19. Family Visit
General Summary
Full Scene
Mirage sleeps like the dead, and doesn't wake until the midmorning. Cri has stuck around the room with her, writing some replies to her pen-pals.
Mirage wakes up and looks at Cri
"Hey, Cri. What a night. You sleep okay?"
"Moderately. This city is... somewhat loud."
"Yeah. I don't think I would have woken up for an earthquake last night, I was so tired. No funny business after I went to sleep, right?"
She turns her head a little to one side, thinking. "I did not hear any enemies about," she says, "But I believe our neighbour made an excursion," and she nods towards the wall that adjoins Cypher's room.
"What the fuck" she throws her blankets off and rushes out the door before Cri can finish her thought.
As soon as she steps into the hallway she can hear raised voices from below. She creeps forward, standing halfway down the stairs, unseen, listening.
Ta'lok is pissed. He's haranguing about breaking ranks, stupid risks, etc. She can hear half-syllables of Cypher trying to get a word in but there's just no room for it. It's a change of pace for him to argue back, usually he'd take a reprimand on the chin.
Other threads of the lecture include bits about how weren't they supposed to be operating under a certain degree of transparency now and this is not team behaviour how can we have your back if you keep pulling this shit. It doesn't seem to be winding down anytime soon.
Mirage gets to a certain point and she comes down the stairs and just looks at them, waiting for them to notice her presence.
Cypher sees her because he's facing that way, Ta'lok has his back to her, hulking over the human. Saeldor's kind of sitting sideways and it takes a second but then he gives her a "you're welcome to try" kind of look. Also Cypher's got a massive bruise on his temple.
Mirage changes tactics and just walks down the stairs normally, heading over to the coffee without saying anything. She's going to need caffeine for whatever bullshit she hears next.
Ta'lok stops when he sees her, but she keeps walking.
"You done?" this from a seething warlock to a the minotaur who looks like he sees literal red when he hears it
"Morning fellas. Long night?"
The clink of a spoon stirring in a porcelain cup.
"For some of us" - Ta'lok
"Productive." - Cypher
Simultaneous, and followed by mutual sidelong glares.
Mirage takes a long, slow gulp, and then turns to face Cypher. "Start from the beginning."
Saeldor takes advantage of the pause and stands up, stepping silently behind Cypher. Then he reaches forward and presses a thumb over the bruise which is obviously prompts an OW and a string of curses.
When he takes his hands off it looks better.
"I'm sure you had a reason, but it wasn't your brightest move, bud. That squares you with me, anyway."
Firbolg sits back down
Cypher rubs the area that was bruised, looking grumpy, then he'll turn to Mirage and address her question. Ta'lok starts to talk at the same time but Cypher cuts him off
"I went back to the Library, learned some useful shit, very worth getting knocked around a bit, came back here, and am now getting lectured for not announcing my departure as if it compromised literally anything."
Ta'lok is seething, and Mirage has to speak quickly before he gets going again.
"One sec, Ta'lok. Still my turn. Specify the kind of useful shit you learned at the library, and why you went alone, please."
"Fey-melting shit. And I didn't."
"Got it. I assume Siobhan jumped on board, then."
He nods once.
"Any particular reason why the Fey-melting shit quest couldn't wait until the morning?"
He looks like there are several things he wants to say, none of them calm, but he settles on "Yeah, for one what I needed was in the lower levels, which are damn-near impossible to get at in daylight, and for another that creep eating up my spell like fucking candy and asking for seconds seemed like a problem better fixed sooner than later. Look, I'm back here, aren't I?"
"Okay, understood. Is there a reason you didn't tell any of us where you were going or what you were doing? Not because we feel the need to keep track of you, before you say anything, but because we care about your wellbeing?" She looks pointedly at the bruise on his forehead.
He starts to say something and then cuts himself off, looks between the three of them and glances at Cri, who's coming downstairs at this point too.
"No reason you're going to buy," is what he settles on, "Priorities? Look I'll fully admit I wasn't thinking straight. But I still don't think it'd be any better to have woken anybody up over it. Best case you let me go and lose sleep, nobody's on their "A" game in the morning, worst case nobody lets me go alone and I'm either pulling you into dangerous territory with a target on your back or I'm taking away some of the people who can actually do anything about it if something did come for you."
Mirage lets out a big sigh at all that. It gets her an exasperated "YOU SAID NO MORE SECRETS ABOUT THIS" face.
She puts a finger up, nodding in acknoledgement of his expression.
"Thank you for your honesty. Couple things. One - I'm not going to sit here in judgment knowing I would 100% do the same for any of you in a heartbeat. I get it, I do. Two - you seem pretty sure that we as a group would have acted in one of those two ways when there are several other options, including but not limited to, " she begins counting on her fingers, "All of us going with you, me included. Pooling our resources and knowledge together to come up with a strategy for addressing the threat, which could have involved going to the library last night or going today or taking some third route."
Ta'lok nods along vehemently to all of this.
She looks him the eye. "Cypher, that fey singled YOU out after that spell. Can't you see how much risk you put yourself in going off without backup? No offense to Siobhan, I fucking adore her and she's a badass. But we are in this TOGETHER. Please, clue us in next time. I deserve to get my licks in too, don't I?"
"No arguments there," he says to your last point. A bunch of what she said landed, especially regarding being in it together and a combination of the hypothetical reversal that she would do the same for any of them with pointing out that concern for wellbeing when someone vanishes without notice.
However Mirage doesn't really get a sense of remorse, he still seems to feel like however unsound the decision was, the outcome was worth a messy process.
She looks directly at him and says "It is not worth it to me to get this information if it means something happens to you on the way, Cypher. I don't know how to make you believe that. You worried us."
Exasperated sigh, "When do I not? I tell you what's going on, you worry. I don't say anything, you worry. I'm just trying to minimize the net-worry-value here"
"Fuck worrying, dude. We didn't sign up to be adventurers to live a worry-free life."
'speak for yourself,' his face says. She moves past it.
"You don't need to protect us from the truth. Tell us what's going on, and we can fight together."
"Now we can, yeah. Listen I'm not trying to plead a pity case here but can you appreciate that being the only one firing blanks was not a position I wanted to spend a lot of time in?"
"Totally. I had no idea that's what happened, by the way. More information we could have used. Alas." She raises an eyebrow at him and gives him a bit of a teasing grin.
"Now. Captain, I don't want to uh - stomp on your authority, as it's about the only form of authority I respect other than my mother's. But I'm thinking we should all just have a coffee, eat some breakfast, and figure out a strategy for Amir before we leave Midnight."
Ta'lok still looks like he thinks the warlock should be yelled at a little more just to make sure it sank in, but he shakes it off. "Agreed."
"Well since my part of that plan is apparently to be leashed and held back," Cypher snarks, "and given that we've just finished agreeing that permission is better to ask than forgiveness, no one will mind if I take off home for an hour or so while you're doing that?"
Mirage jokingly looks over at Saeldor and shakes her head, saying "How am I, the party rogue, the only one with the brain cell here? Good lord."
He gives her a chuckle and a "what're we going to do with these guys" shrug.
the group nods at Cypher, with varying degrees of acquiescence - Ta'lok still looks irritated as fuck, but nods, so does Cri, but she still looks serene as always.
"Good." He drains the rest of his coffee, grimaces because it got cold during the tirade, and shoulders the backpack that was sitting next to his chair.
"For the record, my vote still involves sharp objects."
"Make good choices!" Mirage snarks over her mug and mutters, "Not that I plan to."
"Please, me? Act reckless and get in over my head? Perish the thought." And with that he's out the door.
"Such a shit."
Agreement sounds from the big guys.
"Regarding the plan," Ta'lok says, getting into Work Mode, "I know you said its a free-for-all, but is there any protocol, social or otherwise, we need to know before we roll up on this guy's place? Our odds of getting a conversation will be better if we're not showing up like a threat."
"Hmmm." Mirage hums for a second, thinking. "I probably shouldn't be in sight. I have to assume he knows we're partymates, but there's a chance he doesn't. Seeing me would definitely put him on the defensive."
Nods of agreement
"He's also...ugh. Thinks he's the gods' gift to Auria, if you play into his vanity, he'll be more likely to listen. There are some formal like, greetings and etiquette I can show you how to do so you don't ruffle too many feathers."
"Noted, and that sounds like a good plan. Now, assuming he knows our association with you, I don't think there's any point pretending our little visit is unrelated. How likely is he to believe that we're there to help him out? It'd be horseshit, of course, but if we made out like we want a cut, in exchange for intel. And we'd have to know who we were really working for, of course."
Her eyes widen at that, like the thought never occurred to her. She thinks about it.
"Feasible," she decides. "You'd have to be a pretty smooth talker to convince him, though. Might be able to play into the whole 'she's an awful and spoiled rich girl and we hate working with her ugh' -" as she says this she stops abruptly. "Cypher could do it." She says, making eye contact with Ta'lok.
The Minotaur scratches his massive chin thoughtfully, "Well we do know he's got practice keeping his mouth shut. It'll take some doing to talk him into... talking, though. That kid's got it out like he was the one jailed," a headshake of the "hotheaded kids smh" variety.
Mirage shifts to looking at Cri and Saeldor. Saeldor looks thoughtful.
"What do you think, Saeldor?"
"If party defense really is his angle, then it should be as simple as explaining that him taking point on the ruse carries the highest odds of success."
Ta'lok is giving Saeldor his form of heart-eyes.
Cri speaks up. "If you should be out of sight, someone should be out of sight with you."
Mirage nods immediately. "Yeah. Makes sense." She looks relieved, but doesn't add more.
"More than one someone," Ta'lok adds, "Cypher and I can take point on the visit, with an odd number party I'd rather have two others with you than one, given the circumstances."
"No. You should take Saeldor, in case it comes to a fight. Cri and I can get away with going unseen, and besides, I can't take both of our healers."
Saeldor agrees, "Unless we can get me a flying carpet or something, I feel like you have more exit options as a duo."
Ta'lok frowns, thinking about it, then nods. "We'll come up with some signal, if shit hits the fan, you two zip off."
she nods.
"Now lets hope that argument works on the hothead," Ta'lok sighs.
"Don't worry. He'll agree." Mirage finishes her coffee and looks mournful at the empty cup.
"Marwa," Cri says, soft. "What about your family? There's no reason we couldn't bring you over for a visit if this operation goes well."
Mirage's expression reads instantly as elated, and then apprehensive.
"Yeah. Probably not a bad idea, I haven't seem them in...a while. And they'll have questions. I assume." A grimace of the i'm-gonna-be-in-so-much-fucking-trouble persuasion.
"If it would help to have a friend with you..."
"Oh! Well, yeah. I don't want to go alone - you should all come with me! Meet my parents!" at this, Nimbus crackles.
Ta'lok and Saeldor are finishing their coffees - the meeting's wrapping up.
"Bummer we didn't get time to visit Cypher's family." Saeldor says as he puts his mug down.
Ta'lok looks unphased, like he's not surprised they didn't get an invite.
"I know the address," Cri offers, drawing everyone's eye. "We could pick him up, if we're through strategizing?"
Mirage hesitates. "Would he...do you think that would be okay?"
"I do."
"Good. Then let's go get him, swing by the library, and then make it to the docks by take-off at two."
Cri adds that she would like to visit a courier's post she saw in the market district, which is incidentally on the way.
The four of them head out. Cri takes point since she knows the way. The courier's is nearby, then they start heading northward. As they continue past the Library gatehouse, the buildings get smaller, closer together, start to be more wood than brick, most of them are unpainted or peeling.
A lot of them are piled together like piles of rectangles, upper suites reachable by ladder or awkwardly zigzagging stairs. They're pressed right up to the street or removed by bare patches of ground or weeds. After a few blocks of this, they take a turn onto a street with an iron gaslamp bent in two like a stick.
Cri indicates the third door at ground level of one of the smash-houses. It's a plain building, there's a single window at the front, shutters ajar but not fully open. Door similar. There's a bit of hard ground with some grass struggling through it between the building and the street, maybe 10 ft or so. Cri walks toward the door. Soon as she's a few steps off the street, they hear barking.
A few second later a dog bolts out, knocking the door the rest of the way open - she's a medium sized short hair with big floppy ears, big patches of speckled grey covering her chest and legs, the rest of her is a caramelly kind of brown.
She's yapping her head off and running excited circles around Cri
with half-second intervals to sniff at the others. Mirage kneels down and sticks the back of her hand out, slowly, to let her sniff. "You must be Rose! What a beauty you are."
She sniffs and immediately begins giving her doggy kisses on her hand, panting happily. Cri does similar, and Rose is wagging her tail so hard it might fall off.
"Hello, Rose. It's wonderful to see you too."
Abruptly, Rose turns around and, barking fit to split ears again, runs back toward the door, where a familiar looking human is standing in the doorway, startled as hell.
The dog does that thing where she puts her forepaws up on his leg and he reaches down to scritch her ears without looking away or breaking his "the fuck are you guys doing here?" look.
Cri smiles "We thought we might come by to see if you'd like to join us in one last stop at the Library."
He starts to answer, still looking a little confused, but a voice comes from behind him, too quiet from outside to get the words, but Cypher interrupts himself to say over his shoulder, "Meus amigos, pai, Just a minuto."
"That's nice of you to offer," He says uncertainly, still in the doorway, "I feel like I got what I needed for now, should probably get through what I've already borrowed. Bag's heavy enough as is."
The presumable owner of the baritone that interrupted him appears over his shoulder as he's saying this. At first glance, he looks like an older, fuller-bodied version of Cypher. Streaks of grey in his thicker hair and beard, more frown lines around the same brown eyes, handful taller, broader in the chest and shoulder. His eyebrows go up when he takes in your motley crew
"You're leaving so soon?"
"No, flight's not til two, right?" Cypher says this to Ta'lok, directly. everything Cypher says still has an air of "what is going on / I am lacking usable scripts right now."
Saeldor steps up in that moment, since it was their idea to visit.
"Hey friend. My name's Saeldor, this is Mirage, Cri, and Ta'lok. We've been getting in and out of trouble with your boy here for the last year or so. Just wanted to swing by and introduce ourselves to you."
He looks pleased, Cypher looks uncertain, but his dad steps past him and extends a hand.
"Saulo Oliviera, I wish I could say I'd heard more about you," sidelong glance at Cypher, who dodges it by looking at Rose. "Thank you for looking out for him."
Saeldor definitely extends their hand and gives a solid handshake. "It's our pleasure. He's got a good head on his shoulders." it's the same genuine, heartfelt greeting he gives everyone.
Unless Saeldor goes ham on it, Saulo can match his grip. His hands are rough with callouses, and he's got some solid muscle to him, same for Ta'lok when he steps up. Instead of a handshake, Mirage and Cri get one of those your-hand-held-in-two-with-a-brief-squeeze things.
Mirage is just beaming. At this point Cypher's giving Saeldor a "this was your idea wasn't it" look, which is interrupted by a no-nonsense, "Filho, don't be rude." Then, to Saeldor and company, "There's not much room, but if there is time, there is also coffee," gesturing inside.
Mirage definitely perks up at that, not that she hasn't been avidly paying attention to all of these interactions.
"Yes please!" She says loudly
Cypher looks up, surprised? conflicted? apprehenesive? It's unclear from his face. But he's not getting much say because Saulo immediately does the "c'mon then" arm wave and heads back inside and he's gotta get out of the way. Rose follows on his heels.
On the way by, Mirage mutters very quietly to Cypher, "How come you never said your dad was a hottie?" a shit-eating grin.
"You really could have used any word there, and you go with that one." he says, making the face of someone who has had their parent's sexuality pointed out.
'Sure. Silver fox. Zaddy. These better?" she cackles a little.
"Jesus christ. Pai, I'm going for water," he grabs a bucket from near the door and starts to turn around.
Mirage responds by making chicken noises quietly. He stops in place.
"It's not needed," is pointed out from the kitchen, where the smells of a strong brew are wafting from.
"Fine, then." He gestures Mirage to a chair. There's no embarrassment in his trepidation, but there is a guardedness. There are too many voices in the room for him to control the conversation right now, and it's got him on edge. As for which of the many guarded secrets it is he doesn't want to get out, anyone's guess.
He pulls the chair out for her, then grabs some mugs from the kitchen.
Saulo leans to say something soft in his ear when he leans past him to the cupboard, to which they only hear an insistant, "nao, Amiga" that's maybe a little too loud for proximity.
There's not enough chairs for him to sit, so he takes up a lean on the wall between Mirage and Ta'lok, watching them all over the rim of his own coffee like he's waiting to dodge a hit.
There is, as they were warned, not much room. Ta'lok and Saeldor have to stoop. There's not enough chairs, so they insist to stand despite the low (for them) ceiling. there's some socially-obliged "no no you are a guest you must sit" back and forth, shut down by Saeldor's smooth deferral. "No, please. We're the ones who invaded, after all."
As they settle into their seats, Saulo says, "Mika says so little of his time on the road, you must forgive a parent some questions. For a start, you are leaving on another trip today, yes? Where do you go? Mika will say only 'to Auria,' as if Auria is not the entire sky and stars."
"We're off to visit my family, actually! I'm from X area of Auria, and haven't seen my parents in a while. Thought it would be nice to bring everybody along with me this time."
She gives a Cypher a look that tries to convey, 'Trust me, we won't tell him everything.'
The double whammy of visiting her family, which he wasn't expecting, plus the unspoken appeal to trust absolutely lands. He relaxes, but only a little.
"Ah - a home visit, it sounds nice. Your family is all in this area?"
Mirage happily takes the reins of the conversation, telling him about the neighbourhood and the various differences and occasional similarities to what she's seen of Midnight.
Saulo is a smiling listener. He comments that it's good to be near your family, mentions that he's the only one of his here, having left Chult on a ship when he was young and impulsive, to which Cypher has a black-as-night, utterly undisguised scowl directed at his coffee mug that his dad politely ignores, turning the topic to the group's travels, instead.
Mirage answers all of his questions, letting Ta'lok, Saeldor, and less commonly, Cri, fill in the odd blank. She chooses anecdotes to make him laugh. She focuses on giving Saulo a sense of comfort that his kid isn't running off alone - most of the time, anyway. They strike a pleasant balance between inquiries about where they go-
"Have you been to the ocean?" Saulo asks, immediately.
"Not yet," supplied from the warlock behind her.
"Ah, well. The mountains?"
"Oh yes, one time, near the Golden Hills..." Mirage launches into a comical retelling of the time Mika was turned into a plant, to which the warlock very quickly adds "Temporarily," and seems surprised when his dad's momentary alarm turns to laughter.
"This bunch is better," Saulo says when he quiets, to which Cypher gives a hesitant half-smile, and nods. He still looks like he's thinking an absolute litany of unsaid things.
"But the Golden Hills - you must have gone through the Trollfell for that."
Ta'lok fields this one.
"West edge of it, yeah. Travelling by day gets you past most of the buggers, but we did have a run-in on the way out. Wasn't much trouble, we were ready for it." He's very cut and dried about it, remarks on Cypher's quick thinking.
"Smart kid. He's helped us get out of more than one scrape."
Saulo beams at this. Goes on a bit about how this kid's always ate up books like they were meals. How many times he had to get up in the night when he was a kid to blow out the candle so he'd stop reading and sleep. Drag him out of ravines and canals and alleyways where he had to go investigate any weird bug or rock or bit of scrap he saw.
Cypher is VERY interested in his coffee during this part of the conversation.
Cri jumps in and says she used to do the same thing, sharing different late-night escapades to study the stars and different flora and fauna.
At this point, Rose, who has been moving between sitting at Cypher's ankle for absent headscritches and doing a "pet me" rotation of the table, starts barking again, and runs outside.
she comes back in a second running ahead of a tiefling woman who has to duck the doorway but seems comfortable standing with the low roof. She's like 5'11 maybe 6'0.
She's got dusty purple skin and back-twisting dark grey horns. Her hair's black and is cut straight above the shoulder. She's got a grease-stained shirt on and a pair of long leather work gloves sticking out the pocket of her loose, many-pocketed pants. Her eyes are green, and have that infernal flicker.
Cypher kind of perks up when she enters. "Hi mom."
"Hi! I didn't know we had company!"
"Mika's traveling friends, *meu coração*"
She ducks over to the kitchen for a smooch before making a hearty handshake/shoulder-thump round of the table with undisguised delight.
Mirage catches Cypher's eye and fake-grimaces, clutching a hand to her heart subtly so she conveys, "oh no he's takennnnnnn" to him.
Her drama brings a short laugh that's only a little uncomfortable. He knows that this is her brand of shit-stirring, there couldn't be less intent behind it if she tried.
"You're on lunch right now?" directed to his mom.
"Yeah, working in north town so I thought I"d come home for it."
"Mom's a machinist," he'll offer, potentially for a topic that's more distant from himself, nodding to the sprawl of parts and tools in the other end of the room.
Ta'lok's got a story with that, "I knew this guy from the Army, former machinist, really good working with blah blah blah engines"
Melody latches onto this. They swap stories of getting grease-splattered in the face, things breaking down at comedically devastating moments, friendly griping about bullshit work conditions "how'm I supposed to find pinhole leaks when the damn lights keep going out??" etc
There's a lot of people in a small space right now, and Cypher drops to a knee, saying something to Rose that gets her very excited and yappy.
"If it's lunch for you, that means we're getting into noon. I'm gonna take Rose for a walk before we head out."
He leaves no room for arguments regarding heading out.
"May I join you?" this from Cri, who could also use the breathing room.
"Sure," Cypher shrugs. he casts a glance at Mirage, trying to gauge whether she's having fun visiting, or would be willing to be peeled away.
Mirage looks at Cypher and Cri with a little bit of longing, like FRESH AIR.
She glances back, sees Cypher's mom in deep conversation with Ta'lok and Saeldor talking to Saulo, thinks to herself, 'Yeah cool, everybody's good.'
So she scooches her chair out and says "I'm with you guys."
He plays it off like "sure, if you want." Then, across the table, "Back in a bit, tchau."
The three of them head outside. As soon as they're through the door, Cypher exhales like he's been diving for an hour.
He sinks to his knees, and Rose is on him immediately, absolutely trying to climb him. He laughs despite himself, getting puppy face kisses, giving the Big Pets. When she's so excited that she almost knocks him over, he'll stand back up, with a strained smile for Cri.
"I really can't thank you enough, you know"
"Silly. You don't need to thank me." She smiles at him
"Too bad, 'cause I mean it. I'm grateful." He glances back to the house as you turn onto the street. "I don't.... I don't know if I could've come back here alone. I owe you."
"This is what we do for one another." She says it matter-of-factly, like it was never a question. He knows there's no arguing with her, but his position that he owes Cri a massive debt does not seem to have shifted.
Rose doesn't have a leash, she just kind of stays close-ish as they move away from the house and down the street. The whole block and several around it are populated with similar smash-houses and smaller residences with chicken-wire fences keeping in actual chickens or sometimes a dog. Around the corner the road has a kind of paved off area to the side where there's a public well, covered in graffiti
Cypher keeps glancing sideways at Mirage as they walk along, unable to keep his anxiety completely off his face. She's playing with Nimbus, distracted, but catches his eye after a while.
"What is it?" she asks.
He shrugs, dropping his gaze immediately.
"Curious, that's all."
"About what?"
He gestures to the area around them. "You were all on about how you wanted to see the mysterious hometown. Now you've seen it."
Mirage considers, looking around them, taking in the scene. The amalgamated housing is piled high, and seems to lean over the street; the sky is cropped into ragged rectangles. The buildings themselves have peeling siding, the upper suites accessible only by dubious-looking stairways. Many of the lower dwellings are scarred with graffiti, too overlapped and stylized to read easily, but she doubted the message was anything close to "home sweet home."
But she also sees dandelions and daisies pushing through the hard earth, small white butterflies flitting between their pale petals and the shallow water lingering in clogged gutters. Colourful chequered curtains hanging over the glassless windows, bottle-and-pebble windchimes strung up from eaves. She smells tea and coffee and simple, wholesome foods wafting from kitchens, hears the faint chatter and laughter of families sharing their news and gossip before the noon hour ends.
She pauses, leans to pluck a dandelion from between chipped cobble stones and put it behind her ear. "There's a certain charm to it," she says, "and your parents seem like really amazing people."
"We can agree on one of those things," he says. "Though I tell you what if you think I'm stubborn you should try getting them to budge."
"Is this where you learned to ask forgiveness instead of permission, I take it?"
"Hah. Yeah, sort of."
"No but really, they clearly love you to pieces. Must have missed you a lot while you were gone."
This bows his shoulders a bit.
"...Yeah."
He takes a breath, looking ahead. "It's probably good you guys showed up, actually. I was starting to think he wouldn't let me leave again." this last is said jokingly but with a tension that doesn't allow it to be fully committed.
"He worries for you." This from Cri
"Yeah. To be fair I kind of look like shit compared the last time I was home." A vague gesture at his skinny frame, the scars on his face.
The girls are both thinking to themselves "It's not the scars, it's the haunted look in your eyes, buddy," but say nothing.
"Would it help to keep in touch? To write him letters?" Cri asks.
"Yeah. Used to. I'll start again." He nods, then shakes his head with a bitter laugh, "I mean, I swore to everything under the damn sun I would anyway. Still no clue what I'm gonna fucking SAY, but I'll figure that out later."
"If it would help, I'm happy to add him to my list of pen pals." Cri offers. "Just to let him know that you're doing well."
He looks like he's gonna say no on reflex, then he considers.
"I'll think about it."
Cri nods, smiling, and checks in with Rose, who has been snuffing at some fencepost or other, tail wagging, pleased at all the attention, returning periodically for pats.
The party complete their walk around the block. When they return, Saeldor and Saulo are outside, leaned against the exterior, smoking (pipeweed and regular tobacco, respectively).
Saulo calls to Rose as they approach and, she runs up for a quick pat and then is right back at Cypher's heel, prompting a belly laugh.
"You gonna steal her away with you now?"
"Do not tempt me," Cypher says, scritching her ear as she noses his hand.
Cri kneels down, speaking in her own language to the hound, "<Don't worry, we'll bring him back, but you have to stay here and look out for Saulo>"
Rose gives a little whine, but conveys her understanding. Cypher drops to his knees too and she is instantly back on him, receiving the big pats as his voice shifts into Talking-to-the-PUPPYYY tones, "You wanna come on adventures, good girl? You gonna chase squirrels in an actual forest? You gonna miss me?"
If the degree of missing someone is measured in number of licks to the face, the answer is 'yes, a lot.'
Hearing the conversation outside, Ta'lok steps through the door, Cypher's backpack in hand. He shoulders it as Melody steps outside.
The group begins their goodbyes, thanking the Olivieras for their hospitality, wishing the group peaceful and pleasant travels, forcing reiterations of promises to write. Melody pulls Cypher in for a hug quite literally. His father holds him at arms length by the shoulders, head bowed to force eye level.
He speaks in a voice too low to be overheard, Cypher's expression is serious but he's nodding, until he's turning his head to avoid eye contact - unsuccessfully. Something is repeated, he nods once, terse, is released, and turns, pulling his backpack on the rest of the way and speedwalking past the group to get started down the street.
Report Date
21 Feb 2025
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