The Otter — Roleplayer Guild

Callum Prosser

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Callum stood still, his face an impassive mask as he received his ring from Vulluin. Given the choice, he would have preferred not to be kept so front-and-center to everything, though after Raiden's last escapade in the bowels of the ship he'd rightfully guessed that his time going unnoticed by the crew and attendants had come to an end. At that point he'd stopped being 'that random tagalong with Anabel', dragged into an audience with the queen after a perplexed posse of tailors had seen to making sure his garments were presentable; instead, it had become clear that they'd recognized he'd been brought along for some special purpose, alongside the likes of captain Thorne and the young, newly-minted court mage.

That she'd sent one of the goldsmiths she'd retained for the voyage to him specifically only further confirmed their views, given that there really wasn't any hiding that sort of thing aboard a ship. At least his sizing was perfect, he thought as he slid the ring home on one finger. Insurance in the event he should find himself overboard, whether intended or not; even before she spoke up to remind him, he knew that her wish would be that he remain on deck. Above water, watchful for any sign of that which she was worried about—

He could only sigh at the roar that rang out overhead, as lightning rained down on the deck. The force around him exploded into activity even at that, some moving to contain the damage, others to make their way to surround and protect the queen. Before any of them got far, Callum's eyes landed on the newest visitors, one of whom had already sought his gaze the moment he'd apparated in. His hand fell to the hilt of his sword, about to draw it and step forward, when Hayworth's men surrounded the trio, one darting off behind the queen with Hayworth himself close behind. The royal guards themselves had quickly regrouped from the initial surprise and onslaught, pushing back against the ghostly intruders.

The waves of fire coming from the Swiftsure next to them made sure to keep the one low enough that they could reach her; the other was lost within the press of bodies so swiftly surrounding him. Faced with such a melee, the urge to draw his blade and dive in ebbed away rapidly...beyond that, it had been made rather abundantly clear to him that his duty wasn't just to engage in a fight to defend the ship. Even over the ride from Tarin with her, he'd gathered just how much of Anabel's service to the queen was in an intelligence type of role; it was unsurprising, then, that his recruitment was expressly for him to act as some sort of counter-intelligence. Were it not for how prominently she'd just shown him aboard the vessel, he'd almost think he was intended to be some sort of secret police.

Of course, given that nobody actually knows why I'm here yet...

Perhaps the comparison was more apt than he'd thought.

He quickly ran to the side of the ship as Duchess Agustria's craft came closer yet, leaning over the railing and yelling at the other vessel: "Look up and fire on that dragon!"

and

Esben Mathiassen

Esben nodded once, appreciatively, as the sergeant of the patrolling guardsmen decided to bargain with them rather than continuing to pursue his original goal. He nodded again at Rudolf’s words, both for the act and the quieter, truer follow-up. Overall, the situation had gone far better than many might have hoped...even accounting for the threats that were so rapidly delivered in spite of his attempt to smoothly extricate the Kirins from the entire mess.

Some portion of that would have to be addressed; luckily for him, the one he needed to speak to about it had already agreed to do something else for him, and couldn’t well weasel on out of it.

”Do me a favour and leave that with Rudolf, would you, Éliane?” he asked, falling back slightly in the group next to the pink-haired woman. Yet to abandon the act he’d put on for the guards, he gently, but insistently, pushed the rotary cannon’s barrels aside, the ingratiating, mercantile smile still plastered on his face. Whether it was for the benefit of the guards, any others looking on, or some other reason—it was anybody’s guess. ”You heard them, after all. Only a day? You and I can’t waste any time getting to the market, can we?”

Éliane still had a very unamused look on her face. It was mostly still because of the guards, who weren’t quite stupid enough to actually do anything as she visibly thought about Esben’s… request. After all, the big gun seemed to have put the fear of god in them rather than any of the diplomatic threats that any of them had offered. 

Lugging around what was still functionally a massive piece of luggage around town didn’t appeal to her either, though. She sighed, breaking her fixation on the guards as she glanced back at Esben. “Fine. The market?”

”Of course! We’ve got things to look for, haven’t we?” With his hand still on the barrels of the gun, he started to pull it and its holder back towards the cart as the guards quickly left their presence entirely. ”Among other things, flour, sugar, cinnamon, yeast, obviously—what else?”

After a quick glance around to make certain that, with the guards leaving, the others in the harbor had ceased to pay them any great attention, his smile dropped entirely. As easily as pulling off a mask, he faced his fellow Skaeller traveller with a flat, expressionless stare. ”It’ll give me some time to talk to you about more important things than pastries, as well. Anything particular you want to track down first?”

Éliane gave an unamused look back at Esben in return, now bereft of heavy weapons. “Okay,” she replied, barely acknowledging his first point. “As long as they have quality ingredients in this place, it shouldn’t matter. But I think it best if we look for the flour and yeast first.” Decision made, she began trooping off in the direction of what looked like the town centre in this almost-tropical paradise.

Esben watched for a moment as she strode away, sighing quietly before he followed. For all that he knew of why Éliane had not continued in the Garden, he hadn't expected that he would have quite so much to account for. Even if it was just an attempt to return to form after all the time they'd had to spend laying low in Kugane, before having to travel with pirates—it was growing more and more obvious that the group could no longer afford to have such shows as they'd just had with the guards.

Even at a fairly relaxed pace, it didn't take much for him to come up beside her again. "Getting awfully warm and wet for all of that, isn't it?" he asked, nodding down at her garb even as he shed his own cloak, tying the corners of it together into a makeshift sack. While it wasn't nearly as hot as their trip into the northern desert had been, the midday sun beat down on them all the same, and if it could get any hotter, or more humid, he'd find it positively stifling. "I'll carry the jacket for you, if you'd like. That way we won't have to worry about washing it before me meet the Grovemasters."

That particular nuance was lost on Éliane. But when wasn’t it? “It is warm,” she agreed, oblivious to the exasperated thoughts in Esben’s head. “But it’s fine. I’ll need to wash it anyway. Most of my clothing reeks of pirate odour and the sea after that voyage.” Still grumbling about the conditions of the pirate ship, she shook her head. “Maybe it’s time to get some new clothes while we are here though,” she continued on. “But ingredients first. Are we going in the right direction, Esben?”

”...”

Esben stared at his pink-haired companion for a moment.

”Éliane, give me your jacket.”

Éliane stared back. “If you insist,” she replied, but still not moving to take off said jacket.

Their stares met at a clear impasse. ”Playing up the circumstances, are we?” he asked after a moment, his head cocked slightly to the side. ”Odd location to expect me to help you get it off.”

“...Do you want your pastries or not?”

”Yes. I’d also like to keep looking after you and the rest, but with a group like ours that keeps proving difficult.”

She gave a skeptical look back at Esben. “What are you getting at?”

Esben closed his eyes and sighed, finally looking away. ”This whole escapade has gotten beyond that initial call that Edren’s king put out, ja? Even after what you all told me happened the night you arrived, certainly after what Cid told us. Valheim has managed to plant its people deep enough to cause problems in Edren, and possibly here as well. Would you say that’s a safe assumption to make?”

She once again stared back at Esben, slightly taken aback by the whiplash from the sudden change in topic. Nonetheless, she considered his words for a moment, and nodded. “Yes, I’d say the scope and scale of the problem was far greater than any of us expected back home. The country needs to mobilise and I’ve written back as much…”

”And we’ve made ourselves known to them, and not particularly pleasantly. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re nearly at the point of putting out bounties on all of our heads.” Meeting her eyes again, he reached out to tug at one of her epaulettes. ”We are distinctive enough without announcing ourselves everywhere we go. I know these last weeks have been frustrating for you, but please keep in mind that we don’t know who may be watching on the enemy’s behalf when you feel the need to introduce yourself like you just did. At least save it for the Grovemasters, not the city guard.”

He let go of her jacket, picking up their pace as they kept walking towards the city center. He could already think of two others in the group he would have to give the same reminder to, as neither Galahad nor Robin were particularly suited to any of the precautions they may have to take—but it was better to start with the one that had some basis in this sort of thought, even if she had decided not to pursue it as a career. ”While it’s always necessary to be prepared for the risk of losing someone else, or worse yet, having to abandon them, I would prefer to avoid that if at all possible. Getting all of you to put in a bit more consideration to how you present yourselves would go a long way for that, I think.”

Éliane sniffed at this. She understood what Esben was afraid of, but she didn’t share his misgivings. “I understand the concern, but I see two problems with that. One, the cat is already out of the bag as you said, Esben.” And Valheim seemed too proud to do anything but continue to pursue them with their own soldiers rather than stoop to bounty hunters. She stared back at Esben. “Two, the entire point of my mission was to show the flag, to let it be seen and known by all that Skael is doing its part. That would include how I present myself.”

”Missions change, no? We already know the cause of the Blight, that could be satisfied as easily as you delivering the news to Leonhart and letting him and our bosses put together a more...mmm, a proper show of force. Things in Kugane already went beyond the expectation of what they sent you up here for.” True to form, whatever protestations Éliane might come up with, he’d already thought up any number of rebuttals. She’d know as well as him that the cat being out of the bag didn’t mean that it was impossible to avoid the recognition, as well.

Of course, he also knew that just as often, such purely logical arguments wouldn’t actually work on people in general, let alone those around him. ”But besides that. Humour me on this, would you? I’d hate to have to bring bad news back to your parents and sister.” He paused, before lightly kicking at the heel of one of her boots.

”I still haven’t gotten you back for putting a hole in my roof, either.”

She looked unamused at this. “I don’t think that’s going to happen, and that does not invalidate the goal of my mission to have Skael be seen,” she countered. “What hole?”

”Remember how I said a woman put her foot through my roof while I was studying in Solitude, and you said whichever lady that was should be more careful? I meant you.” He seemed as unsurprised that she hadn’t ever pieced that together as she was unamused at his points. ”Éliane, I mean it. Skael has been seen in this. We’re past the initial phase of things, and have dipped our toes far deeper into my area of expertise, something that, as much as you may wish otherwise, you are also experienced with.”

Éliane returned an exasperated look. “That goes against my very being,” she responded, strategically overlooking commenting on said alleged roof incident. She folded her arms together. “It won’t matter. Now, flour?”

At this point, they had gotten all the way to the market in the town center and were amongst a crowd of people and stalls filled with various goods and sundry. Éliane of course stood out with the uniform that they had been arguing about, drawing looks from some of the townspeople as she strode up to the first stall with baking ingredients to look at.

Once again, Esben frowned after Éliane as she kept walking along. Stubbornness like hers even in the face of genuine concern was always a difficult wall to try and overcome, especially when she so decisively moved to end the conversation. Anyone accustomed to normal methods of such arguing might be taken aback by such a swift shift—indeed, some of their onlookers were—and were they in Esben’s place, would likely concede the point for the day and try again some other time.

Should he have been speaking to any normal person, Esben may have done the same.

He walked up behind Éliane as she looked over the baking goods that were for sale, swiping his hand and yanking her uniform hat forward and off her head, reaching up at the last second once he was sure the strap had slipped her chin—holding it high before she could try to claw it back. ”Well, at least there is one benefit,” he mused as he inspected the hat in his grasp. ”I’d hate to have to get flour out of my cloak if we had a spill.” When faced with such stubbornness, sometimes the only recourse was to get as ridiculous as the one you were arguing with.

And in Esben’s case, being ready to use both his height and speed to his advantage.

”Of course, I could still be convinced not to use it...”

“What– Hey, give that back!” She immediately protested, reaching for the suddenly snatched hat and taking her away from the main mission at hand.

”Hmm? I don’t see how I should be the only one to sacrifice something for this plan of ours!”

“Do you want arlettes or not?”

The merchant at their stall was certainly bemused at the pair of foreigners arguing their way over her goods, having quickly made the decision not to jump into the middle of whatever talk was going on. ”Would you like your hat back?” Esben asked, calmly, conversationally, as though they weren’t just engrossed in a back-and-forth over possibly life-or-death decisions. ”Just one thing, then.”

“...Yes, Esben.”

He flipped the hat back around, pushing it down on her head. ”Promise me you’ll at least keep everything I’ve said in mind,” he entreated. ”I don’t think your sense for presentation outweighs your sense of duty, if nothing else. Don’t force them hand-in-hand just to make a point.”

Éliane sighed. “I doubt we’ll ever agree on the point of presentation, but I’ll keep it in mind.” Glad to have her hat back, she carefully adjusted the strap again to fit. She knew that her sense of presentation was an old-fashioned sentiment at this point, but while it wasn’t nearly as ostentatious as Robin, she agreed with the other woman to a point. “Morale is made in the fit. Now… Arlettes?”

”In any normal context, I can’t complain about the fit,” came the blond’s entirely straight-faced reply. ”Except for thinking that your hair is too nice to always cover up with that hat.” With his admittedly small victory secured, he turned, looking over the various grades of flour that the merchant before them had presented from the local miller. ”...See anything you can work with?”

She stared back at Esben, before turning back to examine the goods. “Yes, we’ll take this,” she continued, reaching for a sack of flour. Éliane glanced back.

“I only wear my hat outdoors.”

Esben counted out gil from his coinpurse, handing them over to the merchant. ”You’re missing out on natural light that way,” was his quiet reply, facing deeper into the market. ”What’s next?”

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