Closed New Years After

[Itt]

Itt couldn't help but smile as Caspian was thrown into a small fit of laughter. It had always been a pleasant expression to look at— smiling, and some laughs just filled Itt with the desire to reciprocate, even if he had no idea why they were laughing. The young Kelvic, both in physique and in mind, didn't understand quite a few things though, but even so, he thought he was getting the hang of laughter. Or rather, the meaning of laughter. He's always been able to laugh, and he often did, especially when others are doing it. But for most of his life, back in Syliras in particular, he didn't really know or try to figure out what caused people to actually laugh. He just watched and listened and laughed along. He did, of course, detect that laughing was a very positive thing, especially since he's never seen anyone laugh without smiling, but... the source. Why do people laugh?

Why was Caspian laughing right now? What exactly caused him to laugh? It couldn't have been the word courier because people have laughed without saying it. Maybe it was a way of acknowledging what he said? People often laughed after he explained something, or gestured. Maybe that's it? Oh well, that's a question for another time. As long as Caspian was happy, he supposed it didn't matter any.

Itt returned to the physical world, remembering to listen. If he didn't listen then he would have no chance at understanding what he was saying. Itt's relaxed expression got a bit more tense as he focused, his lips gently pursed and one of his eyes narrowing a bit more than the other. He stared at Caspian's lips. You— okay, he was something. He was... an absolute star? What was an absolute star? He was still smiling though, so that's a good thing? Naturally and without inention, Itt's gaze drifted from Caspian's lips down to his chin. It casually followed the edge of his neck and shoulder before promtply jumping ship and staring into the empty space next to them.

He was a must tell me? He was a must? But he was an absolute star too? And a can? So he was an absoluet star, a must tell me, and a can? No, no, that can't be right, he must be talking about something else. Or maybe he wasn't saying he was those things? Was he telling him to do something them? He needed to absolute star? He needed to must tell me, he needed to can? And what the hell was a parakeet? That was certainly an interesting sounding... sound.

"P-Par-akeet?" His e's were much too sharp and his k was clunky, but if Caspian wasn't picky then he wasn't. Itt couldn't even tell the difference anyway. "What par-a-keet?" The word 'what' has certainly been one of the most useful things he's learned in this city so far. Aside from actually how to get food here with those round stone things. You tells him a lot about what, or in this case who the person is talking about, and What allows him to ask people what the hell they were actually saying. If only he knew more useful words like that.

Itt's gaze had fallen all the way down to the lyre now, producing gentle notes amongst the more vibrant, aggressive rhythmes of the musicians and chatter. It sounded so pretty, how was he doing that? Did he have to just hit those stringy things with his fingers and it makes that sound? Nothing Itt ever hit sounded that good. And he's hit quite a few things, so that's saying a lot. Reaching over with an outstretched finger, the curious sloth tapped one of the strings down by where Caspian's hands were plucking. It made a much different noise than what Caspian had made. Maybe he didn't do it right.

Oh wait, Caspian was still talking to him, pay attention! Itt yanked his gaze back up to the spy's lips, and while his eyes were quick to steer away again and look around, his ears were paying attention. You delivering next. Hm. Yep, that's a lot of things he didn't understand. "What del-liver-y?"

[Caspian]

“The next delivery for your courier work,” Caspian replies with the steadiness of one accommodating a friend, with the added lightness of one who senses he might have the inklings of a lead and means to pursue it.

What will he do with the information, if Itt’s willing to share to begin with, provided that it’s presented in any comprehensible form?

The first thing that comes to mind is that if there’s a parcel, he’ll come to know its contents. Of sender and receiver he’d determine whether it’s anyone he’s knows - doubtful - or anyone Saticath and Thancerell might recognize. If Saticath, it’s likely they’re a client of a client, a frequent visitor to the gilded brothel across the way in doting attendance to one of the girls who trusts Saticath for her cosmetic ministrations. If it’s Thancerell - one of the many positive features to belonging to Ravok’s middling merchant class is a near- immutable stake in the social strata. It’s a who-you-know game and given Caspian’s recent penchant for scoundering off, he can’t play it alone.

And if neither the giver or the getter are of any importance or acknowledgment to anyone involved?

In any case, he’ll stake out the where’s and the what’s and most importantly the potentially unknown and unfettered who’s, and then surely -

Surely, probably, possibly that information will become useful, and to his own monetary gain.

If there’s anything he might be faulted for - and here’s when Taalviel would likely cough to indicate she’s several thoughts on the subject, which is a neat human trick he took the time to show her, thank you very much - it’s his impatience. The long game is something that’s been stressed upon him as he’s played spy, and been played by them as a matter of rearing. The balancing act that was last year’s relationships-plural with two Ravokian socialites had been his greatest accomplishments-plural to date, though the featured longevity of both had been quite accidental; that is to say he hadn’t identified either as being more than good ideas for the moment, because he lives for the veritable immediate moment, and they had just happened to fancy him enough that the web had dragged itself on far longer than he imagined anything could. His problem - cue further phlegmatic expectoration - is his finding it still mostly beyond him to search for anything further. Suppose he invests time and heart now only to find some extended interval of time later that the directive is an enormous flop - or worst of all, that his exertions hadn’t mattered in the slightest. A heartbreaking deal it would be, and his having to start over again a year ago when things turned tumultuous hasn’t made him feel any better about the prospect of encountering failures anew.

Although - and here he dodges a child skipping by with festooned and beribboned contraption in hand - he supposes it is rather nice, no longer having to be at not just one but two beck-and-calls.

The recollection has him douring again, though, and the prospect of work has him focusing, the resulting burning of his elation leading him to sigh and ruffle Itt’s hair before turning away.

“Let’s talk later, alright?” he says, mustering up one more smile for his diminutive companion. “I definitely want to hear more about this Lakeshore business too.” Thancerell’s nowhere to be seen, but perhaps that’s for the best, the hunter having no idea of Caspian’s agenda, and that he may have dodged it one last time. “...you’ll be alright, right?” he adds, with one last glance in Itt’s direction, though his attention’s already diffused and delayed.

He waits for an answer; hears it, and nods through it though it doesn’t entirely stick.

Shouldering himself against the crowd, he swivels and sidesteps through it, with no concrete destination in mind and the only requirement just that it isn’t here, and hang Thancerell and his yammering and the whirling dancer and the prattling and the noise and -

“Hey,” Thancerell exclaims, bursting suddenly to his side. There’s confetti in his hair and bits of tinsel and probably the dancing girl’s perfume, and glitter on his grin of which there’s only one real explanation -

“Thance,” Caspian begins, because they can’t dodge this conversation forever, the one where he says he doesn’t want a part of this relationship any longer, and there are a load of reasons to go with it and he will list them exactly as he’s rehearsed in his head, and if he causes a scene it isn’t likely to matter as they’re standing smack at the center of -

With a triumphant flourish, Thancerell presses something around his temples and brow. “Got this for you,” he declares, utterly pleased.

Caspian turns to him with a scowl, prepared to clarify that he doesn’t need any of this flimsy drivel as a souvenir, pointless to hold onto a remembrance of a day where he didn’t accomplish precisely the thing he set out to do. At Thancerell’s sudden bewildered expression, though, he pauses.

“Thance?” he says, baffled further when Thancerell flinches and -

Looks past him?

“Caspian?” he ventures.

A ruddy-faced man with a blousy girl on each arm blusters by, one of the girls slamming right into Caspian, as if he weren’t there at all.

“Petch off!” Caspian growls at them, but they continue on their merry way, as if, again, he’d never been there to begin with.
“What’s wrong?” he says to Thancerell, who’s standing stock-still, an uncharacteristic state of being when he hasn’t a crossbow in hand.

“...Cas?” Thancerell calls out, as if he’s leagues away.

Caspian drags off the thing Thancerell had christened him with, re-tousling and reparting his hair back into place. It’s a silver circlet, a bit plain, but it does glint quite nicely in the light.

“Holy petch-“ Thancerell exclaims, leaping back. “There you are. But how-?”

Their gazes both lock on the circlet in Caspian’s hand. Soundlessly, the festival still raving around them, Caspian crowns himself again.

“Gone?” he ventures.

“Gone,” Thancerell replies in awe.

He drags it off once more, and they regard each other pensively in the midst of the fete and light. A beat - and thoughtfulness curves into simultaneous smirks.

For all intents and purposes, he’d meant for things between them to end today - but he supposes one more day, one last little lark won’t hurt.

They take off from the festival, with Caspian casting one last look over his shoulder for a friend who would have long been swallowed by the crowd.