Cᴇ́ ʜᴇ́ ᴍɪsᴇ ʟᴇ ᴜʟᴀɪɴɢᴛ?

[aetherflows]

thy tender eyes grow all unkind...

[Alphinaud has been settling in as well as one can expect with the loss of his magic and pretty much everything else he's built his entire academic career on. He doesn't like that they're trapped but he's ever one to make the best of a bad situation, so he's taken to helping the locals and trying to, perhaps, earn an ear on the Parliament. His eyes are reserved for one (1) friend in a similarly precarious position, a friend whom he has seen very little of since he left Ishgard. Would that he had time for leisurely visits before they were taken here, but the apocalypse waits for no one, nor does a Scion ignore the calling of some voice through some gate or whatever.

The point is that he's been keeping an eye on Estinien as they learn to navigate this new world. And that means... forging some kind of Bond, which he hasn't done yet. Alphinaud was tested as many new arrivals are after he failed to show any aptitude for his usual incantations, and he was told he was some kind of Monster. Not a monster, but still an indelicate term that made his ears heat up. How could they so easily toss around a pejorative like that? Why not use a term like... well, like they do with Beast Tribes? Though that'd do little to hide the rampant racism he's seen on these streets (and yet another reason for him to be quiet about it...)

It's something he's working on, for sure.

But not knowing what he was destined to become has taken its own toll. He wants to be useful, and not a liability, and he wants to be independent but-- this late morning, this godsforsaken twilight, with the rise of the nearly-full moon, he comes upon a problem.

Two problems.

Two problems that see him at the door of where Estinien is staying at around sunrise. He's wrapped in a tight cloak that somehow makes him look smaller than usual-- or maybe he did shrink a few inches, hard to tell-- but he can reach the doorknob, so he knocks. Is he out training? Is he set on ignoring Alphinaud personally for some slight he's not aware of (that's the fae brain talking, not that he knows it).]

Estinien? Estinien! Have you a moment? I apologize for the hour, but something very urgently popped out-- that is, popped up-- and I would like to discuss a course of action.

[Is he even there? Alphinaud knocks again, bristling with some minor anxiety like a nervous thing fluttering about a light.]

Comments

[airthordans]

[ The door jerks open.

Estinien has adjusted to parts of life here, at least: he's in a dress shirt with the sleeves pushed up, collar undone, armor nowhere to be seen. He looks like he hasn't seen a bed in at least a day. He eyes Alphinaud for a moment, assessing, then steps back, nodding toward the inside.

He's set up camp in a little cottage, grown and shaped with magic out of a tree close to the Coven. (When he asked with open suspicion where it came from, why it was being given to him, a witch got a strange look on her face and told him it had belonged to someone who'd died trying to study the Cwyld. He thought, sardonically, that it was fitting.)

The cottage has rounded walls and low ceilings, and the fixtures seem to have grown out of the original tree, shelves and cupboards springing from the walls in sinuous shapes. Estinien has left most of it alone. There's a collection of teacups on the wall that plainly he's had nothing to do with, a cheerful chronometer carved to look like a cat, a comfortable rocking chair he's never touched, draped with a bright quilt.

He leads Alphinaud into a little kitchen, dimly lit with a pair of lamps, pulls out two chairs around a tea table, and sits down. The height of the furniture forces him to hunch over just a little, forearms propped heavily on the edge of the table. ]

What is it?

[ Terse, but not more than he ever is. ]