Gallus sucked in a breath and winced, while Janius let out a laugh and Uthri let out a low chuckle and commented, "Broke a little more than his heart, eh? Not enviable. He must have been annoying."

Ahnasha's question snapped Fendros out of his thoughts and he shook the sour expression from his face. "Oh, nothing," he said to Ahnasha, playing it off with a smile.

"Mama, why was your meeting with the vagabond painful? Did you fight him?" Rhazii, completely oblivious to most of the subtext, decided to keep up his habit of on-point timing.

In response, Janius spoke as if there was nothing to be insecure about. "Makes sense to me. If it's anything like the feral cats in Bravil, you wouldn't be able to tell without looking whether it was fighting or otherwise."

"Thank you, Janius," Fendros said sarcastically.

Janius continued, "I remember them yowling like they were going to war either way-"

"Thank you, Janius!" Fendros repeated with more exaggerated emphasis.

"What?" Janius lifted his palms defensively and smiled.

"Let's not start our own war, now," Gallus said with a hand raised to calm the two, laughing lightly through it all. Gallus then turned to Meesei, "I saw you with a smile before, Meesei. Have you any tales worthy of bawdy song?"

[hr]
Tzirret was just as amazed as Peiter was, but he was not so immediately vocal. "It is...very nice to look upon," he said unsurely.

"I can think of one place," Sabine answered, "but that is far away, and it had more flowers. It was a festival, too. This is beautiful for itself, though. I wonder if there is as much colour every day?"

"What was this place?" Tzirret asked Sabine.

Sabine smiled, "Thorn, in Black Marsh."