Legend of Ransera

"There's the Jade Crane on that same plaza," he added. "They're a glorified bathhouse with massages and the like. This is in the Plaza of the Jeweled Arches, which... doesn't have any jeweled arches that I have found, but the rooftops of the buildings are painted bright colors, so maybe it looked like that to some poetic bird boy back in the day...? Anyway, the Velvet Cabaret sits between the Peacock and the Crane. She's like the slutty sister, I guess.

"Actors are okay. They're just performers, too. Some of them work with us and at the Peacock. Some of ours also work at the Crane. I guess everyone is looking for as many opportunities to better their lives as they can. And I don't know about their lines. I guess it's all that repetition in rehearsal. I get pretending to be a person and sort of flying by the seat of your pants, but to remember a script...?" He shrugged. It just wasn't something he figured he could do.

"Anyway, Gods made you golden. Figure once you polish up, you'll look like enough to treasure."

He frowned, not disapproving or angry, but trying to figure out what to say next.

"I'm sure it sounds strange... It sounds strange hearing myself say it. Maybe it's an age thing. Just feels like I'm looking at a younger version of myself in some ways and I wish someone had offered me an alternative before I felt compelled to make every possible mistake." He shrugged. "Almost, but no. It's too difficult for me to trust someone like that anymore. I mean, I can give someone a tumble. Maybe even repeat performances. But relationships... Messy. Vulnerable." He laughed. "But hey, if you take control of your life now, maybe you'll avoid all that shit. Find yourself a woman or a man or both or in between who you want to cleave to until the end..."

He smiled, hopeful for Arvine more so than for himself. That ship had sailed.

"I'm sure they will wrap it up in butcher paper and twine for you or something," he said. "Just don't tell them you got it from me. If you make me the pied piper, I don't know if I can find housing and employment for your entire cadre." Put in that position, he would feel compelled to try, but he didn't really want to stack them like firewood in his little cottage until he could find them all good homes like stray puppies. Anyway, it seemed like it was going to take some effort to make Arvine believe he was golden so he could be confident enough to make other people believe he was golden.

Relaxed now, he fed a trickle of his aether through his rune and let his vision double, the magical overlaying the mundane. He wasn't reaching in to pull something visceral free, merely observing what energy the lad put out. First, it seemed as though his emotions lined up with how he was portraying them. There were, from what he understood, ways to fake lies despite magical senses but it seemed unlikely a sixteen-year-old lad would know how to do that. A little paranoia went a long way in staying alive, but Aurin tried not to be ridiculous. Perhaps someday, he would observe Arvine acting and would be able to see the dissonance between what he felt and what he portrayed himself as feeling, or perhaps he would be one of those savants who subsumed themselves into a role.

It was one way for him to earn a fancy house for throwing parties.

Even his commiseration over love's labor's loss seemed sincere, as though he understood. Well, of course, Aurin was about his age when his feelings started to become very big, if not very sophisticated.

"So you get it," he said, nodding sagely. "Thanks, my man. That helps."

A pang of regret blossomed over the whorling vortex of energy that corresponded in his Vision to Arry's heart. Perhaps he had a recent wound there. He wondered if that would make leaving Antiris more difficult. A lot of lads his age saw every erection as a sign they had found their soulmate. Not that Aurin would know his soulmate if they fell out of the sky, punched a hole in his roof, landed in his bed, and punched him in the face, so he probably ought not to diminish anyone's feelings.

Feelings were just stupid. Look, they were making him twist into a pretzel to save a kid from his life. Like it would be that simple.

"Empty your canteen," he advised. "I'll see about butcher paper when he comes by. Given an inch, you take a mile. Well, if you can get away with it, that bodes well for your future." He just hoped he was good at hiding the cake and pretending to be sober. He didn't want the powers that be in Arry's life to punish him. And then there was a flood of emotions, too many for him to process quickly, almost blinding, and he was grasping his wrist—not the one he had snatched out of the air.

It flashed in his Vision, but he let that fade because somehow Arry knew, even though it was a passive magic. Unless, perhaps Arvine had the same rune and could see the flare of Vision in Aurin's own aura.

"What's wrong?" he asked, his eyes falling to his cradled wrist. He started to reach out to take it, but let his hand fall, not wanting to alarm him. He let his Vision fade, starved of more aether to keep the rune active. His eyes didn't change in any perceptible way, though he looked on in concern. "What's that? I didn't hurt that wrist."

His rough hand was gentle enough on Arvine's wrist, his thumb running over the rune as if feeling it would help him understand it. Not the same as his, but in the same vein, perhaps. He wasn't sure how all that worked. He didn't know if he could pass along his runes, whether there something other than etching required to pass along the magic. His memories of those times were hazy and unpleasant and his mind tried to shy away from them whenever he had tried to examine his internal record of life.

Very deliberately, he closed his eyes and then fed aether into his rune. Perhaps the lad would sense its activation, recognize it.

Aurin didn't know what he was dealing with, but a Mesmer would hear his symphony. Arvine might hear a high, clear overtone of magic in his symphony, hear the cacophony of impressions that came into him even with his eyes closed, his mind trying to make sense of them. It was more difficult with his eyes closed. He was not skilled and relied too heavily on his eyes to trick his brain into translating an entirely different sense into something it could understand.

Arvine might hear a familiar melody, familiar because there were parts that were like his own. He might hear Aurin's unease with his own better angels, the urges in him to help. Aurin was a bad man, but he was not evil to the core. Helping Arvine would be a balm to his soul, but he feared being taken advantage of. He feared being seen as weak. He feared being vulnerable. To love was to lose. The song was complex, perhaps because he had lived a life like Arvine's but longer. There were characters Arvine couldn't know, plot developments, twists, and tragic elements. There was humor too, sometimes fatalistic.

But if he heard anything, he heard that Aurin was playing him straight. If there were strings attached, perhaps they were paternalistic—he wanted Arvine to listen to him, though it was to prevent him further suffering.

Aurin couldn't see his aura with his eyes closed, but he could still sense it—like sunlight on his face, his eyes weren't the only part of him that was gold. He could sense hunger, both physical and otherwise. Even all the food he had eaten was only a temporary solution. He had been hungry for so long. His wrist, the one Aurin had hurt, was fine. By tomorrow, there would be no pain. That was some small comfort.

He released the magic, let it dissipate, and only then opened his eyes so his hazel gaze wouldn't put the kid off.

"My trick is a little different from yours," he said quietly. "It's how I looked at you and knew in an instant what to say to make you feel like garbage because I wanted to root you to that spot, to make you comply. It was a knee-jerk reaction because so many touches have preceded a blade or a blow and that's another reason I don't let people close to me. I'm sorry, again, for what I said and what I did. Everything my senses tell me tells me that you're a good kid. Part of this is selfish, like if I can save you, I can save... me. Like if I can make your life better, you'll see me and you won't see a shit person. So... it could work out well for both of us. I'm really... angry right now. Not because you've done anything wrong, but because I don't like being this honest and open. I feel vulnerable and that's the worst..."

He almost didn't hear bar wench approaching, but when he did, his eyes changed. It wasn't the trick that so upset Arvine, but a wall came up behind his eyes or the color changed or something and the brooding, brutally honest man was, between one heartbeat and the next, charming and chill.

"Hey, I think we're done here, actually, but would you mind filling the canteen with ale and maybe wrapping the remains of the cake in butcher paper or something. It's too good to leave behind but I can't fit another bite..." He slapped his belly, and he had turned all his attention on the bar wench, who was responding to it like another trick, though Arvine wouldn't hear a thing off-key. Aurin wasn't a courtesan, but he certainly had the skill set. Bar wench picked up the canteen and the plate of cake, laughed at something Aurin said and he was definitely flushed.

Aurin reached out and took bar wench's hand. "Thank you. Everything was great."

The bungled welcome preceded bar wench's escape. Aurin watched him go with a faint smirk, which faded into stillness as he turned back. "Ale for the road. Cake for later." The charm was gone, but he wasn't trying to charm Arvine. "Maybe back in Kalzasi, we can practice our tricks on each other, if only so we can learn how to camouflage ourselves from other people with those tricks. That would be useful, eh? It's a lot to think about, Arvine. You know me better than most now, which is really fucking terrifying. But if you change your mind and I don't see you in three days, hey... no hard feelings."

"Not unless you want him for a parting snack," he clapped back. It was mean. He knew it was mean and he hated himself for it, but mean was a part of who he was. Mean kept him alive. Mean cut others down before they could cut him down to size. And he was a little thing, malformed in his soul even if his body was pleasing to some.

A thousand other cutting things came to mind. He should rip this boy to shreds for having the temerity to... Fuck. Sometimes he thought he was getting better, but he wasn't. But if Arvine came and met him, he would do what he had said he would do. In three days, he would have done some mental acrobatics to persuade himself that Arvine was, in fact, like him—selfish and mean. He would still bring him along. Honor among thieves. Then he would owe him. It would come in handy at some point, an investment, not a person.

"Three days, then." He smirked. It was sharp and serrated, unlike all the genuine smiles that had fought their way to the surface over the course of their lunch. Arvine could see where he pulled pouches of coin out from various spots, counting out enough to pay for everything and a healthy tip besides. Hearing bar wench's approach, he stood, stretched, then turned and sat upon the table. His foot came p to rest on the bench and he accepted the packaged dessert and Arvine's cantine.

"Thank you," he said like he meant it. He did, but he emphasized it just enough that it could read as too much to be true. He set the cake and the cantine to his side so Arvine could pick them up on his way out. He had been dismissed, after all. "So how long have you worked here and why aren't you on the menu?"

That surprised a laugh out of bar wench, who bit his lip before he realized and began shifting his weight from foot to foot. Aurin was going to fuck him just to be petty. Maybe Arvine would worry that the journey to Kalzasi would be paved with his sexual education. Maybe he would learn to harbor disdain for Aurin. At least he would remember that he was a bad man and not get too close. One shouldn't stand too close to one's savior—it was too easy to see their faults.

"That's funny," Aurin said in response to something bar wench had said, whether it was funny or not.