…..:::::|. Aoustueilless: Circle .|:::::…..

Two men sat at one of the round metal tables out in front of a fine-dining establishment; one clearly more perturbed than the other.

Their lips were silent but their thoughts crossed in conversation as townies passed them in the center circle of Aoustueilless’s paved roads.

Rhemnahk a Rhem, Split. The one in smooth bluish white robes eased. His voice was not kind sounding and his tone was derisive. So what do they call you these risings, Most-Feared? Living dead...neverliving...unliving...undead?

Voidtouched. Since it is what's closest to the truth. The other one answered devoid of emotion. He was cutting into a steaming roast. His legs were crossed and his demeanor seemed lordly, though he was slim in his disguised frame.

I like undead. That's closest to refuse.

The lordly one’s grey-amber eyes bolted daggers toward the other one as he cast a jovial smile. Oh owwie, your eyes are sharp. It’d be better to slice me with a black blade, my brother-in-split.

“Oh, how I wish one would work on you.” The one cutting into his roast said both aloud and in their minds.

Oh come, come, Split.

You interrupt my meal for insipid insults?

No, your pandraegkyl. I want it.

I haven't seen it since--

Oh, right, since you died... You would have no need to scrawl in it postmortem, I seem to keep forgetting that.

The slim man in his dark suit drew in the shadows around him as he leaned in to glare on the other slim man in front. A few of the diners began coughing as if poisoned as his blight began to crawl the walls and shrivel the flowers around them.

Two crystalline wings flitted under the dark-skinned man's bluish white cloak. He seemed concerned.

These people have done you no harm. Do not involve them.

You assume I care.

I assume you have more pressing matters, like keeping me from getting to your book.

The blight fell backward. You're not here are you?

No. Nonono, of course not. You're eyes are far too sharp. The dark-skinned one's image flinched in its projection. He did so love twisting perception. I'm in a shop down in Kilgesh, being belted at by Erhemund for having angered an Exemplariat with my staff.

Your staff? Does Dome'nce know you think this?

I am the Twisted, am I not? It is a Twisted Staff, is it not?

He was annoyed now. What do you want, Idrissa?!

Thunder roared across the sky, though no cloud beckoned the action, and passersby cast curious gazes upon the horizon.

Your pandraegkyl.

I wouldn't know where it is. His knife stabbed into the well-roasted cut as he spat the words in thought. Isn't there and Immortal in your brotherhood who keeps books?

You don't believe I'll find it, do you? Dome'nce used the staff to bring you back from the brink.

And cracked my lifetimes in the process. He bit. Why do you think I would know any--

Because the whole event is in your book! You know how to get to that thing.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

If I did, would I not use it for my own aims? Put the puzzle pieces back together at least?

Not if you were waiting for something.

You're wasting time, Idrissa, and this roast is tasty.

The dark-skinned Idrissa cursed at him and stormed from the table and around the back of the white building into a crack of blue lighting.

As soon as his image was gone, another figure walked in, laden with desert sands wafting from his wildergear and sat with the one eating the roast.

He was far too dusty with all that gear to have been a denizen of this city, there were no deserts close by, and the one sitting, with now bits of sand and gravel seasoning his meal, sighed.

His eyes lifted in utter irritation; silent and staring into nothing.

Here you are. The dusty one said raising complicated goggles from his, also, grey-amber eyes.

The man wishing to eat his roast in silence simply began shaking his head.

What? Bad time? He asked, rubbing at his stark white hairline under cloth and leather.

What is it, Dome'nce?

We're friends, are we not?

No.

Well, I consider us friends. Listen. There's a certain--

If you mention that Prophecy one more time...

The one in goggles and dust rocked a knowing tilt of his head toward the lot of Agents and young Prospects passing by them. But you mind it so closely.

Time is a merciless master. I must mind it closely.

That it is...but you're being followed.

By whom? Nothing can see me.

The Seer's sight has been...well, enhanced.

He took a long sigh. Then looked to all the Grui about the city. They’re going to pehnhatant kill her.

She’s, uh, Immortal, sooo…

“Misery is a form of death.” He slowly drilled outloud, looking squarely into his ‘friend's’ bright grey-amber eyes. The two had so much history together nothing seemed to ever bite too harshly into the other. He squinted with a near grin. So many demand you mind this lopsided temporal mishap and you ignore them. Then, with his steak-knife, he tapped at his roast going cold. But I sit here and eat roast, and you spill your guts.

Zshanab, you and I both know why.

Which is why you shouldn't trust me.

It's exactly the reason I do trust you. He peered from those grey-ambers toward the group of youthful Agents crossing their eye-line then to the one he considered a friend. He rose, dust falling from all places about his sandy person. And to also give you this. His fine-looking honey-coloured hand set something flat wrapped in burned fabrics down on the table and slid them gingerly to the sitting one. Our Valtaega had retrieved it off another splinter who got caught in Liyza's Library when it burned. Perhaps it will help force a pendulum swing.

The one sitting with his cold roast, stared at the flat wrapped offering. He was hoping deep down it was not what he thought it may have been but he already knew it was. Part of him wanted to offer gratitude but the other part wanted to bury a blade so far into his ‘friend’s’ chest one could naught find the hilt.

The dusty one, Dome'nce, didn’t press his mood any farther; he knew this man’s story better than anyone.

So he left him, with a hum of agreement and an assuring tap of his fingertips on the table.

Allowing the dusty one to leave fully, the slim man with the cold roast began with cool breaths and slow hands, to fold the fabric carefully, methodically, and with such attention to detail one might think the burnt wrapping alone was the precious item inside. For a moment he stared at it, neatly folded, then made a flourish across the gift to vanish it someplace safe.

His grey-amber eyes rolled back up to view the group who had all but disappeared from his sight down the walk toward the harbour and just watched them go.

Halycind couldn't shake the feeling of being watched and she kept shrugging off what seem to be phantasmal eyes on her shoulder.

You're fidgety...you needa slosh? Kodlaa place a concerned haunt into her pack-sister’s mind.

Perhaps. Halycind's face was sore with salves applied as it seemed to be lessening in its swell, so the mental touch was welcomed instead of having to use her mouth.

The group of Agents and prospective Agents walked up on the shipyard bustling with dockhands and carts and hopper stalls for weighing cargo. Siin's eyes squinted once more as he spotted a curious stacking of long crates being weighed. They seemed normal enough but tiny tubes of patinaed copper were mounted to their corners as an addition. Perhaps for fumes? He'd never see its like and buried the quandary in his memory for examination later.

Then he caught wind of a flowering curiosity in a florist’s bouquet cart. He promptly swiped a bloom swiftly with his tail and stuffed it into himself, grinning wide and confident. What for his own personal gleefulness, they rounded the shipment crate stacks to view a huge gilded magnificence to the left of the hoppers and melted into his awe of the great giant boat.

“Oh, wait, this is a 'before you were engaged thing' isn't it?!”