Looking for an Inn (Open)

[Fallan Windchaser]

He watched fascinated as she swallowed the vile liquid without so much as noticing the taste which made him want to pull his own tongue out and scrub it till it bled. So much to learn and clearly it seemed that either she had an incredible control or her taste buds were quite unlike his own. He marked it down in his mental annals along with the fact that she seemed quite harsh with her words, though again he could not tell if it was simply her way or another racial quirk.

"Wandering is sometimes exciting, sometimes interesting and sometime tedious." The words were bland but it allowed him to address the question which she had raised in his mind.

"You are a bard sometimes then?" He hadn't mentioned that travelling was also dangerous and expensive, but perhaps she had revealed her solution to both of these. Time would tell. Perhaps.

[Hadrian]

Hadrian kept mum for the moment, studying the interchange between Ira and Fallan instead, Akvatari and Drykas. Anthropologically speaking, it would be interesting to see how they found a common ground. So far: alcohol and storytelling. Akvatari were often poets, and the Drykas told stories and sang songs around their campfires.

And after all, it didn't seem wise to contradict a new acquaintance, but he had first hand experience of the wonders of herbalism. If it hadn't been for Caelum and his drugged teas and poultices of mint, goldenseal... and whatever else had been in there, he might have scarring and chronic pain in his hands from magical experiments in days long gone.

He smiled and sipped his beer.

[Ira Dayer]

“Bard is a big word! I just sing, sell little trinkets and medicine in towns to earn some money. I live with that. I was briefly trained by a bard” she chuckled “but it didn’t last long...”
Ira tried to ignore the hunger that was gnawing at her stomach which had been awoken by the beer. She was extremely thin, her cotton shirt concealed her ribs but in silhouette her thinness could be seen. Her angular face, almost transparent skin and seemingly long and slim fingers were products of scarce nutrients. She had learnt to ignore the ache, her earnings did not reach the amount she needed for frequent meals.
She shifted in her seat and said: “Travelling is everything and nothing; it all depends on who is doing it! Have you travelled much? Where do you come from?”

[Fallan Windchaser]

Her words made him smile and for now all of his attention was on the woman, paying no more than the occasional glance at Hadrian. They had after all nearly come to the end of their initial more pointed conversation and now it was more appropriate to relax and talk of more general things.

"My home is in the Sea of Grass as you might have guessed. It's not so far away from here and it calls to me when I travel. No matter where I go, always I must return there and one day I will stay." He grinned and sipped of his beer, not exactly answering her question. "This is my first time though in Zeltiva and Hadrian here was kind enough to be acting as my introduction to the city."

Her words carried mystery as she did herself and he wondered if any of them might be penetrated.

[Hadrian]

"I'm sure you're more of a bard than I'll ever be," he offered with a grin. "I just bought a flute yesterday. I'm crap at it."

He did manage to hear the girl's stomach, which he hoped wouldn't make his own stomach start growling. The one thing he didn't like about Zeltiva was the lack of public restaurants; this inn probably had some food, but otherwise they would have to find a market.

Suddenly he blinked. A moment ago he had been wondering if Fallan was trying to get rid of him so he could move in on the lovely Akvatari girl, but that was forgotten now.

"You know, Fallan... they don't have restaurants in Zeltiva. You should open one. Corner the market. Make sure to dig out a big underground larder, bring ice down from the mountains. You could make a fortune..."

Just because he wasn't going into the business of trade didn't mean he hadn't picked up a few things from his father.

"Ira could play and sing there," he added with a smile.

[Ira Dayer]

“A flute? That’s wonderful! Remember gratification comes after hard and tedious work. Same with music!” She laughed and continued “you should have heard me when I started, it was horrible…
At least I was so young that I don’t remember much. I can play the flute, if you want I could guide you through the more arduous steps in learning an instrument: the first ones.”
“You’re lucky Fallan, not everybody have a place to return to, to call home. So far as I’m concerned I am my home, if that makes any sense, and keep my home inside my head…"
Ira closed her eyes for a moment, her head swam awfully for a few seconds. She opened her eyes and had to blink a lot of times to shut out the blinding white lights that clouded her vision.
Then she said “No restaurants in Zeltiva? And anyway any restaurant with me playing there would fail! - She chuckled "But where do you buy food already cooked? ”

[Fallan Windchaser]

He cocked an eye at Hadrian as he was addressed and listened to the idea. His interest grew then waned then grew again. The idea of being tied to one place was in many ways too horrible to consider. Here in the cities the grass never had time to regrow in the pathways and roads, either being trampled into mud or covered over with some form of paving. The cities disturbed him in many ways and the idea of actually living in one full time suddenly seemed repulsive, but at the same time, perhaps it wasn't such a bad idea. He mulled over it, knowing that it would sit in the back of his mind now while he chewed it over for all that Hadrian might have meant it flippantly.

"Home is where you make it," he agreed with Ira, wondering if she had the same idea about what home actually was.

"Thats not such a bad idea you know Hadrian, not such a bad idea at all." Surely they were not the first to consider such a scheme, which meant there was good reason for such ventures failing. But then the locals here were used to their own ways and perhaps being too close to the trees they might just have missed the forest.

[Hadrian]

"I'm not exactly sure," he admitted. "It's been explained to me as having to do with the food shortages, but... well, I'm not a native, so I can't say. Inns generally have food for their guests, and sometimes some of the pubs might have a bit of something.

"And... I'd be happy to have a teacher. At least for technique. I'll probably go to the library and read up on music theory myself."

Then he would figure out the mathematics of harmonics to help him fine tune his magecrafting. There was so much that he didn't quite understand that he was sure would make sense if he knew more about music.

[Ira Dayer]

Ira wondered if the drink had finally got to her head: she felt dizzy again, her head was heavy and fuzzy.
She cleared her throat and said “Hadrian, are you good at maths?” That was all she managed her tongue was lead in her mouth…was it fatigue, the drink or the hunger? The room swayed awfully, sounds muffled, she gripped the table edge knuckles white.
After a few minutes everything stopped spinning but she didn’t lose her grip of the table.
“Music is numbers, harmony and intervals are rigid maths. Music has rules, the notes we find pleasing are fixed frequencies that our ears like. Think about binary form in maths and think of a music key: same thing, same way of reading in different ways an identical series of notes or numbers. I studied this with a bard its very intresting!
I’m not saying you have to be good at maths to be a good musician but it can be fascinating if you are.”

[Fallan Windchaser]

The conversation drifted into music and maths, neither of which were things that the Drykas had any great empathy for. While he could of course manage his money, count horses and the like, anything beyond that sort of practical application left him with little interest at all.

He sipped again from the beer and listened regardless for sooner or later the conversation would return to something he could have input on.