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{ooc; Can I take a moment to appreciate the fact that if Cynric's as tall as Bettany, then he and Lee are over a foot apart in height. Can I just. Take a moment to chuckle about this.}

"You're the little summoner!" It's out before Lee even considers the thought of censoring herself. It's just an instinctive sharing of the one useful bit of information she knows...which leads to her realizing she never got a name for the ~~heartbreaker~~ other woman.

"I've seen, uh-- only Cynric. He told me about everyone else." Surely, if this girl knows that bard, she understands the rate at which he talks. It can't be a heavy shock. "But I haven't seen him since he wandered off about...two weeks ago?" It's a good sign that she's forgotten the exact dates. The first time he left in the night she'd been worried to never see him again - when they parted ways this past time, she knew there wasn't bad blood. Just a need to wander and eventually wander back towards one another, by some providence of fate, and that's alright.

She wasn't expecting to meet his entire troupe, though.

{ooc; Nothing about them isn't ridiculous and charming. Including how easily she could knock him out.}

It's not the first time she's been referred to as such. It's definitely got her moving, again, to lengthen her spine, press up onto the balls of her feet for a moment.

It's tough, being nearly seventeen and knowing you won't get all that much taller. Lanzo's promised her face to lengthen away from childishness toward womanhood, but she's yet to see the evidence.

"Two weeks?" Her face scrunches up slightly, although she doesn't slump. "You're certain you haven't seem him more recently than that? Or Johnny?"

{ooc; True, and...I WILL ADMIT the thought's occurred to me that a true and proper fight between the two of them would be. Glorious. In that it would be painful and awful and terrible.}

Ahh, the joys of being short. Lee knows them well. Luckily she can climb on top of things or bring them down to her level pretty quickly, nowadays, and it really only gives her issue when the occasional bazaar salesman decides short = young = foolish with money.

But Lee watches with a detachment that comes from honest confusion as she bounces up, a bit taller for a moment. "No, I'm sorry." And she is, because being lost without friends is an awful feeling. Knowing they've got a few ties outside from humanity at large also makes her more immediately pressing, more real. For all that lee would profess to care about everyone if asked in a spiritual sense, she's still just a human with a limited amount of care and time to give in one round of earthly life. "And I'm not...good at remembering faces I haven't already seen, so I might've seen Johnny. Or might've not." That's hardly helpful.

"Look, how about...you just tell me where you think they might've hurried off to, and we can follow their footsteps asking where two rogue bards went? Surely they've been-- lute-ing or singing along the way. Or stealing.

"...Actually if we're lucky they're in the town jail already."

It's storytime, plain as day, and Lee settles in a casual elbow at the bar to wait and hear the story out to its conclusion. As it goes on, though, and she starts having an inkling where it's headed, she can hardly believe it.

Here's a road they haven't gone down before. It's not just the story, and watching him place his matching one around his neck. It's not just what he tells her it's for. It's the tiny hesitations in his gaze, the nervousness in his smile that pulls one side down while he's still attempting to act natural. --But this is natural, moreso than she's ever seen him.

"So we'll each know when one of our wandering homes is close by?" She's cobbling together that sentence based on what he said about children coupled with what...she'd like to imagine she sees in his face. It's certainly in the gesture. Lee reaches out as if to take the necklace, but just settles in her smaller hand atop the stone, spreading fingers out over Alastair's palm. It's not a handshake or anything that uses force, it's much more fleeting, vulnerable than that. She just rests her hand there and smiles, mostly down at their laps and their hands, only occasionally bringing eyes up to his face because she's a bit bashful herself around this topic.

"Thank you...so much, Alastair. This means a lot." Now and only now, she'll try to take the necklace from his hand, after a brief squeeze of their palms together, glowing stone in between. The light seeps out over the edges of their fingers.

Wandering homes.

Alastair's expression stumbles, with little grace to redeem himself, when Lee's words make a knot in his stomach. Lips part to offer something, voice pausing with uncertainty of just how his instincts would like to correct her wording...due mainly to the fact that there is actually nothing in her verbal imagery worth rectifying.

But the hand now in his is a sobering rock, heavy with more meaning than Alastair anticipated having to carry. He swallows firmly, determined to mimic Lee's smile. He's doing an okay job at it. "Yeah, it's nothing. Sorry it's not ah...Djinni ring or something. Those'll catch you a pretty penny, or...well, a pretty hundred thousand gold pennies." He isn't kidding.

He is smiling though, much more warmly now, as his free hand grabs for his tankard. He needs a lot more mead to wash out the feeling of a chipmunk trembling a hole right through his core.

“Right, I’ve so much use for one of those. I can’t imagine what you were thinking, getting me something meaningful instead.” It’s said with a disapproving twist of her lips, a momentary spark of annoyance that he’s trying to brush this off – before it melts away. Lee sighs – a real sigh, relaxing through all her ribs – and watches Alastair as he dives for his mead like a drowning man.

She feels solidly, for the first time, that their friendship is as two-sided as she’d like it to be. This is a truly believable reciprocation from Alastair’s end, and she appreciates it immensely. It’s a relief from an anxiety she hadn’t even known she’d felt.

It lets her forgive him needing to redirect, and gives her a flash of – for Lee – unusual insight. She’s smiling innocently. “I’ve...not had too many close friends either. I’m—I’m glad I’ve got you.” She’s done this before, dancing closer to friendship with others, males and females. But there’s a bubble of unexpected tension in her gut, perhaps an extra alert happiness in her throat, right now. She swallows because she realizes her mouth has gone dry – thank goodness she’s got her tankard of water handy.

The necklace’s leather strap shifts at the back of her neck as she takes a sip. “Who else would I trust to get me exotic wares at bargain prices?”

Another unexpectedly sharp blade of truth rips a new hole through Alastair, but this one is so finely honed that it barely hurts. It's an empathetic admission, leveling their footing. They are friends, this Alastair has known for a long time now. It makes it easier to balance how much meaning it brings between them.

So he smiles a new kind of smile, one that is just as truthful as Lee's words. Me too.

He even toys with the idea of saying it, but the monk speaks again and he finds himself jumping for tees new words before he can realize it. "You kidding? Stealing 'em means you pay just as much as I do! It's the Godwin Guarantee." Topped with a wink and a smirk that has always inspired a scolding from Lee before. He can't anticipate how she will react now, though, and he can't tell if he wants something familiar, or something new.

(But for the record, he paid full price for these crystals.)

Edited 2013-12-20 15:26 (UTC)

"The Godwin Guarantee?" This isn't even the first time Lee's learnt his last name, so that exciting tidbit is lost. He's announced it on a handful of occasions to crowds during the initial attention-grabbing brag, or sometimes afterwards during the bow. She's probably lucky he's never gotten stuck in third-person boasts after a proper session earning himself gold. "Well Lee's Law suggests I ought to smack you for stealing." That last word is a dramatic hiss because there's other people here, and who knows how many are actually alright with the occasional five-finger discount.

Lee's too naive to accept that she's never very far from thieves.

This doesn't even feel like a distraction from the depths of their conversation, so much as it's just a natural progression. They admitted they're friends, very close friends, and now the warmer air between them is still being stirred by them spouting nonsense at each other. It's safe, it's familiar. It's just like a few moments ago except completely different.

"...How much mead can you drink before you get drunk, exactly?" It's not his first order, after all. And he's taller than her, older, more used to drinking, but she does wonder at what point he goes from 'casually sipping away' to 'laying on the floor singing work songs to the bar crew'. She's not expecting it to happen now but she can't help being curious.

{ooc; Trust me when I say he would cheat the shit out of her. That's how he used to survive. Lots of luck and Charm.}

Good. This is clearly a worldly sort of woman she's talking to--someone who would make a good plan, help with the execution. Someone who knew Cynric and could probably help sniff out the sort of place a man like him would end up.

Except, well. She can't stop her face from cracking at that last thought.

"Jail?"

{trust me when I say that that is exactly the fun sort of drama that would make me excited and possibly pained. And I would expect nothing less from a man like him. \o/}

She hasn't lost her, right? Lee can only hope she hasn't lost her. "Yes, jail. It's where people like bards go when they're finally caught in the wrong pocket or wrong landowners house. If we're lucky someone already rounded them up, otherwise they could be anywhere. Which...I'll still help you look."

For the fact that she knows one of them, for the fact that she's curious, and a little bit for the fact that Lee likes to think she's That Helpful. Might not be true. Might eventually become true if her actions follow the ideal enough.

Not lost. Just give her a moment to press a hand to her stomach and fight back the queasiness of thinking of the man she loved in jail.

To be fair, of course, she didn't have even the slightest real sense of what jail could possibly be like. She could only imagine the worst.

"But Johnny's-- not like that." But... Cynric definitely is. "D'you think they'd really-- put them both away for Cynric's mistakes?"

"He's not?" Lee's perhaps prejudiced against bards now. And it's hardly even 'against', in a strict sense. She considers it realistic to assume the worst of their methods of doing their best. Good people can do bad things, sometimes - it's a lesson learned from befriending so many shady types.

So forgive her, perhaps, that she seems skeptical that Johnny isn't some sort of lawless maniac. Besides, what's much more important right now is the degree of overreaction occurring. "Look, they're probably fine, then, if he usually behaves - and it's hardly a Drow prison we're talking about. They'd be okay. Alive, at least." So reassuring. Lee has some experience with prisons - an Elvish one, at that - and she'd expect the same level of not-immediately-killing from human prisons.

Edited (aha, replying between clients took away my proof reading /o\) 2013-12-21 15:04 (UTC)

For the most part, Ayleth is an incredibly grown-up young woman. She'd managed her father's estate quite well, been fairly beloved in her lands and negotiated enough power to maintain herself in spite of her uncles.

Lanzo would say that falling in love had given her back some of her youth. Julien would say that falling in love had made her weak. They were both a little right.

"Probably alive?"

Or maybe Lee was just really bad at teenagers.

Lee is definitely bad at teenagers. Nothing personal, just a fact of barely ever encountering someone younger than herself until she'd been unleashed on the world after the monastery. "No, probably fine, definitely alive. Most likely alive."

It's at this point that even Lee's awful interpersonal skills start catching up to her. "That's...probably coming out wrong. Look, I'm sure your-- your lover and his friend are fine. If he behaves well, they're probably just-- doing. Bardic things somewhere." ...Music? Dancing? No idea what they do, clearly.

"Alright, well. There's a theatre about five miles east and there's at least six taverns between there and here. What's most likely to be important enough to run off on you for?"

Every qualified repetition of the odds of the bards being alive is, of course, taken with another rough exhale of air from the young summoner. It takes coming back to the actual plan--head toward a centre of musical expression, hitting the stopping points along the way most likely to yield results--to get her actually focusing again and nodding in understanding.

"It's... just something Johnny does." Which doesn't sound a lot like 'behaving well,' true. And which she's clearly had a lot of arguements with someone or other about because she jumps instantly into the defensive. "It keeps him-- happy. He just needs-- to breathe, sometimes. I think it makes it-- easier, since he said 'I love you,' you know?"

Plans are good. They're soothing and give a sense of direction and purpose to everything, and Lee is very happy that this girl is on board. --Nameless girl. She's going to have to fix that soon or they'll end up like her and Cynric, nameless til their second chance meeting.

But she ends up a little distracted by a quality to the defensiveness she's given. Lee looks, if anything, sheepishly empathetic. "Yeah," is said on a sigh. Followed quickly by an explanation. "I mean-- not with a lover. But I've got another close friend who's in love with wandering, too. Dunno if it's something they grow out of, and I guess I'm not one to talk, either." Considering that here she is, wandering alone, happily separated from her bard for the moment.

She chews her bottom lip a moment, and she's not sure what prompts it, but: "Just...be careful. Don't let him hurt you." Not because she's young. Because Lee knows the inconvenience of missing someone can, in bad timing, turn into being alone while you could've used help - emotionally or physically.

Lee's being awfully inquisitive about drinking, isn't she? "How much mead exactly?" Alastair parrots, almost nonplussed. "That would be a bit difficult to say, wouldn't it? Depends on the mead, how much I've eaten, if there's anything else in m'system -- potions, whatnot." For all of his griping, he is gazing at Lee with a very wide smile.

"But in estimation, it'll be during my second that I'll get a bit loopy. Third, and I'll be rolling on the floor." Don't ask about him having a forth. "Ale's different, though. An' cider, they're both much weaker. Mead's more like wine, an' that can be quite a kick to the head."

Alastair has almost cleared through this tankard, though, now that he's looking down into the bottom of it. He glances over at Lee once again. "Y'sure you don't wanna try it?" He imagines she will like cider better, but who could possibly not like mead?

It's good, to have found someone who understands wanderers. It's wonderful, to have found someone willing to help.

It's just a bit off-putting to have that concluding thought tacked on like that. Certainly sets the girl's shoulder up in defensive confusion again.

"Why does-- everyone say that? Like he's going to rip my heart out and feed it to Aodhan?"

Lee probably doesn't look overly concerned at being reprimanded. She does, however, seem interested in what exactly has set the girl off. "I wouldn't know." It's just a shade snappier than it needs to be, feeding off the negative energy in the air from a certain nearby someone. "I suppose they all either have a common thread of caring for you and being...being overly protective. Or that there's something wrong with your partner, which I doubt."

She's biased towards Johnny already because of Cynric, but only because she hasn't met him yet. Once they've met face-to-face her judgmental, not-necessarily-correct self could enjoy being biased either way about him.

"--Who is everyone, by the way?" Because it's obviously not the only person she knows in the equation.

Makes sense. Or she assumes it does. Apparently food dilutes alcohol?

Alastair's not the thinnest bard she's met, but Lee also can't really imagine he ever eats that much, and so the only logical conclusion is that he probably ends up saving money on his liquors. "I knew ale's weaker, just a...clean water, really. But I've never had any of those, nothing except kumis, and that's a child's drink." Literally, given to children because it's sometimes the only source of liquid, and often because it's just the best way to keep milk fresh for more than a day or two. "And no, I don't want to try it."

...It's a lie, which is something Lee realizes belatedly. Her aggressive disapproval melts away some as she turns contemplative, then embarrassed. It's a discomfort that she tries - probably amusingly in vain - to hide by scrubbing at her face and tucking non-existent hairs behind her ears. And drinking some water. "I'm sure it'd taste awful, and it's...it's forbidden anyway. For most of us to have alcohol."

Snapping is oddly comforting. It feels a bit more like home--and her party.

"Just-- everyone. My guardians. My companions. Random strangers."

Random strangers who knew Cynric, anyway. Like this young woman.

"Why doesn't anyone-- trust in love?"

"Wh-- what?" That splutter of shocked indignity? Your fault, young lady. "I don't not-- it's not a question of trusting in love but in people. And yourself. Love can carry other beasts on its back. Like-- like loneliness, or doubting.

"I don't know either of you well enough to pass judgment on whether you're-- good for each other. So I'll just assume you are. Doesn't mean loving a wanderlust man doesn't carry possibilities." Lee would never tell her 'don't do that', but it doesn't mean she's not nosey enough to suppose the what-ifs.

She snorts and scrubs a hand at her temple. "Good-- luck, alright? That's all."

It's not as harsh as most of the critiques she'd been given since falling in with Johnny. It's not remotely as condemning as half the opinions she'd been handed.

It means she does, in the way of young woman who have been raised to be seen and not heard, push herself back. Close in with the way quiet sets on a person who's been taught not to argue.

"Thank you, Miss-- sorry, I didn't catch your name."

Seen but not heard - Lee's escaped that fate. So much so that she doesn't even recognize it, can't imagine how to place the slight new quiet as anything other than an honest shyness. Lee's not used to being the older, or in any way the deciding power. The thought that this young woman might in any way push away from her because of her aggression is simply unimaginable.

So the name, then, is given with a sudden calm, because it feels like a new direction taken for want of a peacetime topic; not because Lee won an argument. "Lee Jheon. And you? I actually never learned your name, just your profession."

She looks back at the bar and the drinks that had been delivered during some point while they'd been conversing. Sure enough, both are there, her useless thief-guide clearly gone and left. At least she'd abandoned the drinks, because now Lee can grab the tankard of ale and offer it, silently and perhaps a bit awkwardly, over to the young lady.

"Ayleth." The duck of her head as she accepts the tankard is brief, light, very much a vestige of courtly training without being overly problematic at this point. "Löwenherz, from the Allontanare clan."

And they were, admittedly, far from Allontanare now. It didn't matter so much here that she was Alvar's daugher rather than Maksim or Tobiah's. It was an instinct dying much harder than the others.

"I'm sure it's a pleasure. And-- I do appreciate the offer of assistance."