwiir woman with the volume of words, if not their quality.

At the end of that split-second decision all she decided to do was to continue to run her fingertips in thoughtful circles around the edge of her mug, almost idly so, as she watched this next scene unfold. No apprehension in her mind that whatever it was - and it was always something with Masile - it'd prove to be, at the very least, enlightening to see how the Nordwiir replied.

"No great honour in Nordenfiir customs. Nor, I would think, Nordwiir customs. For that I offer my sympathies, or perhaps only my condolences, I do not know how you grieve their loss. All I know is that the Father of the Straits never looks fondly upon his children, from sailors to warriors, and has no qualms about swallowing those who would have taken pride in any death so long as it was in battle; so long as it was their fate to decide, with iron, instead of the mercies of an indifferent god."

How moving of an eulogy to the lost, made all the more sadder for who it was for. Likely to be lost on her as well.

"There are no songs written about them, at least not any that can be sung with joy. Only the spirits that hold their broken bodies in custody sing those." Masile continued, undaunted by the fact that very few of her words would likely ever be to the Nordwiir's understanding. It was unavoidable. She possessed the same weakness in her blood that Vida had - they simply had to speak, to anyone, lest they apparently go mad. Especially when they were the only ones with more than a few choice words to say in a room filled with people. "It is no way for a warrior to die I would think. But if I'm wrong then I must apologize if I am ignorant of your ways, though if you'd like, you could help me and find that I'd listen."

With that and a blink of her large, owlish eyes Masile finally deemed it a fine time to reach for her mug so long as Skad didn't take the opportunity to snap her neck or to shake her around like an oversized pitbull would. It took two of her hands to find a hold where one would've sufficed had there been a handle, and she drunk deeply, obviously parched from either the speaking or the eel eating. Perhaps a combination of both. She licked her lips, suspiciously dry of any greasy byproduct that would have been evidence of her meal.

Vida just carried on with drinking, as did Varnehy, though let it not be said they didn't watch with keen eyes.

"More wine?" Varnehy had asked of his taskmaster.

"Oh, yes, why not?"

 

[Skad]

The condolences were meaningless, even more so considering the mouth that had spilt them forth into the realm.

Vida did not mean them, and Skad did not want them.

It was a pity that she had lost the boat; after all, it had led her on a miserable, humid pilgrimage to try and return home. Had her ship survived, she might have been spared so many long-winded conversations that this day had birthed. Not to mention the waste of wood, such a destruction of a sparse resource was perhaps the greatest failure of all.

The lives lost were less important, at least right now.

If those who drowned did not want to spend eternity in Djúpin, then perhaps they should have learned to swim better. If those who found a second mouth yawning at the neck did not wish to suffer Refsingar, then perhaps they should have been a little faster, stronger, or more cunning. There were no false pretences on their voyage; her Hæfurkappi knew the risks; they knew who she was and what she was. If they didn't want to die, they had plenty of opportunity not to.

Now, the consequences of their failed raid would land squarely on her shoulders, but there was little point dwelling on the hypothetical.

She would have been content to leave it at that, with Vida's comforting tone betrayed by that detached look in her eyes, the empty platitudes out of the way and onto the next matter. However, Basil still existed and chose her moment to remind the room of that fact.

The woman imparted her feelings on the nature of honour and dying at sea; Skad understood that much, at least. However, she disagreed with the sentiment entirely.

Instead of challenging Basil to another round of threat-inducing hypotheticals, the Nordwiir spent her energy on her cup, which made ever-more frequent passes to her lips as the alchemist insisted on talking.

...and talking...

...and swallowing?

At a certain point, and because of her limited understanding of their language, Kin-Slayer could swear that the fussy woman was talking about singing. She wasn't sure where or when the topic had deviated, only that it had, bringing a confused edge to Skad's face as her eyebrows furrowed, betraying her staunch stoicism. Perhaps she had drowned, after all, and this inn was Djúpin.

Skad's hand released Basil's shoulder from its custody, only to touch down on the top of the alchemist's head, no doubt ruining her carefully adorned nest. She bent over so their heads were level, with Skad's looming over the other woman's shoulder like a grave omen.

"You are scared of quiet, Basil?" Skad asked, the inclusion of mulled wine upon her breath an improvement, much, in the same way, a sprinkling of flower petals would improve a corpse, "It is not so bad."

There was something strangely endearing about the verbal terrorist. Perhaps it was the manner in which she had borrowed her companion's clothing for her. Or maybe it was the afterglow of a long-awaited meal and a good drink, the latter more than the former. The thought urged her hand to demand a top-up, her cup-wielding arm outstretching with the expectation that the grey creature would oblige.

"Death is death, I do not seeing honour in it. They should have trying harder to live."

 

[Vida]

And oblige the grey creature did, though it was to be noted he only did so after topping up Vida's cup. That he placed a degree of importance on decorum was more than evident in the way he served; with all the deference of an experienced courtier rather than that of a mercenary, and one that knew who best to serve and in what order.

Not that Skad would find cause for complaint, as he moved to fill her drink next.

And courtier or not, what the two mercenaries did share as equals was the foresight in watering their next drinks down with a jug of water that had no doubt been set upon the table with the wine for that express purpose. It may have dulled the taste a bit, that was true, but the act itself more than compensated for the fact by helping dull the effects of a rather potent alcohol.

There were people who were either brave or foolish as to drink unwatered wine, but it was clear these two did not number amongst them.

Masile who was still on her very first cup didn't deem it necessary quite yet.

As for Skad? Well, Skad was Skad, who knew what she thought? It wasn't like anyone else was jumping to contradict how she drank her wine. And getting in-between the two forces seemed like a step too far, even for Masile, who was at present far too busy with her own issues to trouble herself issuing words of warning.

"You might be correct, silence is not so bad."

Coming from her, it was a statement that held little water to it. Even less so when present circumstances made it painfully obvious that whatever she might have said in agreement probably wasn't entirely to her liking, and certainly not willingly surrendered. Masile remained motionless as Skad transferred her hand from the alchemist's shoulder to their head, further using it as a makeshift support so that she could level her one eye with the woman's own.

The fact that Masile didn't instinctively wrench herself away was perhaps not so surprising, considering the physical dominance at play, but neither did she recoil under the touch outside of the immediate aftermath. Whether that was because she had simply gotten used to the frequent manhandling, or that she stopped minding it altogether was difficult to say.

No comment was ever made towards either effect.

"And you're also right, of course, in finding no honour in death. There's only one life for us to find our purpose in. I just thought... I suppose it's not important what I thought." She finally met Skad's stare after seeming to look anywhere but, and parted her lips as if she wanted to say more though mercifully she did not. Whatever words she might've thought would help elaborate on the sudden, drastic change in her convictions were not to be voiced, as it seemed - against all odds - that Masile had finally learned her lesson on speaking with savages.

And as heartfelt as her eulogy may have been, it was ultimately one that could have been plucked from any one of a hundred different gatherings around a funeral pyre. This time however, the words she spoke smacked of a quiet, resolute earnestness on behalf of the alchemist. Whether it was yet again what she merely thought others would want to hear, or her honest opinion, was up to Skad to decipher as she willed.

As for the others, it was apparent that neither of them fell into the popular trap of finding honour in death. They didn't react.

Masile's hands hovered around her cup; delaying the process of actually lifting it to her lips again until the presence roosting atop her so-called bird's nest afforded her the freedom to move without any of the awkward maneuvering by the inability to adjust her head. Not willing to chance the possibility of spilling all over herself in the endeavor.

She wasn't completely idle, however.

Occasionally she would withdraw her fingers from their resting place, at least attempting to comb the mussed hair back into some semblance of its earlier, less insulted state. Fingers twisting through her dry, mousy tresses in a maddeningly slow way as to not give offense to the Nordwiir who was, still very much looming over her, avoiding the actual source of her hair's complaint as best she could.

As pointless as rolling a boulder up the hill, given that Skad's hand was the hill.

While Vida's brow just raised at the sight unfolding before her, keeping the silence that Skad had suggested. Her lips moved, but only to quirk to the side while she watched the two work through whatever dilemma the alchemist's chattiness had conjured. If there was anything she was intending to voice, it was clear she'd do so after this little interaction ended.

 

[Skad]

It had seemed that the talkative alchemist had been defeated for just a moment, her thought trailing off to be discarded in a box that the woman herself deemed as 'not important'. Skad imagined that this would only be a short reprieve but chose to snatch at it anyway.

In exchange for the moment of peace, Skad released Basil's head from her grasp and allowed the woman the proper freedom to fuss with her hair.

Yet she lingered further, stooped down at eye level and considered the cultural gulf between them, represented by vanity. The Nordwiir's hair, by comparison, was a real nest, matted and wrangled into some form of stiff submission and dented by where the wrap usually covered her eye. It was enough to keep her head warm, and she took the blade to it when it got too long, not bothered by the thought of choppy, uneven locks.

Her head turned to the man and Vida as she silently appraised their visible grooming habits. What was the point of vanity? To impress others? To attract them? Was it another of those unspoken rules, like gendered clothing?

Kin-Slayer's mouth briefly hung open, ready to ask the cultural question before a narrowing of her own eye in self-scolding prevented it. They could enjoy the silence a little longer, and Skad could chalk up fine clothing, intricate hairstyles and black shit to the pointless lives they led without true purpose.

The fact that she was questioning such things was a sign that the mulled wine was doing its job as intended, the Nordwiir inwardly noting the potent glow she felt radiating from her cheeks.

She returned to her seat and basked in the silence, tilting her head backwards and closing her eye.

Despite the room's relative harmony, Skad could feel the fatigue this journey inflicted upon her. Hunger may have been sated for now, but that did little to soothe the aching muscles in her legs and clear the haze of exhaustion clouding her mind, now saturated by drink. It was too hot here. Sticky. Sweaty. Stifling. She longed to stand in the face of a blizzard and feel the wind cut like razors thrown by the Gods.

Sitting still and thinking about it, wishing for relief, only made it worse, but here she was in stasis until the job was done and the coin was in her hand.

As it turned out, while the silence was nice, it had the adverse effect of stretching out time. Conversation would have to do, lest she resort to bloodletting. Her head bobbed forward, eye snapping towards the grey creature who, so far, had eluded her uneducated scrutiny.

"I am not knowing who you are," she stated, not caring if she was interrupting any moment shared by the trio, "or what you are. You will telling me, yes?"

 

[Vida]

From her side did Vida stir, seemingly happy to carry on where Masile was no longer able to pick up the slack. She stretched across the solid timber of the chair's backrest, opened her mouth to speak with that same old tone of how one would speak to children. Calm. Mildly disparaging. What again would the Nordwiir know of drow when she had no reference to them, in the same way she had no reference of so many other things far from home?

She supposed it didn't matter, the hours passed slowly without conversation.

"My partner's a dark elf, Nordwiir. The inhabitants of the world underneath our world; the boogeymen to frighten continental children; and so forth."

Varnehy's only input to that was a slightly more raised brow than before, which to him was only noticeable due to how little his features typically moved.

As good as any exclamation of mild, exasperated surprise to be sure. Clearly he had more to say about it than that, and may have disagreed about the boogeyman allegations no matter how fraught they were throughout the world, but he knew better than to try. His only real audience was that of Skad, who probably didn't care one way or another.

Masile, in contrast, continued to run her hands through her hair; whether due to a compulsion to return it to its earlier state or by the insecurity of being so recently scrutinized by everyone in the room, nobody could say. It was certainly clear that she was uncomfortable by all the attention, and as Vida saw, still in dogged submission because of it.

She didn't doubt the other woman would have more to say when time had sufficiently passed. Masile always bounced back quickly.

No doubt to everyone's long-suffering dismay.

"You may call me drow, though yes many have taken up to more common terms." Varnehy's voice was unhurried and pronounced in clear, crisp tones that left little to be desired when it came to understanding his every spoken word. If they actually understood the words he spoke, at least. It matched the ease of his posture; how he sat in his chair with a sinuous calm with both arms folded at his chest by his wrists. He looked to Vida and then made a face.

"Boogeymen are for the stories of children. I am no boogeyman, only a son of the underrealm. Our home away from home."

"They are a rather matrilineal culture, are they not?" Vida asked of the drow sitting next to her, not at all expecting an answer. "Goddesses and priestesses and their very own queen. Perhaps that explains it?"

Explain what? What did it explain one might have asked when finding the rest of the tale in Vida's eyes, while she shared it with Masile. The latter for once didn't bother to provide the usual offers of clarification, merely casting her eyes to the side amusedly while she took a sip of her drink. The former reclaimed her seat, having leaned forward earlier to offer the nonverbal exchange. That was that, it seemed.

"Maybe our tales are not so different, Nordwiir who is not Nordenfiir?"

Varnehy might have a point.

Nobody ever tells sagas of Nordwiir beyond that to which scare children. And so few truly understood the deep history of these two cultures in the way that only they did. Even more telling was how they suffered in isolation whereas their fairer brethren prospered in the light, growing fat off the excess of their prosperity. Though these two in question were hardly similar in any way.

Yes, there certainly were similarities were Skad to look closely - and have a nuanced, thorough understanding of the history of their two peoples - so perhaps it took more than looking closely.

The sun was long behind the horizon at this point, with only the flickering wicker lamps yet providing light.

 

[Skad]

Vida's explanation was largely lost upon Skad, several of her more substantial words going in one ear and getting lost in the void. 'Boogeymen' did not get lost, but only by virtue of sounding very amusing and definitely made up.

However, she could handle the concept of dark elves.

Somewhat.

The Nordwiir was aware of the existence of elves, although they were not commonly found along the Blighted coast or the Eretejva Tundra, where Wiir typically made their mark. Orcs, yes but Elves, very much no. She assumed said darkness was in reference to their complexion, having nothing else to go on besides flagrantly fictional words. It made enough sense for her to be sated, in the sense that he was more ordinary than he appeared; the last thing that Skad wanted was to share a massacre with the unexpected.

So she nodded, still pondering the colour of the man's blood but happy to leave it at 'drow'.

The conversation continued as Kin-Slayer renewed the relationship between her mouth and cup, and that strange word reared its head again. Boogeymen. Boogeyman. What made them so boogey? What made a nature boogey that it frightened children so? Her forehead creased with a lack of understanding, not aided by Vida's unanswered follow-up questions.

What was established, was that both of their cultures apparently invoked dread next to their fairer counterparts: elegant elves and flaxen-haired bearfuckers.

"Maybe," she answered with a raised brow, the mulled wine loosening the Nordwiir's rigid facial features to allow actual expressions to escape, "Better to be feared, no?"

She left it at that, her mind wandering to thoughts of living under the earth.

For as rejected as their people might have been, the Nordwiir were no different from those above ground when it came to agriculture. It may have been a withered existence of scarcity, but they still relied on the sun to grow vatchir and gróft. The Kaltku still grazed on grass tinged by frost and buried beneath the snow. How did the dark elves survive? Did they subsist like creatures of the caves? Snuffling for fungi like Kaldabatur on endless winter nights?

Amid her thoughts, Skad ignored the three mercenaries around her, her jaw thoughtfully chewing on her considerations of drow survival.

<"Mushrooms?"> Kin-Slayer asked abruptly in her native tongue, looking up at Drow before realising that she had spoken in the wrong language. There was a flicker of embarrassment that warped into irritation, and her free hand ran down her face, wiping away the sweat that mingled with the blood from her earlier act of bladed devotion.

Did it fucking matter what the man's people ate? No.

Was the language barrier beginning to wear her down alongside the consumption of alcohol? Absolutely.

<"This is fucking insufferable,"> she mumbled, a sour frown weighing down her features as little by little her composure crumbled.

 

[Vida]

There was a certain cruel logic in being feared, that much was so.

But there was only so much fear could do for you. After all, such a gift came with its price; it did not endear those around you. Nor did it invite cooperation, only resentment. It demanded as much from you as it does those standing opposed to you. Was it so much better to be feared when it meant acting the role of the pariah, even with who should have been kin?

Varnehy found his mind drifting to the life he lived in the underrealm. The piercing, howling winds of endless labyrinths, the chill of its climate, how it sank through one's flesh to nibble away at their soul, in time. He wondered how like their fairer brethren Skad and Varnehy could've been were they to live in more hospitable climes, to live a life of plenty in contrast to that of exile.

All for what? That was no home for anyone. His people had a home, once. Now they languished in the dark.

"Is it, indeed? Perhaps you are correct, but it extracts its own price." Varnehy was brooding, he knew that, yet could not help but think of home. The thoughts of one's past and wine was a dangerous combination indeed. "I find fear to be a bitter bed companion for all it offers."

Nonetheless it was both his boon and curse to carry, much the same as it was his home to think about. He had known nothing else, and could not imagine anything beyond what his people had built in the absence of the light. Making the best of what would never truly be the same as what they had left, yet also knowing of no other choice to be made.

Even as they suffered because of it, a small part of him would forever walk those streets; to always take a small sliver of pride in what was theirs alone; to enjoy in the back of his mind a perverse satisfaction in surviving those trials and coming out the other side all the stronger for it. He could not say the same of the soft uplanders, no matter how others might have very well mistaken him for one of them.

It was cold, it was vindictive, it was violent, yet it was home.

"Yet I know no other kind of bed, nor shall I ever. I am content in that. I suppose you are, too?"

He did not think to comment on the idle rambling of the Nordwiir, correctly assuming that she was having some difficulty with sobriety. For she spoke in her own language as if the rest of them no longer remained, in a tongue which his ears were deaf to, leaving her to suffer on her own with her thoughts of mushrooms.

However she would be right in speculating about the underrealm's agriculture; they indeed ate a lot of mushrooms.

Amongst other things, yes. But there was a particular penchant for the easy growing fungus that could lay its sprouts practically anywhere.

"Are you well, Skad? Perhaps you ought to switch to water, our wine might prove a little strong for your tastes."

That was Vida's contribution; goading, flippant, and said with an unspoken reassurance that it was more like to gall the Nordwiir into doubling down rather than display submission towards the blonde-haired woman. Unless Skad were to take it at face value as a voice of reason, or see through the plot and wisely take the high road.

The choice she made would be hers alone, and either decision would no doubt prove enlightening to the woman sat across from her, wondering what Skad would do.

However, wisdom might very well be long gone when the Nordwiir starts speaking Nordwiir.

As for Masile - she simply wanted nothing to do with it, bringing forth her earlier book so rudely abandoned to the corner of the table. Afterwards she sat like that, drinking and reading with both hands, although admittedly with little interest. Clearly she was more invested in carefully observing the proceedings as the conversation once again picked up.

It was true she wanted nothing to do with it, but that didn't mean she didn't want to watch as whatever came next unfolded.

Oh, poor Skad. Masile wanted at first to say something before remembering the last time she tried that. It was clear that her input was not desired by the tall, scarred woman - and to be fair, it wasn't like the Nordwiir was a child to be warned or scolded. Despite being dangerously naïve of everything outside of her little island, she clearly had no interest in being told what to do. They were her mistakes to make.

Masile knew there was nothing to be done now but to wait and watch from over the top of her mug, ridiculously large for her round face.

 

[Skad]

Skad was content with her bed, so to speak. Her earlier conversation with Basil had revealed that she preferred the hostile shores of home and the eternal struggle of survival to this convoluted yet comfortable mess. Of course, she had halted that topic before thinking too deeply about it.

She didn't verbalise as much, her mind having gotten lost in dank undergrowth alongside the fungi that grew there.

It was a pity she did not know their word for mushroom; it might have prevented her well-marinated unravelling and the surfacing of frustrations suffocated by sweat and smug Southerners—or, really, just the one smug Southerner.

Vida piped up, as the woman was wont to do, and as expected, the content of her words did not dance to the same rhythm as her cadence. Kin-Slayer could feel the weight of scrutiny settling upon her shoulders. Still, unlike the alchemist, who would rather shrink into herself and avoid eye contact, or the dark elf, who had the foresight to avoid being present at the moment when it arose, Skad stared back.

"Maybe," she answered, the word as dour as her battle-worn face, "<But you will deride me, no matter what, so it is irrelevant.>"

Her hand flicked across the air as if dismissing the suggestion that she switch to water, only confirmed moments later when the cup returned to the Nordwiir's mouth and, in what seemed like an uncharacteristically prideful gambit, was completely drained of the spiced wine.

"It is hard. This talking," Skad continued, leaning forward to lay claim to the water jug with her other hand, "and not understanding," she filled her cup, this time with water, actively spurning and taking the mercenary's advice at the same time, "and not able to saying what meaning."

The same routine followed, and the Nordwiir decidedly downed the cup of water as if determined to become the champion of hydration and then poured herself another.

"And the water is shit. And it is too hot. And yes," she regarded Drow for a moment, her jaw set and remaining eye lidded, "missing my bed."

Skad shrugged in her newfound animation, looking back to the trio's leader with the exasperated expectation that she had answered the question. Of course, it likely wasn't meant to be answered in the first place; only spoken to irritate, like poking a lame beast with a stick just to see what happens.

"No, Vida. I am not well."

 

[Vida]

If Vida's eyes twinkled a little in reply, she did well not to express whatever she was feeling too plainly.

Indeed, she appeared far more occupied watching the other woman absolutely spill her heart out and, strangely enough, work through both her cup of spiced wine and a subsequent cup of water after that. It was difficult to tell how much of it was acquiescence as opposed to impudence, and what the point of becoming a hydration queen was meant to convey.

The words Skad spoke were not so strange, that much was true. They could all certainly sympathize.

But there were a lot of words, more than anyone had expected, really. At least when it came to the chilly, profoundly untalkative woman that they knew as Skad. If it wasn't obvious before, it was clear now that after three drinks the alcohol had finally taken its hold, was at long last on its way to eroding the once thought impenetrable walls of the Nordwiir. And in turn revealing a much different person than Vida had initially met, which she found herself oddly pleased with, for once the stony countenance had cracked; could not be put together again in the state Skad was in.

Nor could it prevent the flood of complaints that now freely flowed from the animated woman.

The last part of the rant was very clearly directed towards Vida, and she had the vague impression that the rest of it was as well, in its own way. As if she was the singular cause for all the aforementioned woes, or at the very least a proxy for the Nordwiir to vent their spleen.

It was most definitely not in response to how Skad was feeling after soaking up more than a quarter of their wine jug.

Or maybe it was. But it was hardly the response most would've expected.

"Skad, none of us are doing well. I'd like to think nobody here is thrilled to be sitting around with naught to do but sweat and suffer the smell of wet horse." Vida left it unspoken that she liked it the least of everyone present, though it was hardly difficult to grasp what had been left out when noticing the face she had made. "It's not exactly any consolation, but it is what it is. And I am sorry, in my own strange way."

Vida quickly made another face after her apology; where the last was one of mild disgust, this was an expression of almost catlike amusement, hinting at some small degree of self-awareness.

For all of her flaws she wasn't entirely ignorant of the way she came across to others, and she most certainly was not ignorant of her own complicity in Skad's woes, nor did she ever truly try to hide the fact. Even as she apologized for it. Whether it was the result of the mulled wine or something totally on-brand for the blonde woman? Difficult to say.

"I imagine that tomorrow will be more to your liking."

If she meant to elaborate, it was clear she'd only do so after she finished whatever remained of her drink. Allowing her head to tilt back in coordination with her cup until all that was left were a few stray droplets she didn't care to linger to catch. After all, she had the benefit of a manservant who promptly refilled the empty vessel. She felt the warmth beneath her flushed skin - shrewdly decided against drinking any more for the moment.

She set her cup down, finally returning her attention to Skad. "I certainly don't intend to pay you for your ability to hold a conversation, nor do I see you having a future in it, either. That's why tomorrow will be simple; you'll be doing what you were paid to do, what you apparently enjoy doing. And I'm aware you hardly understand a word I say, but what about this? Your reward in coin will make these hours, and this trip, worthwhile.

By all the gods, she really was as far gone as Skad was. Her monologue was similarly pointless and had twice the words, to boot.

Varnehy couldn't help but offer a rueful chuckle. He was well finished with his own drunken introspections, at first interrupted by Skad's insistence of his bed metaphor being literal and then by Vida's act of playing out a solo conversation. His head tilted to the side, a question perched on his lips.

"Shall we discuss the details, then? There are many unknowns, too many for comfort."

Vida dipped her chin, looked to her drink and then to him from under the shade of her lashes. "Are you afraid?"

He knew better than to interpret the act as playful, with all the coquettish innocence he knew very well she lacked. When he spoke next it was with the same quiet reassurance he pivoted to when the conversation turned to more serious topics.

It was something that worked surprisingly well in reining the other sellsword in - so long as she actually caught onto his tone in her present state.

"No. Only thinking."

Obviously they hadn't thought to be as concise with Skad. If they did, then perhaps she might've had a few less complaints. Too late now. The two of them looked expectantly to the Nordwiir woman to see whether she'd acknowledge the verbal vomit or, as seemed more likely, would instead jump straight into the inebriated planning phase of the night.

Even Masile's ears perked up, no longer pretending to feign interest in her book of herbology.

 

[Skad]

It had almost been agreeable enough of a response, empathetic even, or as about as empathetic as Vida could muster before her face betrayed her.

However, the woman's words burst from the traps and stumbled immediately at the first hurdle when the words 'wet horse' left her lips lingering with that air of disgust, just as potent as any fetid horse water. Skad's nose crumpled at the mention, enough of a snarl present to show hints of splintered teeth as she leaned forward at the table.

Had she not obliged with Vida's request to the letter, just as the woman preferred?

Skad might have said something or done something if she were unaware that her new stench was born from one part of a demeaning demand and the other of her malicious compliance. She could have bathed anywhere, which wouldn't have mattered to Vida; Kin-Slayer chose the horse water. It would have been obtuse to find rage in it, reinforcing the stereotype that the wine was willing to unleash.

The Nordwiir let it pass, closing her eye and breathing through the fantasy of giving Vida a new hole to shit through as the other woman preached about the virtues of the job, which ultimately was the only thing that mattered at this table, Haraudur's will aside.

Soon, this entire affair would feel like a fevered night terror in the distant past, and she would be on the shores of home once again, where things made sense in their own brutal way.

Drow diverted the course of the conversation onto the only thing that mattered, away from their collective suffering of miserable mushroom towns and onto its soon-to-be massacre. Skad decided it was for the best and that she had already aired a grievance too many and shown too much of her face to carry on down the road of shaken temperaments.

"Yes," the Nordwiir mumbled in agreement, having successfully breathed her way back from the cusp of a violent tantrum, "Details." She looked to Vida once more, shades of irritation lingering in the tilt of her brow, "Would not wanting to missed steak."

Did her lone eye turn accusatory, or was it the glassiness of inebriation?

"And then not getting 'worthwhile' coin."

 

[Vida]

Vida's fingers tapped along the length of her cheek in idle contemplation. Head in hand, her mouth was framed by a slight twitch of wry amusement. She hadn't expected Skad to contribute, she hadn't even thought the other woman was capable of reining herself in like that. For a passing moment it appeared as if the Nordwiir was on the verge of outright violence.

And now? Now she was talking of 'worthwhile coin'; asking for details of the task tomorrow so that she could avoid making any of those pesky 'missed steaks'.

Oh, Vida had no illusions about what the other woman was thinking and chastised herself for getting carried away, again.

Ignoring the look of accusation, she instead offered Masile a sideways glance, eyebrows arched high. The latter made little effort to give any feedback; for as interested as she may have seemed the alchemist was still very much a non-combatant in the grand scheme of things. Any input from their more malleable fourth companion would have been questionable, at best.

What mattered more was that she voiced no disagreement about the latest topic of conversation, permitting Vida the peace of mind to discuss the subject without any threat of future disruption. Especially from Masile. Her fingers stopped drumming, instead taking again to her drink - notably eschewing any of the water they had just bickered about less than a few minutes before.

If it was going to be one of those nights, then so be it. She was going to need all the help she could get.

"I do remember you asking for those earlier, yes. I believe I was a little cross with you at the time."

An understatement if there ever was one. Vida had been upset over a great deal of things, with very little of it to do with Skad beyond being in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was also the whole issue of being a seemingly unintelligent, foul smelling barbarian of a woman who barely spoke a lick of any continental tongue.

Yes, that may have also had something to do with it.

Vida wouldn't deny the other source of her frustrations, either; that she was unaccustomed to the way she was questioned by Skad, with all of the woman's posturing and unsubtle undertones of violence. Not when it was by someone she was paying so much. Specifically because the promise of such lofty rewards generally came with an implicit agreement not to ask so many questions. Or if they must, then they ought to find the time and place for it.

When she was in the middle of washing her face? It was most emphatically not a good time to be doing so.

Thankfully her anger about that particular incident had long simmered into apathy.

"The guildhall I spoke to you about sits rather neatly on the border between the town of Marseyelle and the Aynnrande forest. They've of course cut down a tidy swathe of the surrounding foliage to avoid any threat of wildfires, no doubt it also serves to keep people like us from entering completely free from detection. But they're sloppy, and they were always more concerned about the very real threat of vagrancy rather than anything resembling armed intruders."

Not only did she keep her mouth busy but her hands as well, now employed in a rather dubious attempt of illustrating what had already been said with an army of conveniently located hazelnut shells. There she placed the rest of the town, the trees, the warehouses and its small array of docks set upon what was presumably the ocean - the edge of the rather distraught looking woolen table mat.

With some additional narration and the lazy trailing of her ring finger she proceeded to draw a crude approximation of where the fence line was in relation to the guildhall and the rest of the surrounding area. The only point it fell off was with the larger port-side shared by - and watched - by the remainder of the town's commercial sector. Not ideal.

Talking was becoming difficult, but she found it easier to do with each successive sip of mulled wine. Her throat was also becoming rather parched, and it didn't help at all that there was soon naught else but the sloshing of a near-empty cup in her hand. She leaned forward with a creak of her chair, indicated for Varnehy to begin his sharing with a shake of her cup.

He might have been frustrated by the request had he not been... somewhat mesmerized by the miniature re-enactment being positioned before him.

Not to mention by whom it was being constructed.

Vida hadn't bothered with any further banter, for she was clearly into it now. The words coming to her one after another in the most sensible arrangement they could possibly form. At least when it came from the slightly inebriated mercenary's mouth.

There weren't any complaints thus far, so it was apparently coherent enough for her two companions who had listened and observed, almost as in the dark until now as Skad had been. They were certainly getting their fill with this latest demonstration.

She had finished her little side-project by then, looking to both Skad and Varnehy. "We've the advantage once we cross the fence, but they'll have defensible positions inside when they realize our purpose. Eventually they'll regroup and try to repel us, likely with some success if the town militia arrives at that point. Not that it makes a difference. We don't need a great deal of time once I'm inside, and all we should be confronted with by then are some clerks, staffers, possibly a handful of ill-trained guards. Easy, I should think."

"You say we have enough time, but are you certain of it? It's not a city, that is true, however it is no village."

"Yes, I am aware. I am also aware of how amateur the guards and the count's men are. They'll break before we do."

Varnehy smiled at the thought, asked his next question anyway: "And if there is not enough time, and we become surrounded?"

"Then we all die with the satisfaction that they'll remember us as sellswords who keep their word, even to the end." Vida's lip twisted in a patronizing way, clearly she thought very little of the idea; less of actually holding true to the logic. All the same she turned to Skad and spoke with a tone of reassurance. "That was a jest. I plan for us to flee and to continue living, though our purses will be the lighter for it. At the very least I'll try to pay you enough to bribe the next soldiers that attempt to throw you into a prisoner wagon."

Easy or not, it was certainly going to be a matter of violence with whomever they encountered both inside the guildhall and who patrolled its inner courtyard. And despite declaring how little time was necessary, there would still be the matter of any town militia that eventually decided to show up and who were likely to pursue them. All of this and more was writ upon Varnehy's countenance as he listened. But when he looked to Vida, and then to Masile, it was apparent they didn't share the same fears.

They doubtlessly were working their own angles that he wasn't privy to, but then again that was the nature of working with a woman such as Vida.

It wasn't only with Skad that she was tight-lipped with, even at the best of times.

Speaking of Skad. Vida finally brought her gaze once again to the heavily scarred Nordwiir. She knew she said a great deal, and more of it was clearly for the comfort of Varnehy than it was for the woman who had originally asked the question. This was addressed now.

"I understand if I spoke too quickly, and if you have any questions about what I have or haven't said, ask them now. I will try to use less words."

Her smile returned with the last declaration, instantly reminded of the last time she made that promise to Skad.

 

[Skad]

Perhaps it was for the best that Skad did not comprehend the meaning of being cross, having only just managed to breathe herself down from prior barely restrained rage.

Instead, she attempted to focus, her mind trying to grasp at every word that followed in a merciless torrent of common. In this instance, the mulled wine was not helping, and the Nordwiir felt more like a fish splashing helplessly upstream against the flow of words.

The visual demonstration helped somewhat; the discarded shells created a far better idea of the where than words in the trade tongue ever could.

From her limited understanding, Skad could gather that this job was not as easy as first described. It had seemed trivial in the ill-mannered first discussion: poorly armed guards and controlled chaos, a slaughter in more complex terms. Now, there were questions of time and an entire town's militia.

Not ideal, but not impossible.

"You won't," Skad replied to the notion that Vida would try to use fewer words, her eye studying the makeshift battle map on the table.

"Where are wanting me?" Came the Nordwiir's first question, her head tilting upwards to look at Vida, only inquisitive expectation held in that lone mossy eye, "Can giving time if needing."

Time in this context was slaughter, but it didn't need to be said. Given the right circumstances, she could kill, hold, or just terrify any opposing forces while they did what was needed on the inside.

"Are they having..." she paused during the second question, trying to find the common word for archers and failing with an impotent grunt, "...arrows?"

Kin-Slayer may have been capable of defying Endirinn, but she was not an indomitable force beyond all defences. Archers out of her blade's reach presented her greatest concern and something she had no answer to. What could the visually impaired Nordwiir do to prevent herself from becoming a human pin cushion? Very little with no cover.

"And when?"

Skad herself was partial to the art of a night ambush, but judging by the consumption of mulled wine and the lack of any urgency, that seemed out of the question.

 

[Vida]

Those were all very good questions. Fortunately for the both of them they were fairly easy to answer.

Vida drew back up in her seat, leaning into both of the hands she had on the sides of her neck while she made an idle attempt at massaging the growing knots she felt beneath wandering fingers. Her eyes drew closed as she listened and thought of a reply. After a brief moment she allowed her hands to fall upon her lap, accompanied by a gentle clap as she brought them together.

Eyes opening, she turned her mind to Skad's questions in earnest. One by one, so that no question remained unanswered.

"As for where we want you, ideally?" Vida asked, pausing. The edge of her index finger lightly pressing against her bottom lip as she considered the woman across from her, making no secret of the impromptu evaluation. "That's the one area you'll have the most freedom. After we dispatch whoever might be patrolling the grounds outside, you and Varnehy will proceed to secure the first floor entrance hall. Once that has taken place, he'll direct his efforts to his own mission, leaving you on your own. To keep people out, or in, as the situation demands."

She thought of something else then, added: "However, when our presence becomes known to any outsiders you are more than welcome to act as you see fit to give us more time."

It might have not been the most conventional strategy for most mercenaries; to be handed what was essentially a free rein to do whatever they wanted, free of any strict oversight. But this was hardly a conventional mission, and Skad most certainly didn't seem like one for conventional strategies. Not that it was necessarily a bad thing in this specific scenario, mind you.

Allowing Skad the latitude to complete her objectives however she wished seemed the safest bet, and it was one that Vida was certain the other woman was capable of taking full advantage of. After all, control and chaos were two very different beasts, but neither were inherently more effective in the right setting.

"To summarize. We secure the courtyard and the lobby, then divide our attentions to our own tasks. You'll keep to the ground floor to prevent escape and the raising of any alarms."

It wasn't the most exhaustive breakdown, that was true. But Vida wasn't entirely sure how much of it was already lost on the other woman, nor did she want to overly complicate the whole affair by fencing Skad in needlessly when one of the Nordwiir's whole selling points was her experience in straight up chaos - as opposed to the notion of "controlled chaos". Vida had faith in her.

The next two questions didn't require the same length to answer, thankfully.

"No, there will be no arrows. At least not from anyone inside the guildhall. As for when? Tomorrow evening during the changing of the guard. I'd have picked a better time if I could, but I cannot, so it'll have to be then."

There, as few words as she could possibly manage without outright excluding any relevant details. For both Skad and her other two companions who were, until now, not terribly certain of where and how the former would fit into the grand scheme of things. Not as important for Masile who appeared almost as lost as Skad had been throughout... well, the majority of the conversation.

Varnehy remained thoughtful, however. His hand reached out for the ceramic jug, found it to be empty.

He looked then to Skad, caught between standing up to search for another container and whatever thought had suddenly come to him. "Are you so worried about arrows? Shields are for those, as axes are for archers, unless you have neither?" Varnehy asked in a tone that was half a question and half suggestion. Not entirely sure at first what the issue was. He had initially assumed that the woman had the sense to pick up more than the dagger she currently carried from the prisoner wagon, though he hadn't waited around long enough to see if she had.

Nor did he wait to offer her a ride, for that matter. But it wasn't too late to make amends.

"I may be able to borrow you something if that dagger is all you possess."

Varnehy's face deadpanned at the kind offer of borrowing something to Skad, for whatever reason.