Little Boy Lost

[Aurin]

Aurin cracked a wider smile at the lad's sembling and dissembling. He seemed incapable of smiling without smirking, but it was more of a smile than a smirk, which was rare for him. The attraction was mutual, and while his aura was knotted up tightly into a ball, he relaxed it somewhat for the lad, a show of goodwill since they were apparently not hiding their thoughts--surface ones, at least--from each other.

He avoided the obvious and crass joke about skewering hot meat, made a motion to lead the way and he would follow.

"I mostly only gamble when I know I'll win, but drinking games are usually fun regardless of whether you win or lose. And the trick to cheating is... well, it's like lying. You often do better with half-truths, bending truth, than you do with outright lies." That wasn't always the case. Sometimes one just had to lie one's face off with unshakable confidence and aplomb. "I'll never call myself a mage, but I'm not above a few magic tricks, you see?"

Along the way to the tavern, he bought them some skewers--again, following young Castor's lead--and then ordered them some cheap drinks at the bar. Settling on the stools, he gave the room one more look-over, marking points of egress, any dangerous-looking folk, and the like. He was only paranoid if everyone wasn't out to get him and, in his experience, everyone was.

"So... drinking games?"

An auburn eyebrow rose like a bird's wing taking flight as he pulled an entire chunk of meat off of his skewer to devour.

[Castor Green]

“Labels are funny things.”

He took a small bite out of his skewer. The meat was tough, and it took a bit to chew through, but the flavor was - as always - delicious. Rich and spiced.

“Mage here means something different than if you asked around Silfanore proper. I bet your idea of a mage looks different from mine. Magic is so common here,” he shrugged, turning his focus elsewhere as his senses were cast over the bar. His spell hunted overhead, spearing auras like a heron a fish, siphoning information. They’d attract attention in any other place in Silfanore, but here, they were lost in the crowd. Humans and other races intermingled freely.

“And then, there’s labels like wizard or warlock or druid or witch or hedge. It’s all the same thing, I guess, isn’t it? Someone who uses magic.”

Hunger and thirst and quick satisfaction existed in plenty, here. Under the mage-spun lights and torches, under the sweet-smelling tobacco smoke. But there wasn’t anything dangerous - not to them. Weapons, gleaming and sharp, some bloodier than others, some bright and new, gleamed. Greed lingered between hands full of cards and coins, but nothing directed at him.

He smiled, turning back to Aurin. “I should’ve lost. I never did. I like to win too much.”

Castor took a sip of the mead, sickly sweet and thick. “It’s an easy game. We take turns asking a question. The answer can be true or not, or mostly true with a bit of a lie slipped in. But the asker has to spot it and call it out.”

His own spell retreated back inside, shimmering within.

“Magic makes it easier. I won’t use it if you don’t.”

[Aurin]

Aurin observed Castor's techniques, learning from him. The spiced, savory meat balanced the sweetness of the mead, and the grunge of the surroundings balanced the faintly ethereal beauty of his date. His mind moved in interesting ways, and he had Aurin's attention.

"And here I thought you wanted to play strip poker in public," he said with a faux moue of disappointment. But a smirk slashed through it quickly enough. "A game of lies? All right. No magic." He nodded at the rules, pulling his own senses inward so as not to cheat. "What are the stakes? What does the winner get?"

He might have made a lewd suggestion, but he had already brought nudity to mind with a previous jest. In any case, there was a shared attraction, and they were sharing food, drink, and a good time. There was a less than zero chance that--win or lose--they might escalate the stakes of their socializing.

"Or what is the loser's punishment?" An eyebrow rose, faintly challenging, but mostly amused.

The ginger finished off his snack with the feral speed of someone who had missed far too many meals to let one escape him, he set the skewer aside, washed it down with a mouthful of mead, and observed the lad.

[Castor Green]

Castor laughs, “That’d be funny. Wouldn’t it?” He looks back from the bar, out towards the crowd. Even without his magic he could see they didn’t have their attention. “Nobody would notice. Except us.”

He wouldn’t mind seeing Aurin naked. He was tall and lean and handsome. His face looked so severe even when he smiled. Everything about him was edges, all sharpness. Castor wondered if there was anything soft to him - and if there wasn’t, what had happened that he’d lost that?

“Maybe it’s both. A punishment and reward,” he says, taking another bite of his skewer as he chewed on his own thoughts. He wonders about what might be suitable. True, as much as Aurin did, he dared to consider the more exciting suggestions. Castor knew there was a cheap hotel nearby. He knew the bar had rooms on the second floor they could use. Hardly anyone went there.

“...but for a game a lies, it should be a truth? A secret.”

But it wouldn’t be enough for a simple secret.

“An exposed one. The winner gets one question, any question, and they get to use their magic. Unveil it completely,” he decides, nodding. That made sense. The final round and it would leave the loser to full examination.

“I think that sounds fair. If it does to you, you can ask your question first.”

[Aurin]

Aurin smiled. The lad had something to him. And Silfanore was far away enough from people and places and things that could give him the context to use any truth against Aurin, so while it might be an embarrassing loss, it wouldn't be a mortal failing. In any case, he didn't intend to lose.

With another sip of the mead, he considered his strategy. He was also curious whether he was skilled enough to cheat—to use magic—without Castor noticing. A trick was more useful when the other person didn't have it, but even so, the level of power was only one factor—it was also a matter of being clever with what one had.

The fox-faced man wasn't self-aware enough to realize that the kid reminded himself of who he might have been had youth been a bit kinder to him. He had a soft spot for lads in a bind, without the support and care they ought to have had. It didn't jive with his self-proclaimed status as a bad man, though, so he just told himself he wanted to best the little bugger and maybe bugger him after.

"Of all the labels for people who use magic," he said carefully, "which one most suits you?"

Few people knew about his tricks. Fewer still knew about all of them. Some of them were dead. Some of them were likely dead. Some of them would die if their paths crossed once more. His moral compass was skewed anymore; survival came first, though.

Whether Castor lied, told the truth, or something in between, he would learn more about the lad. Knowledge was power. Well, knowledge was a sort of power, and knowledge, secrets, and the like were the sort of power he liked to accumulate. Secrets were lighter than gold.

[Castor Green]

It was a good question.

“Seer. It kind of works both ways,” he said, “There’s a kind of practicality in how direct it is, but then, y’know, there’s a sort of mystery. Like, oh, what is he Seeing?” Castor takes another bite of his skewer.
A sip of drink.

“It’s too bad Semblance-r sounds so awkward. It just doesn’t roll off the tongue, not in the same way Seer does.” Not that Seer wasn’t without its faults. It assumed religion, or religious, by default. That, and every Seer he’d heard of always saw the future. Castor had his own tricks to emulate foresight, he could pretend, but it wasn’t real.

“I’d ask the same but you already said you’d never call yourself a mage,” he shrugged, wiping grease from his lips. “You probably aren’t a wizard, or a witch. Not a hedge or a magician.” A part of him wanted to probe further. Why not mage? Was it because he lacked formal training? Was it his own idea of what a mage was, that put him off the word? But that was already more than a single question, and their drinks and food would only last so long.

“What label - any label - fits you best?”

It was a bad question. Far too broad. But Castor liked to see how people thinked. He wondered if Aurin would be annoyed or if he’d take his time or if he’d think of some clever answer that didn’t tell Castor anything at all about the man sitting beside him.

[Aurin]

Aurin nodded along with what the lad was saying. It seemed as though their thoughts on the matter traveled down similar paths. That was strange as he was a stranger in a strange land and Castor was a native of Silfanore.

"Hedge, maybe?" he said, more of a question than a declaration. Someone had once called him an arcane trickster and that sort of fit if one was focusing on how magic fit into his arsenal, but when Castor turned the question back on him, that didn't seem to be the thrust of it. He did answer quickly, but thought through his answer out loud.

"My knee-jerk reaction is to warn people that I'm a bad man. It's not wrong, but it's also... hm... adaptable. Titillating for someone who likes a bit of danger, wondering when I'll do something underhanded or selfish. Not evil, I don't think, but do evil people believe they are evil...? I suppose it tells you I only care about laws and social rules when they suit me.

"Am I going to wait in a dark alley to stab or rape you? No. Might I trick you out of something you don't want to tell me...? I might. I'm fairly mercenary, though. Buying you food and drink since I learned something from you, and since you're passing the time with me."

He wasn't lying. He was spinning, though. Aurin was always curating how he presented himself. Perhaps he was even advertising his services in case Castor knew somebody who knew somebody who would pay him well for what his skills could acquire and accomplish. Or perhaps he was telling the truth thinking Castor was one of those lads who might be beguiled by a bit of rakish danger.

A sembler could tell if a sembler was sembling.

[Castor Green]

Castor was young enough that danger still held appeal.

“So you’re mercenary,” he shrugged, finishing the last of his mead. “The world is, too, or so I was told. Everything has a price, right? It’s a saying for a reason.” Castor smiled, his eyes trained on the pretty spring of Aurin’s. His thoughts light and clumsy with drink.

He bit the rest of the fried meat from the skewer, and swallowed, hardly bothering to chew. The lines between loud and bright began to blur as noise and color swam messily around each other. It had been too long since he’d been at a tavern, really. And he had always been bit of a light-weight.

“But that’s only a part of you. A facet,” he said. “We’re all like crystals. Diamonds? We contain multitudes. We each have a thousand faces,” he rolled his eyes. “It’s what my professor taught me, about what Semblance is. Usually people present a front, but Semblance lets us see the whole package. That, and more,” he smirked, turning back out to face the bar.

He wondered how many people there would think to say they were a bad man. Castor knew there were thieves and scoundrels scattered throughout the crowd. The Enclave hardly collected the most wholesome. It wasn’t a wonder Aurin was here, too. He looked back at Aurin. Castor’s lips were still curved, all too-sharp, his eyes bright and catching everything. Even without his magic, he watched and he knew.

“There’s facets of all sorts of things. Multitudes within multitudes. Maybe you bought me food and drink just to learn some things or maybe just to pass the time or maybe you needed a distraction or maybe a million other things. I don’t believe in a single motivation for anything. There’s always more. But I think you already know that, too.”

He sighed, “- but that’s a whole other conversation. And I think it’s your turn to ask me a question.”

[Aurin]

Aurin was taller and heavier than Castor, and managed a cabaret back in Kalzasi; he was more capable of putting away the mead without losing his inhibitions. While he was greedily memorizing every datum of second-hand knowledge he could glean from Castor's education, he was also playing the game, playing the odds, and, perhaps, playing Castor.

His smile sharpened into a flirtatious smirk.

His strategy shifted.

It was his turn to ask a question. He took Castor's turn of phrase, turned it around, and turned it against him.

"Do you want to see the whole package?" A ginger eyebrow rose in challenge as he took a sip of the sweet mead.

Setting the mug down, he leaned against the bar, resting his cheek against his fist as he gazed at the fetching fellow. One game could easily bleed into the next, and he did have time to kill, after all. But he was a self-proclaimed bad man. He might just want to know if he could make Castor blush.

Without using his seeing trick, he had to rely upon other methods to suss out Castor's feelings.

[Castor Green]

Castor watched Aurin think. He watched Aurin consider. And then, he was sure, Aurin watched him blush.

Castor opened his mouth - and then swallowed, shut. He’d almost forgotten the game. He had to tell the truth. No clever deflections. Not if he wanted to win.

“Yes,” he said, desperately trying to keep his lips fitted to a smile.

His magic bubbled inside. It threatened to flood past the edges of him and spill out into the world. Castor felt like he’d been caught out. He wanted to reach out and unravel Aurin’s aura but that was against the rules.
New tactic.

“I saw attraction in your aura, too,” he said, thinking out loud. Could he put Aurin on the backfoot? Get him to stutter and forget the game? Maybe. But he had to do it with truth.

“My question: did you know I’ve never seen a…package before? I mean, besides my own.”