Saoirse hadn't exactly meant that they should go over and [i]socialize[/i] with the crazy long-tail -- she was happier to judge people from a distance -- but Chao being Chao had just waltzed right up and sat down at Dali's table like he'd been expected. Saoirse puffed her cheeks indignantly, but an automaton passed between them holding a thick frothy drink she didn't recognize but suddenly needed.

Within moments she was at the bar, her neck craned for service while she dug in her pocket for the morning's earnings: a pile of coins from a generous automaton with a squeaky leg. A handful of coins clattered on the bar, but something odd lay half-buried among them. While the bartender supplied her precious frothy drink and a basket of fried eel-bits, Saoirse pushed around the coins with a finger and picked up one that didn't look like any currency she'd seen before. She squinted and frowned at the eye that stared out of the coin. That sneaky automaton had jipped her! This wasn't currency at all!

She had enough for the tip without it, though, so she pocketed the counterfeit coin and happily carried her frothy-drink and fried-eels over to the table where Chao and Dali exchanged silent nods. The promise of thick alcohol placated the tinkerer's annoyances, and she plopped into a seat at the table to inhale the froth off the top of the glass, her feet swinging.

The music ended, the performers packed up, and the resulting stillness broke with a smash of glass and a giggle. From the street outside came the commotion of some drunk or a thief being chased in the dark. Saoirse chewed and drank and sleepily watched the other patrons moving in the damp blue light -- but hope piqued when Dali grabbed his guitar, and she grinned and perched her feet on the chair, clutching her new favorite drink in preparation for the show.

What happened next would be later remembered as an intoxicated dream. A vision of the counterfeit-coin, a tall looming shadow, a story of eyes and madness and demons and secret vaults. A deep voice roared and smoldered, Chao's seat went empty, the room shouted and rumbled and the front door slammed. The guitar strings quivered and smoked in a hellish rendition, Dali's voice hissed electric hallucinations of rising old gods and civilization burning, black inferno, echoes screaming in the dark, of crumbled consciousness and a final halting whispered prayer.

Saoirse sat entranced by a lingering vision of the charred wake of disaster, barely breathing. In a dazed fog she was peripherally aware of Dali talking to her, of a coin on the table that stared at her before it was plucked away by blunted claws.

The door slammed and Saoirse jolted. Her drink had gone lukewarm, the fried eel cold and rubbery. Where did Chao go? When did Dali leave? She rubbed a hand over her face and scooped up the two coppers left at her elbow. For watching his stuff, huh? Not that she would've noticed if anyone had set his stuff on fire during the performance.

She took a few deep breaths to clear her mind, dropped the coins in her pocket -- and guardedly pulled out the counterfeit coin she'd encountered earlier in the night. Her blood ran cold and electric to see the same watchful eye emblazoned there. She rubbed a thumb over it, just to make sure she wasn't still dreaming, but the performance was done and this was definitely real.

In a sudden fervor, Saoirse took a last gulp of the drink and shouldered her backpack in her rush for the door. It opened to the lot of them standing together in the street -- Chao and the angry wizard and Dali -- looking out at the fading light of a distant flare. She couldn't make anything out, though, so instead of worrying about it she tapped Dali on the arm and held the eye-coin up to his snout.

[color=yellow]"Hey,"[/color] she demanded in a serious tone that lilted slightly from the lingering effects of the last performance. [color=yellow]"You've got one of these. What is it? The Ceaseless Feast, the castle, did ya make it up?"[/color] In the back of her mind she remembered old whispers and passing graffiti, watching eyes and priceless collections, but hesitated to believe anything she'd witnessed in the past hour. The fact that the coin remained solid and real in her hand still sent a shiver down her spine.