Closed New Years After

[Itt]

The Docks
1st of Spring, 519 A.V.

Ambiance :

Today the crowds were bustling. The murmurs of chatter and conversation buzzed and yipped throughout all of Ravok, the name of Rhysol escaped no citizen's lips. The sun was bright, standing above all, leaving no shade contested for luminance. Warmth filled the city like steamed fish, seasoned by a crisp breeze that grazed the air. The foundation of the city, the lake surface itself seemed to wave at those by the water was a glistening wet hand before settling down back into the body. No indication of winter was about as the Watchtowers glistened green.

Although celebration for the upcoming year had been observed the day before, an entirely new ceremony had begun to welcome in the year as it came and to thank Rhysol for the blessing over the fisherman's catch. Everyone devoted to the god took moments throughout their day to thank him in silent or audible recognition, some more audible than others.

As Itt wandered the docks no later than a bell after the announcements of the deity of the city, Itt came across the sound of laughter and music. The sound prompted a tilt of his head, his ears leading him towards the melody of hilarity and tune.

Upon the lakeside, in one of the larger plazas bordering the main docks to the south, a large conglomeration had formed of people and their families swaying and watching a group of five men fabricating a complex harmony with long instruments they hit with sticks. A woman among them as well pounded beige drums with her hands, a second dancing in the middle of the open stage that everyone had created, smacking her palm and thigh with a tambourine that rung to the beat.

Itt tried to see the musicians, though people were too tightly packed together for his comfort. To avoid the claustrophobia, the Kelvic remained on the outskirts of the crowd. He glanced around for spaces in which would give him extra inches on his small stature, finding a barrel standing beside a wall to the left of the nearly uniform mass, shifting on their feet left to right. Itt hopped onto the barrel's top, cupping his hands over his eyes to shade them from the sun's blaring beams.

The dancer wore bright colours of orange and yellow as well as a mask that resembled a fox. Jewelry dangled from the mask and her wrists, her neck which bore a thick collar-like necklace, and feet, her caper flowing with the rhythmic hammering of wood and metal pieces from the men and the woman behind her. The instruments were beaten by the sticks that the pieces jumped from the position, returning just in time to be pounded again. The effort resulted in vibrant, clear tones and cutting cadence enticing Itt's head to bob and sway.

A child was sitting upon a man's shoulders in the back of the crowd by Itt, the child swaying dramatically back and forth with his chubby fingers and hands in the air. A particularly rhythmic section of their song came by, the kid smacking his father's head in an attempt to join in. The father flinched at each hit, Itt snickering at his grimace. It didn't take long for the man to set the boy down on the ground, the child resorting to stomping his feet instead, his hands returning to waving back and forth to a beat much faster than the actual song.

Itt laughed, hopping down from the barrel, watching the young boy stomp in circles with a giggle that only children could replicate. Itt grinned with the full length of his mouth, stomping to the melody both as his own expression of the song moving inside him as well as to help show the kid where the beat actually stood. The boy looked him in the eyes as he faced him, giggling more and stomping in his direction, though still horribly out of sync.

The child held his arms out, his hands grasping the air in front of him towards Itt. Itt chuckled, extending his arms out as well, though making sure to keep enough distance between them as to not touch the boy, as his father was staring intently at human sloth. The child, nevertheless, enjoyed the new mimic and jumped, turning 90 degrees to his right. Itt beamed, jumping and turning to his right. The boy shook his hands vigorously, the shake snaking its way down his body, through his head, and his back and finally his hips, wagging his tush back and forth. Itt laughed, doing the same, letting the shaking of his hands dribble down all the way to his hips, shaking them unapologetically beside the boy.

The musicians cried out to the crowd before them, telling them to express their thanks and devotion to Rhysol in any way they thought best, many whooping and giving an excited shout, others lifted their hands, some danced more, and many more just smiled and watched, or continued walking. The dancer, although silent, unlike her counterparts, made her way around the crowd and beckoned those with elegant fingers to join the growing crowd if they were not already a part of it, dancing by one of the main canals that linked the city to the lake, the sun's reflections on the water dancing on her glistening skin much like she was.

OOCAnyone is free to join and do whatever! You can interact with the musicians, the crowd, or Itt in whatever way you see fit! It's an open, spontaneous celebration that organically came about after Rhysol's announcement about blessing the fish harvest this season. Again, feel free to hop in at any point!

[Caspian]

Change for the sake of change itself is not a bad thing.

That’s Caspian’s position, anyway, when he drags himself out of bed with the full intention of letting Thancerell know that for all intents and purposes, they should consider their whatever-one-calls-it quite and utterly through.

(One might just break and call it a relationship, if one is so inclined, if one’s back is against the wall about it, a position in which Caspian often finds himself, sort of comes with the territory when someone seems to like you a whole lot more than you like them, all of which he still hasn't learned how best to extricate himself from.)

It doesn’t happen, though, not right away. The change he does manage is the new emerald frock coat he’s got on now, with gold buttons and rakishly oversized cuffs and collar trimmed with black. Reaches down past his knees, too, and it had taken some active effort to pry himself away from his own mirror this morning after he’d pulled his high leather boots on and took in the spectacle of the whole ensemble. It’s a fetching shade of green, one that suits him very well, suits the air already growing more verdant around him, and it’s an active effort not to linger too obviously by his reflections in the shop windows they pass by.

It’s on the tip of this tongue, this announcement that he’d like a change, this change perhaps less a substitution or a deviation and maybe, unfortunately for Thancerell, along the lines of a cancellation – and he’s quite rehearsed this in his head, gone over it the appropriate number of iterations, and he hopes it will be as easy as it plays out in his mind, where he tells Thancerell that he’d enjoyed their past winter together but that with a new year there ought to come other sorts of new’s, that new perhaps being that the two of them in their relationship don’t necessarily renew.

The festivities are what spoil it, Thancerell’s attentions predictably arrested, and before Caspian can share his most prime of announcements regarding them as a unit, Thancerell’s with full and unadulterated enthusiasm plunging headfirst towards the music and the dancing, with Caspian no choice but to sulk and follow, and regret his own idea to go out for a walk to set the scene for their conversation, and even further regret that he had led the way and turned this particular corner.

Closer to the music now, and the raucousness of celebration, Caspian gives up any hope of comprehensively expressing this very specific decision he’s made about the two of them. At least for the moment.

There’s a dancer in particular who’s caught Thancerell’s eye – everyone’s eye, no doubt - dressed in flaming hues.

“Bet you’d look good in that get-up,” Thancerell says, nodding towards the dancer and tugging Caspian towards him with a playful grin.

Normally, Caspian would be inclined to agree, the details of an outfit in question unimportant when it comes to basking in flattery – but it’s the mask that throws him, slanted and canine and a compelling but unmistakable rendering of a fox.

Thancerell doesn’t know, and Caspian’s never bothered to tell him, for real reasons that go beyond all assumptions that their relationship is temporary, was always intended at least on his part to be so. One doesn’t just tell, in a place like Ravok to the Ravokian-born, that one’s mother is a fox – was a fox – and that the fact of this subsequently indicates other facts about Caspian himself.

So Thancerell’s actually quite right, about how it would befit him to don it – and Caspian wonders about that conversation instead, not the one where they break up but the one where he tells Thancerell about his Kelvic mother and the circumstances that led him to lose her, and then Thancerell breaks up with him because of his amalgamation which native Ravokians are not particularly known for embracing, and maybe that’s actually the way to do this, because Caspian will get, in the end, what he came here to do.

He’s ready to cover up this lapse – not that Thancerell seems to have really noticed – with a light gibe about red and yellow certainly looking better on him, if it has to be between the two of them, because of Thancerell’s naturally ruddy hair –

When he notices that he very much recognizes the person shimmying with abandon to his right.

“Itt?” Caspian calls out over the hubbub, a genuine grin spreading across his face when he notes Itt’s dance partner.

[Itt]

The boy dancing beside Itt giggled in a fashion that Itt thought resembled joy. Not just in the boy was joyful, but that the laugh was similar to the presence of joy itself, as if it was a tangible thing. Thinking briefly in a moment of pause in the boy's dance— and therefore his own— Itt couldn't think of another person who expressed the same amount of happiness as the children he's seen in this city. Yes, the musicians were happy, and they smiled and played. Sure, the people in the crowd were happy, swaying along. But this kid seemed so full of happiness that he didn't know what to do with it except let it take over and overflow onto the street through his stomps and hops and spins.

Then again, Itt often conflated energy to joy, for he struggled to have one without the other.

Because he had eaten quite a bit of leftover food yesterday that others had thrown away, and incidentally onto him, since he had been sleeping on the trash, Itt was more full of energy than usual, and much like other times, was happier. He could do the things he wanted to do, like shake his hands and bum with a kid that had more energy than the entirety of the crowd, and grin madly at the music.

It made him happy to do these things.

The crowd parted for the dancer as she twirled her way to the outside of the crowd, dancing them closer to the song in a gentle herding. She managed to entice some stragglers who joined the flock through her almost tangible connection that manifested between her masked face and those who stood indecisive on the edge of the plaza. She even snagged someone who had just arrived with vibrant red hair, though the music seemed to have done most of the captivating of him and his companion than she had in that particular instance. She twirled around them after a bountiful leap in their direction, creating an imaginary half-circle around them, connecting to the crowd.

With most of the stragglers now in the participating loop, she plunged into the crowd again to return to her stage, switching her tambourines for a pole with long ribbons.

Itt and the boy, and subsequently the boy's father, didn't notice the change of equipment by the woman, as they were too focused on the concluding escalation of the song, getting louder and pounding harder until they finished with a note that rung with such finality that it seemed Itt would never hear another beat of music ever again. The boy, in a delayed conclusion to his dance, bowed to the crowd entirely consisting of Itt, taking in the laughter and applause as if it were donning a crown upon his washed head.

Itt bowed too to keep up his mimicry, which the boy seemed to highly enjoy as he continued to bow over and over again. Itt smiled, following his lead and performing a bow one right after the other.

Until he heard a familiar voice that pierced the applaud of the crowd during the momentary intermission between songs. Itt stopped bowing and stood up straight with his full height, even standing on his toes in search. Not that the extra half inch would aid with his slight frame, which was now slight in both height and width. His round, brown eyes scanned around, naturally falling on those with smiles and crinkles around their eyes. This did good for him, as it brought him straight to the most familiar man in the entire crowd.

"Caspian!" He'd recognize him anywhere!

Itt left the boy's side, who at that point was pulled back beside his father. The Kelvic half bounded on the balls of his feet over to the man, the smile on his face filling his hollowing cheeks. When Itt reached him, he wrapped his arms around him in a boney, cold hug. Itt wasn't fond of people touching him, especially strangers, but he had no problem initiating a touch. Itt could feel the drastic difference in their temperature, for Caspian was warm, like the warm-toned green he wore for a shirt that appeared to have taken its likeness from his eyes.

"Hello!" He officially greeted, squeezing him with more bone than muscle.

The next song started to play after the men gave a short introduction to themselves and their main performer. One the song began, the masked woman returned to her routine, though now decorating it with flamboyant ribbon that accentuated her movements.

[Caspian]

The hug quite knocks Caspian off his feet. Strictly in the impalpable sense of sentiment, that is - because Itt’s not nearly enough to physically floor him, but the contact is so presently sudden and its intentions so aboundingly sincere that for a moment, he isn’t quite sure how to react. Thancerell, having never seen nor heard of Itt before, certainly doesn’t, when he finally notices there’s a third to their party - but of all surprises one might encounter, this is a genuinely pleasant one, and with a rush of reciprocal sincerity that he doesn’t have to dig very far to find, he hugs Itt back and playfully lifts him off his feet, with the few inches’ advantage he does have on him.

“Friend of yours?” Thancerell asks, not bothering to conceal his rising curiosity and mirth at the uncommon sight of Caspian allowing himself to be publicly ruffled.

“Hello! Yes - we went on quite the caper,” Caspian replies, shooting Thancerell a look over Itt’s shoulder, because he knows what that insufferable grin means, and yes, he’s definitely aware he’s got this thing where he’s quite intentional about compiling his looks in the morning and subsequently a second thing about preserving that arrangement to the best of his abilities through the day’s end - all this to say that he for the most part avoids situations and people out to crimp and crease him in open spaces, but this is not the most part, this is Itt, so Thancerell can point and smirk all he likes.

Likely, too, that Thancerell’s more than a touch jealous, and of a waif at that.

Jealous enough to kickstart the fatal conversation he’s being trying and failing to hold all day -?

The merry musicians begin anew, and Caspian notes with a pang of - jealousy of his own? No, preposterous, never - the vector of Thancerell’s intrigue for the brilliant dancer, and the zephyr-like ribbons she wands around her figure and through the air.

“Are you with anyone?” Caspian asks Itt, having still wondered since their previous encounter whether there’s someone who might take opposition to their meeting, and for perhaps more dire motivations than Thancerell.

[Itt]

With all of his might from his frail frame, Itt squeezed him as if to claim or anchor Caspian in place. But in due time, whether through his own will or through the tired weakness, or perhaps a combination of both, he released some of the tension, reducing the intensity down to that of a normal embrace.

But to Itt's surprise, it didn't stay as such for long. When the sensation of the ground was removed from his feet, Itt nearly yelped. He was quick to return his grip, his fingers curling into the back of Caspian's shirt. He reached with his feet and bare toes, trying to find any signs of the city's foundation, just missing it by the few inches that Caspian was able to lift him.

Though there was a brief moment of panic, as Itt rarely was moved without his own volition, it subsided quickly, allowing laughter to fill his chest. He's only seen people do such things with children, picking them up and holding them over their head, or lifting them off the ground, like the father of the boy he danced with who held him on his shoulders. He figured that he was a little big to be held above Caspian's head, but the sentiment still rooted inside of him. After all, his parents had never done the same.

Itt pulled his head back far enough to see the entirety of Caspian's face once he said hello, looking at his mouth as he spoke. Somehow getting an even closer look at someone's lips didn't seem to help him understand the words any better. With the spy's face encompassing Itt's entire field of view, Itt easily noticed Caspian's gaze was not on him, and he followed his green eyes over his shoulder the best he could to see who he was addressing.

They had some pretty hair.

Itt let go of his grip, allowing his small amount of weight to pull him down through Caspian's arms just enough so balls of his feet touched the ground. He looked at Caspian when he felt the muscles in his neck and shoulders shift, signaling a turning of his head. He tried to understand his tongue.

You with anyone? Anyone— what did that mean? You with anyone, anyone must mean something. A something, an object, maybe a person? Either way, Itt wasn't really with anything other than the clothes on his back, so he supposed the answer was, "No? No I with anyone."

Itt glanced over his shoulder again there was a particularly loud holler from the crowd, his gazing shifting to Caspian's friend shortly after. "What you?" He asked, looking to Caspian for answers.

[Caspian]

“Yes, Thance - what exactly are you?” Caspian utters before wisdom deems he ought to bite it back - because that’s just the question of the hour, isn’t it?

“What’s that?” Thancerell replies distractedly, his eyes dragging for a fair share of moments longer over the same spectacle than Caspian cares to note. Confronted fully with Itt now, Thancerell defaults to a lopsided smile and boisterous wave. “Thancerell Duffett,” he says. “Nice to meet you.”

In fairer, faraway moments, Caspian had once found his mannerisms sweeping and winsome, for the burliness in and of itself, and attractive, maybe, for its being such a stark departure from his coiffed own. The perpetual red scruff on his cheeks and chin isn’t an aesthetic Caspian normally goes trawling for either – but on Thancerell, standing an easy six feet tall with his hunter’s roughness and Lakeshore scars, they’re just the finishing touches.

But… from a distance, that distance not being so physically expansive in the midst of this crowd that jovially presses on all sides, but material all the same, and feeling as if with every moment it irrevocably widens - that charm he once saw in Thancerell wanes, full withers over waxes, running the ramshackle down to ragged.

It’s hard, this - feeling as if you’re constantly missing someone, that sense of missing including but also going beyond the typical conception of it as the consequence of distance and absence – it’s missing as in the virtually corporeal. That the both of you have sights set, one towards the other but oscillating away, at frequency and angles subjected to measurements stochastic and precursors indeterminate. They’ll aim and dodge without warranting, all intention to do so lacking – but it happens whether Caspian does or doesn’t try, and lately so much more often, and beyond the whirl of it all which he finds difficult to articulate, but potent all the same –

It manifests in sundry things. Miscommunications about the when’s and where’s of their meetings. Jokes falling awry, touches tepid. Looks gone askance and witnessing them having gone so. That time he’d spent the night, and it was hardly the first night and they were meant to be fairly mutually in the swing of things, but in the morning a pronounced apathy came over him and he decided to steal away and not speak to Thancerell for nearly a week –

They add up, those little things, and they stay in their summed parts, in an assemblage of points of irritation he holds about Thancerell and their relationship that he finds increasingly difficult to ignore.

Why not break just it off, then? He’s trying, though, isn’t he? Certainly tried just a few moments prior but the crowd’s too petching loud and they’re in a sea of smiles and now Itt’s here and the moment isn’t right for it any longer.

Thancerell’s looked away again, this time at a festooned and harlequined man who’s bopping through the crowd, passing out percussive baubles and fripperies, encouraging the onlookers to join in on the festivities. To Thancerell, he hands a tom-tom drum the diameter of his outstretched hand, painted pastel blue and white, with bright, sandy hides stretched taut across both ends. A masked assistant tosses over a felted mallet, and –

Yes, that’s the last he’ll have of Thancerell’s attentiveness, at least for the next half-bell.

Especially with the musicians turning to a song in a decisively accessible and crowd-pleasing major key.

Caspian sighs. “That’s Thance,” he says to Itt, in case he hadn’t caught his name. "He's my -" His own indecisive deliberation on the matter probably isn't helpful. After some hesitation, he lands on - “His father’s a crockery merchant, and a decent one, from what I’ve seen from the books.” Done on the sly, of course – but given his line of work, it would be laughable to do any less. “Recreational hunter, so he spends half his time on the Lakeshore, and the other half – well, whatever one does when one’s got reasonable wealth to spare.”

Drifting some ways away now – but still easy, given his hair, to pick out from the crowd – Thancerell’s quite taken with the toms he’s been given, and as usual, has drawn new friends out of the strangers beside him.

Aware of his growing dourness now, Caspian, in favor of Itt, throws as much a damper on it as he can and adds wryly, “My sister can’t stand him.”

[Itt]

With his arms lazy but his fingers strong with a firm grip, the Kelvic continued to hold onto Caspian considering he hadn't exactly tried to pull away yet. Even if he had, it would have taken the uncultured boy a few moments to realize that people didn't particularly like to be held onto for extended periods of time. Trees were much better suited for that sort of thing. Although Itt was still fairly small in frame and in height, people tended to be weaker than trees, and if some tree branches weren't strong enough to hold him in his human form then he figured other people wouldn't be able to either. Then again, he's never actually had anyone pick him up before as Caspian did a few moments ago. At least not recently. His mother did when he was small, but again, that was when he was small. He wasn't so small anymore.

Itt grinned when Caspian reiterated his question. Did that mean he asked the right question? It must have, or else why would Caspian say the same thing he did? Maybe he didn't put the right words in and the stranger didn't understand? That's more likely. He did struggle with words at times. Well, a lot of times.

Thancerell's question of distracted curiosity wasn't so much an answer to Itt's question more so than another distraction for the sloth, considering that the only times he's heard the words "What's that" in combination was his name. "Yes, what the petch is that." Itt grinned, pointing to his chest with a chuckle. How did he guess? Everyone seemed to know his name, it must be really common.

The child that Itt had been dancing with moments ago was watching Itt with a long stare while he perched on his father's shoulders. The child giggled, mimicking the phrase,"Wa da pesh is tha!"

The father's face turned red with a distinct crease in his brow. He lowered his son down to his arms, giving Itt and Caspian an angered glare,"Have some respect, this isn't the Anchorage!" He walked away, heading to a seemingly more child-friendly part of the crowd, though the kid continued to repeat this new phrase he's never heard of.

Itt frowned with the corners of his mouth, watching the man disappear in the other half of the celebration. He didn't know which upset him more, the father having been upset, or the fact that Itt didn't have any idea as to why he was upset. Both were equally as confusing.

Because of the scolding that Itt didn't understand, he did miss Thancerell's introduction, only learning his name when Caspian restated it. "Thanserall." He tried to repeat, though Itt's unfamiliarity with the language shone through with awkward pronunciations. He shifted his head back towards the stranger turned acquaintance. Well, at least where Itt had thought the stranger would be. He was there just a second ago. Itt would have glanced at the tops of heads to see if he could find him, but without the boost of a barrel, Itt was too short to see past the first few heads around them. Oh well, maybe he'll see him later.

With his resting smile returning to his cheeks, Itt looked back up at Caspian with the same attentive eagerness as earlier, picking up words he's heard before. Lakeside? He's been to the lakeside! "Lakeside!" He let go of Caspian with one arm to point to his chest yet again. "I lakeside!" He had to take those boats to give messages to people who lived on the lakeside. He even swam part of the way here from the lakeside. He didn't know exactly how far he swam, but it felt like a long time. It had to be at least halfway, right? Then again, he was asleep on the boat for some time so he didn't know how long they had been sailing. But Itt was sure he swam half way. His body at the time wouldn't settle for less.

Itt let go of Caspian with his other arm, finally freeing his friend from his sturdy hold. Itt pretended to paddle through air,"I- uh- Iiiii..." He looked to the sky, hoping the word for swim would come to him while he doggypaddled in place. "I mmmm." In an abstract attempt to have Caspian fill in the gap, Itt hummed and exaggerated the gesture so Caspian could possibly link the missing word to his action. "I mmmm." One more time, for clarity. After all, it took Itt a few times to understand things so maybe Caspian did too.

[Caspian]

At the offended father, Caspian laughs openly - and wonders for a moment, privately, what it would feel like to have someone so protective of him, clutch him away to preserve him, to want him just the way he is. It occurs to him that Itt’s not let go, and hasn’t asked him for anything either, and it’s not entirely analogous to the object of his envy, but -

It does leave him feeling less bereft than he might have been in an alternate arrangement of events, in which he’s standing in the epicenter of this festival alone. That reality’s no less probable, yet things had aligned this way instead, with Thancerell at a distance and Itt on his arm.

Of all the things whizzing about them in the new spring air, Caspian hadn’t expected the lake’s edge to be what captured Itt’s attention.

“You’ve been there?” he says, puzzled, Itt’s movements depicting some sort of sifting or clambering or - no. Swimming?

Was that even possible? Every time Thancerell ventures past the city limits, blades and brass and all manner of equipment reserved for roughing it strapped to his back, in search of what he’s curiously deemed as fun, he drags back more wounds than trophies and hides.

Itt looks rather whole, all available evidence and further suppositions considered. And had he been gouged by any of the dangers that roamed in the wilds there - you’d think he’d be a little less well-adjusted, is all.

Well, whatever it is - nerves of steel, or the truth of his Kelvic form, which Caspian’s yet to divulge. “You’re more than meets the eye, aren’t you?”

One of the musicians returns, the one who’d bestowed Thancerell with the drums. In his basket he’s got a further assortment of instruments, and Caspian can tolerate a lot of things even in his more subdued states, but group participation and of the frivolous strain isn’t something he’s exactly up for. But they’re quite pinned there by the push of the crowd, and though Caspian tries to wave the musician and his offerings away, he’s either daft or deaf or deft in the art of being a nuisance, and should Itt want to take part, well - Caspian’s fishing out a four-stringed lyre.

A bit flimsy and sized for a child, to serve its present purpose, but when he strokes across them they twang in surprisingly pleasing fifths.

“What were you doing by the lakeside, though?” he asks Itt, hoping the simplicity of the question would allow for easy conveyance.

[Itt]

Itt continued to make the gesture for a few more ticks with the hope that at some point Caspian would decipher the meaning behind it. It was times like these that Itt really wished he understood more about language. Actually, he wished he understood more quite often, but this moment in particular he really wanted to be able to just say he swam halfway to Ravok instead of having to resort to flapping and flailing his arms to get the message across.

But Caspian appeared to understand, even if it followed a rather confused stare. More than meets the eye. What does that mean? Is that what swimming was called? That seemed too long of a name to be what it was called. Itt had noticed that actions and names usually were shorter while messages, like the ones he had to deliver, were longer. More than meets the eyes was closer to the length of most messages rather than the name of an item or an action.

Either way, the disappearance of the confused expression on Caspian's face led him to believe that he figured it out. Itt let his arms fall to his side as he mirrored Caspian's new look of curiosity, or perhaps admiration. Or maybe it was just how his face was.

The musician from before that had taken Caspian's friend away, not that Itt remembered, returned, trying to place some sort of stringed... tool in Caspian's hand. Caspian struggled to grasp, his hands waving around and moving everywhere that the lyre wasn't. Maybe he needed help? Itt took the lyre and Caspian's hand, bringing the two together so he could finally grip the thing. He smiled wide at him. Maybe some people had a harder time grabbing stuff than others. Not Itt. Itt was very good at holding onto things. Grip strength of a... of a... whatever he was.

The musician looked at Itt as they merged with the crowd again, making more elegant versions of the swimming and flapping gestures that Itt had made before, turning it into a sort of dance. Itt watched them go, his head tilted slightly. Did he swim too?

The sudden tune that rung beside him yanked his head, then his attention back to Caspian. Or more specifically, the lyre in his hands. His mouth hung open slightly as he looked at it more closely with narrowed eyes, trying to figure out how it made that noise. Was it the stringy things that his thumb was on? Itt reached with a finger and pulled the string. When he let go, it rang, but with a slightly less pleasant tone than Caspian's strum. Itt grinned, laughing. That's so cool!

With the business of the event and with his conversation with Caspian, Itt's attention was yet again yanked, his eyes meeting Caspian's when he asked what he had been doing. People have asked him what he was doing before. That meant why he was there, right? He hoped so. "Courier! I courier." He explained with another grin. At least he thought that that explained it. "I courier," he gestured to the ground on his left. "I lakeside." He over-pronounced the word as he imagined himself rowing a boat like the people did, gesturing with his fists in circular motions. "I courier." He then pointed to the ground on his left. "Courier!"

That totally explained it! Right?

[Caspian]

Of all the accusations commonly lobbed Caspian’s way, uselessness ranks fairly high, really up there next to selfishness and avarice and generally being quite full of it without any indication of commitment to redemption. With one fell swoop, in the course of perhaps the most straightforward exchange they’ve been able to share, Itt proves the primary.

“A courier?” Caspian repeats, and bursts out laughing at the unexpected validation of a decade’s worth of insults from a stepfather. “I stand by what I’ve just said. More than meets all, you absolute star. D’you know what I do to get by? Nothing half so practical, I assure you. And I suspect not nearly so steady.” The news is an agreeable thing to envision - an uncannily fitting occupation, now that he’s had more opportunity to consider Itt from head to toe. “You must tell me, I mean if you can - what do they pack you off with? Parakeets in wicker cages? Love notes and wine? Or...”

He trails off, considering its implications. There’s a value in appearing as youthful and harmless and above all, as guileless as Itt does; Caspian could stand to be accused of one of those traits for a change, there arguably being more of a benefit to being guilty of them, as opposed to the rakish iniquities irrevocably etched into his countenance. So does the totality of Itt mean his clientele are of his ilk, and the cargo he ferries amounts to nothing more vicious than sorrel and soap and sugar dustings? Or would those who deal in the damp and the dark see him as someone who wouldn’t have the nerve or the interest to pry, and unwittingly keep their secrets as insidiously silent as they were sent?

Would - or wouldn’t one send the dearest into a den of wolves?

The toy lyre Itt’s swindled him into adopting isn’t so bad, now that he’s tuning each string to the same pitches as his violin, which he can hear in pristine recollection even in the middle of the merry rabble. When the musicians start up their next song he finds the tonic note to ground them, plucks at the lyre as he might have were this his fiddle, in delicately bounding triplets arpeggiations. He’d been running through this very same exercise this morning before coming, grown somewhat frustrated when he couldn’t coax his fingers into complying as readily as they would when he’d been younger and practicing for hours, daily, but it comes to him now without resistance.

Funny how easily some things manifest when you just stop trying.

“Where are you delivering next?” he asks Itt, half a design now in mind.

All soap and suds, as it might end up being - but the inquiry costs him nothing.

Idly, he glances about, diffusing his attention, because he’d felt that particular pointedness come over him, the one that senses information to opportunity, an overeagerness he’s learned can damn. Thance may have his bloody cleavers and knuckles with scars - but who says Caspian isn’t a hunter in his own right?

Not a boring day, he’ll give it that. Last time he was in a crowd this merry, it was a lovely little riot in a Sumberthian square, the crowd pressed tightly towards the sight of two young ruffians of local celebrity status who had fallen to openly brawling. In the thick of it, someone’s wallet had practically fallen right into his lap, with its owner none the wiser; upon returning home with it in tow, his stepfather had only deigned to mock him for the chattering of his teeth.

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