Private Everyone's A Critic

[Valborast Valchek]

Valborast spoke as if he were a scorned acupuncturist and each plosive were his needles:

“The peacock has been firmly plucked on this one.”

Valborast used his shoulders to communicate how much he wished to shrug this experience away from him, communicating his immediate reaction for the benefit of his company. His full spiel he did bide. Remarks prepared as the theatre made their muttering platitudes and content shuffling. Valborast did shirk away but without pressure, for fear of drawing eyes to his emotion. Like someone who knew the better part of valour.

Everything he did was to create some distance of familiarity with what had been sat through. He had been the first to rise, sighing muchly through the nose, tapping Petra on the knuckle with his own to mark this place inappropriate for them to tolerate any longer. It wouldn't contain the debrief, the much needed venting.

Such wouldn't be done to do in the throughfare he had done much hobnobbing about all set to blazes with his actual personality and opinion. Much quiet chuntering, some musings over costumes Valborast did hear. He tucked the programmed into his jacket, an gaudy thing of black speckled with silver and veridian feathers. Expensive enough to fool folks to think he cared about the arts to dress for it, just self indulgent enough to make staff think he might be a critic, and outside of his colour palette so much that one might mistake him for a kinder sort.

He ground the words in his head.

He slipped a black cigarette into his finger, an unseen case of silver clicking from beneath veridian and black. It rolled around his knuckles, as if doing so might unclog the arteries of the theatre.

The outside slabs of pavement were puddling with rain that was abating. The draperies and signage that marked the theatre's showing for the evening did steady drip. Sounds of umbrellas being pried open, then closed, then opened again in hesitations in judging the changing climate.

Valborast huffed again, slower. Placed the cigarette in his mouth, put his hands in his pockets and sloped forward, jutted his jaw. As if he just had wanted to walk in a spirted fashion out of the building, away, taken a deep breath of smoke and let the fire out. So close to the performing house, he was further delayed from full display of his opinion.

He took the cigarette out of his mouth quick with his right, produced the cigarette tin with his left. Fine filigree that didn't seem bought for the costume. The disguise.

Tapped the cigarette against the tin, two sets of triplets, as if gaining a meter for himself. Let it linger against the lid and turned it as if he was putting out a cigarette that burned in his head.

Val looked to the slowing rain, surly, confiding and familiar with fellow knight Petra Darthinian that had earned his respect but not his admiration. His own intolerance of the saccharine wouldn't allow it any other way. All good things, Valborast had thought in his gut many times, should be given begrudgingly. Slow did the words ruefully roll from his mouth, eyes to the rain, as if he was speaking on the result of a battle unimportant but no less bloody.

“The peacock has been firmly plucked on this one.”

@Petra Darthinian

 

[Petra Darthinian]

Petra wasn't quite sure what she found more amusing about her thespian evening beside Valborast. The perplexing ego-centric performance, that at best, could be described as a lavishly costumed existential crisis. Or the heated indignance that raged just beneath the last of Valborast's civility. The man was nigh inclined to combust and Petra would be remiss if she didn't admit having the front-row seat to his inevitable tirade would be a sight to witness.

She had to bite her lip to keep from revealing the ridiculously impish grin at the man's huffing, so instead, she leaned against the wall next to him and attempted to rein in her sadistic amusement as he struggled with his cigarette— his nerves obviously played to their limit.

They had both attended the debut performance of "The Ember Prince: A Tragedy in Nine Crescendos". With all intents and purposes, it was coined to be a brilliant showcase by the industry's best leading man, Maeron Velstrade. Whose past performances had moved the hardest of hearts and reduced steely diplomats to weeping wrecks.

So why, she wondered, had he been stomping across the stage like a constipated bugling elk, mouthing lines that tried to stick meaning to words like wet parchment to a shoe?

A further inspection of the crumpled playbill in her hand had her covering the half-choked laugh that erupted. Leaning towards her fellow Knight, she showed him her ill-wrought findings, "It seems I found the culprit of that disaster we just watched. I had forgotten that Maeron had a younger brother, Tolen. Look— he bloody wrote the thing."

@Valborast Valchek

 

[Valborast Valchek]

Valborast turned the coin of a name over in his voice as if it were a trick of the fingers.

"Tolen, Tolen? Tolen," he said, flashing a Petra a glance, as if thankful for an enemy's name, as if trying to recollect a grudge correctly.

He slipped the cigarette within his lips, gave a sneer which ignited the tobacco on scorn's direction.

"Tolen, ah," Valborast said, inhaling. Smoke filled the gaps in the memory, eyes turned further focused on the patterns of the rain. Well polished shoes did approach, the release of the peoples well fattened with culture giving their own clacks against the crowded downfall of water.

"That might explain the fumbling over the weaving script, Maeron wants to perform art, not whatever charms were being underscored. Or perhaps those charms are having their tolls on him."

Valborast exhaled, tapped his shoes a few times as if hurrying his conclusion. The people's chatterings of upper class laughter were being ushered out, old gentlemen with salad day opinions, young sages with elderly mistakes in their educations.

Valborast removed the cigarette and waved it about, as if lancing a wound as he spoke on, crowd emerging.

"Tolen's using sleight of word to pick a soul's pocket, and Maeron isn't happy with the trick. Maeron is fumbling on purpose, the whole thing's cursed."

The Crimson Knight purchased the cigarette within the lips, and an elderly opinion crashed against him immediate, and young sages did perform their quackeries about the text. At first praises for the play, staunch defences of the crime so committed, three times they had seen it, each time better and better. Valborast was encircled by a handful who had heard his final sentance and taken up defences against the actor, their hands filled with programs filled with the words.

"Stranger, are your eyes and ears in good health to say that Maeron did fumble? Outrageous, borish, simply a peeve! Why I dare say-"

Valborast snatched the programs as violently as he could. Ripping them from hands that had never gripped a blade, let alone fought to hold a bind. In bundle he cracked them each about the head with the paper in one sweep, brushing his clothes down in one flush movement as if he had been dirtied by their comment.

In all his pomp, Valborast revealed the teeth that unbarred his threat.

"If you wish to be privy to my opinion you can buy them in the Scorched Gazette, I'm a critic, don't make me patronise your establishments with an envenomed quill."

This gave some pause from the blustering. Valborast pocketed one program, and sneered to set the other two ablaze, their wilting papers discarded. He looked to Petra, turning as gasps were made loud and pearls were clutched firmly.

"We're away, this crowd be addled, walk and talk," Valborast said, huffing deep of his cigarette, giving Petra the look that meant they were firmly done with the venue. He planted hands into his jacket, walking out into the rain that at the moment became more pressured at his entrance, further words to be made under cover of obscuring sounds.

His cigarette went out immediately, sodden by the downpour, stride long, each breath in a sneer to reignite the tobacco successful as the rain could not quench his need to burn.

@Petra Darthinian

 

[Petra Darthinian]

Bewildered laughter accompanied Petra as she dogged the venomous steps of Valborast. Nodding her half-felt apologies to passersby that flung themselves from their path. She didn't care how badly she had battled through the evening between wanting to giggle herself silly or slink low in her seat from second-hand embarrassment from what was being portrayed on stage. She had had a gas of a fucking time and all she wanted to do now was rant about how wonderfully and abysmally bad it was. For no matter how complicated and stress-laden her everyday life was, it was nothing compared to the act of waking up and getting on that stage and trying to bluff your way into everyone thinking it was art.

Catching up to Valborast, she idly plucked the cigarette from his scowling mouth, reveling in a heavy drag from it before handing it back with a shit-eating grin, "So what was your favorite part? When he kept coming out despite no encore, or the way he called on you during his bout of audience participation?"

@Valborast Valchek

 

[Valborast Valchek]

"I am no-one's lovely assistant," Valborast said, giving no outburst or look aside from the eyes and brow flashing a simple begged question. 'Really now?' He dismissed the offer of the cigarette back, not in disgust, but almost as a prelude, as if to say, don't worry, give me a moment.

"He bowed so deep it was as if he craved to kiss his own behind," Valborast said, and took the lead in stride, as if all this rainfall were pick pockets to avoid in busy marketplace. A quick gesture with two digits, pointing the location of a stop. A closed restaurant for refurbishment slow in the work was theirs, with thick draperies for shelter above, the patter of rain drumming against the fabric that created rhythmic sheet of water. To stride through it would be to receive a further insult of drenching. The steady pulse of flowing curtain water falling was parted by Valborast's hands, as if the water grew fearful of the back of his hands, no water touching him or his company, allowing Petra to step in, with a great deal more elegance and smooth grace than the curtains had opened on the performance this evening.

Behind the glass that told of littered clash of old and new furniture, the dry pavement theirs to mark with wet bootprint, marking their pace and postures as they made the space theirs to litter with cigarettes and comments. Valborast freed the rainfall of it's fear as Petra did enter, a gentlemanly act of courteous terror to the weather. The water resumed it's barrier about them. Sillouettes of grey beyond the rainfall curtains and veils, umbrellas expressing what colours they could in the sapping light.

Valborast stood still, for dramatic effect all it's own, the click of shoes unlike his regular, so silent to let him skulk in library and in the field so hushed. Sudden and quick a familiar gesture made, one Petra had no doubt seen a hundred times, a gesture made to produce a knife from wrist holding. This time a perfect tailormade cigarette to replace the one so stolen, black paper, longer and slow burning than the kind most folks could handle. It dwelled as a weapon, held as evidence perhaps.

"If you're going to take one, take one that's worth the time to draw. Toss that," Valborast said, placing the tailor made within his mouth, lighting it with a blue flame from first digit that was precisely honed as surgeon knife, exhaling smoke that smelled of coconut and vanilla to the render the cherry independent, none drawn in. More to perfume the space that was theirs away from rain and ears, more to ensure the cherry right for a proper first toke of the habit worth enjoying.

If I'm going to share a first smoke with Darthinian, let it represent.

So lit, it was passed, slowly and with care, as if it were perhaps an after dinner mint from decent chocolatier, instead of some begrudging bill to consider how deserving the tip might be. Instead of some consolation prize of circumstance and petty playful theft. The gesture was made.

Unlike the multitasking flurry of motion, this seemed singular in focus. No hand to draw his own cigarette until this one was taken completely. Slower now and more luxurious the draw of this one in comparison to the quick cutting and piling of burnables within sodden and quick furied puff dried roll. This was something that unlike his present outfit was for his own enjoyment. It was if he had commanded the woman to toss a glass of plonk to the roadside, doing her a service in the command to discard, glass and all; a worthy burgundy already poured in finer crystal for the lady.

Once taken, Valborast attended himself, allowing a moment.

Another flick of the wrist, the opposite to the one that had drawn Petra's offering. Blue flame, inhalation, a tension given slow stretch and recline as the shadow grey and bluish burn of burning fineries did spill about his silhouette. The paper burning slow, the three bands of thin gold about the filter marking anyone who knew a jot about a common smoke that this was firmly not one.

"Even Parshen smokes these with me," Valborast admitted, gripping the cigarette as if enjoying the trail of the smoke and all that came with it, finally a smile upon his lips as the habit was indulged properly, as if he was giving away a secret he should not be telling. But all the more enjoyable so confided.

"What was your favourite part?" Valborast said, and a dark chuckle spilling with smoke, the fury cooled into a warming hearth that did make black comedy from the soot that scattered from their scathing, an invitation to lay a burn all her own.

@Petra Darthinian

 

[Petra Darthinian]

Petra took the offered cigarette and turned it between her fingers with the reverence of someone who absolutely planned to defile it with haughty sin.

“Oh, well then,” Curling an imp's grin and raising a brow at the scent, “Didn’t realize I was committing blasphemy with that sad little gutter roll. You could’ve told me you were hiding treats in your sleeve, I’d have charmed you long ago.”

She took a slow pull, the cherry bud as red as the velvet curtains of a stage, and exhaled smoke with a sigh that practically purred. Yeah. Yeah. This was theatre was all about.

“My favorite part?” she echoed, taking another drag, eyes alight with dark glee as she leaned back against the crumbling brick wall behind them, looking every inch the cat who had not only gotten the cream, but had licked the bowl clean and asked for the dairy farmer’s name.

"Hmm... if I had to choose, I'd say it was probably when the costume of the King's horse fell apart, and those two actors inside started swinging on each other."

She was laughing when she passed the cigarette back to him, "Ha! Who knew a horse's ass had such a mean right hook over a botched game of cards."

@Valborast Valchek

 

[Valborast Valchek]

No pass of the cigarette accepted or acknowledged. Valborast's fingers were within his own cigarette, cherry smouldering, eyes out to the rain, smoke avoiding the cold of the falling droplets. The smoke was hers to gesture and breathe with, Valborast wouldn't deny prop or hazing after mentioning the thievery of treats. Her choice to smoke was hers to endure, the only sharing would be words, the prop of smoke each their own. Church was in session, and the finest was being burned.

His hands did the talking, gesturing that he had his own cigarette, and she had hers.

Valborast drew in, cherry giving dramatics to the angles of his face. A campfire to tell stories in the dead of night, tobacco burning even and bright.

The laughter that Petra issued, as well as offer of her cigarette to him, now Valborast did hum amusement, which did tumble into some darkening mirth. No joke at anyone's expense. Well, aside from the joke of a performance, Valborast was more enjoying the space they did fill with smoke, and the shift from snatched half hearted rollie, to singular royal luxury tobacco that was being passed back to him. As if it was ever right to take back such a thing. A handful of sarcastic remarks were stacked within the deck, but it was far more enjoyable to let the amusement deal out without the sleight of word, the shifting sands of social cues letting what sandcastles of the late day stand for a time. Before the tides did turn regular and work their path to smooth.

"You'd be committing a form of sin to dilute such with sharing," Valborast said, inhaling. Held the smoke, held within the senses, breathed out relaxed. With each breath were the shoulders given to ease and relaxation, bristling and scathing turned to luxurious lounging. With the exale, at the edge of the breath, the final word, raising the cigarette as one might an exceptional vintage. "Solitude for two, these."

The rain offered curtain of cold between the edge of the district and their space to fill. The smoke did crowd about, lurking in the cloth belfry. Encouraged by gesture, not drawn and released by need to scratch an itch, this luxury tobacco was to be breathed in for it's invigoration and reminder of the good things one can indulge.

Valborast's eyes were to the rain. He considered if he should indulge something. Decided if he was to indulge the smoke, and hers to her own smoke, he should provide as a socialite should.

A breath of air. He talked to the rain, memory serving as he offered admission.

"You know, speaking of right hooks," Valborast said, inhaling deep of the cigarette, enjoying the warmth and time in the slow burning.

Releasing with the following words in steady pressure, final word followed by thin jet, as smoke was forced into the cold fall of rain.

"In our duel that time ago, you snapped in two the last of these cigarettes with that right of yours, my last victory smoke, broken." Valborast said, jet released into the cold air.

He looked over to Petra, deadpan. Cigarette at angle, shoulders implying some accusation.

A beat.

Then self depreciating laughter, quiet and sneering at himself, eyes placed from scaled hand to Petra's look, offering but a moment of humility and a conceding look. A flash of a moment. To ground for a faint moment his eyes, as ash was tapped, back to the rain, crooks of lips that were still thin as they always were, but a smug smile that carried no scorn. For now.

The rain did fall. Pitter patter. The smoke did plume and gather. The ash did tower, and tap once, twice, falling, sizzling where wet bootprint made it's marked. The Crimson Knight so relaxed, wondered, unsure if Petra could deal with solitude for two, resisting acid words and sarcasm that was his nature.

@Petra Darthinian

 

[Petra Darthinian]

“You know,” Petra said, a little too offhandedly, kicking a puddle with her boot, “it’s not often I get you quiet and gracious. I might have to start punching more of your vices to see what else rattles loose.”

She grinned at him sideways, smoke curling from her nostrils like a contentful dragon. “And you know something, you have a real talent for finding the most exquisite disasters. It’s honestly starting to concern me. But as bad as it was, I had an incredibly spectacular time hating it with you.”

“But next time,” she added, gesturing with a flourish of the cigarette before taking a final draw, "I'll bring some Plumhollow root that'll really strip the starch from your collar."

The smoke was starting to go to her head, like she was unbuttoning the day and shrugging out of the world— cocooned as they were behind that curtain of rain.

“Shame we didn't get to meet the playwright,” she pouted, lamenting over visions of Valborast persecuting the man. “I’ve got a few notes myself I'd like to give him. You know, simple questions, like what the hell was that, and why are you like this, and when did your father stop loving you.” A beat. “Okay, but that fruit bowl monologue? It changed me. I can never look at grapefruits the same.”

@Valborast Valchek

 

[Valborast Valchek]

Valborast listened keenly, yet gave no sign he was except his eyebrows. They did not frown and pinch in rapid reaction as was his habit. His eyes to the rain, to the boot that did snap at the puddle, then back to rain, hiding the glance within the pace of time. His frame still as the cold downpour did encourage stillness in composure. The coal black cigarette did smoulder within tender grip, slow movements now in semaphore of mood, smoke signals of muse. One who paid mind to habits might notice that Valborast was smoking with his right hand, instead of his usual left. The left hand upon his hip at first, told by smoke to be at ease. His boots did stand fast, guarding the perimeter between rainfall and their shelter.

His eyes peered, felt the rain collide and become awash with themselves. The smoke even burning did not make him wince, the open cleansing of the air did offer that reprieve. Some warmth to the lungs, the viceful aromatherapy near complete. A shrug once all words were revealed from mind to sound to Petra, a shrug that relieved Valborast of his motionless. He turned to Petra, a sincereness in his slowness, the cigarette nearing the final expenditure.

"My vices are the blessings I own," he breathed, even and relaxed, yet somehow more dark for the hollowness from sarcasm or derision, as if he were revealing some wisdom of past troubles without colouration of complaint or sardonic sting, much less need for pity. A series of gestures with the cigarette, as if the vices were out there in the rain, as if he were bidding them well, that they might take shelter within him.

Quieter now. That the rainfall chorus and the individual collisions of water did wreathe his words.

"When I gained a sky and sunlight, I gained the right to complain and smoke and scowl and speak back. Careful what vice you strike. That's where my freedoms live."

He seemed not accusational. Off handed, yet serious. He seemed neither hurt nor scorned, as was his typical persuasion. He elucidated easily as to the want for mindfulness. His due respect to how he was. He felt he owed it to himself to give that slither of his perspective.

A final inhalation, burned hot for it's shortness, quick and curt. Then flicked away into the rainfall from coiled fingers, another freedom indulged and spent.

Valborast folded his arms. Quickly unfurled one, revealing his palms as if he was describing a route to travel, winding, turning his to the rain again, as it were the empty stage, umbrellas marking stage hands behind the curtain in the intermission. His shoulders easy. The offer he made simple, without tinge of obligation.

"There will be a meeting with the playwright directly, another day. Part of my mission. I could ask a Captain for you to join. If you so wished to deliver notes personally to playwright. The disasterpiece that is truly that, is a disaster in more ways than we did see, let's say that for now."

A nod of the head as if debating something, or somehow he knew he was forgetting something to mention. Arms folded, but not in discomfort or defense. More akin to comfortable superior marvelling with one stood to his level.

And there it was, the head turning to look at Petra, these words requiring the eyes, lest they become flippant. Scorn could be littered into the rain with idle remark. This? As careful as a flame ignite strike, placed perfect against the cigarette to issue what signal of enjoyment. Well tempered and placed, careful mind to avoid being saccharine, and being true to being a kind of bastard.

"Thank you for hating it so thoroughly. I do so enjoy when my company doesn't have a shade of sympathy or pity."

@Petra Darthinian

 

[Petra Darthinian]

Mischief returned, gleaming in the slant of her gaze as she tilted her head. “Yes, please. Because if you think I’m not marching into that playwright meeting at your side, with notes and a grapefruit, you’re sorely mistaken. I’m owed answers, Valchek. And possibly, dare I say, a refund.”

She stepped forward, flicking the last ember of her cigarette toward the puddle with a hiss, the smoke finally drifting from her like the last verse of a closing stage number. “And besides, I just like being invited? Even to disasters,” she stated as she passed him, half-turning under the sigh of the rain, almost in afterthought, gesturing to the hand holding his cigarette, "Haven't you always been left-handed?"

@Valborast Valchek

 

[Valborast Valchek]

A nodding, as if all was in accord in the planning already, all laid out to a future terrible time.

His hands now free of cigarettes did make a movement as if trying to shirk attention, as if Petra had noticed some sleight of hand mid trick. He gave out detail, giving playful begrudging to his explanation, faking irritation when he was actually coming to terms with being flattered for the noticing.

"Still am. Smoking with the right makes each draw mindful. To take an indulgence as one might quelling of a need would simply not do."

He tapped his foot twice, as if giving percussion to point.

The rain continued on. A glance to the panes of glass that hid a collision of mistakes poorly.

A quick cutting remark shuffled, a better one loaded into the deal.

"You can steal your answers from him akin to how you stole from me," he said off handed as he turned to walk full pace towards the restaurant door, far too quick for the distance to something so locked. As long stride hit the door, his boot did collapse into misting, the rest of him following and seeping through the door, the other side of renovations his to roam double quick. Draperies of red that did waltz and navigate the cluttered assortment of ill fitting furniture.

A wine rack liberation of the better goods. Market value price, known by memory by Valborast, three coins littered in dusty tip jar.

The fellow went to the door, placed bottle within the slot for letters, slipped double quick himself through in form of mist, catching bottle as it was cradled from inside to outside in lazy cradle.

Valborast stepped back, looking at the rain instead of Petra, hand outhrust, nudging Petra with the base of the bottle. A fine ruby, some scarlet label, much wordage in it's worth, a stamp of noble family seeped long in their barrels.

"A refund. Or if you like, an invitation to a further disaster when it suits you."

@Petra Darthinian

 

[Petra Darthinian]

Petra accepted the bottle with a lilted brow and an unbelieving stretch of her mouth.

“Did you just… take this?” she asked, a little impressed by his audacity.

She turned the bottle in clawed hand. The label was dust-worn, likely left to be forgotten, much like this building that was wearing its disrepair like a favorite old coat. And if she was judging by the state of splintered lintels and the cracked windowpanes, weeping rainwater, it was not a bottle soon to be missed.

It reminded her of that time outside the library— back when Valchek’s humors had run far darker than tonight, and the weight on Valborast’s shoulders seemed stitched to his very posture. She’d sat with him then too, matching him cup for cup, saying nothing of his particular brand of silence. She hadn't judged him for the escape, and still didn't. She told herself she didn’t care.

But the strange dancing history between them had formed the oddest of alliances. Hells, it brought Petra to this night, did it not? Camraderie formed in the delight of razing the arts together, amidst rain and smoke, and the delicious swill of an old bottle of red, ripe for staining lips and tempering rancor.

“Fuck it,” she murmured, more to the rain than to him, “I suppose I’ve followed you into worse.”

She sank her teeth into the cork and tugged it free before raising it in salute, “To exquisite disasters, then.”

@Valborast Valchek

 

[Valborast Valchek]

A flash of a bite into a cork, a canine centre in Val's eye with a talon clutched in peripheral did quick replace what past associations he had with that combination. Quickly flowing into salute of his own, a small dip of the head, eyes closed, opening again to the grey outside. Nonchalant, sincere to his own ability to appear disaffected by anything good happening, an argument within him being passed back and forth with his boots with methodical slow and even pacing.

Boots stilled as Petra finished her first pull of wine, eyes dragged themselves from the grey as to not suggest he was waiting on her to share. Vultures to commodities and luxuries make poor company, Valborast reminded himself. An adage he'd adopted from company too rich to suffer lightly, but wealthy in their maxims to steal from when it came to high society.

Valborast said deadpan and monotone the next question. No fold of arms. No petulance.

"Speaking of which, how's the Drake?"

She knew how he felt about the dragon. But the deadpan delivery being so neutrally said, without the usual begrudging tones, the scythe of his tongue against the stone of the world to cause flash and prangs did not cut today, was compliment all it's own. He was making conversation, and was subverting expectations with what pitch humour was his to speak from.

A scarce creep of what he normally felt to be a sneer did dance at the corner of his lip, and he felt him unsure if he should smother it to keep himself consistent to his stylings. He sided with indecision, hiding that side of his face for a moment as he fished for another cigarette from sleeve.

@Petra Darthinian

 

[Petra Darthinian]

Petra choked mid-swig.

The wine burned the wrong way down her throat, forcing a strangled cough as she turned her head, covering her mouth with the back of her hand and wiping it like some back alley rake. She blinked watering eyes at him, voice rough when it came—

“Gods,” she rasped a laugh. “That’s the last thing I expected you to ask.”

It was well known how little love passed between Norvyk and Valborast. Vitriolic disdain might’ve been too gentle a phrase for it. Probably came from recognizing too much of themselves in the other: pedantry, cynicism, and a haughty pride that scraped like broken glass.

“Uh. Well.” She finally managed, dragging breath and composure back into her ribs and begrudging him a pained smile. “He still hates you, if that’s what you’re asking.”

"He's convinced all things of vampiric nature are unnatural and should be eradicated." An agreeing rumble from within her head told her her dragon was listening. “Not that he’d ever bother to take up that task himself,” she added dryly. “Far too busy getting fat on whatever monsters he’s picking off around the monastery.”

The last part was for Norvyk more than Valborast, and she could feel the flick of his pride bristle in her skull. Still, a softer smile took her mouth as she passed the bottle his way.

“But I’m just thankful he’s finally healed, after that horrible mission when we recovered Syr Triss from those cultists.”

@Valborast Valchek

 

[Valborast Valchek]

"I'd assume no less," Valborast said, reaching for bottle underhanded, allowing it to slide into his palm and wrist as one might slip an implement of stabbing into lurking wielding. A sound of the slosh of red suppressed with a twist of the sleeve, concealing bottle below his draperies. Sleeves formed upon themselves in front of him as if he were making to fold his arms, head turned to the right, bottle opening flush against his wrist. No nod of approval of what he did breathe in, and his arm made motion against his mouth, bottle still concealed. He parted his jaw, as if he was encouraged to lean into being openly vampiric.

Wine leeched up to his mouth, a circulatory system compelled to be, a flash of burgundy. Jaws snapped shut, no smack of lips. A few heartbeats that became warmer for the wine so suddenly drawn to him. Sleeve descended to the waist, and it was as if Valborast had drawn upon nothing at all, the evidence of their day drinking concealed within his robes.

"There's a saying I was raised with. The hateful who is ruled by your friend, serves the friendship despite itself."

Another pull from the bottle in humanlike fashion this time. Slower, for want to taste more of it completely.

He lowered the bottle as low as his hand could go, span it in dangerous hefts, catch and releases, well practiced and without flaw in control of free object. The wine did not slosh, a disc of red as if it were made of ice a moment. Then, a swirl, as if returning the wine as it was given freedom to act in it's regular behaviours, gripped tightly within fingers rapt and spider like.

"What I really mean to ask you, when we talk, do you have to deal with the Drake chattering in your ear, gnashing his teeth and providing commentary? Are your ears his to listen through directly, openly? I'd loathe to think any of your jokes are his, and I'd be loathe to somehow make him laugh accidentally," Valborast said, producing a cigarette and planting them to lips, passing back bottle openly, as if all previous misdirections and conceal of the bottle were but flair, instead of genuine want to keep their day drinking hidden from public eye.

A pleased note as he ignited his cigarette without gesture, as if the tobacco of luxury knew it's cue perfectly. An inhalation of smoke, and a sardonic hint of some mirth seeping out of him did rise smokily, pseudo self mockingly.

@Petra Darthinian