Summertime Sadness [Urs]

[Sivan]

39 Searing 121

The elf didn't have much occasion to go out for drinks. His master kept him busy, and he had a house to care for even though he had a flurry of sprites doing some of the work for him. Then there was his little garden with the Fae'ethalan sleeping in a tree that he had to tend. IX remained quiescent under its blanket, but Sivan always felt compelled to check on its innards to make sure there was no flaw he could find to explain things. But he didn't have a master to teach him how to break the curse on Flower and he didn't have a master to show him what was wrong with the Awoken who wouldn't wake up. He only had a master teaching him the secrets of alchemy and he certainly wasn't advanced enough in that particular art to suss out whether it could be used to fix one or the other of his wards.

Hurry up and wait was the saying, but he didn't know how it translated into the Common tongue. Idioms were still tricky for him, though his vocabulary had widened and he didn't make too many mistakes anymore.

No, he didn't often go out for drinks, but he didn't want to cook after a full day of grinding things and overseeing their various reactions in the alembic. There was food here in this modest taproom, and he supposed it might be a good place to take his friend when his apprenticeship was over, which was due by next season. Sivan's own would be some time coming as alchemy was still a new magical domain for him.

Perhaps he ought to suggest the High Hopes when the time came. He heard it wasn't too fancy for common folk even though it was owned by a prince of the realm. This place was modest by the standards of the Plaza of Jeweled Arches, which was Sivan's neighborhood. He was just an apprentice with a small house to maintain, so he tried to be careful with what money he earned in his apprenticeship. All the same, when the woman behind the bar cleared his supper things and asked if he would like another beer, he smiled faintly and nodded. Her smile was broader, but she brought him the drink all the same and he blinked owlishly at the rest of the taproom. It wouldn't take too many more of these before he started feeling ready for his bed. But in the meantime, why not observe his neighbors?

[Urs Wardell]

Urs sipped his drink, slowly. He tasted hops and citrus and something else he couldn't name, everything bitter against his tongue. The barkeep had called it a lager. He drank some more, his eyes closing and his mouth puckered; this drink was much too sour. Urs preferred the fruity notes of summer wine to this. He preferred even mead, which was too sweet, but better that than too bitter.

He hiccuped, suddenly, frightening himself. The woman behind the bar turned to him and he burned with embarrassment; it was too early to have hiccups. This was only his third drink. He frowned, taking another sip of the lager. It did feel heavier in his stomach, much more than mead or wine ever did. The froth tickled his nose, in a way that he had liked, at first, but now only reminded him of the growing haze in the back of his head.

Fuck. He couldn't be drunk, could he? Urs sat up straight, correcting his posture, and immediately was struck with dizziness. Fuck. He was, he was definitely at least a bit drunk. He frowned at the lager. He frowned at the barkeep. He checked his pocket, relieved to find his purse still nestled inside; at least he hadn't been robbed.

He needed to pay, he realized. Once he paid, he could leave. And once he left, he could go home.

He struggled with his pocket for a moment, trying to get his purse free of his pants. He frowned; this was harder than it should be. Urs, despite his better judgment, tried to stand up - and, as expected, he fails, immediately overcome with sudden nausea as he falls to the floor, face first.

"Ow."

[Sivan]

His belly full, Sivan had begun to pay closer attention to the room around him. He teased some aether into his rune of Semblance, an old trick to be aware of danger and problems before they became dangerous problems. It also helped him when he was speaking to someone in Common, giving his mind some extra context and clues as to where they were coming from when he wasn't used to their thought processes and cadences. Sipping on his second beer, the bubbles sure to help him digest what had been a heavier meal than anticipated, he looked from patron to patron, some in groups and some alone, getting a better sense for the place and the people around him.

When he had come in, he had been fuzzy-headed from work and focused on food. Now, he could focus on his environment. It didn't take long for a hiccough to draw his attention. A young human whose features were almost elven, if not his round ears, looked to have had too many already. Other people were supping or sipping on something slowly, but he didn't seem to be enjoying whatever he was drinking. This seemed odd to Sivan, who found that the more he drank, the less he actually tasted it. But who knew with humans?

And then he fell.

Sivan blinked. The barmaid blinked. Someone laughed.

The elf slid off of his stool, made certain that his feet were steady, and then went around to see if he needed help. He wasn't exactly a good samaritan, but he wasn't going to ignore someone in clear need of assistance either. He might not like people in general, but he didn't hate anyone in particular.

Crouching down beside him, he asked, "Wobbling stools, no? Are you well?"

[Urs Wardell]

Urs noticed first the man's hair. It was like a halo, he thought, like a saint's. A halo of gold and wheat and summer. His eyes, too, were striking, blue like the midday sky. And then he saw his ears. A Hytori? A Siltori? Or Dratori? Some sort of elf, surely. There were too many kinds.

He flushed with embarrassment; he'd been staring. He shouldn't, he'd always been told, it was rude. And telling. Even the dullest shopkeepers were trained to catch a drifting eye. Even the uninitiated, those dumb to magic and greater powers, could feel the pinpricks of a starer's attention.

Urs felt his blush spread across his face - he'd been asked a question and hadn't answered. And he was still staring. He wasn't usually so crude. It was the lager's fault, he decided. The lager made him drunk, made him fall, made him blunt.

"The lager did it and -," he hiccuped, loudly and his ears turned red. It was too early to have hiccups. He wasn't that drunk. Was he? He remembered, in the midst of thinking, he was still on the floor and that he'd been interrupted by his own hiccuping and he blushed even more.

"I'm fine. How are you?"

[Sivan]

"I am well," he replied. His Common was accented, but he mostly put the right words in the right order and conjugated them without much in the way of hesitation. He considered the man on the floor. "Would you like some help up and some water and some company until you are ready to go?"

Sivan wasn't normally this social, but even in the Plaza of Jeweled Arches, an intoxicated person could run into trouble—pickpockets, the city guard, et cetera. Perhaps it was the celestial spirit of wisdom that seemed everpresent now that made him want to do the right thing when he would rather not. Or perhaps he wasn't a terrible person, just awkward around other persons.

In any case, he offered a hand to help the man up.

"I am Sivan Sunrunner." His lips twitched. He wasn't sure he liked his Dratori surname translated into Common; it sounded rather silly or as though he ought to be some capable adventurer when he was just a bookish magician. But people glanced askance when he only offered his given name and he didn't really like to use his Hytori surname because it belonged to a father who couldn't be bothered to be a father, but of course, he wasn't mulling over that just now. He was hoping the prone man wouldn't be offended and would see how caution was the better part of valor in this situation, that he ought to take Sivan up on his offer so as not to get into trouble he couldn't get himself out of if he was having trouble just walking.

He offered another twitch of a smile. Despite the bulk of his time spent in Master Jacun's shop performing the role of customer service, people were strange to him.

[Urs Wardell]

“Yes.”


Yes, Urs would like to be helped up, and yes, he would like some water, and yes, he would appreciate some company until he left, if he did. His apartment, which was so sparse and lonely, was the farthest thing from what he wanted. High Hopes was very much what he did want because it was cluttered and warm and filled with people; he could buy food here, or drink, and listen to the minstrels or eavesdrop or, should he find the courage, strike up a conversation of his own.

“I’m Urs,” he said, surprised that he was, in fact, at the very edge of conversation, one of his own making. Well, sort of. Not really. Not that it mattered who did or did not start speaking first, as much as that Urs did, in fact, continue speaking. And that he was answered and that he answered in turn.

“Urs Wardell,” he said again, adding on his surname, which he did like. Mother said she’d won their name from the Spirit of the highest hill in her village in a game of chance. She’d told him the Spirit was a watching Spirit, a guardian of sorts, and she’d not only won its name, but the rights to stand on the highest hill, without fear of being knocked down.

He was fairly sure she’d invented that story, like many of the ones she told, but it was a nice one; happier than the others he knew.

He realized, belatedly, that he was still lying down on the cold floor. He pushed himself up, or tried to, relying more on the help promised than any strength of his own. “...where should we sit? I don’t think I’ll be able to balance on the barstool, not now.”

He hiccuped again, and his skin flushed red.

[Sivan]

"A pleasure," he said, then helped Urs to his feet. Sivan was strong for a Hytori, his physique more a bequest from his Dratori heritage. He tried to make it look as though Urs was mostly standing on his own, though he was certainly wobbling. "Why don't we..."

He scanned the room and found a nearby table pushed up against the wall, which would give Urs something solid to lean up against while he sat. The elf managed to support him as they walked over and safely deposited him into the seat.

"I'll be right back," he promised, then went to collect his drink and a big mug of water for Urs Wardell. The staff was only too grateful to have another patron keeping an eye on the problem patron so they didn't have to. When he returned, he set their drinks down and sat opposite the man. His first instinct was to ask what was the matter, what had him feeling the need to be so intoxicated at a relatively early hour, but he knew that was likely too invasive, rude even. He kept it to himself, not wanting to upset the man and send him stomping off, likely to fall yet again. That would defeat the purpose of the seat and the water and the time for his body to reclaim its equilibrium.

"These chairs are more stable, eh?" he asked, smiling gently and wiggling his rear against his seat to make sure it wouldn't break or tip over. Some people thought Sivan was priggish, but he had learned long ago to laugh at himself, so he certainly didn't take himself too seriously. In his experience, life had a way of making such people look ridiculous and he would rather avoid that.

[Urs Wardell]

Urs giggled as they walked. It felt like he was floating. He struggled to maintain his balance, but that wasn't his fault; no, not when the floor refused to stay still, not when the floor decided to dance under his very feet. Luckily, he was being supported - carried, really. Sivan did most of the work and Urs eased into him and allowed his body to become a human-sized puppet and led across the bar.

He sat in his chair like a child: his butt far to the back of the chair so that his legs couldn't touch the floor, his feet swinging idly over the brown tile that lined the bar. His elbows were propped on the table (luckily this establishment wasn't considered formal by any standard) and his smile was soft and enduring.

He mumbled a quick thank you and grabbed the tall glass of water and he drank. And he drank. And he drank until he gulped, and then he gulped it all until there was nothing left in the glass but air. And then he hiccuped.

"Yes," he said, echoing his answer from earlier. Urs mused quietly for a moment, savoring the lingering taste of the water. It'd been sweet and cold, and unlike the lager, he didn't feel slower for drinking it.

"You're kind," he mumbled. Kindness, he'd been taught, predicted of thieves and con artists. Or, at least, that was what he'd be taught to expect in the Warrens. Here, in the Upper City, where people had jobs and food and shelter, he supposed kindness was another luxury they enjoyed.

He mused, quietly for a bit, considering Sivan who had hair like hay and eyes like the sky. "Tell me a secret," he says suddenly, fumbling over his own words, unsure of how to continue a conversation that hadn't really started.

[Sivan]

Sivan paused at the question.

"Let me think?"

That said, he took the empty glass and went to have it refilled with more water. The more Urs Wardell drank, the easier a time his body would have flushing out the alcohol, which was a toxin, even if it was a fun toxin. He returned, wondering at Urs' strange manner. It might just be the drink, but he seemed quite youthful, though Sivan would gauge they were about the same age. Then again, it could be difficult to tell with humans.

"I'm not terribly kind, but I didn't want you stumbling out there and inviting trouble. The strong prey on the weak, even in civilized places like Kalzasi." He paused, then remembered. "Oh, a secret. I buried my friend in my back yard and now he's a tree."

Torin, at least, knew about that, but it was still a secret. It wasn't common knowledge that he hadn't known how to help the cursed Fae'ethalan and so the best he could do with the help of his new aidolon was to encase him in a tree to keep the curse from spreading while he battled his own ignorance. Perhaps Urs would think he was joking or lying; in either case, Sivan wouldn't be bothered. He wasn't a liar, but just now, his focus was on sipping his beer and keeping this wayward human out of trouble.

While he had never been good at dealing with people, it did seem as though people in need found him. Perhaps that was how he was supposed to relate to people, by helping them with their troubles. It went against his childhood prejudices; why should he help people when so few were willing to help him? But he was getting better at rationalizing things now, realizing that his penchant for anger wasn't always helpful.

"Your turn, Urs Wardell. Tell me a secret." He offered a small smile, not sure how this game was meant to play out.

[Urs Wardell]

"Oh."

Mother had once shared a similar story. She had loved a man who was so heavy with feeling that the ground couldn't support him and it collapsed beneath him; it broke like it'd been ice and there was nothing she could do but watch. She went back to that hole in the ground and cried, every day for a year, and then on the anniversary of his fall, she found white lilies instead of a crack in the earth.

It was one of his favorites because it had felt more like a memory, than a story; Mother's stories never changed, while her memories did, slightly. It wasn't rehearsed or written and her eyes glazed over and she smiled as day as lilies when she told it.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, his brown eyes clear with a sudden sorrow; he reached out with both hands, to grab one of Sivan's. "But at least he's close. Changes are hard." Urs wondered if he should share the story of Lyra and Guilherme or that of the Underside, but those were Mother's stories and were blasphemies, and he wanted more than anything to continue this conversation.

Even if the first secret had been sad.

He took his time thinking of his own secret to share, still holding onto Sivan's hand if the elf allowed it. It was simply what Mother had done, a way to share in someone else's grief. It was important, she'd always said, that a witch understands emotions. The heart and mind needed to be healed as much as the body.

"Today was my first day trying lager," he smiled wryly, drunk enough that he was loud when he thought he was whispering. It was a small secret, but a happier one. "It's bitter and excitable, bubbling like fresh anger. I didn't care for it."