Legend of Ransera

The Golden Peacock Theater
35th of Glade, Year 122 Steel

Aurin walked out of his office and handed a sealed missive to his secretary.

"Send that to the Palace of the First Wind," he said.

"Yes, sir," the young man replied, getting up from his desk. He could dash and be back quickly; if anyone came looking for Aurin while he was away, one of the other secretaries of the triumvirate would field them.

"Thank you," he said, and walked out into the hall to find his little songbird. The trip back from Antiris had been uneventful, though the dwarven girl had been prickly the whole way through. Now she was delivered unto her Dawnmartyr brethren, however, and she was no longer his problem. Perhaps if enough of the little acolytes prayed to him, Talon Novalys would be able to free himself from his bonds and wreak holy terror upon his enemies. That would be nice. If there were going to be big guns, Aurin wanted them on his side. No doubt whoever had absconded with him and his blushing bride were working to turn him to their will, using Aoren as leverage.

It was what Aurin would do.

Actors were already quitting the rehearsal room when he arrived. He smiled and nodded, returning greetings, and made his way inside.

"Arvalyn," he said. "A word?"

The others quickly made their way out, clearly curious. One never knew if he was bearing good tidings or ill. Once the door closed behind the last of them, he smirked, which was to say he smiled, in his way.

"I have information and an opportunity for you."

Aurin's arms hugged tightly back; he prolonged the embrace just slightly too long, perhaps. It was just that he missed Arry in general and physically in particular. But he was fine once they pulled back. The rehearsal rooms weren't perfectly soundproof, but they were impossible to eavesdrop as they were built to dampen full-voiced singing and such. Nobody would hear them unless they actually came in. He put a hand on Arry's shoulder, not quite sure if all that he had to share was going to make the younger man emotional.

"All right, so... Found the Grey Raven where your father used to drink. Brother and sister run things now, but he remembered you and your father. A few facts, but mostly conjecture... Anyway, I think it gives us a lead, in any case. He remembered you playing with little clockwork toys your father had made. So I don't know if you recall him being a toymaker, but..." He rubbed at his chin.

"A lot of things might be called the ramblings of a drunkard, but the man's a bartender and you learn to sense the difference between a drunkard talking himself up and one actually relating his woes. I guess he would talk about serving some desert queen." He paused. "The only desert queen I know of is off in Ecith... ther elven conclave you now know so much about and last I checked, they had a queen. Never made it to their capital city, though. Foreign humans like me never make it past the harbor city of Tertium.

"I'm not saying your mother's a queen or you a prince, but that brings me to the lead. There's an embassy coming from Solunarium post haste and the Iron Queen-Regent wants entertainments for them. Yserloo is cock-blocking me on a command revival performance. Says the Dornkirks would have preferred something Kalzasern to what we did for them, but his feathers are still in a twist because—surprise—they would rather talk to me than a wing boy. Anyway, I got him to agree to send you with the caveat that we send a more seasoned performer—his words—along with you. He accepted my proposal of your minstrel, Finnean. Finneas? Finnegan."

"Good memory," he allowed with a gruff sort of approval.

There was so much he was laying on Arry in that moment, he thought it best to leave the conjectures of his parentage for a later date. Vadim didn't seem the sort to make up things from whole cloth, but Aurin didn't want to disabuse Arry of the one parent who had actually taken any sort of care of him without some sort of proof. Perhaps the mysterious elven mother would tell him. It certainly seemed as though she had an eye on him, and that had to be to a purpose. He could wrap his mind around a parent pushing their child away out of a sense of love. If he had children of his own, he would likely try to put them with people who wouldn't twist them as he had been twisted, as he was sure he would twist children even with his best intentions.

"Huh. I don't think they'd be offended, but we can do a bit of research, I suppose. They take their religion quite seriously. Not all lackadaisical like they do here in Kalzasi. Yserloo will certainly mention it and you can bet he'll be there, wanting a bit of the limelight. My guess is they will focus on you... Since you look like you could be one of their countrymen. I don't suppose they will take umbrage with Finnegal either. They blended their society with the Vastii... Mists, just tell 'em you're curious and they will likely want to sell you on their story."

A crooked smile was all the warning Arry got before he reached out and ruffled his hair. A part of him feared Arry would run off to Solunarium and that would be that.

"Charm them, but be careful with your..." He almost said trick, but knew Arry didn't like that. "Magical talents. They will likely know what they are about and won't take kindly to it."

"I think they pride themselves on the contemporary being like the ancient times," he said with a shrug, but he had, as he had averred, only gotten as far as Tertium before he decided he didn't want to live somewhere he would always be a second-class citizen due to his race. Then again, he wasn't even a proper citizen of Kalzasi. "But you'll be fine. You're quick-witted and observant. You'll be able to charm some intelligence out of them without magic." He had been grooming Arry for such, and it had paid off from time to time.

Aurin smirked at the little goldfinch preening, but it twisted into something lesser at the young man's irritation. Of course he knew Finn's name; he was only teasing. Rather than apologize, he just shrugged.

"Antiris was... much the same. The neighborhood where the Grey Raven is... it's much like many neighborhoods in the Low-City here, which is much like many similar neighborhoods all over. Vadim seemed pleased to know that you had made it up and out. I didn't give him too many details, but I figured I had to give him a few since he was breaching his bartender-client privilege to tell me about Ruslan—what he knew and what he suspected. So there might be upsetting twists and turns on this journey for you. I want you to be prepared for that. But whatever you find, whoever your mother is, just remember..." He made a face. Aurin didn't like saying things that could be considered emotionally vulnerable, but he had said he would try.

It baffled him that Arry hadn't known how he felt, but apparently his actions didn't speak as loudly as he hoped.

"Remember it's just details... accidents of birth and whatnot... You know who you are, and you know you'll always have me no matter what."

Aurin laughed, wondering what it said about the both of them that Vadim had been passing attractive.

"You would likely still fancy Vadim," he assured him. One could argue the man was a happy medium between Aurin and Finn, both of whom seemed types fit for Arry. If Aurin still fancied Arry, well, he wasn't going to say it if Arry had already heard it in his symphony.

But as for the rest, he reached out and put his hand over Arry's.

"Flint shivers and shatters if hit just right. Just remember you have Finn, you have me, you have the career you are building here. Solunarium be damned if they don't like it." Of course, if Arry did go to Solunarium to pick up the trail and something went wrong, it would take some doing for Aurin to find out, let alone follow, but he would find a way. He was as implacable as his mother when he wanted to be, and the young actor was one of the people he wasn't willing to lose—not without a fight.

Aurin gave the softer, slenderer hand a squeeze and then pulled away as if nothing had happened. He fired off a few more details that might prove helpful if Arry mined some information from the Solunarian delegation, more context to build a narrative, and then readied himself to go. Certainly, he had work and Arry had much to think on. His ward knew where to find him, both at the theater and at his home. If he wanted to cross-examine him later, so be it.

"I'll be around if you have any questions or thoughts or worries or whatever. Best get with Finn and figure out what you want to sing, wear, and how you're going to draw the crab out of its shell..." He didn't imagine the foreign potentate would be easy to squeeze for information, but Arry could be unassuming in a way.