Session 79.1 - Wait, When Did You Get Interesting?
"Well, gang, this isn't how I was planning to introduce us, but meet my big brother, Peregrine Leveche." Linnet manages to haul the other sylph to his feet; notably, hers are still touching the ground, while his are not. He directs a shaky wave at Linnet's crew.
"Bast, I'll meet you all back at the Starfall later; just tell the rest of the crew I'm on an errand. This guy and I have a lot to catch up on, fairly urgently." She meets Jemma's eyes. "I promise to fill him with nothing more dangerous than Cure spells, greasy food, and family gossip, and to return him in one piece."
Taking Peregrine's arm with a grip that brooks no argument, Linnet steers him in the direction of dear gods anyplace that is not here.
**
Five minutes later, the sylph siblings are seated in a small back corner booth in The Battle Fork, which Linnet picked based on the lack of a line and the minimal gaudy signage outside. Turns out it's a dark, cramped, minimally decorated, but clean grill-built-into-the-table Eastern barbecue place. The forks in question are used to spear an assortment of things after you drop them on the hot plate. They didn't even look at the menu, just ordered two of the special and a beer apiece. Apart from that, they've managed to apologize a lot, say very little of substance, and do a lot of sizing each other up while trying not to look like it. It's been a couple of years since they've seen each other at all, and ten years since Hawk left home. And the last time he came to one of Linnet's shows, he definitely didn't show up looking like this. Unbeknownst to the two inside, Isa and Jemma followed them and have taken up matching positions outside the restaurant, eyeing each other warily and ready to dash in if anything sounds dangerous. "So, uh." Linnet lays her battle fork across her bowl of spicy dipping sauce and pushes it aside. "Nice rig. You build that yourself?" "Nah," Peregrine says. The Musical Performance Suite he used in battle to cacophonous effect sits against the back of his chair, the strap looped around his right shoulder in case anyone decides to try and steal a four-foot musical monstrosity during the dinner rush. "We had it custom-made by this electrician couple down in Caerwyn. Constantly sniping at each other, clearly stupid for each other. Most I can do is tune it and try to figure out when I've toggled the Funny Animal Sounds on by accident." He picks up his beer and then puts it down without drinking. "Do Mom and Dad know?" he asks, skipping past the small talk. "They don't, do they." Linnet sags visibly and doesn't look him in the eye. "They do not, and I've spent the last few weeks looking over my shoulder for you in mortal fear that you'll drag me back home to them the instant you see me." She fiddles with her fork again and stabs some sort of compressed rice stick, grilling it mainly for something to do. "That is no longer relevant, because all roads to fixing it point to Saine's libraries, and since I'm the only one of us with the credentials to get us in, that means word gets back to Mom, which means facing the Momsoon like this." Nibbling absently, she lets out a noise of pleasant surprise. "Huh, grilled rice is actually really good. Do they know you switched career paths from Peregrine the Paragon to Pegi-13?" "Yeah, I sent them a record of a show about two months ago when I swapped groups," he says conversationally. "I haven't been back through since they closed the border, though I do know a way through." He scratches his chin. "You did know the border got closed, right?" "...no. No, I did not. Hawk, when did you get interesting? Was I going to find this out from Mom too?"
"For the record, I was living in fear of my brother the paladin with the permanently implanted stick up his ass, not my brother the jazz..." She surveys the equipment hanging off Hawk's chair and finishes with "...sonic texturalist." "Yeah, well... it's weird out there, right?" he says, as if that explains everything about the style change. That really is a lot of electric-blue hair. "From what I've heard, Saine's closed down to anyone trying to enter through the Pass, so the only ways around are over the mountains via airship, or over the mountains via hiking. Neither of those seem great, and Mom says everything's good so no need to rush back. She didn't say what it was, but I assume it's some weird prophecy or an old book saying something or whatever." Linnet just stares at him with an eyebrow raised for a solid minute, which is the most silence Hawk has experienced in Linnet's presence outside of a library in her entire life. Peregrine steals a bit of her rice in the silence. (It might be the most silence anyone in Linnet's adult life has ever experienced from her. Linnet is not good at silence.)
As expected, she breaks first. "It's weird out there? Did that line work on Mom, and if so, can I try it?" "The secret," he says with a grin around a mouthful of rice, "is to send presents with the news." "The secret is also to be their adored firstborn who can do no wrong, I assume." Linnet stabs viciously at some sort of sliced root vegetable. "What kind of present covers for 'I am no longer following in your adored sixth-great-grandfather's footsteps as an adventuring white mage and have instead taken up the life of a bard, don't tell Linnet'?" "Oh, and did you tell her about the bounty hunting, and if so, did you get the 'bounty hunting is for insignificant scum who don't have noble backgrounds, you wait until the adventure finds YOU' speech? Because if not, let's agree to keep that off the record, okay?" "Yeah, sounds rough," he says, unhelpfully. "You could also just go in and not tell them you're coming. I won't say," he says. "We're going into Saine to use the library. I don't think we can avoid it. Also I'm going to stab you now, okay?" Linnet pokes her brother's arm with her fork. "Blasted hurricanes, Hawk, you leave home to go be a Big Damn Hero and for five years that's all I hear of you, then I run off to college and see you maybe once a year in the audience after a show, and the next time I get to talk to you, it's after my friends beat the tar out of you after your friends tried to mug us? You wonder why I'm a little off kilter here?" "Okay, look, that wasn't my fault!" he exclaims. "First off, you're the one who decided to also head out and be a bounty hunter instead of doing something nice and sensible like, I don't know, being a librarian or a bookseller or something else that's got you safe inside, and it was your group that jumped on someone else's bounty when we were in the middle of doing it and then went dark for a couple months, and then how was I supposed to know that was you since my sister's a flighty romantic with her head in the clouds, not walking around with her hair stock-still and her feet planted on the ground, and somehow that feels like the least of your problems or at least you're not taking it seriously?" He leans forward, stern and sour, masking his concern. "And look, what you do and who you hang out with is your business, but you need to better understand what their business is, and I don't like that captain you're flying around with." "I was a librarian, jerk. I'm...on field assignment." Despite that, Linnet cracks a smile as she plucks a nearly-burnt root from the grill and dunks it in sauce. "So you are still Peregrine the Pretentious in there somewhere. World slightly less rocked." She chews reflectively and quickly covers up the face at the extremely bitter root...melon...thing. "Sorry I called you Perry in front of your friends, by the way. That slipped." "Look, I am taking the elemental problem seriously, and that's why we're going back home, because we're kind of out of other solutions that don't involve going back to the scene of the accident, and they're still in the middle of industrial cleanup and that would also endanger one of my friends. So we're trying research next. We'll put Team Brain on the job and let Team Brawn be at loose ends for a bit, then swap roles again if we strike out here." He thinks this over for a moment. "Do you need help with Mom and Dad?" he asks. "Um." Linnet shreds a piece of meat into tiny fibers on her plate and doesn't answer for an uncomfortably long time. Finally, she looks up. "Are you asking as Peregrine the Paragon, as the weird jazz musician my crew just beat up, or as the brother who taught me to make blank paper book covers when I was four?" He sips his beer. "Whichever makes me cooler."
"Dork." But she laughs. "Do you want the details on either the accident or the crew before I rope you in, or after, or neither?" "After," he says. "I'm coming along, nothing you tell me's going to change my mind. We've got time."
"Not sure why you asked, then." There's a trace of the old hero worship in Linnet's eyes. "...thank you."
**
Five minutes later, the sylph siblings are seated in a small back corner booth in The Battle Fork, which Linnet picked based on the lack of a line and the minimal gaudy signage outside. Turns out it's a dark, cramped, minimally decorated, but clean grill-built-into-the-table Eastern barbecue place. The forks in question are used to spear an assortment of things after you drop them on the hot plate. They didn't even look at the menu, just ordered two of the special and a beer apiece. Apart from that, they've managed to apologize a lot, say very little of substance, and do a lot of sizing each other up while trying not to look like it. It's been a couple of years since they've seen each other at all, and ten years since Hawk left home. And the last time he came to one of Linnet's shows, he definitely didn't show up looking like this. Unbeknownst to the two inside, Isa and Jemma followed them and have taken up matching positions outside the restaurant, eyeing each other warily and ready to dash in if anything sounds dangerous. "So, uh." Linnet lays her battle fork across her bowl of spicy dipping sauce and pushes it aside. "Nice rig. You build that yourself?" "Nah," Peregrine says. The Musical Performance Suite he used in battle to cacophonous effect sits against the back of his chair, the strap looped around his right shoulder in case anyone decides to try and steal a four-foot musical monstrosity during the dinner rush. "We had it custom-made by this electrician couple down in Caerwyn. Constantly sniping at each other, clearly stupid for each other. Most I can do is tune it and try to figure out when I've toggled the Funny Animal Sounds on by accident." He picks up his beer and then puts it down without drinking. "Do Mom and Dad know?" he asks, skipping past the small talk. "They don't, do they." Linnet sags visibly and doesn't look him in the eye. "They do not, and I've spent the last few weeks looking over my shoulder for you in mortal fear that you'll drag me back home to them the instant you see me." She fiddles with her fork again and stabs some sort of compressed rice stick, grilling it mainly for something to do. "That is no longer relevant, because all roads to fixing it point to Saine's libraries, and since I'm the only one of us with the credentials to get us in, that means word gets back to Mom, which means facing the Momsoon like this." Nibbling absently, she lets out a noise of pleasant surprise. "Huh, grilled rice is actually really good. Do they know you switched career paths from Peregrine the Paragon to Pegi-13?" "Yeah, I sent them a record of a show about two months ago when I swapped groups," he says conversationally. "I haven't been back through since they closed the border, though I do know a way through." He scratches his chin. "You did know the border got closed, right?" "...no. No, I did not. Hawk, when did you get interesting? Was I going to find this out from Mom too?"
"For the record, I was living in fear of my brother the paladin with the permanently implanted stick up his ass, not my brother the jazz..." She surveys the equipment hanging off Hawk's chair and finishes with "...sonic texturalist." "Yeah, well... it's weird out there, right?" he says, as if that explains everything about the style change. That really is a lot of electric-blue hair. "From what I've heard, Saine's closed down to anyone trying to enter through the Pass, so the only ways around are over the mountains via airship, or over the mountains via hiking. Neither of those seem great, and Mom says everything's good so no need to rush back. She didn't say what it was, but I assume it's some weird prophecy or an old book saying something or whatever." Linnet just stares at him with an eyebrow raised for a solid minute, which is the most silence Hawk has experienced in Linnet's presence outside of a library in her entire life. Peregrine steals a bit of her rice in the silence. (It might be the most silence anyone in Linnet's adult life has ever experienced from her. Linnet is not good at silence.)
As expected, she breaks first. "It's weird out there? Did that line work on Mom, and if so, can I try it?" "The secret," he says with a grin around a mouthful of rice, "is to send presents with the news." "The secret is also to be their adored firstborn who can do no wrong, I assume." Linnet stabs viciously at some sort of sliced root vegetable. "What kind of present covers for 'I am no longer following in your adored sixth-great-grandfather's footsteps as an adventuring white mage and have instead taken up the life of a bard, don't tell Linnet'?" "Oh, and did you tell her about the bounty hunting, and if so, did you get the 'bounty hunting is for insignificant scum who don't have noble backgrounds, you wait until the adventure finds YOU' speech? Because if not, let's agree to keep that off the record, okay?" "Yeah, sounds rough," he says, unhelpfully. "You could also just go in and not tell them you're coming. I won't say," he says. "We're going into Saine to use the library. I don't think we can avoid it. Also I'm going to stab you now, okay?" Linnet pokes her brother's arm with her fork. "Blasted hurricanes, Hawk, you leave home to go be a Big Damn Hero and for five years that's all I hear of you, then I run off to college and see you maybe once a year in the audience after a show, and the next time I get to talk to you, it's after my friends beat the tar out of you after your friends tried to mug us? You wonder why I'm a little off kilter here?" "Okay, look, that wasn't my fault!" he exclaims. "First off, you're the one who decided to also head out and be a bounty hunter instead of doing something nice and sensible like, I don't know, being a librarian or a bookseller or something else that's got you safe inside, and it was your group that jumped on someone else's bounty when we were in the middle of doing it and then went dark for a couple months, and then how was I supposed to know that was you since my sister's a flighty romantic with her head in the clouds, not walking around with her hair stock-still and her feet planted on the ground, and somehow that feels like the least of your problems or at least you're not taking it seriously?" He leans forward, stern and sour, masking his concern. "And look, what you do and who you hang out with is your business, but you need to better understand what their business is, and I don't like that captain you're flying around with." "I was a librarian, jerk. I'm...on field assignment." Despite that, Linnet cracks a smile as she plucks a nearly-burnt root from the grill and dunks it in sauce. "So you are still Peregrine the Pretentious in there somewhere. World slightly less rocked." She chews reflectively and quickly covers up the face at the extremely bitter root...melon...thing. "Sorry I called you Perry in front of your friends, by the way. That slipped." "Look, I am taking the elemental problem seriously, and that's why we're going back home, because we're kind of out of other solutions that don't involve going back to the scene of the accident, and they're still in the middle of industrial cleanup and that would also endanger one of my friends. So we're trying research next. We'll put Team Brain on the job and let Team Brawn be at loose ends for a bit, then swap roles again if we strike out here." He thinks this over for a moment. "Do you need help with Mom and Dad?" he asks. "Um." Linnet shreds a piece of meat into tiny fibers on her plate and doesn't answer for an uncomfortably long time. Finally, she looks up. "Are you asking as Peregrine the Paragon, as the weird jazz musician my crew just beat up, or as the brother who taught me to make blank paper book covers when I was four?" He sips his beer. "Whichever makes me cooler."
"Dork." But she laughs. "Do you want the details on either the accident or the crew before I rope you in, or after, or neither?" "After," he says. "I'm coming along, nothing you tell me's going to change my mind. We've got time."
"Not sure why you asked, then." There's a trace of the old hero worship in Linnet's eyes. "...thank you."