It wasn't the trouble he'd expected to talk himself into tonight, but he had Venla leaning in closer with those brilliant emerald eyes fixed upon. Rovias could bask in that kind of attention like it were a warm fire on a winter's eve, and beneath all of his theatrics and peacocking, attention was all that he desired

After feeling the bite of the Queen's Sting, taking a bite of Granny's Apple and plucking the petals of a She Loves Me Not, Rovias found himself quite eager for her attention in particular.

“Oh, I don’t usually make a habit of showing off, at least not in public.” he said, a playful tilt in his voice that betrayed the obvious lie. His grin bloomed even wider, self-aware and unbothered.

But as Venla shifted forward, her skirts brushing over her legs, the usual ease with which he carried himself gave a subtle hitch. His gaze met hers-steady, simmering-and, just for a moment, didn’t stray elsewhere, didn't wander to those tempting places he'd only dare to steal a moment's glance.

“Besides, I have to really want something…”

The carefree grin faded, drawn down into the ghost of a smirk as he leaned in, settling one arm across the bar, reaching? Or stretching? The violet of his eyes, so half-lidded in idle amusement the whole of the evening, opened at last, blooming like petals to her sunlit stare. They shimmered faintly, that pulsing indigo catching the lamplight as his tongue lingered behind his teeth, the unfinished thought hanging there, heavy, deliberate.

Want.

It was written in every line of him. In the crease of his brow, in the subtle shimmer of skin kissed by dim gold light. In the tightness of his jaw, in the bold brush of his fingers as they brushed against her arm, soft, fleeting, but certain. A single step closing the distance between them.

That desire, that pleading, it poured from his stare with every breath. He didn’t need to say what he wanted; it was written across every inch of him. A man parched beneath a cruel sun, aching for the relief only she could give. She could ease it. She could end it. She could save him.

“Venla…” he whispered. “Please, Venla.”

A name spoken like a prayer, like the last breath of someone slipping beneath the tide.

“Would you pass me that last shot?”

The moment shattered, clean and sudden. His voice found its usual lilt again as the veil dropped back into place. That casual, playful smile curled once more at his lips, and he straightened with the ease of a man who hadn’t just spoken with a voice so soaked in need.

A long, low chuckle escaped him. “My word, I don’t remember the last time I got so wrapped up in it. Might be a bit too intense for borrowing books, I suppose.”

@Josai @Venla Thiel
 
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She hadn’t meant to lean in. Not really. It had just… happened. Venla blinked, once. Then again, slower this time, as if the spell hadn't quite worn off, the shimmer of those violet eyes still caught somewhere in her like a stray ember. Her mouth had gone dry. Not from the drink, but from him, the way he’d said her name like it hurt to speak it.

Would you pass me that last shot?

Venla startled, just a little. Enough that her hand jerked and knocked the little shot glass over sideways. Luckily, it was already empty. She let out a short laugh, breathless and almost sheepish, and righted the glass with two fingers. She made a noise, somewhere between a scoff and a gasp.

“Oh, you bastard..!”

She said it like praise. He’d just outplayed her in a game she didn’t know she was playing until she’d already lost the round. Her hand hesitated above the shot glass. Not trembling, just thinking. Considering whether she should hand it over or pour it in his lap. In the end, she passed the glass to Rovias. “That was… I wasn’t ready!” Then she laughed, something half-nervous, half-impressed. She was rying not to smile too wide.

“That was… very good doe eyes.” Her cheeks had bloomed pink, betraying her even in the lowlight. “And here I was told I was the trouble.” Venla exhaled like she’d been holding her breath through the whole exchange, maybe she had and turned to Josai.

“Something cold, please,” she said, lifting a hand to fan herself with.

“My word, I don’t remember the last time I got so wrapped up in it. Might be a bit too intense for borrowing books, I suppose.”

"I dread to ask what you’d do to get into the restricted section," she said, eyes twinkling. The redhead shook her head as she reached for The Granny's Apple. One last flick of her gaze toward Rovias, before she turned her attention to her shot. She knocked it back, probably didn't pay as much attention to the taste as the drink deserved.

“Soo..” she said, voice lightening as she leaned back on her stool, turning her attention between the two of them, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. There was a little flush in her cheeks, but it was chased quickly by a shift in her tone, genuinely curious.

“What brings the pair of you to Astenvale? You don’t strike me as the knightly sort, either of you, though I suppose you could surprise me."
 
The Knoll was warm with the scent of honey, smoke, and something gently spiced— cinnamon, maybe? It welcomed Petra like an old friend as the door swung wide on her arrival, letting in a gust of early evening air and the scrape of her boot heel over the threshold.

She stood there for a breath, framed in the fading light that painted her in bold, sunlit strokes— a dusky blue sleeveless tunic clinging to the taut lines of her torso, sweat still damp along the swell of her biceps, where a twist of white linen was knotted snug just below the muscle. Her leggings were tight to the thigh, suited for fighting and easy movement, though now they bore the dust of the day at the knees. Piled high atop her head was a mess of black curls and gold, little rings that caught the lanternlight.

Then came her voice, low, bright, and carrying.

“Well, well, if it isn’t my favorite healer in all of Astenvale.” Her gaze cut to Josai behind the bar with gleaming affection.

Her grin bloomed sharp and fond as she strode forward with a kind of theatrical languor, hips asway and arms spread as though she were offering a bowless embrace to the tavern. “My my, Syr Josai, you do know how I so adore it when you wear that charming shade of blue.”

She made it to the counter and leaned in, elbow braced into a lazy posture despite the energy of her gaze— still lit with the kind of good mood born from a day well spent in the sun, sweating through spar after spar.

“Something cold, if you please,” she said, voice softer now, drawn down into something velvety. “Refreshing, if you've any mercy left for me today. As I spent the better part of the day wiping the sands of the training grounds with Syr Faramund's face." The elf tilted her cheek with a chuckle and an exaggerated delicacy, revealing the bright red bloom from a stray elbow she'd caught at the end. “Though to be fair, I think I got my due.”

Only then did her attention shift to the other patrons at the bar. Her golden eyes slipped across the strange man with all the care of a breeze skimming water—there, and then gone. Uninterested. What stopped her was the woman.

Petra’s gaze lingered— drawn to the gleam of spring-bright eyes, the graceful slope of a neck as it dipped to shadowed collarbone, and the ripe-fruit pink of her cheeks.

Ah. So this was the one Syr Willard had dragged back like a pretty stray with a ribbon on its tail.

Lady Venla.

Rumor had finally reached Petra of how Captain Helena had cooked Willard’s ass over the fire for his overstep. But Petra had yet to see the cause with her own eyes. And now that she had—

A smile bloomed slowly on her lips, indulgent and wolfish, heat masked in the curl of something teasing.

“What is this now?” she murmured, turning just so, letting her gaze roam unapologetically before meeting Venla’s eyes with hooded interest. “You must be Lady Venla, yes?”

She straightened, slow and fluid, and inclined her head with the sort of intimate attention that made space between words feel like suggestion.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” she said. “And I do think I’d remember. Especially since I wouldn’t soon forget such clever and beautiful eyes as those.”

Her tongue traced the edge of a canine as she smiled, eyes dancing and completely unbothered by the strange man with her.

“Can’t say I wouldn’t mind a little bewitching myself,” Petra added, voice like honey warming on the tongue. “If you’re in the habit of charming errant knights that is.”

@Venla Thiel @Josai @Rovias
 
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A shadow followed Syr Darthinian into the Knoll. Big, burly, it moved in silence after her, an after-image of what once was. Habits died harder than the fool's that adopted them. And I am certainly that, thought the Mund, not bothering to sweep the room as the Sun settled down at their backs, poking in through the open doorway to paint their path with light.

'And folk say I talk too much.' A raised hand greeted the bartender. 'Lookin' sharp, Jos! Rovias!'

Haunted eyes, heavy from too many sleepless nights, swivelled towards the toned and tanned guest. 'Sit there any longer an' your like as not to put down roots,' the dawnling quipped, trapping a coin 'pon the counter as Petra took her perch.

More bird than dragon, she drank in the form beside her with such keen interest that even Faramund struggled not to notice.

'You'll have to forgive her, Miss Thiel,' said the Mund, flashing Josai two front-facing fingers as he turned to regard the woman who'd stirred up quite a storm with her arrival. 'Syr Darthinian here is known for her thirst, among other things,' he grinned, adopting the mantle of jokester, just as he had always done. At least in the time before.

'And for the record, she did not wipe the sands with my face! It was a team effort, and perfectly-executed at that,' a nod as two cold bevvies hit the counter. Faramund, not one for waiting around, scooped his up almost immediately. Raised it high like a battle standard.

'Cheers!'
 
A raise of brows and a curl of smile. "Well, then," was all she said. Heard the order. Something cold. Nod.

Picked up the full horns, and put them to the keg of the Loves you Not. Bright, bitter, and crisp. Took nice to a bit of cold.

Set them down, gave a blow of breath across the tips of two fingers that set frost and mist there along the treads of her prints. Then the other two. Ran them around the round of the cups, and up the length.

Frost crept up across the horns. Misted about the surface of the pale gold drink. Pushed them toward the pair of them.

"Knight is more of a... poeticism, here," Josai said with a laugh. All too aware of what she looked like. "A reminder that we can all be knightly in our life's pursuits," Something like curtsy. All flair and playful drama in the dip of her hip and pop back up. "Crawled out of the mud, I did," she said with a proud bob of the head, no hint of shame in her smile. "Not to my name, but the stains on my robes, and an old spear in my hands,"

Brow raised in question to the both of them. "Your turn,"

In crashed Petra. Storm, skin, and bluster as ever. "Ah, now there is the real trouble, Petra, charmed as always,"

She turned and already readied two drinks. Same as the two prior. Even frosted them with the tickle of her magicked touch.

Come the flirting and the well... whatever Petra thought that was."Easy now, Darthinian," she's a guest.

And there came the Mund. Caught a laugh from the barwitch who laid down a pair of fresh horns for them.

Faramund. Ever the vaulter, grabbed up the drink and raised it high.
 
It had begun to seem as though he and Venla were the only souls seeking solace in the Knoll that evening. Rovias would’ve been content with that, trading stories and honeyed nothings between the three of them until other wants, other desires, inevitably pulled their paths apart again.

But then there was her, that nuisance, that wretched flirt of fortune: Lady Luck. He loathed her timing.

He’d been just about to answer Venla’s question, a suitably evasive remark poised on the tip of his tongue, when the door crashed open and in swept the dragon rider and the lumbering shadow of a man trailing at her back.

His lips, parted to speak, closed without a sound. A faint, subdued smile curled at the corner of his mouth before he hid it behind the rim of his horn. Petra was already asserting herself, pulling the room’s attention toward her and trampling over the quiet mood like a herd of cavalry.

He took no offense to her disinterest in him—Darthinian's bravado was a touch too clamorous for his tastes. No, it was her sheer disregard for the gentle rhythm of their conversation that earned the twitch of his lip and the roll of his eyes, subtle gestures he felt safe offering, given her clear fixation on Venla and Josai.

“Faramund. Petra.” Rovias intoned smoothly, polite despite the flicker of annoyance behind his eyes. “You’ve come on the right night for a drink—though I’d argue any night with Josai behind the bar qualifies.”

He knew of Petra, though he doubted the recognition went both ways, and he’d exchanged words with Faramund a time or two before. He rather liked the burly fellow, albeit for reasons not everyone shared.

“I only hope she cleaned you up as thoroughly as she claims, Mund,” Rovias added with a quiet chuckle, nudging the man with a smirk as he lifted his glass. “Sand makes a dreadful chaser for liquor, in my experience.”
Redirecting himself from the distraction, Rovias managed to cut through the dragon-rider’s boisterousness just long enough to answer the question he'd been asked before the interruption, though without his usual flair.

"The Knights give me... contract work, sometimes. Nothing so important as to classify as 'official business', but I have an ear to the ground in a great many places, and I know my away around the Shroud and it's history like the back of my hand." Really, they were throwing him a bone, giving him something to do when the money was slow elsewhere. "I'm rather like... an informant, I suppose."

Taking a brief look toward Faramund, the words he'd spoken to Rovias rang true in his ears, though not in the way he'd meant them. Begrudgingly, he placed his horn back on the surface of the bar, shifting as though he were suddenly uncomfortable in the seat he'd been so easily lounging in the past hour and change. “Perhaps you’re right, Mund. Three’s company...” he mused, lips tugging into a thin smile. “But five is already a crowd. Last round for me, I think, Josai?"


@Venla Thiel @Josai @Faramund @Petra Darthinian
 
Venla reached for the frosted horn. “Now that..” she said, admiring Josai’s handiwork “...is a fine trick!”

She didn’t answer the question. The moment had moved too quickly, and Petra had swept in like a gust through an open door. And truthfully, there were things she wasn’t ready to explain. Not in front of this many smiles. Instead, she sipped the horn, letting the cold bite linger on her lips.

She was no stranger to looks like that Petra was serving, working behind the bar, threading through the packed taproom with trays balanced high and skirts hitched just so she would not trip on the hem. Venla had weathered her fair share of stares. Admiration, lechery, longing and sometimes all three tangled together. One learned to let it wash over you, smile when it paid, laugh when it didn’t.

But Petra’s gaze wasn’t the same. The longer it lingered, the more Venla felt as though every inch of her was being quietly undressed. Her mouth parted, then shut again. Instead, she dragged in a breath, lifted her chin, and managed something like a smile. Half-crooked, half-cornered, all nerves pretending to be poise.

Lady Venla?
“I suppose I am,” she said, almost like she was admitting to a crime. “Though, I am no lady.”

“I wouldn’t soon forget such clever and beautiful eyes as those.”

“Flatterer,” she said lightly. Venla gave a soft huff of amusement and tilted her head. 'Syr Darthinian here is known for her thirst, among other things,' Her gaze flicked briefly toward the man beside Petra.

“Well, if Syr Darhinian keeps talking like that and people will think I’ve put something in her drink.”

But she did not want to bewitch anyone. Gods, no.

Not another tug-me-by-the-braid-and-fuck-me-against-the-stable-wall sort of tryst. She had enough of that, enough of people who touched her body but not her life. Enough of words that meant nothing. She wanted more than a casual roll in the hay. She wanted more. Something real.

Venla glanced up from her drink, brow lifting slightly at Rovias's shift in mood. She settled the horn back onto the bar with both hands, palms resting on the cool curve.

“Is that like a… scout then? Or more like one of those fellows who show up at inns asking about folks who’ve gone missing?”

She wasn’t mocking him, not even close. Just trying to piece it together like a puzzle left half-finished by someone else. She didn’t quite understand what he did, not really, but there was something in the way he spoke. Like he knew things no one else knew. When he mentioned taking his leave, she didn’t try to hold him to the stool, only gave a small nod.

She lifted her horn in a small toast when Faramund called out "Cheers!"
 
Petra laughed through the rebuffs and jests that volleyed around the room, finally waving at Rovias before giving a dramatic bow, hand sweeping low, the picture of graceful defeat. With her grin still firmly in place, her attention shifted to the drink that Faramund had bought her. Taking it up in the chorus of “Cheers!” that rolled down the length of the bar.

She clinked her drink against Faramund's, "Thank you for the dri—" But her mouth paused, and her eyes squinted with sudden scrutiny on his face. "Aha!" Biting her lip to hold in the rest of her laugh as she stepped in, "Hold still." And brushed two fingers along his cheek, wiping away the streak of sand that ran from the apple to the edges of his beard, rolling the grains between her thumb and forefinger to sprinkle them to the floor with a wry little flick.

“There we go,” she said, grinning. “Now no one will know.”

She winked, then buried her shit-eating grin in a long swig of her drink.

@Venla Thiel @Rovias @Faramund @Josai
 
'Hmm. I'd be more concerned with Syr Darthinian putting something in your drink, friend Thiel,' mumbled the Mund, shroud-frost nipping at his fingers, as if to hurry him along his chosen path. The look in Petra's eye bade him pause and frown. 'What? Is there something on my face?' A clawed hand answered his question for him, coming up before he could think to swat it away.

Ticklish, he weathered the moment, brave-faced and full of poise.

'Finished?' He asked, sharing a glance and a shrug with Jos as he tipped his cup back. Venla's voice filled the shallow silence to follow. Genuinely curious, and loud enough to drown at the sound of his cup landing back upon the counter.

Allowing Rovias time to talk with the redhead, Faramund slid another coin across to Josai, a flicker of the eyes betraying his inner thoughts. One for the road, and our friend here, his gaze held steady on the Spear Witch. He tried forcing a smile but it just wouldn't come.

'You realise that would leave me outnumbered?' Turning, he looked to Rovias, tone light despite the hollowness inside. 'Three's company, but five's a party. Stay awhile longer, why don't you? Help a brother in need out? You could regale us with tales of your adventures, myriad as they are.'
 
Josai looked to Rovias, then to Mund. Shrugged, and waited for the little drama betwixt the group all to play out.

She would be there, ready to pour drinks as they were ordered. Made clean those little thimbles of drink spent, and horns emptied.

"Didn't realize you knew so many of the sworn kin, Rovias," she chimed in over some work. Little smile on her face. "A story then?" she egged on.
 
"Gods no, nothing so boring." Rovias spun in his seat, leaning against the bar and tilting his head back, closing his eyes as he streched his arms out across his little patch of real-estate on the counter. "I'm a scryer, my dear Venla. I use my awareness of the shroud, and my knowledge of the past, to predict the future."

That was Rovias in a sentence: eyes fixed on what had been and what would be, willfully blind to whatever stood right in front of him. He knew the past, and could guess the future. There was no point in concerning himself with the now-- that invisible wave of time that ticked along with the clock.

It was oft to his detriment, yes. But with his peculiar circumstances… well, it was easier that way, to ride wherever his whimsy took him.

"It's incredible, what you can learn by looking back over your shoulder." There was no flirtatious undertone or secret double entendre to his words now, clearly this was something he felt strongly about. He cocked his head to the side to meet her eyes with something removed from his smile, perhaps a layer peeled back by the liquor, or maybe... something added. "We're all creatures of habit, repeating the same sordid stories over and over again. Just like us, the shroud that weaves our world follows its own patterns as well. You just need the eye for them."

His mention of leaving hadn’t been bait for attention, and he knew it probably looked like Petra and Mund’s arrival had chased him off. That wasn’t the case. Still, a twinge of guilt stirred as Mund urged him to stay. Well… perhaps his original plan could bend. What were the odds it would happen tonight, anyway? He shoved the thought aside, let the feline smile return, and raised Josai’s latest euphoric elixir in a lazy toast.

"You're more than man enough for the room, Mund. I could linger a while longer, though, I guess." A chuckle rumbled from his throat, rich and warm with the alcohol that had soaked his chords. He shook his head. "You two might be disappointed, though, asking me for stories. I imagine you knightly folk have more to share than I."

There was a gulf between knowing much and doing much, a divide Rovias sometimes resented, given which side of it he now stood on. Still, with eyes fixed on him and that damned compulsion to please gnawing at him, his lips moved before he could stop them.

"...Tell me, have any of you ever stood in the sands of the Kaikias?" His voice held the slow gravity of a hook set at the start of a tale. He set his horn gently on the bar and clicked his tongue once against the roof of his mouth. "In that heat, you come to cherish the company of others. Sometimes it’s the only thing that keeps your mind from the parched ache in your throat or the sun baking the back of your neck. Family, especially, is a blessing."

Rovias closed his eyes, drawing up the story... or perhaps the memory... piece by piece.

"Too much of a blessing, though, can turn to curse. Terran was his name — a man who lived among the dunes near the southern sealine with his lover for many years. They had little: a small shelter, a meager income selling fish to the odd passerby. They needed nothing more than each other."

His tone took on the measured rhythm of an old campfire tale, the kind meant to be heard rather than read.

"But the desert is cruel. It takes far more than it gives. One day, the sun claimed Terran’s beloved, and his simple, selfless life twisted into one of bitterness and desperation. For so long he’d asked nothing of Khurun, and now it had taken his only joy. So he sought a dark resolution."

A pause. Rovias lifted his drink, brows furrowing briefly before he continued.

"Here, the story fractures. Some say he found a god of death, others a necromancer." The irritation in his voice was genuine; it clearly bothered him not to know.

"The details may differ, but the end is the same: Terran begged for her return, pleading that his only light be restored to a world that had become nothing but a vast desert of shadow. And the entity — whoever or whatever it was — agreed… in exchange for a single, irrevocably selfish act, something Terran had never done before."

Rovias’s gaze grew distant for a moment. A life without selfishness — it wasn’t a creed he’d ever managed to follow.

"The time returned to the woman would be stolen from those yet to come. Years paid in interest to the reaper by her children, and her children’s children. Each generation would live shorter than the last, until eventually, Terran’s need for companionship would erase his bloodline entirely."

It wasn’t a recounting of some grand battle or daring intrigue, but there was a certain romanticism to it — enough that it lingered on the tip of Rovias’ tongue whenever the chance to tell it arose. A small, almost sheepish smile curved his lips as he realized just how long-winded he’d been. He let his gaze drift back to the drink in his hand, swirling it idly.

"A true story, if you can believe it," he said at last. "I met the woman myself, a few months before she passed." He paused, letting the weight of that sink in before adding, almost casually, "She was my great-grandmother."
 
A scryer. Venla was not much for peering into the smoke or glass to find shapes. She was not the kind of woman who worried about what Fate whispered about her behind her back, sooner or later she would find out anyway. She was better with what she had in front of her.

"It's incredible, what you can learn by looking back over your shoulder."

Her eyes narrowed at the words, not unkindly. “Maybe,” she said, elbow on the bar and chin in hand, smirking teasingly. “Can’t say I know much about the Shroud, or scrying, or any of that, but..” She glanced sideways at Rovias, amused and thoughtful.

"I don’t think I understand why you need to be a scryer to look back and learn from the past," Venla said, tilting her head as she nursed what was left in her cup. "Most folk I know manage to do that just fine with a strong cup of tea and a quiet sit on the porch." Her lips twitched into a small smile, one corner first, crooked and fond.

"...Tell me, have any of you ever stood in the sands of the Kaikias?"

Shyly, she shook her head, faintly flushed. She did not even know where Kaikias was. Venla listened without interrupting. There was something in the way he told his story, slow and steady as falling dusk. All the boisterous talk around them went quiet, like someone had muffled the world with a thick blanket. The world had shrunk to Rovias’ voice and the shape of his words. It was only when he reached the end and casually dropped “She was my great-grandmother,” that she blinked, like someone waking from a long stare into flames.

She set her cup down with a soft clink and squinted at Rovias like she was trying to figure out if she’d just wandered into a ballad by accident.

“Well,” she said, voice warm “that’s one way to hush a room.” Venla let out a low breath through her nose, not quite a laugh, but not far off either.

Her gaze flicked back to Rovias, not swooning, not smitten, just curious, and maybe a little bemused. She had met a lot of people in her life, loud ones, tired ones, kind ones, cruel ones. But Rovias, with his fancy talk and far-off eyes, was like one of those books kept up high on a shelf, the kind with gold on the cover. Not something meant for the likes of her. Too strange by half. Curious. He seemed like the kind of person who wandered through places like this, not stayed in them.

The edges of the room had started to blur into a friendly sort of haze. The warmth in her belly had crept up into her cheeks. The ginger swayed a little as she rose, hands bracing briefly on the bar. She brushed at her skirts, even though they didn’t need it, and gave a nod to Josai. “Your drinks should come with a map home... Well, I best find my bed before I end up curled around a shrubbery like some hedgehog."
 
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