Kaithe Dame
ChronicleMan
Qia
ERode
Vixere
PrinceAlexus
LanaStorm
Estylwen
Snowdrops
BunniesOfDoom
Flynn's words had left Dawnhaven's future blacksmith in deep thoughts. A lot more slowly than usual, his bulked up hand forced the key to turn in the new lock as Wenyr didn't even realize how part of him relished this primitive, everyday bit of action. Closing up the workshop was an excuse not to be bothered by anyone including another part of himself which might want to press on towards other tasks, leaving the most difficult one unsolved: How to pull off an act of duplicity perfectly if one had been told repeatedly to be a bad liar ?
Had Sunni not been on the list of people he could speak with openly, he'd have deemed this impossible from the get-go. A disturbingly large number of people considered his craft to be folding and reshaping metal, but it was so much more than that. It was cooking at temperatures far beyond boiling water, but the dishes one served had to last for much longer than the initial presentation and some brief moment during which its taste would be exposed to some conscience. A meal had to do just one good job at passing through one's guts once, a blade could have to do the same passage many times in its lifetime.
Okay... Maybe -- and as some elderly warrior fighting somewhere close to a river Wenyr didn't know yet was proving just at this moment -- a sword had the benefit of taking some considerable shortcuts in this passage, but it had to hold nonetheless. Could a chef de cuisine do wonders with substandard materials ? Some would claim so, but the truth was definitely a different one. It was the same with smithing. One needed good ingredients and one needed the right ones for the purpose at hand. Without having the facility needed to do major refining of raw materials, let alone the whole discipline really having left its stage of infancy in a more ubiquitous manner, the term 'good' mostly boiled down to the correct source and a trustworthy chain of trade.
Before Wenyr would talk to the overly busy merchant though, he needed to clean himself a little. He had likely already ascended on the scale of olfactory provocation without the fur cloak shielding the outside world from him. Hadn't the prince just dropped the word of hot springs in Dawnhaven ? How could there be a better place than these to get rid of all the troubles that had accumulated on both his skin and mind.
With the plummeting temperatures from the outside interacting with the surface temperature of the hot springs. The massive amounts of steam being created in the larger public pool of the hot springs made it difficult for anyone to see each other when they were not close. It was interesting to see how snowflakes were melting in mid-air because of the rising warmth. The hot springs were telling the weather that it would not bow to its declaration of cold. How could was it going to get in Dawnhaven?
His thoughts wandered as his eyes looked beyond the steam to look up at the clouds and the starry night sky. Octavia spoke about how cold it was going to get and how the elders mentioned that this season was going to be harsher than normal. Was Dawnhaven in trouble? He knew that he was going to have to put more orders for materials and resources and hopefully, they would get there before the pass was snowed in.
Looking over his shoulders that leaned against the rocks while his elbows propped him up. His eyes found the rose wine that he had, not even one-fourth of the bottle had been drank since he was sipping on it. “This is getting pretty boring…” He mumbled to himself. Other than being boring, it was relaxing, and he knew he would feel so refreshed after getting out but he wasn’t ready to leave yet.
As Wenyr approached the steaming oasis of wellbeing, he felt his inner eye's increased stare at his incompetency. Just how had he managed not to discover the hot springs right upon the day of his arrival ? The silent and desperate fight of snowflakes against the hot air from below had an almost surreal aspect to it, but probably so also had the fact that he would take a relaxed bath in a town at the rim of a mysterious and relentless blight while the sun had gone missing.
As the blacksmith closed in, he could see a spot of red hair first making a very brief appearance between the clouds and then becoming a more permanent part of his view. "Sunni ?" he exclaimed, half surprised and half glad about the merchant's presence. "You wouldn't mind if I join you ?" Just when had he taken off this cloak for the last time ? It felt like he had been wearing it since stepping out of his bed... And the moment it dropped to the ground, Wenyr just knew once more why this had been the case. It was annoyingly cold to say the least. That or he had grown too accustomed to the more infernal range of temperatures.
Carefully trying not to create too many waves, he submerged his overly broad-shouldered self in the water right up to the neck. Wenyr's long hair quickly rearranged into sort of a two-dimensional cloud floating on the water and it felt so good just immediately. "How's the wine ?" Wenyr asked as he nudged himself a little closer towards Sunni.
Sunni, caused him to jump out of his skin without moving too much. He was surprised to hear someone else and he didn’t even catch them coming down the stone steps. Am I that out of it? He thought while glancing at the bottle of wine which was barely touched. A sigh left his lips before his head rolled on his shoulders a little bit, “Yes?” he called back to the less familiar voice. He knew it had to be someone that he might have run into before, maybe not? Some names and faces were still not matching up for him.
“Oh, I don’t mind at all,” Sunni chuckled slightly while readjusting himself into a more comfortable position. A fresh position that was leaned against the rocks behind him more and sank himself to his shoulders. The steam felt wonderful along with the heat that was soaking into his muscles. “I am in the more public area of the hot springs for a reason,” he added on because at the end of the day, he was social, even if he was worn out.
Glancing at the bottle of rose-colored wine, he shrugged at the inquiry, “It tastes wonderful. Do you want some?” The redheaded man made sure he had a good grip on the wine bottle which was overwhelmed with condensation as he handed it over to Wenry to take if he wanted some.
Wenyr shrugged his shoulders, giving a casual "Why not ?" as a response. To say that Sunni made a rather tired first impression on him would have been a quite significant understatement, but at least Mr. Emberani had not yet attempted to decapitate him for the interruption. The blacksmith first let his nostrils take in the smell of the grape-born liquid, then took a small sip before allowing a more speedy fashion of drinking to be the rearguard of his actions.
"That tastes good. You don't happen to know what the name of it is ?" Having at least a small stock of beverages other than water or what the Eye had to offer couldn't hurt, even though he had found Sya's meals to be quite adequate so far. With his thoughts glancing along the inn, Wenyr remembered some remarkable observation he had made: "Also, on a side note, you know why the inn has lost its door ? Or no, not lost, but... could definitely use a new one."
Sunni watched the man as he took a sniff of the wine before testing it and then proceeding to enjoy it. At least he looked to enjoy it by facial expressions. “I think it is called Golden Sun by the Pelleron family,” At least that was what he remembered from reading the tag on it. The man surely wanted to order more from them.
The man looked somewhat shocked when Wenyr casually brought up that the inn was missing a door or could use a repair, “What do you mean?” Utter confusion came out of his lips when he asked.
“Did something happen to one of the doors at the inn? Was it an exterior door?” Sunni found himself looking for answers that the other man might not provide. Was he going to have to get out of the hot spring to fix an exterior door of the inn? This caused him to brush a handful of fingers through his hair as he forced a smile at the other man.
Oh dear! What had he just done ? Clearly this rather casual mention of the door issue had triggered at least half of the alarm bells in Sunni's mind simultaneously. Wenyr tried to give his voice a calm undertone as he made an initial effort to catch the storm he had just invoked: "The main entrance has the quite battered look to it, but it was still attached to its hinges and probably capable of keeping most of the cold air and nosy eyes out. Don't know what happened or anything about the interior situation, but I couldn't hear any turmoil. Only the usual banter... So I suppose it's still halfway alright at least ? That's why I didn't investigate further yet."
The blacksmith bit the inner half of his lips. Just going in right away and bothering Sya with an inquiry would have been such a viable option now that he had a second thought at it.
His amber eyes seemed full of thought and displeasure while hearing the man speak about the door and try his best to undertone the whole ordeal. A sigh left his lips while he began to rub his temples and close his eyes. Sunni was trying to encourage himself to calm down, not get up to check the door and relax.”
"I’m sorry, Wenyr…” he began as he shifted his weight and began to stand up.
“I need to go check on the door. I have no idea if I’ll be back or not. I apologize. Keep the wine. I have to make sure everything is fine with the inn,” He felt rude for leaving, but he needed to make sure the front doors of the inn were fine. Moving towards the outer part of the hot springs, and he could feel a shivering cold strike his body when he got out of the hot springs. A faint noise of surprise could be heard from him as he breathed in and out before putting on all his clothes. Getting his socks and shoes on, he began to make his way up to the inn.
Wenyr tried to control his facepalming for as long as necessary so Sunni would not be able to see it, then it just burst out of him. It was barely of real relief though... Trying to get rid of his own stress, he had just caused more of it to somebody else. That was not to mention that blundering ahead had also destroyed the opportunity to talk about the supplies needed for the weapons in a relaxed atmosphere. Great! Now he really needed some more of that wine...
collab @Fetzen
