[center][h2]Phinuphus Tahnqin[/h2]

[h3]-=On The Nature Of Rivers=-[/h3][/center]

"...ish nothing more than for you to be successful and that is why this chance meeting plagues me." Phinuphus froze in his tracks, watching Rripp loom over Szazah as he sat stinking with drink and a sudden despair. A couple of men bumped into him, but then wisely made their way past him like rounding a tree trunk that had simply appeared. Phinuphus just watched, listening, his gaze inscrutable. Cheed was waiting for him outside. It seemed he'd be waiting longer.

"In truth, I would have wished for another to tell you, but as it were I happened upon you first. Do not fear, I trust that you assembled a most capable team of warriors and the like to undertake this quest. For instance that guard that once plied his craft in the great kingdom of Bhornbadim, or Tarnbadir, or whatever fangled name the dwarves scrounged up. He is a steadfast ally, one you should be proud to have. And that Reed fellow, strong, yes?"

Blow after blow, each of them low and well placed, and easy to land on a man in his cups. Old stories, told again and again. Phinuphus huffed with a cold fury. Szazah stood, too heavy to sit with shame or too sullen to lcare to counter. Too much drink. Aliyah was right about one thing.

Phinuphus' manner was written plainly enough that his stare had drawn the attention of q number of onlookers. Ot fostered a silence that slowly spread around the tent as everyone watched Szazah make his way out. The man was oblivious, as was Rripp, rather well into his own spirits. Everyone turned their heads to look at Phinuphus, who silently began to step as if on queue to take the seat Szazah had, moving the chair aside and plenting his haunches firmly on the ground.

Rripp looked up slowly, his disdain as apparently as a fish could make it for a mammal. No niceties for the river rat.

"Healer Tahnqin!" A wet slap of fish against the man's side as he moistened himself. A loathsome necessity. "You are not yet with your companions at the gate. A pity. Szazah has exciting news for all of you."

"Yes," Phinuphus spoke coldly. His voice projected throghout the Alehouse, drawing Rripp's attention to the silence around them, the eyes of every off-duty man and woman in the place, all of them watching their small table. "You did not speak quietly. I believe I have done the sums." Loud, but Phinuphus at least [i]seemed[/i] in good humor. Someone near the bar tittered. One of Rripp's eyeballs jiggled slightly as it searched for whomever laughed.

"It is a shame, really. But the man really must stay on with the small council until he has... recovered. You understand, I trust?" RRipp's voice had quieted to something more fitting for two persons in a crowded room full of drink, but it didn't serve to really invite anyone else to speak. Least of all Phinuphus, who bit noisily into a raw onion and chewed each bite deliberately, watching the fish. It was not like Rripp to not take command of the situation. The man was more drunk than Phinuphus had guessed.

"You think so?" The capybkin asked through a mouthful of onion flesh.

"Certainly. You have seen it yourself." Rripp leaned in, lower ing his voice further but managing more a stage whisper than anything else. "He's far too drunk for such a journey. What is broken can be mended, but it needs [i]time.[/i]" Rripp still seemed oblivious to his indescretion. It was not as though he needed much. Their party would be gone in a couple of hours regardless of where Szazah was.

"I am reminded of one of our stories, Lord Dripood," Phinuphus began, taking the tone of oratory. It was not terribly uncommon for the hulking man to do, as often pulling scripture from the bottom of a cup as from the evening stars in the sky. But some onlookers noticed a queer glint in the Capybkin's eye. It was the sort of look he got when dealing with a patient that thought they knew better about how to heal themselves.

It was a tired look.

"Have you heard the story of great Nalfgyr?"

"I confess that I--," Rripp seemed to want to rise and leave, but he could not speak another word before Phinuphus almost shouted over him.

"[b]--No, I tho[/b]ught you night not have. It is a queer tale told mostly by my kin. But we heard it first from a Deeptonne many generations ago that came far inland to spread the glory of Our [i]Shark[/i], Anomandaris." Rripp's scowl deepened as a couple of Minotaur sitting at a table nearby smiled, one of them stifling a giggle. It was often Phinuphus' way to speak to other beastkin about their god by referring to him as "Our Bull," or "Our Cobra." It was the first time anyone had heard Phinuphus refer to Anomandaris when speaking to Rripp as anything other than "Our Lionfish."

It was an angry look.

"Deeptonne, like the sharks they were born from, are a vicious lot. They fight as hard as any Dragonoid, and are as peerless hunters in the sea as a Raksha in the forest or a Gatorman in a marsh. But they do not share the vices of soft-skins as you and I do." Phinuphus paused to gulp a mouthful of ale, and took a small bite of onion before he continued. "They do not fuck for the fun of it. They do not dice or smoke. And they do not drink. But they do walk. And their legs lead just as often to misfortune as our own."

"When our kind were young, we saw the world youngly," Phinuphus stood as he began telling the story. He was prone to gesticulation and pacing as he spoke, theatrics learned from his own childhood. It always served to entertain while he taught with what words he knew, speaking to many places far less civilized than this. "Mountains had stood under countless moons and been seen to fall by countless manlings before we saw the first ones that stand today. Oceans stirred and slept and stormed with depth, were rode upon by untold numbers of ships of all sizes before the first Carpie stood upon sand and declared that things were [i]far too dry[/i] outside of them." A few laughs. "And Rivers ran for my ancestors to mate in and for fish to swim down and snakes to lurk beneath and for man to plow his fields beside long before the first of my people took to the plow beside them."

"So it was that the first Deeptonne pack found a bay, tasted fresh water, and found it far too comfortable. For a shark lives a life of pain, yours or theirs, and sees little of worth in between. But all things wander, and many things change. So it was that a small pack of Deeptonne found a sweetness in freshwater that the sea lacked. For manlings have always faught. Elf, man, dwarf, all soft-skins fight, and many of them fight over rivers. And a river can run red, a taste packed with blood that the sea can thin far too quickly to entice--salt far too thoroughly for it to please."

"This small pack came to land, with His seed giving them air to breath, treading riverbanks with fervor and finding soft-skins to hunt and kill no less deadly than their prey in the waters they called home. And, too, they found like-minded men and women and spoke and talked and founded a village and made families. But always they hunted, for they lived lives of pain, yours or theirs, and saw little of worth in between."

"And so it was that they were feared, for their skin that could sting and their fury that could roil across the land and their noses that could follow from one beach to the other were pointed and mean. Deeptonne raided and walked, as they still do in the sea today. But, on land, they found our vices. They found dice and gambling and play, and they moved to other villages and made other families. But they always hunted, for like sharks they live lives of pain, yours or theirs, and see little of worth in between."

"Their games were cruel, their hunts were long, and they were hated as no other of our kind has been, so out of place. Anomandaris lifted not a paw or fin or claw, for he knew in The Fullness what fear could breed. Deeptonne were hunted in turn as their nature stood true no matter how soft they grew. And they persevered because their lives, like sharks, were lives of pain, yours or theirs, and little of worth was in between."

"So in time they scattered as once they'd spawned, their numbers thinning as their time grew long. Their hearts were sick, their minds frail, poisoned by the follies of games and ale. Their blood was thin, and the sweetness turned bitter, the sweet that had brought them here. And the sea called."

While Phinuphus told his tale, he had paced and gestured with his massive arms and roused every heart in the room. Cheed had stepped isnide and was leaning against a wall. No one had had a drink in the minutes he'd told the tale. Phinuphus now stopped to take a quaff. No one else lifted a finger, moved a muscle. Phinuphus sat, affecting the exhaustion if a people he had never met. Heads peering through windows seemed to sag with that same weariness.

"The sea called in the quiet, when the full moon shone, twinkling in wide rivers and hinting where to go. The fish called, trout and bass and [i]minnow[/i]," he made the term sound loathsome as slugs, "running up and down every year with news of the sea's majesty. And so it was that packs of Deeptonne began to take to rivers, as all find their way to the sea eventually. But the Deeptonne, returning, found their skills wanting. They no longer had the strength to swim in the sea's swift currents, or the noses to find game, or the minds to trick orca, dolphin, or merrow. So soft, so limp with the joys of a life on land... that not even their Deeptonne brothers and sisters of the sea recognized them."

"And so it was that they were hunted and killed, their weaknesses not even fit to fill the bellies of their family. For a shark's life [i]must[/i] be one of pain... [i]ours[/i] or theirs..." and Phinuphus gazed steadily at Rripp, who sat motionless and far more sober than he'd been when the tale began, "... and for them there is [i]little of worth[/i] in between."

There was no applause. Phinuphus let the moments after his story bloom with a pregnant, odious disdain for nothing in particular. He stood from his seat on the ground and walked steadily for the door, pausing for a brief moment to help Cheed up onto his shoulders. The capybkin did not look back, slamming the door behind him with a loud bang, and making steadily for the north gate. Inside the Alehouse men and women looked between one another and Rripp, struggling to parse the story that had just been left there, ending like a body tossed into stream.

Cheed was silent for a while as they continued through the camp.

"Life is a river." The boy said.

"It is, young man. Let us find our shark before he grows too soft."

[b]Summary:[/b] Phinuphus overhears Rripp's command that Szazah is not to go meet The Shadowwold. He clearly has other ideas.