Of Rusty Feathers and Mounded Cream

THE GLORIOUS TOOT INN

"Wait, The Glorious Toot?" Halycind slumped in her dismay at the wooden sign swaying on one hinge from the elongated eave of the Inn. "This is where you booked us?"

"What? They had a windstorm last night." Her colourful friend shrugged.

"That is of someone's rear with a horn in it...not a windstorm."

"Oh, I thought you was bashin' on it cuz the sign was hanging by one hinge. Don't go being all noble." She waved off Halycind's scowl. "'Sides I didn't reserve it, Percival did."

"Welcome to the Ladi." The fair-haired man's mass of cloaks shrugged.

Halycind pushed the door inward with a frustrated grunt.

The aroma hit her wolven senses before the sight of the place could. A cavalcade of scented candles, perfumed oils and blossoming flowers assaulted her face; so many flowers crowded up her nostrils straight into her tear ducts, she was blinded by the intrusion. Sneezing once and then again for good measure, her body shook loose the vice clench of smell. Halycind opened eyes wide now to the expanse of the place.

She'd walked into a dream.

The setting sun stretched bands of orange and gold light through extraordinarily large windows some forty foot high. The lower level which looked to be all tavern space was covered in finely ornate wooden statues, fountains, pools, and garden nooks replete with curated ponds full of rainbow fishes. It immediately reminded her of some of the court gardens she'd seen as a child...but on the inside of a building. She was stunned.

This had to have been the work of those Vellianaentriss gardeners. Their sense of design in floral-work and landscaping sang wildly from storybooks and Speculah tales of dream-like days long past. Ashwood statues and curled wooden sculptures found themselves a center piece within the indoor landscapes. Large half-circle gateways with ornate wooden designs hugged the frames, dividing seating areas. And those trickling ponds with their colourful fish, lay in the midst of shrubbery the shapes of local animals. And all, every load-barring post and beam of the building, had been meticulously etched and painted with white, pink and purple flowers.

Her reasonings fed her then the realization that this Glorious Toot was huge. Far larger than any inn she'd ever seen or knew could exist. And there were patrons everywhere. It was then Halycind realized why Percival had reserved their stay here. All the patrons here were soldiers. Warriors of every class and country.

As her party strode further in, a few patrons, familiar with the large fair-haired Agent, lifted greeting palms to him and he nodded back lordly acknowledgment.

Over by the innkeep's floral-laden counter, a small band of tintplucks had saddled up at the bar's edge also, looking pretty worse for wear. Halycind took immediate notice and pitied their laden bodies. She remembered many a day seeing Taphsel unhook, unclamp, and unshoulder all his equipment, but however in the world these four made it up those slopes of the Ladi with all that stuff, she'd never know. She wondered briefly if they'd heard of him.

Puller Taphsel.

Simple tints used in painting pigments and clothing dyes were almost only plucked by those with a slightly above average aptitude. Unlike stainpulls—such as Taphsel—who used magecraft to perform their extractions, tintplucks boiled and hammered and pulverized their pigments out of whatever raw materials they were commissioned to procure. They also had a tendency to be looked down upon by those outside of the trade, because most pluckers were simple, provincial folk, and had no penchant for either magecraft or basic manners. Halycind always found them to be a jolly lot, though, and well-learned in their trade.

She made a note to buy them a round of ale for their hard work.

"Weroance?"

She noticed she had been vacated. Halycind had been stalled mid-stride for quite some time while her party had drifted off into the far corners of the tavern someplace.

"Weroanqua?"

She looked about herself and found a halfman shaking a stubby pointed finger toward a doorway off to her diagonal. It'd been quite a while since another being, other than Veygornne, had called her by one of her Ashok honourifics. She was immediately glad he chose the military one and not the courtly one.

Not to insinuate offense at the address, she nodded a fangy salute to him, relaxed her strained posture and moved to her diagonal after his lead. His shuffles were twice her gait but his round bottom waddled happily in his high-elbowed walk. She scoffed a chuckle as it seemed the rumor had also been true, that the halfmen of the north were indeed a happy bunch. She wondered how many of his kind populated this snowy mountain city.

The entrance he palmed out was only about thirty paces away but the sight, upon crossing the sill, made her reel in question if she had indeed entered yet another establishment.

There were white terraced pools upon, rosey terraced pools upon, white-rosey terraced pools scattered everyplace about the middle of this oddly hexagonal space pouring it’s beauty down an easy slope.

All about the heavily braced Ashwood hall ran pools and pools of green-blue waters running over white and rose coloured stone. It was enourmous in size; large enough to fit about seven score or more patrons within its walls.

She let out a small giddy chuckle.

This space at some point in The Guarded City's history, had been a spring. Which was now enclosed in a grey wooden chamber filled with garden flowers, servers and people; gobs and gobs of people. The running waters even had large wood-slatted openings to escape through at the terraces' lowermost spill.

A familiar voice spoke her mind before she could vocalize her amazement. "Yeah, the Inn & Tavern sprouted up around the frequenters of the spring. A Solarguardsman by the name of Rotessan Aunvielle--a Vellianaentriss man, I believe--established the place when he retired from duty. Been standing here for nearly fifty cycles now." Siin started.

"It's so...glorious." She uttered to the lovely voice speaking.

"Yeah, heh, now you get it."

"I'm stunned. This place is like nothing I've ever seen."

"Now you see why the Agency musters here on its off moons. A luxury fit for the King's Men, wouldn't you say?"

She nodded drunkenly still staring at the steaming terrace pools and all the people, warriors and townsfolk, in there slimmest garments next to nothing. He was saying something still about Rotessan but she was too awestruck to hear it. However the sing-songiness of his voice was nice.

She looked down to greet that voice with a smile and staggered to find him near naked in a pool at her feet; him, smiling broadly up at her. That white sheer bathing robe was doing little to hide his skin. The milky mineral rich teal waters obscured the lower of his modesty but she still felt dumbstruck next to the maturing physique of her ugly childhood playmate.

"I am glad to have finally been given the chance to experience it myself." He was smiling still.

Had he always had such a striking grin? Even as a toothless kid?

Uncontrollable imaginings were firing off in her mind as she stared at him and at times his words weren't even registering as anything but internal screamings inside her shocked body. Had she always felt this way about him?

It had to be that aBn sauce, she cursed.

That same colourfully dressed server, who had pointed her to this space, strode in with a tray of drinks. He was glaringly average-looking in comparison to the arrestingly good-looking young man from her romping cycles. She'd never felt the need to compare Siin's looks to anyone before. Yet here she was, doing it with just about everyone who passed by.

She thought about herself, then rolled a squinted glare back over to the mage in the pool. His eyes were locked on hers.

He took a glass of something bright green from the server, all the while not removing his steeled gaze on her.

She fought with her attractions and twisted face; this boy used to pull her hair with phantom mage hands and chase her wuribai with phantasmal hares the size of men and kick over her brooms and leave glorious toots in his wake as he darted in and out of her playroom of Taphsel's manor. Siin had a face too wide like the moons and smelled of mushrooms, she wasn't allowed to be attracted to this version; this book-reading, sauced-up, mastermage version.

She stooped to tilt her head and gave his hair a half-annoyed flop; his lusciously heavy bluish-black silken locks tipped with a glinting teal. She was falling again and caught her mind. "Teal? What nob decided it was a good idea to do this to show mage skill?"

He answered immediately in a cross smirk. "The alchemist Vim kept shackled to an alembic."

"Oh," She instantly felt ashamed and backed off her heckling.

"It's kind of involuntary." He wasn't angry, only tutoring her tone.

"Oh. Sorry." She was suddenly reminded of schoolings taught to her about the White Era when mancers enslaved most of the known world and Vim, the strongest of his particular strand of mantia, housed an entire village's worth of alchemist mages in the dungeons of his mountain fortress, known as The Spine of Jyr, to work on experiments that would bring him omniscience.

One of his lead alchemists, unfailingly, stumbled upon a formula that would boost the skill of people already talented with magery, to a degree not fit for mere prestidigitation but for war; something Vim craved almost as much as cosmic power. What Vim's hubris didn't allow him to see, was that the enslaved mages hated him; and would use this new found formula to crush his tyrannical rule. This was the grin Siin now carried. The smirk of a man buffed by the work of magi who needed a way out of slavery.

Abruptly, she realized her learnings and cold reality were sitting in this pool now, staring at her. Smirking at her. She wanted to suddenly wrap herself around him for all he'd been to her and all he'd become for himself. Halycind didn't know what her heart was doing but this Siin was causing her internal fits almost to crisis.

"You should get in." He offered, smoothly. "Set with me a spell." He patted the wet edge twice.

Halycind, swayed, wanting to join him, outside of herself. Then she shook her swimming head. Her Ashok ways, the ones she'd always cursed about dating rituals and courtship practices, shot to her mind and she simply knew she couldn't sit beside him right now. So she chose annoyance instead. "How long you been on that stuff?" She shot, feeling she'd been slightly charmed by his aBn suggestions.

He turned eyes up to the corners of his thoughts. "Mmm, twenty-seven days, I think."

"Oh, you've got a while yet." She waved at his sentence, shooing away her own wayward thoughts as well.

"Mhm, two more vials."

"Two more? I didn't think you’d had that far to go."

"Ah, what, you don't think I need a full ninety five days?" Siin could plainly see the turmoil she was putting herself though over him and scoffed. "Am I already a handsome enough battlemage for you?"

Her eye twitched. "I-I--I didn't say that." Though, some of her confidence jumped back to the smirk crawling up her face. "But...the...skill...in magecraft...does help."

Siin shook his head with a smile. She'd always given such poor chase.

He in-fact was using nothing of his new skills in magecraft provided by the sauce she derided. He was simply being himself in this warm pool. Though, he also wondered if it was having an involuntary effect outside of his activation.

The decoction known as the Terile Function was one of the single most important formulae that had ever been stumbled upon by mages. It was to be imbibed in three parts. The first vial, known as the Initiate, resulted in daily vomiting for thirty-one days; violently so if any craft had been used early in the day. The second, known as the Adhesive, took the longest—Fifty-two days—to get through, as it was to be taken in doses administered through a tiny glass dropper. The third was called the Cleanser, also known as the Killer-Seal, for if not imbibed daily at the exact same time for twelve days the new mastermage could die a violent foaming death.

After many testings and many lost lives, warcasters noticed a peculiar change in the new mages successful in taking the formulae; any birth defects or abnormalities had been 'corrected'. These yields lent well to the persuasive effects of a band of politically savvy, strikingly handsome battlemages. By this time, there had been stationed at least one aBn by the side of a Ruler in every nation.

"You know this might be a side effect, right?" Siin motioned to his appearance.

"Hmph, I wish I had a focus potion that could do that."

"Yeah, it's proving to be...pretty handy."

He let his sentence settle on her for a moment, then with a spreading smile stretched his fingers and palms just under the surface of the water. A teal glow ebbed from them lighting the pool to the depths of where he sat cross-legged and confident. He huffed a chuckle as Halycind caught mere glimpse of what his lit craft had revealed of his own lower modesty.

Halycind jolted at the display of his indecent prank and started batting at the young man's shoulder in protest.

"Oh what, it's been a while. You haven't seen me, pack-sibling." He laughed shielding himself from offended strikes.

"Ach, but you are very much still Siin." She repelled as she scooted away from his antics.

"Oh, come back, Cash."

She was halfway to the door by the time she stood all the way up to purse at him. "Uh, I am going to my room."

Two servers, approaching with sweets and drinks, chuckled alongside him as he sipped his green drink once again.

He took a treat and dismissed them with a suave nod. "Eh, she'll be back."

...

The rooms Percival had reserved for them happened to be on the third floor and the climb up the flights were a sour reminder of that hill-climb she'd just performed. In her room lay many of the same elements of décor that sprinkled the tavern below. Wooden statues with fresh flowers woven into their permanently curled hair, pieces of free-standing filigree that served as changing screens and little Ashwood birds sitting on flowery arrangements against the walls. Gruhavians certainly loved their curled woods and flowers. Then again all of Gaen a Nce seemed to relish in the finery of their ancient aesthetic.

Halycind huffed a sigh as she sat in the floor.

Siin was indeed a mighty fight for her will but she needed to sort herself out before acting on any wild feral emotions forming.

She'd only just re-met him today.

She sighed once more, calming.

Then rolled from her sack a leather-bound book and a collection of papers with four large circles on them; one at each corner, littered with dates and days of their week. She pulled out a naked quill and shoved it in the inkwell on the desk at the door. In the book—her pandraegkyl, which was traditionally not to be read until postmortem—she wrote the truth of her day. All the feelings and hurts and smiles that meant anything to her; things that could maybe aid someone else in their life later. Taphsel's pandraegkyl still sat stuffed inside her bag, as he was a studious man, it read mostly of formulae and calculation tables...and his adopted daughter. She then dipped her quill once more and made a mark on the second band of the second circle of the papers. She whispered a wish to herself as a happy young woman entered the room.

"Oh, sorry...didn't know you were—" her friend stiffened, carrying a platter full of treats.

"You're fine, sister." Halycind smiled up at her. Some cycles past, before they parted for training, those happy mess of braids were one colour, black. Now they were pink with a small mix of purples and blues and greens, and she could swear there was a streak of orange in there somewhere. Kodlaa had had it Re-Coloured, or so that's what the inkers called their process. It was extremely expensive, almost unreasonably so, dreadfully lengthy to perform and irrevocably permanent. Her tress was much longer now than then, also, and Halycind knew she'd been letting the rainbow of shades grow long in its waves and curls as Kodlaa seemed to like to see her own colours billow. Halycind giggled to herself at her friend. "Just wishing Taphsel a happy birthing."

"Oh, wish him one for me, will ya?" And Kodlaa closed the door with a smile. She plopped on the floor in front of Halycind and shoved her the platter.

"Mh, yeah, mounded cream cookies." Halycind took one as she rolled up her calendar. "What was in the missive?" She eagerly asked chewing and licking sweet cream form her lips.

"Percival wouldn't lemme see it." Kodlaa pouted, also happily chewing. She sat there with one of her small arms in her lap like a scolded child. "Jerk."

Halycind grunted, "But I've studied so much of the terrain here. I'm ready." Cream crowded the corner of her mouth and she stuck a tongue out to capture it before falling.

Kodlaa passed her a questioning glare, taking another pretty cookie. She remembered the way Halycind huffed up the edge of that cliff. "Yeah, but we've never run it. Makes a horrible difference."

"It would be just like the Agency to keep details of our trial to themselves. Bet he was sizing me up as I trudged up here." Halycind thought for a moment. "We should go put mounded cream in both there trousers while they're sleep."

"They don't sleep." Kodlaa shook a little disappointed frown as she licked cream.

"Oh, right, yeah, well...while their trancing or whatever; stupid Kaosian practices." Halycind bit another cookie hard but had to catch a bit of its piece in her palm before it hit the ground. She shoved that in her mouth as well. "When I become Agent I'm conking out every night. I'm not a tree, so I'm not gonna sleep like one."

"Pfft. Me too." Kodlaa drifted in cream-filled thought, "Especially if some handsome warrior is the cause of it. There are so many pretty fighters here." She took another bite.

"Whu-Already?! Kodlaa?! Don't you ever get enough of fighters?"

"Nope. Never." She poked her friend's arm. "You found a mage-boy to shackle up with yet, Weroance?"

"No." A vision of Siin in the water punched at her memory and her precious treat almost leapt from her fingers. "I'm not that...obsessed...with magi." Halycind spurted in a stumbling sputter.

Kodlaa pursed.

Halycind packed up some of her things and stretched to bed down.

"Yeah, right, sparkle-tart. I saw you eye-crawlin' Siin. He’s gotten fit, that one.”

“Tell me about it…” Halycind muttered, licking a bit of the last creams from her fingers as she situated her belongs neatly.

“See?”

“What?! Leave me alone!” Halycind shot.

”Fine, fine. You’ll jump that soon enough. I bet he’s loads of fun.”

“You have it off with'im then.”

“I might. A warrior and a mage…can’t go wrong there. But I think I’ll save’im for you.”

Halycind rolled her eyes.

“Oh, don’t be uptight! If you won't bed Siin, who's quite eligible for bed-knocking, who have you been ploughin' then since we’ve been apart?"

"Nobody." Halycind shook her head as she gave one last long stretch, "Still as pure as Mossbend, I am."

“What? Nobody?” Kodlaa rolled her own eyes and groaned, "Aaand you're boring." Kodlaa stripped to her skivvies and hopped into the small soft bed next to Halycind's. "Seems I needa school you, girl. You're missing out."

"I'm not so certain I am."

"Well, anyway, they've got this thing they do in the inn every full moons, where they open up the roof of the Toot soes you can bathe under the stars."

"Oh? What happens if it rains."

"They don't seem to mind if it's raining or snowing or crapping fire from the sky. These tawnies know how to party."

"Full moons' tomorrow, howling buddy."

"Right, yeah, well I’ll hook up with whichever Riser Agent’s out here; to mill'em for info on our Venge and we'll find you a nice mage boy to stare up at the moons with. Even though there’s only like three or so here and two of'em are mushrooms…Oh wait, no, I know one."

“Oh, get off it.” Halycind groaned and stripped to nothing as she always had before rest; wildergear chaffed terribly and her skin needed the airy rest from hot leather.

"Sure whatever." Kodlaa rolled an eye and a confident expression over onto her folded arms under her head and crossed her naked legs.

Halycind gave her friend and pack-sibling a perfunctory scoff then curled up on the Ashok furs in the floor like a pup. Halycind's dreams would not be of the trial the Agency would put before her or of the glorious inn she slept in or of the mages her long time friend had promised her to bed. They were to be of Taphsel and her hunts with him for rare alchemical extractions and beautiful pigments to dye regalia. The man murdered by an unknown rusted feathered-knife.

CHP RECAP

Halycind is assaulted by floral scents in the Inn & Tavern booked for their party.

Siin and Halycind become teasingly re-acquainted.

Halycind and Kodlaa discuss their head-hunting trials and having fun here in The Ladi.