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The mesmerizing, brush-stroked sky almost made up for the syrupy ale. 

Capriccio leaned his elbow on the railing of the pub’s topmost balcony, turning his gaze from the sky to the myriad of branches, vines and rickety bridges below. Having scaled many a building in his life, he never imagined getting fazed by heights. 

Alula had been quick to humble him.

There was something about staring down at an entire village built vertically amidst trees that troubled him. Maybe it was the flammability of it all, the knowledge that a simple flick of a mage’s wrist down on the ground could set ablaze an entire village, with those at the top the least able to escape the pyre. At the same time, it was almost an amusing thought; [i]those at the top[/i] facing the most danger? Now that was a first.

Despite the uncomfortable feeling looking down wrought, Capriccio had a hard time looking away from the drop below. He only managed it when a Simian woman a few tables down burst into sudden laughter, her companion urging her to calm down amidst her own giggle fit. 

Capriccio smiled lazily. The nearly empty balcony basked in the last breath of sunlight, the fruity ale in its cozy bark-cup, the slowly settling silence that tended to herald the arrival of night — it would have been all too easy to forget himself and think of his stay as a vacation, a getaway from the buzz of Haven’s namesake city. 

At least, had Capriccio not been cursed with a particularly good memory. Even if he’d tried, forgetting why he was in Alula was impossible. Ever since his arrival, even before he’d found his way to the town’s oldest and most-difficult-to-access pub and spoken himself into getting a room ([i]despite[/i] the place’s policy on not accepting outsiders, mind), he’d been on the lookout. What [i]for[/i] exactly? He didn’t yet know, but believed he would in time. To be able to spot the unusual, he’d simply have to familiarise himself with the [i]usual[/i], first. 

The young bard contemplated another sip of his less-than-pleasant ale, while considering the rebels hiding somewhere among the town’s populace. It had been his hope that some of the rebels might be regulars at the Curved Tail, considering how inhospitable the pub was to those not part of Alula’s original populace, but maybe that had been too naive, too [i]simplistic[/i] an assumption. Or maybe the two young Simian women a few tables away were in fact established members of the rebel sect, plotting away at an insurgence over their brightly coloured fruit cocktails. It would make a good song, at the very least.

Capriccio dared another sip of his drink, and started to ponder on the opening notes of A Crooked Tale at the Curvy Tail.
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