July 2023 ver.

Devin waved to Rowan as he exited his room. They had settled in and washed up. Her head tipped as Avery didn’t follow out of the room. “He’s already down there.” He really was hungry.

They descended the stairs as well. A turn at the banister saw them through the space between them and the front desk. Behind it were two large tables and a kitchen. Some curtains hung on sections of wall, curiously lacking windows beneath. They were purely aesthetic, adding red to the otherwise gray room. The only other décor was a weapon she presumed to be a spear mounted on the wall above the main fire pit.

That’s right. The area wasn’t even divided this building was so old. Older than their shop. So exactly how old was Phoebe?

They came in right as their youngest member was taking a bite of a hunk of meat. It seemed to be his first as he contemplated the taste with great care. The boy then shrugged and tore into in a way one might expect of a starved vulture.

Phoebe glided over with two more plates to add to the table, “Ah, welcome back, darlings, feel free to have at the food as you please.” This brought the total to four, Devin realized. The girl dropped into her seat and watched as Phoebe went to slide in next to Avery. The innkeeper picked at her food a little, but then produced a long, thin pipe from the sleeves of her clothes. Devin didn’t exactly know what the parts of it were called, but she noticed both ends were capped with metal while the middle was wood. Tobacco was placed into the end, already wafting its scent throughout the room at its mere exposure. Smoke rings were soon puffed into the vacant air. The woman let out a relaxed sigh with them.

Her cousin would kick start the conversation, “How’s business been?”

“Ugh, terrible without you, my dear. I don’t know when honey stopped attracting flies but alas here I am. Perpetually near ruin.” For once this woman had stopped smiling. Maybe she was just a normal person?

Avery paused his scarfing to ask, “What kind of ads do you do?”

“Eh? Ads?” Phoebe looked at the boy like she had never heard the word.

This made him give her a scrutinizing stare in return, “Yeah. You know, advertisements?”

“Oh! Let’s see. I have my prices posted out front. I spend most of my morning running all over talking to folks about my place back here.” Her face said all they needed to know about how well that was going.

The boy’s ears drooped in dismay, “They’re posted out front? I don’t remember seeing them…”

Rowan cut in, “She needs a bigger sign and I’ve been telling her she needs a bigger sign.”

“If I post a bigger sign it’ll be in the way! There’s only so much space by the door. If I move it to the other side it’ll be in front of the window which…” She gave a dramatic wave to all the walls with windowless curtains around thanks to being a building sandwich, “I need! If this place gets any gloomier, I’ll kill myself!” The end of the pipe was pointed at him, “Then where will you be staying on the cheap with full mail service?”

Their cousin slid his face into his palm. They must have been over this an absurd amount for Rowan to roll over on it so quickly.

“Let’s put a pin in the sign for now?” Avery moved them on to her word of mouth advertisements, “It’s good to hit the bricks, but that means you’re spending most of your time away from the front desk, doesn’t it?”

“Unfortunately, that’s right. I can’t afford regular help. I may be able to splurge with you three staying here, but then I’ll be in the same boat as before.”

“Don’t splurge on help yet. What you should do is make some fliers.”

“Fliers?”

“Yeah. Paper ads? You get a bunch of paper and cut it to be about so big.” He held his hands up in rectangle formation for her, “Write a little something about your business and your rates. You can do that all here at the desk and then you can just pass them out instead of wearing out your shoes. People will be more likely to remember if they read it too.”

“That’s all well and good, sweetheart, but the literacy rate here is only about forty or fifty percent. Older generations didn’t get a uniform education and that’s if you’re lucky enough to be human. Those from rural areas are questionable as well.”

Avery was pondering this, but then he dismissed it, “Doesn’t matter. People who can’t read will probably ignore you. What do they want a piece of trash they can’t read for? Just be clear on what you’re selling too so only interested people take one.”

“Hm, all right, you’ve sold me enough on the idea, little businessman.” She was smirking again. “You know you are just so cute,” Phoebe spoke to Rowan and Devin, “How do you two not eat him up?”

Devin snorted, “Easily.”

“Oooo! She speaks!” Her face and ears felt hot with how effortlessly Phoebe flipped the table on her.

She doubled down despite this, “His advice is basic business.” Her glare hopped to Rowan who paused mid-bite with a blink, “I don’t get how you even found this place, why you came in, or why you keep coming back.”

He completed the bite, swallowed, and gave her this stupid grin, “Honestly? I came in because the name sounded like something your dad would have thought up.” A needle pierced her through.

She sunk into her seat, “I-I had the same thought.”

Phoebe quirked an eyebrow, but it would be Avery who exclaimed, “Wait, like our dad, our dad?”

“Yeah!” Rowan took on a serious tone and splayed his hands out in effort to synthesize a title card from thin air, “Uncle Ram, the Owl Man.”

Devin lost it immediately and both of them laughed like idiots, “Didn’t our mom ban him from working the watchtower it got so bad?”

“She did! At first it was just at night, but the next day…” he had to take a couple seconds to recover before he could spit out the rest in a comprehensible manner, “Everyone realized it was way too obvious during the day too. He’s lucky he didn’t get shot!”

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Her brother scowled and her heart twisted. He was too young to remember. “Rowan, you probably remember better than I do, why don’t you tell it?”

“Okay, okay.” Deep breaths, “So your dad had white hair and fur like you, Avery, and for some reason he got this idea in his head that it looked stupid if he wore pelts that were a different color than his fur. I kind of get it. But he just kept collecting them. Then one day he comes strolling out with this full body sized cloak that covered him from head to toe in white fur. I can’t imagine how much that thing weighed. Which that’s one thing, but Uncle Ram also liked to sit on top of the watchtower rather than in it, you see?”

“So that night there was just this massive white ball of fluff perched on the top of the tower. And when the moonlight hit it… It was like a blinding beacon of light. The way it looked… Everyone started calling him the Owl Man.” Rowan wheezed, “And he liked it! So he leaned into it and carved an owl mask. Between that and his beard there wasn’t an inch of his actual skin showing. Then he started sitting up there every night! Subverting the whole point of a night guard!”

“Mom had to take him off guard duty before something bad happened to him. I don’t remember him in the tower, but I remember him playing with me as ‘the Owl Man’ and our mom fuming, ‘I can’t believe he’d be so stupid!’.”

“Sometimes,” the mage was finally winding back down, “I wonder if a dragon would have mistaken him for a sheep and carried him off.”

It wasn’t the same as being there, but she was glad they could all share a laugh at the images the story painted.

Phoebe was the next to chime an addition, “It’s practically bred into us emerans to flaunt kills in such a way. Though most would start with the mask to transition into a headdress.” She managed to draw everyone’s attention.

Avery fished for more, “So that’s an emeran thing?”

She took a puff first before recalling, “That’s right, you lost your parents when you were quite young, didn’t you? None of you formed a connection to your culture.”

“Our culture?” She bit the inside of her cheek at the way Phoebe stated it as such a fact.

“Yes, your culture, darling. You’re all part emeran for better or worse whether you like it or despise it. And emerans have a very prideful, distinct way of life.”

Avery was eager to soak up any and all knowledge, “Does that have something to do with the way you’re dressed? I’ve never seen a robe like that.”

She chuckled, “It’s called a kimono. My pipe is a kiseru.” There was a brief hesitation before she continued. Phoebe gestured to the weapon on the wall, “And that is an emeran weapon called a glaive.”

“I thought it was a spear.”

Rowan added, “I thought it was a halberd.”

“Hmph, it is quite similar to both.” For a second they thought they might have offended her as she stared at the weapon, frowning, lost to her thoughts. Eventually she released out a heap of smoke and informed them, “Unfortunately, I don’t know anything about wielding it. It was my mother’s, you see. The only thing she loved other than me and my father. Also one of the few things she left me when she passed.”

Avery offered condolences as the tone of the room shifted, “I’m sorry for your loss, Miss Phoebe.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it, sweetie. That was ages ago. Quite literally. Being part elf is both a blessing and a curse. My mother didn’t have me young. I still wasn’t fully matured by the time old age took her. However, its been so long that it’s the years of being with her I’m able to remember, as well as her smile, rather than her death. She lived a long life for an emeran. It would have been selfish of me to beg more of her.” She gave an irritated snort as she seemed to remember something else, “Although some don’t have the balls to live through that pain to see the beauty on the other side.”

Did she want to talk about it? Rowan nudged her on, “You kinda seem like you’re thinking of someone in particular there, Pheebs.”

“I am, darling. My father. He left when my mother began to look thrice his age. He couldn’t handle watching her grow older so quickly.” She shrugged, suddenly far less emotional, “Although to be fair to him, time also tends to slip away if you’re not paying attention to the other species around you. Perhaps he thought better and came back only to find her and I were long gone. Perhaps her even cold in the ground.” Another inhale on her kiseru, “Things like that are what make us mixed breeds rare.”

Devin felt awful for triggering such depressing memories for the woman, but she was also glad to hear them. Miss Phoebe had a rough life despite getting time with both of her parents. Everyone was damaged. Every family was damaged.

Rowan would be the one to pull them from the dark, “Well, that’s why I gotta stop in every time I’m in the city, Pheebs. Help make sure you keep grounded by gazing at my handsome mug.”

“Mm, yes, I’m quite thankful for you, darling. Though that reminds me,” she peered at his handsome mug, “I’ve been meaning to ask: do you shave or have you still not managed to sprout any facial hair?”

“I-I shave!” His hand went to his chest like how dare she ask him such a thing.

Devin bit back a grin, instead tipping her head and placing a finger to her cheek, “That’s funny, I don’t remember you shaving on the way here…”

“Of course you don’t, you’d sleep until noon every day if I let you! Avery can back me up. Avery?” He pivoted to his presumed savior.

“Mmm, yeah, no, my memory is kind of fuzzy. Remind me what’s in this for me if I do?”

He started giving them fake sniffles, “Devin I could have foreseen, but you, Avery? You would betray me too?” Devin gave him a sharp shove with her elbow. He chuckled out an, “Ow”.

Avery ever the questioneer, asked after the joke fizzled out, “So how long have you two known each other?” Phoebe looked to Rowan suggesting she’d never possibly be able to remember accurately.

It took some thinking on Rowan’s part, “Well, it wasn’t immediately after I started traveling. Definitely more years than not. I’d guess four years, five at most.” So he met her roughly at eighteen, but maybe seventeen?

“I’m glad we finally get to meet one of your friends from your travels. I-if you don’t mind, Miss Phoebe, I’d really love to ask you more questions about emeran culture.”

Her expression was so heartfelt, “I’d be honored to answer what I can, sweetheart.”

“You said mixed breeds were rare. You said it like any inter-species, not just part elves?”

She nodded, “Yes, often fairly extreme circumstances have to be in play for inter-species couples to be interested in more than a passive fling. I still don’t believe I’ve ever even met a half-krown. The logistics of which I’d be curious to know. If it’s even possible.”

“Krown?” Devin repeated.

“E-extreme? Even for half-emerans?”

She placed two fingers to her temple and rubbed it, “Ah, forgive me, darlings, I’m an age behind. Krown are what the humans called the zefiil before they started associating with each other diplomatically. They don’t typically care, but it’s still rather rude of me to continue referring to a namesake they didn’t choose.” Phoebe moved along with a nod, “And yes, even for half-emerans. Tell me,” she inhaled from her pipe so smoke swirled around the end of the question, “have you ever noticed Rowan smells better than other humans?”

Devin was red in an instant, “Wh-what?” Where did that come from?

Her brother simply answered the question, “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

There would be no mercy for her though as Phoebe zeroed in on her embarrassment, “But you’ve noticed, haven’t you, darling?”

“Er, I mean, I-I guess? But only very recently.” She could see out of the corner of her eye that her cousin was self-consciously sniffing at the collar of his tunic. “Wh-why are we talking about this?”

Phoebe finally relinquished her instrument, tapping it face down into a bowl she had on the table for this specific purpose. She grabbed at her kimono and fanned it. “And I smell better than the average human or elf too, don’t I?” They all had an angle to their heads by this point. Because where the hell was she going with this?

“Emerans naturally prefer the scent of other emerans.” Devin jerked away as Rowan leaned over to try to subtly sniff at her. She pushed him by the face to an arms length with a glare. “We associate it with comfort which is why we tend to describe it as a ‘good’ smell. For better or worse though it’s an instinct that’s so strong it affects our ability to trust other races. That’s without even getting into the cultural complexities. But that might be best left for another night. Some of it is hard to explain and some of it, in my opinion, is downright stupid. You will be staying a little while anyway, won’t you?” She leaned into Avery since they were on the same side and batted her eyelashes at Rowan across the table.

Rowan cracked a fresh smile, “Of course, I have no idea where we’re even going next.”