Legend of Ransera

The Central Bank of Kalzasi
1 Frost 121

Pressed against the eastern edge of the Commons, one could see the Cloudhaven District rising to the north. Thankfully, he hadn't had to drag Yshvold all the way up the thousand stairs from the ground to the top of the hill where it perched like a palace itself, a palace of financial power in the city. Great House Veyl had a roundabout hand in founding the thing, at least helping Finius Mellhaven with part of it—if Aurin didn't know better, the story sounded like something he would have tried to pull off. Saint Finius of the Confidence Game. He almost laughed.

"I should make you run up and down those stairs for exercise," he mused, though he was joking. "Put some muscle on those legs."

But instead, he held the door open for the kid and followed him in. Aurin was dressed for his day job, and he had made sure Yshvold wore something clean and respectable, though it wasn't flashy by any means. In a sense, he was an apprentice. He was an employee, but Aurin was also trying to train him to survive. Yshvold had done a good job of that so far, but it would only get more difficult as he got older, bigger, and a more apparent danger. The Lysanrin were not welcome anywhere, really. But Aurin didn't give a shit whether someone had horns or a tail so long as they didn't fuck with him.

Aurin was known here, at least by a few people, both through his work at the Theater and his own keiretsu.

A bank officer took them into a small office to conduct their business. When they were urged to take a seat, Aurin eyed Yshvold and nodded to one of them, sitting in the other. The woman sat behind her desk.

"How can I help you today, Master Kavafis?"

"First of the season, Mistress Nyssa," he said with a charming grin. "Payroll." He pulled an envelope out of his pocket and slid it across the desk to her. "Everything should be clear, I hope. Wages can be transferred directly to most of their accounts, but my new employee doesn't have one." He glanced to Yshvold.

If Yshvold's horns bothered her, she didn't show it. Professional courtesy was like breathing to her.

"He's the final line item on the payroll there. He's opted for a lump sum of 409 gold and 5 silver for his Ash wages. I don't like to carry that much around, of course."

"Yshvold, is it?" she asked, looking to the boy to make sure she had pronounced it correctly from reading his name in the ledger. "I can draft a bank note for you, easier to conceal than coin and still liquid enough to be spent in many places, or we can open you an account and you can keep your gold in our secure vaults until such time as you need to make withdrawals."

"I would suggest the account, kid," Aurin opined. "Better than hiding it under your pillow for burglars to find." But he wasn't going to force him to do anything he didn't want to.

Aurin listened to Yshvold's concerns gravely, and Nyssa didn't roll her eyes or make any sort of judgmental faces. She seemed polished and professional, but it was anyone's guess where she had grown up and with how much money to her name. When the boy looked to him for guidance, Aurin gave him a curt nod, and another when he followed his guidance.

"Well, Master Yshvold," she began, pulling a sheet of parchment out of her desk, "I am also a notary public vested by the government of the city. That means the powers that be have vetted me and found me to have the integrity necessary to witness signatures and contracts and such. Now, that might not assuage all your fears, but hopefully some of them. Your account will be under your name, but under the auspices of Master Kavafis' keiretsu. He won't have access to your funds without your permission, though if something happens to you and you don't have an heir designated, then 'tis likely the city will offer whatever outstanding balance you have to be returned to the keiretsu.

"We can change that now if you would rather designate someone else?"

She put a form in front of Aurin so he could indicate the willingness of his company to sponsor this account. As for the other form, Mistress Nyssa was filling it out for Yshvold and would only require his signature. Aurin wondered if the boy could even read. If not, that was something that ought to be rectified.

For his part, Aurin began to fill things out—information about the keiretsu mostly, and its willingness to sponsor Yshvold. Aurin wasn't a citizen either, but at least he was fully grown and human. Yshvold was a minor and a Lysanrin, so Aurin could only hope that he could shield the kid from some of the worst that life might throw at him just for being what he was.

The man snickered at the implied threat and Nyssa just smiled urbanely in the face of what might have been a feral Lysanrin child for all she knew. Aurin was paying attention to the paperwork in front of him, but at Yshvold's repeated questions, he glanced sidewise at him. He was cagey at the best of times, but his new behavior, the sweat, and the strange signature seemed to corroborate his supposition. Once again, Nyssa's aplomb wasn't perturbed by the strange behavior. Aurin considered her for a moment, wondering if it would set a hair out of place if he fucked her, but he wasn't sure some of the rules of engagement he had learned in his youth would apply in the halls of financial power.

He signed the document in front of him and she replaced it with the document Yshvold had signed so bloodily.

"Master Kavafis," she said.

Once again, he read carefully through the new document before signing it himself. His signature was legible, but he pulled a small knife out from somewhere secret on his person and pricked his own thumb before mashing it next to the ink. Hazel eyes made staid contact with Yshvold's, one aspect of their growing working relationship signed and sealed with both their blood. There was a foxfire flash of a smile, then carefully peeled his thumb from the document, secreted his knife away, and passed it to the woman.

She looked from boy to man to their signatures as if this were more than just a formality, signed her name on another line, and, surprising Aurin, at least, used her letter opener to prick her thumb and seal it with a bloody thumbprint. Setting that aside to dry, she quickly assessed the other paperwork Aurin had filled out, nodded, and signed it as well. Her stamp came out; this one needed only ink, and she notarized everything.

"Your paperwork and the transfer of funds will be processed by the morrow, Master Yshvold. In the meantime..." She wrote and notarized a receipt of sorts for him in case he needed to make any transactions before then.

When they had bid her adieu and Aurin escorted him outside, the tall man paused in the sunlight before their inevitable descent down the thousand stares.

"Didn't expect her to open a vein for a couple of jumped up street urchins. 'Twas hot. Anyway... I'll explain sex to you when you're older. I'll teach you to read and write, as well. And figures. You'll be a better spy for it. More difficult for people to pull one over on you. All right, let's go find you a place to live. What neighborhood are you thinking of? I've done a bit of scouting already."

"Spies find out things they aren't supposed to know. Sometimes they listen, sometimes they read... sometimes they have to cut people if things go awry and they need to escape. You're a good little sneak, though." He said it with a modicum of respect rather than judgment. "But you'll grow, and sneaking won't be quite so easy. Best develop skills for the future."

But he wasn't going to force him to learn to read, write, and do arithmetic. Hopefully, he would begin to see their value.

Aurin looked at the example of a home and considered some of the options he had looked at. First, he had helped Torin find his forge and home, then he had scoped out places for Arry and his lover, and so he had gotten into the habit of paying attention to real estate. Once Yshvold moved into his cottage, it seemed as though he would have to look more carefully again, and now it might have paid off.

"I think I know a place."

It wasn't all that far from the Bank, really. The Commons were the largest swath of the urban area that made up the city-state of Kalzasi. They came to a corner and Aurin stopped, pointing cater-corner across the intersection to a bakery.

"Look up," he said. "The baker and her family live above the storefront, but above that... The third floor is smaller, but it's enough for one person. About the same size as my cottage before the additions. That door to the side of the storefront leads up to the top floor, and I guess they closed off the door that leads to the baker's home because they have access through the bakery. So you have the entrance to yourself, and there's a fire escape around the back if you need to sneak in and out. The baker has a key in case people want to see it, but she doesn't own the building, so you wouldn't even have to interact with them if you don't want to. It's close enough you can get to me quickly if you need me."

He glanced at the Lysanrin's profile to gauge his interest.

"Want me to go borrow the key so you can see it?"

"All right," he said, giving Yshvold a look but not pressing him. If he was acting strangely, that was normal. Strange for Yshvold was hard to pin down as he was always strange. "I'll get the key, go up the front stairs, and let you in from the fire escape. Or if you manage to find a way in from the roof, then you'll have proven more skilled than I had thought."

He smirked because a simple smile was usually beyond him, nudged Yshvold toward the alleyway that would lead to the fire escape and roof access, and walked toward the bakery. After all those years being the one skulking, he was still getting used to being the frontman of the con, even as benign a con as this one. It wouldn't bother him to be the one renting the place, either as himself or through his keiretsu, so Yshvold could feel safe coming and going as he pleased. And then Aurin would have his own place back; he didn't think either of them wanted to share space.

If the Lysanrin trusted him a bit, he didn't think it was enough to play at being a family, even if Aurin was looking out for him more than his own father had.

The baker recognized him from previously and happily gave him the key and seemed amenable to a businessman renting it for temporary storage; she just didn't want noisy upstairs neighbors, it seemed. With a cavalier and rakish grin, he left her to her dough and let himself up the stairs and into the empty flat on the top floor. He moved immediately through the place, opening the back door that would let Yshvold in if he had found the place.