nexus_crossings | Cue Some Timeless Theatrics

Cue Some Timeless Theatrics

There's a strange breeze in the plaza. That's not that weird, there always seem to be odd air currents rippling through it, but this one feels warm and Mediterranean--smells like hot sand and heady spices. And if you listened hard enough you might be able to hear the sea birds and polyglot babble it carries in from the jostling marketplace in Cyprus.

It seems to wrap around Iago, sitting at a table on which there are a few empty cups. From all outward appearances, he's no one exceptional. A seasoned, weary soldier on his off time. Simple well-worn tunic, rough hands, wide and honest face with a few scars. Simple, open smile. He gestures to the seats across from him. Classic Nexus set-up, just another soul looking to share a drink.

"I am often long away from my native land. And often do my thoughts linger on it, some parts of it I miss dearly as my heart would miss blood, as my body would miss breath." He's already offhandedly pouring wine into a cup for himself from a drawn leather sack, and now some for you.

"Knowest thou that feeling? Come, tell. I have learned the taste of wine is richer seasoned with tales of home."

[*waves* Old, old timey occasional player here. So glad to see these communities are still popping!]

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The smells that linger in the air around Iago aren't the same Amelia knows and loves from her home. The sharp tang of salt is missing, the temperature too warm, and the spices unfamiliar. But the way it all lingers on her tongue reminds her of the world she loves and has lost, and it makes her curious to find the origin of it. The man himself is no one of note, but he's more like what she remembers growing up around than most anything else around her. And so when he gestures to the open seat, speaks and asks his question, the rogue gracefully settles across from him.

"I have never met a wine that reminds me of home," she counters, the smile on her lips a touch wry. "Is it magic that makes it so?"

His pattern of speech is easy to slip into, a cadence more akin to what the nobility used on her world. It's not the same, but she can follow it easily enough. It makes her feel more at ease in her clothes - soft linens in forest greens, with gold embroidery along the seams and neckline, and a rich brown underbust corset about her waist - and with her hair braided and pinned up with a dark, polished silver pin. At least for the moment, it doesn't feel as if she's trying to fit into a world she wasn't made for.

"I do understand the feeling, often all too well. My home is lost to me, and some days I ache for it. The taste of the air, the sounds of the market, the color of the sky." She huffs a soft laugh. "Words can't describe the way being without it can make you feel. No one who hasn't been through it themselves can understand that pain."

"Good and gentle lady." Iago knows his manners. As an accessory to the nobility himself, it takes less than a second to appraise her station from her clothes and the way she carries herself, and he adjusts his manner accordingly. Though he can also tell, somehow, she is not exactly a noble lady of the fainting flower type. Perhaps she, like himself, is more than she appears. I am not what I am. High-born women always had secrets of some kind, in his experience. No matter, plenty of time. He may equally enjoy her company for the same reasons--someone who almost made sense in this mad place.

Though he does not get up, he makes a graceful inclination of his head, and wipes the rim of the cup he offers to her after pouring it, careful not to spill a drop.

"I am no enchanter I. This magic, if such it is, is in every wandering wastrel's pocket, like the dust and coins of foreign lands that fall into his hands by chance. But here's the trick of it." He winks and raises his cup to her.

"Hold the cup near your lips." He demonstrates. He holds it close enough to his face to breathe in the scent. It's good Cypriot wine. Not high class stuff, he's not a rich man. But it's dark and it warms the blood, and can taste like Venice if he imagines hard enough. He's being comically reverent with the cup, as if it were the holy sacrament itself.

"And pray tell me of that sky, that air. Pray tell me of the wine you know. Is't sweet? Dark like the sea, or pale as a fair lady's cheek? Did it most make you merry or mourn? In whose house did you taste it last? Did you share it with someone dear? Think well on it. Then drink."

It's unusual to have someone recognize her station without her mentioning it. Her eyebrows rise briefly as he nods to her, and she returns the gesture with a slight incline of her head. The man is even more curious than he was before, and it makes it easier for her to accept the drink without question. Where his words go after she takes it is less pleasant for her, but she can appreciate what someone as charismatic as she was at the height of her power on her world is attempting on her behalf.

Taking the offered glass, she turns it slowly between both hands as she thinks back to the last time she shared a drink with anyone on her world. Her last night with her family, she had refused a drink, as she always did when she intended to take up her blades and slingshot for work deep in the night. But it was something shared often in her home, and even without a single drop on her lips she would know the taste of it from the scent it left in the air. It doesn't make imagining it now easier, but at least she can use a recent memory than force herself to dig deeper to find one that truly fits Iago's ask.

"The sky was dark when I last saw it, filled with bright clouds lit by the waxing moon. Under it, I watched my family drink my share of the table wine, a deep red that left the tongue dry if one had too much. We laughed as we shared stories of our day, little tales I can barely recall now, save my father's insistence on an heir to my family's title. With his hopes for me dashed time and again, my youngest brother became his target. I did nothing to save him from the relentless ask or my mother's offers of matchmaking that night."

She laughs softly as she thinks on it a moment longer, then raises the glass to try a sip of the wine. As someone whose talents have always been in what she can do with her two hands rather than what her mind can plan, the memories do little to affect the wine. But she can imagine, if only for a few seconds, her family's laughter around her as she drinks. It stings more than it helps, but she'll avoid upsetting the stranger with that knowledge.

"It's closer than I thought it would be." That, at least, isn't a lie. The corner of Amelia's lips tug into a smirk as she tries another sip, then sets the glass aside. "A bit darker than I expected, but pleasant nonetheless. Thank you, this was an intriguing idea." And well worth the try.

As the woman holds the cup to her lips and drinks, Iago watches her carefully. He watches everyone carefully always behind his genial and kind eyes, but they linger especially for a moment on the dark ringlets of her hair and the angle of her cheek. But it's something about the way she talks about her cozy family and how she curves her fingers around the cup that strums a discordant note in his otherwise unflappable calm.

This little twang within him summons a ghost: a momentary vision of Emilia as she lay dying. Her mistress's head was cradled on her lap and she twined her fingers in Desdemona's dark hair as she wept. She died singing while her blood ran down his hands, weeping for Desdemona and burning with hatred for Iago. Willow, willow, willow; he did not know that tune. It occurs to him suddenly that he'd rarely heard Emilia sing in their many years together. Perhaps he hadn't provided her with enough occasions for song. And now quiet forever. He does not know if that thought is tinged with relief, guilt, satisfaction or some grisly combination of the three. She'd been a good woman, poor wretch.

As if his own body wants to rebuke him too, he feels a sudden smarting pain in his side where Iago was stabbed in turn. In the moment he'd received the wound, Iago had gasped. It felt like a sort of giddy throbbing that became a penetrating agony as the gruesome night wore on. Othello was gone, and Iago would not be long after but he would carry the general's last triumphant wound to the grave. Or had carried it to the grave already? What came after was still in fog. His memory of the whole affair, or at least how it all ended, has been hazy up till this moment.

But this horrific pageant lasts for only a flash, and manifests outwardly only as a momentary too-tight gripping of his own cup. He runs his finger down the length of it, wiping away a stray rivulet of red, before looking again at Amelia.

"Perhaps for some, it conjures more bitter than sweet." Including him. There wasn't much sugar in him, all truth told. He holds his glass up to her again, "To your fine kinsmen, lady, under their dark sky and clouded moon." He takes a deep drink and the lets the wine wine wash away the last of that unpleasant vision.

[[FYI your pup has a similar vibe and almost the same name as Iago's wife, who he killed in an impulsive rage, soooooooooo sorry if he gets a touch weird. He's a complicated dude.]]

Edited 2021-06-03 03:34 (UTC)

It's impossible to miss the shift in Iago's body language. Did she unknowingly mention something that brings him pain? Bring up a similar memory that haunts him? It's easy for the rogue to assume the worst in any situation, and she struggles not to do so now. He didn't say anything aloud, and Amelia knows better than most that prying at wounds someone is ignoring can only make things worse. A frown tugs at her lips briefly as he drinks, though she's schooled her expression into something more neutral when he sets his glass down again. It seems best to simply let it be than to mention it.

"They would appreciate the toast, were I able to pass it to them." A truth, if a slightly unpleasant one. Amelia's determined not to linger on the subject, though, and after a sip of wine she manages a pleasant smile for the man sitting across from her. "They might wonder at how I found myself at a table drinking wine with a complete stranger, though. I usually refuse to sit alone with anyone over a drink, even if I know my companion's name." Winking across the table, she helps helps herself to one more sip of wine before setting her glass aside. "Let's correct this error in manners? My name is Amelia, and it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

((Oh my. O.O Thanks for the heads up! Much appreciated as Amelia walks on eggshells a bit. She's going to try her best not to cause any further upset. >>;; ))

Becoming attuned to the natural elements contained within the Nexus, Zack sits back and sniffs at the air. He's currently rummaging in a bin, which Dean says isn't really what he needs to do any more, but people throw away all sorts of interesting things.

He's never scented anything like a Mediterranean seascape before, and follows the general aura of pleasant sun drenched islands and observes the character with his wine. Like a hound, Zack moves towards the colourful figure, sensing his way and ever-curious as he goes.

“You don't half talk funny,” he observes as the wine is poured - and it appears he's invited to partake. Instead of sitting, Zack crouches on the seat of the chair he's taken. This is a stranger and trust doesn't come easy. He's coiled, tightly-wound, ready to fend off trouble if need be.

“But yeah, I know what it's like, to miss home.”

[ooc: Inbuilt apology. He haz one.]

"More than half funny, so I am told. In passing jokes and lamentations I might express something like the whole Commedia of an afternoon, talk you of comedies."

Zack is not the first person in the nexus to tell him so, about the way he talks. But he can't help himself, and if anything rather pities so many inhabitants of this place whose expression seems rather stunted. How did anybody ever die or fall in love properly in the places they came from if they couldn't monologue about it first? There must be something strange in the environment in Iago's world that makes the elaborate metaphors and flowery verbiage flow out of people. Its in the air as much as the salt and the sun and the spices.

"I have not heard such a play since I was home," he says wistfully. "But tell me of thy home, sir. What is most missed?"

Iago notes the tension in Zack's posture. That's fine. He unstraps his sword and places it on the table in front of him as a gesture of goodwill. It was never his most effective weapon anyway, and if there's one thing he tries to be good at, it's putting people at ease.

Some... all right, quite a lot of what the stranger says, goes right over Zacks' head. He doesn't dismiss it all though. Something sharp and bright in his eyes tells most people he's not a halfwit. He'll just attempt to remember the words and then badger Dean about what they mean later. Or perhaps Esther. She knows about talking and reading and such.

As for Iago's elegant turn of phrase, one can only hope he doesn't feel the grammar being sucked out of him as Zack speaks.

“Mostly I miss not feeling things so much. And not being hungry. But I love the Nights. Dark, but the desert sort of glows. There's great hulks of ancient cities half-buried, but still towering.. haunting. Beautiful.”

He picks up the glass and sniffs the wine before tasting it. Its strong sharp taste is something he's not used to, at all, and it's a minor miracle he doesn't spit it out there and then. But when one is from an apocalyptic hell, the scarcity of food and water means you never waste it just because it's a little challenging.

“Gaia's arse, what is this stuff?”

"I know something of what you speak." His eyes do light up a little at what this man is saying. He's seen the desert at night too and yes, it is beautiful. In a truly alien way, to a person who was born almost literally on the lagoon, where the rocking of boats on the canals, the creek underfoot of bridges and the slosh and sucking roll of the tides was as natural to him as his own heartbeat. When too far from the water he often found himself disquieted, but it was compelling.

"I have seen the barren lands east of Damascus, where the sands are high as the reaching masts of ships." He speaks quietly, remembering. "When the moon reaches the zenith of her arc, and all her handmaid stars outspread before her, how bright the ground beneath her glows and all is silent. Like some great sea, all frozen waves set to tumble down and drown a man in silver. Such a sight."

He smiles a little at Zack's distaste. "What is it? A friend of many, enemy of some, a distiller of truths and portents and courage, that strikes a man with the will to play at love but robs him of the means." He takes a gulp of his own, enjoying the taste. "But perhaps there's nothing of its like in your desert land. Perhaps a man has nothing to drink at all."

At the mention of this exotic and wonderful place called Damascus, Zack's eyes soften. He imagines what he is able, given his home dimension. But yes, he's been on countless dying worlds, and has caught that last fleeting glimpse of beauty before he'd been compelled to make the magma rise up and claim it, or before he inflicted a new ice age, or unleashed a desert storm to end all storms, across an unsuspecting continent.

He's not sure what zenith means, but it must be a high point. To be drowned in silver must be a wonderful way to die.

Usually, at this point, he's managed to offend someone; so the stranger's amusement is met well enough. Zack can't help a half-grin at the idea that the alien drink makes people want sex and then prevents biological function.

“No, we don't have anything like this or any good water. What there is, is toxic. Full of grit and bugs. The rats get fat though. Oddly. Good eating.”

Bravely, he takes another mouthful wondering how quickly he can get used to it. “In case the time comes when this is all there is to drink,” he tells the stranger.

"Aye, 'tis thirsty to live in such a desert. In that part of the world I know, where the sun is high and water only a dream, they say the men who live there are at times so beset by thirst that they near die for the lack of drinking, and they kill their animals. They slit their throats and drink their blood." Iago almost said they were horses, but he's certain they're not horses. Something like a horse, he's seen them, but with a great arched back and more of an inclination to bite. "Is that how your kin live?"

He sloshes the skin of wine in his hand and grins. "There's more, good sir, if you would addle further your brains. And how shall I call you? I am Iago of Venice. Humble soldier in her army, ensign to her first most noble and valiant general."

Zack finds none of this distasteful. When water is scarce, blood has the added advantage of nutrients. When he kills a rat or a snake, nothing is wasted.

He doesn't know it yet, but Zack can't get drunk from mortal alcohol. He's made of the dust of dead worlds, supernaturally enhanced. He may feel pain and hunger, but poisons don't harm him too much, even if they do taste unpleasant and induce a sore belly. When Abdiron created him, he didn't want his new little brother dying on him.

“Addle away,” he pushes his glass towards Iago for a refill.

As the human seems so lordly and polished, Zack decides that his official title might present him in a good light. He's not showing off, or trying to intimidate; only show that he's worth speaking to. Some of Dean's tutelage on how to behave is actually sinking in. Try to relate to them a little, ask polite questions to show you're interested.

He's still getting the hang of 'polite' but Zack is trying hard.

“I'm Aisaak, prince of the hell dimension of Antillioch; Avenger of murdered worlds; brother to the hellgod Abdiron. He's my first most noble and valiant lord... Is your general a great man?”

Oh dear oh dear, a prince now? Iago's class consciousness is acute and prickly and he is as a rule disdainful and suspicious of the gentry. But this person does not behave like the princes he knows. And a prince of hell no less. Perhaps best get acquainted now, so he'd have friends to greet when he settles into the final and fiery end he fully anticipates.

Though his speech is pretty here, even many of the lowliest louts and scoundrels speak the same where he's from. So he's very unaware of the impression he gives of lordliness from his diction. Iago inclines his head slightly in deference, though luckily he feels he can save the toadying he'd use for a Venetian prince. Perhaps in hell, the lordly egos are less fragile.

"I know not those names, prince of hell. Were they once among those reverent seraphim? Were you? And certainly, my general Othello is the best of men. So they say in fair Venice. Though a heathen by birth, beneath his sooty visage is there a white and radiant soul, washed well with the blood of our city's general enemies. A more skilled slayer of barbarians there is none, with many felled or wounded under his sword."

Including Iago. Wounded, not slain. This barbarian fills Zack's cup once more to the brim.

Edited 2021-06-04 17:55 (UTC)

“It's Zack,” he says, only now shifting position so that he's seated in the chair properly. “Everyone calls me Zack.” He hasn't been attacked yet, and figures that if the wine is going to addle Iago, then before long, he's not likely to be physically capable of attack.

He scrubs a hand through his hair and takes another sip, wrinkling his nose as he does so, but refraining from comment.

“Nothing like a nice clean soul,” he remarks. Such things as the shade of a mortal's flesh are of so little consequence, he doesn't even notice, let alone mention it. “Uh, Seraphim... angels? I saw some, once, and some live here, but me and Abe were never their kind. We're more.. elemental. Abe's born of chaos and decay. I'm born out of dying planets."

Another sip, then, “what's Venice like? Is it really fair? Abe says the cosmos isn't meant to be fair.” He may have misjudged the meaning, just a tad.

"Something draws me back to my planet's shores. Duty's part of it." skekSa is called upon by the Emperor to carry out certain duties, namely the Sifan census, which she handles personally to learn the names of the gelflings she patrons. "I don't care for the Emperor or his castle politics, but there are parts of the work I enjoy."

The Lord Mariner is familiar with that clothing style. Something similar is popular on her world among her own people, though she thinks it looks better on humans than on skeksis. She doubts humans call it Garthic, though.

"I'm a sailor, so I've seen many shores and many strange places in my travels.But I should introduce myself first, lad. I am skekSa." She's fairly sure that this person hasn't met a skeksis before, and she looks fairly intimidating between the massive size, toothy beak, and clawed hands.

Edited 2021-06-01 15:29 (UTC)

Iago bows his head to her for a moment. Indeed he has not met a skeksis before, though he may have seen a few passing through. As he lifts his head, his eyes linger on her. In this place, he has always been unashamed of admiring and examining the many strange and beautiful nonhuman beings that he encounters. So much of the way he conducts himself requires trying to read the tiny expressions and movements and changes in voice of the person he's talking to. Adapting that to nonhumans has been an interesting past time. Though some creatures did not take kindly to prolonged eye contact, he'd had to learn that lesson too.

"I know well how the fetters of duty may bind to one place or person. A pleasant sort of bondage, if you like well enough the work. I too have no head at all for the games of lords and ladies, but am well-suited to their service." Yup, yup, that's Iago. Bad at politics. Would never ever toy with other people and their little interpersonal relationships. Nope not at all.

"Sailor skekSa, I am Iago, a soldier of Venice and bannerman for her first general, the noble Othello. I too have traveled far and often. Is it not strange, to feel bound to one place though all together I've spent more than half my life's span away from it."

"I enjoy the presence of my clan, and it's good to have some measure of power away from my people's Emperor. He is the master of the land, and I the master of the sea. We deal with each other when we have to." There's a slight sniff of distaste. skekSa knew skekSo of old, knows the way he rules over his own people. "I don't care for politics, really. It's an unpleasant business and it's a shame I can't avoid it completely."

skekSa is an interesting case - all skeksis called themselves Lords. While the majority of them are male-identifying, skekSa and skekLach the Collector identify as female and still use the title. Honestly, it's more obligation than anything else. "Captain" suits her better than "Lord", and she went out of her way to be more approachable than the others who ruled over Thra from the Castle of the Crystal and kept their affairs in secrecy.

"We, too, have a general, skekVar. There used to be three military commanders - the Conqueror lost his taste for violence and defected, the Spy-Master was banished because the Emperor feared his ambition, and the General remains. But I know little of your home world, or how human leaders rule." She twitches her beak. "I consider my home the Silver Sea, beyond the shores."

Could he even properly articulate the many fine threads of power and capital, and the grease of politics that both hold the Venetian state together, kept it operating smoothly, and constantly threatened to collapse it under its own bloated weight? Probably not. And that's not even touching on the intricate web of class and position that affected everyone's day-to-day lives, down to the meanest servant. People knew their place, they knew how to behave. And once you understood that, that everyone was just performing steps in a dance, you could learn to trip people where they stood or lead them where you wanted them to go. People like skekSa may talk of the complicated lives of those at the top in power but when you live smack in the middle, life is infinitely more difficult.

Best stick to the basics. "There are many esteemed generals in my land. They serve at the pleasure of the Duke who himself is ministered by many a noble lord, general, wise scholar and saintly padre of the church. We are now at war with our Saracen enemy whose great empire oft threatens to outreach our own."

He shrugs, "I know not for what great end we spill so much heathen blood, but I am well-practiced at the doing of it."

"We have a Chamberlain, a Ritual-Master, and a Scroll-Keeper. Skeksis are few in number, so each of us are given a duty by our Emperor. I was given the title of Lord Mariner. It was probably his way of sweeping me off to the side, since he doesn't trust me, and I simply choose not to return unless called."

It sounds as if humans and skeksis aren't so different in how they wage war and conquer others. Not surprising. War and faction-fighting seem common among intelligent species. skekSa merely closes her beak and hums. She doesn't know Iago well enough to assess him properly, but this soldier does not seem at all like the brash, vicious General she knew.

"They always enjoyed that sort of thing more that I did. We skeksis were the ones who outreached - skekGra was the Conqueror, and it's not difficult to imagine what his job was." She was there to see campaigns against the other species of Thra, and it's why she dislikes skekGra even after his change of heart.

"If your numbers are few, how fare you in battle? How fill you your table?" It was a question Iago could already guess the answer to. Slaves most likely, as the Ottomans had. And Venetians too, in their fashion. Reaping the profits of an elaborate trade network was only a step removed, and no better. The doings of skeksis and humans indeed weren't very different at all.

He certainly could be brash and vicious, in the right moment. For the right people. But he'd often found that placid geniality was a better mode in which to operate. One can't be a good listener if one was too loud. "Only one Conqueror? What strength and skill in battle he must possess to do the conquering for all your kind. We Venetians are conquerors all, in our little ways. We spread such a great effort out to make work light amongst us, and have more time each for counting money and feasting and prayer." Which also, in their little ways, were all part of the conquering.

“What of those with no native land? Those who spent years on the road, living in inns and caravans, traveling from town to town? The feeling of home, for some, is not a place. I do not feel the longing of which you speak”

The young woman is frail and graceful, her dark skin contrasting with the pristine pink dress and jacket. She takes a seat.

“What tales of your home do you wish to share?”

"Perhaps, then, thy home is not circumscribed to one sole place as thou say'st. Thou art not bound by the shadow of one great palace, the soil of one land, the reaches of one noble lord. There is freedom in that. Is there some quality of the road then that calls out as home? Or, as I have known such souls, an aspect of the sea? Some as I know them would say that when the wind is fair and the waves lap and curl just so then there is their home."

He pours her a cup of wine and offers it to her. The drink is not fancy by any means, but it does pair perfectly with conversation. Sweet enough to loosen the tongue of most, by Iago's reckoning.

"I have been thinking of late of the bells, my good lady, in my home. There's many a church close at hand, where I was born. And through the day they announce the hour or call all to mass--their singing echoes off of Venice's old stones and across the canals and through the markets and the palazzos. I am no crow-black ghostly father, no, and have little patience for their like, but methought it was as if the saints themselves did wag their tongues in time with the chatter and calling of my countrymen. I do miss it."

“I enjoy the people” she replies, after a thought “The different people, their stories, the bits and pieces of them that follow them around life. There’s a lot that people have in common, but there’s also a lot that is individual to each person. I like being able to see the stars at night; and imagine what it would be like to go to space and see them, or to watch the clouds, to feel the green grass and hear the chatter of animals, the songs of birds... there’s just so much that’s all different everywhere. Sitting still, having one place as home- I just want to be ready to take off at any time.

Alas, that is harder now, I have a child, when she is older I will take her with me. “

She sips daintily at the wine, while keeping her perfect posture.

“I’ve not been inside of a church, or heard the bells. I imagine the sound to be beautiful. Is it worth going back just so you can hear the sound, or is it the people too? The town sounds quaint, though with so many churches, I’m not sure I’d be welcome”

Esther eyes the stranger curiously. He looks friendly enough, though the tall blonde is a bit skeptical of his speech patterns—no one talks like that anymore, sheesh. He sounds like he's come out of a play she read in college or something.

Anyway, she walks up to him, her tea-length skirt swishing as she moves. She's got her notebook and pen with her in a brown satchel, along with a few books.

"I wouldn't say no to a drink, though I don't really miss my home, honestly. Here's much better for me. Do you mind if I sit?"

Could be worse, at least he isn't actually wearing puffy pants, tights, or a codpiece. Not at all practical in his profession. But he does have a sword at his side and though he obviously is a bit theatrical, it is not for play acting. Iago gestures for her to sit and pours her a cup of wine which he then passes over to her.

"Where is home, good lady? And wherefore do you miss it not?"

She takes a sip of the wine; it's got a nice flavor to it.

"My home is Boston, Massachusetts, though I also was recently living in New York City," Esther explains. "And both those places were...not great."

She's sort of curious about the sword, but says nothing yet about it.

"I don't miss being crazy, basically. That's the short answer."

The names mean absolutely nothing to him, but he knows the world is a very wide place. And in the Nexus, there were worlds beyond worlds. But he was always happy to hear about strange and distant and lands.

"I see. Some quality of the land induced a madness? I have heard there are some certain places where to eat of a particular blossom's root or drink the waters of a hallowed spring creates a kind of pleasant forgetting, or a vicious humor."

There is talk of, and may very well be, gods and fairies wandering around his world so a magic spring is the least strange thing he might encounter. Sailors and travelers do have the most outlandish tales, and he's seen plenty of strange things himself, so he's never sure if he fully believes that kind of thing.

Esther sighs.

"Not...exactly," she replies, looking down and feeling a little embarrassed. "I...kind went a little crazy all on my own."

The places she's been just remind her of that, is all.

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