The hero went to visit their second favorite married couple, the tanner-cobbler and his wife. They talked for a while; both were curious about Hallvar’s new-ish state of communication and the various rumors about the red-haired 5th hero.
It was awkward and embarrassing, perhaps a bit like meeting a distant aunt and uncle and having them ask about an accomplishment that was passed through the gossip grapevine. Nothing was untrue but all of it felt too much like bragging and Hallvar didn’t want to get into the complicated details with the kind strangers.
Eventually, the adventurer provided their odd request, asking if Symont or his wife knew of anyone who would agree to such tedious and strange work. They were directed to a glover who worked in another district; she was known to make both work gloves and lambskin fineries for the noblefolk, so if anyone could do it, the glover could.
Her shop was on the edge of the mercantile district, not quite into the well-to-do area, but close enough that there were flowers in planters out front and the entire façade had a pleasant coat of yellow paint, well-kept even in the salt air. It politely asserted a sense of propriety, but its location made it accessible to the working class as well.
With the gentle tones of a door harp, Hallvar entered.
They were surprised to see that the glover was a young woman, certainly more akin to Hallvar’s own age than what their expectations presented. They thought the glover would be a grandmother, perhaps unreasonably.
“May I help you?” She asked, not unkindly, but without looking up from her stitching.
“Symont directed me to you for a fiddly commission.”
They’d been coached on the correct wording, including the word fiddly.
Hallvar watched with curiosity as the glover finished her work, unhurried by the presence of a customer. Perhaps she was used to others rushing her and needing to assert her authority in her own shop. Or perhaps she merely didn’t care.
Regardless, Hallvar was interested in her process, so they waited with interest.
The glover approached after storing her needle in a pincushion and laying out her work delicately. Hallvar was sort of right; she was unhurried because she valued her own time and work, however the glover’s first impression changed rapidly once she neared the hero.
It was second nature for the glover to look at the client’s hands rather than their face, an act both convenient for her disengaged nature and relevant to her work. Though her face did not change, the glover was startled by the presence of claws on this client’s hands.
Her thoughts went into a rapid flurry of activity, mentally planning out how to construct gloves that would fit around the claws. It did not occur to her to question why they were present to begin with – that wasn’t her problem.
“Uh, I’m looking for two things.” Hallvar began, watching the glover blankly staring at their taloned hands.
“I do need winter gloves, but the enclosed kind are really hard to put on.” The hero gestured to the back of their hand, pantomiming the struggle to remove a glove.
“So I was thinking – there’s this type of glove from, uh, my home that straps on at the wrist with a buckle or clasps.” Hallvar couldn’t exactly cite Velcro, could they? “And has a cutout here at the back of the hand, making it a lot easier to remove.”
Sure, maybe Hallvar was basically asking for skater gloves, or at best, motorcycle gloves, but if it worked, they didn’t care how dumb it would be in their old world.
“And the second part…” This was the embarrassing portion. “I need like, talon caps? And I don’t know how to get those made or what material they need to be made from.”
The glover spoke as she reached out to examine Hallvar’s hands. “If they continue to grow and have slightly different shapes and sizes over time, then leather would be optimal. If they’re consistently the same size, or if you have the funds for yearly replacements, then metal caps would work well.”
Hallvar did have the funds, or could easily earn the funds, but…
“What is their purpose? Are you protecting the… claws or what the claws come in contact with?” The glover didn’t seem to care about the answer, though she was bluntly curious about the hero’s need.
“I— They’re for protecting what I touch. Myself or others. Already got a bunch of scratches from forgetting they’re there.”
The glover did not ask further questions about the scratches, for which Hallvar was grateful. They didn’t want to go into detail about all the intimate settings in which talons were a pain in the ass. Literally.
“How frequently would you wear the sheaths?” She queried as she brought out a measuring tape, taking note of the width of Hallvar’s palm and the length from the heel of their palm to the tip of their middle finger.
The glover took the measurements on both hands, pausing for only a brief moment as she observed the missing finger. A note was jotted down.
“Do you want this digit filled out within a five-fingered glove, or would you prefer the glove to be correctly fitted?” While her tone betrayed nothing, as flat as it was, Hallvar got the distinct impression that there was a correct answer here.
“Fitted, please. And I think the, uh, sheaths would be a matter of convenience in my home, like house shoes or a robe. So once a day, at maximum, but I travel a lot, so I probably wouldn’t wear them daily.”
Over the next twenty or so minutes, the glover took Hallvar’s order for the winter gloves – color, fur if any, the like – and then passed a piece of paper with a name and street on it. That was a metalsmith, specifically a jeweler, who the glover thought would have some interest in Hallvar’s project.
Then, their meeting was over. No goodbyes or niceties. The glover went back to work after filing Hallvar’s order in the proper place.
Well, that was that. Hallvar resigned themselves to having this same, awkward conversation with another artisan, but it could wait for a different day.
They retreated to the market to the tea shop on the corner, greeting the waitstaff cheerfully who were in turn surprised by the odd adventurer’s capability to talk. The last time Hallvar was here, they juggled coins and pointed and pantomimed their way into tea and snacks.
Now, it was a blessing just to order normally.
With more than an hour, Hallvar pulled out their sketchbook. They were diligent in their daily practice, trying to get their abilities back up to par after being hindered by the talons.
It was working out, they thought. Sometimes a talon would snag on a page and leave little pinholes or tears, but that was a cost Hallvar would have to live with. They were used to it. Perhaps books were precious, but notebooks weren’t, especially when your primary mode of fieldwork used to be in a fucking wetland.
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Hallvar was content to draw until Stella arrived – and they did exactly that – but even though they were focused, they were not ignorant of the looks cast their way. Awareness 15 did its work, prodding Hallvar to look up when someone stared for a bit too long.
They sat with their back to a wall out of convenience, so finding the nosy onlookers was fairly easy. This was an outdoor terrace with tables; most passerbys hurried on their way when Hallvar made eye contact. A few children and particularly gnarly old folks pointed and whispered.
Ah, to give less of a shit. That was the benefit of age, whether very young or very old.
Hallvar sketched from life – their teacup with a green foilage design, the oblong sweet biscuits brought out as snacks, a metal lamppost in the near distance – until they noticed someone nearby. It was easy to get absorbed in the process, but a hovering presence was hard to ignore.
“You’ve gotten better,” Stella said, leaning over with her hand on the back of the hero’s chair.
“Hi.” Hallvar smiled with lovestruck affection at the woman, resisting the too-real urge to lean their head against her torso. “I’ve kind of gotten better. I took a few steps back with the talons but I think I’m catching up again.”
The mini vacation after the entire King-Consort incident had largely been spent reading and drawing, outside of quality time with Stella, of course. They were… clearly dating and together, but Hallvar hadn’t gotten the nerve to ask if girlfriend was a thing here or how the dating-marriage pipeline worked in regards to the casual sexuality.
Not that Hallvar was ready to marry. It was just part of the package in their home world and it seemed reasonable for them to know what the social process was and what expectations were in place and—
Stella took her seat next to Hallvar, leaning in to look at the sketches in detail.
The hero filled the quiet with words, as they were wont to do. “I’ve just been doodling stuff from here, but I drew other things.”
They flipped back a page. “Grim had this cleaver sword one time, and I couldn’t remember what it looked like, so I drew some speculative designs.”
It looked a bit like that villain with the pointy headpiece’s weapon; Hallvar couldn’t remember the name of the monster, but surely it wasn’t triangle head.
“Oh, Pipkin fell asleep in a planter among some ferns yesterday, so there’s that.” The akergryph’s sketch was curled up like a peaceful little bunny, nestled under some fractal fern fronds.
“The crystalline place – I can’t get the sketch right, it just looks like lines without any color or shading – and the weird necromancer guy. He was nice though.”
A few sketches of Rubert covered a page. A full figure, roughly detailed with memories and fictionalizations. Maybe Rubert didn’t have a belt with little skulls on it, but Hallvar thought it would be pretty cool, regardless.
The adventurer spent an inordinate amount of time attempting to draw the man’s horns correctly, as they were curved but not like a ram’s horn where it spiraled outward, but almost… wrapping around Rubert’s skull. Like a headband, but oriented perpendicular to its usual placement.
Hallvar had to wonder if that meant the endpoint threatened Rubert’s comfort. They hadn’t looked that closely, as there were many other things in the scholar’s home to observe. Hallvar certainly hoped it wasn’t one of those situations where the end of the horn had to be shaved off, but what did the hero know?
Stella looked at those designs for a while, sparing one incredulous glance from the sketchbook to Hallvar with lips politely squeezed shut. She was jolted out of her contemplation by the server who took her order for tea and snacks.
“This is a very… extensive drawing,” Stella began with the kind of tact Hallvar lacked. “Did you imagine it yourself or is it from life too?”
“Oh, no, it’s from life,” the hero answered with enthusiasm. “I don’t think I would have added all those details if I had to design a character. The scales were particularly hard to draw in with this pen, so I probably would have omitted them.”
The elf didn’t know if she resisted immediate explanation out of propriety – they were in a public place, after all – or merely curiosity. Surely, surely, Hallvar wasn’t this lucky?
“They look interesting.”
Stella didn’t need to ask outright. If anything was true of the hero, it was that Hallvar was more than willing to explain things that they found intriguing. Clearly this… person was one of those things.
“Yeah! That’s Rubert. I accidentally met him when me and Pipkin flew a bit too far out of the way.” Hallvar didn’t mention accidentally dropping the akergryph into the ocean, as it was embarrassing and shameful as a pet-beast owner.
The akergryph in question was gleefully hunting. The market was only twenty or thirty feet away from Hallvar’s seat, and it was a great place for crumbs to fall, which meant mice and small birds.
“But Rubert’s great. He’s a little hard to understand, but I think it may be a cultural issue or a dialect thing. He offered to help me with magic, though I don’t know if I’ll take him up on it.”
Hallvar gestured at the air, contentedly explaining about their adventure with the eccentric. “I’ll at least bring him tea. He said something about not being able to get out much, and his skeleton companions definitely can’t do chores.”
“Mhmm, of course.”
Stella had great restraint; though she was quick to help others without much thought, she was capable of holding back commentary and keeping things to herself.
She would, however, be going directly to the Guildmaster after this.
“Do you know anything about him? Rubert, you said?” Her face remained polite despite the incredulous nature of this…. this…. ruse. “He offered to teach you magic, as well?”
“Um, I don’t know much about him,” Hallvar admitted, avoiding Stella’s gaze. “I know it’s kind of stupid – to not know, and what I’m about to say – but he just has good vibes?”
Right, slang. “That doesn’t mean anything to you. He… he was unnecessarily nice and polite when I trespassed on his property—”
Hallvar’s thought process momentarily ground to a halt, the question of property rights within giant rocky outcroppings in fantasy worlds throwing a monkey wrench in the ol’ brain gears.
“And he didn’t seem to be nefarious, just curious.”
Their anxiety latched onto to the 12-point word, wondering if they were playing scrabble or trying to explain something.
“Curious?” Stella inquired.
“Yeah, he asked a lot of questions. Which I know can absolutely be a bad thing? But he didn’t seem like he was trying to dig for information.”
Hallvar didn’t want to provide another reason why, as it was embarrassing. They had an instinct about these things, now. One that sat in the back of their skull, bound to the bestial hindbrain.
Rubert was like a gator, Hallvar was certain. Scary. Capable of great harm. But not particularly interested in murder or deception for the thrill of it. While a reptilian may be interested in its next meal, Rubert seemed to be interested in his next research topic.
The hero could be being naïve but Hallvar was confident that if they didn’t put their metaphorical arm in the metaphorical gator’s mouth, Rubert wouldn’t do anything to hurt them.
If Hallvar was the research topic….. Well, that was different.
They looked over Stella, trying not to sound silly anymore than they already were. “Do you want to meet him? We could probably go together. Especially if you help me pick out tea.”
Stella was smart and attentive and very knowledgeable. She could ascertain if Rubert was a bad influence or not, like Hallvar was a troubled teen caught out smoking or such.
The elf blinked at them, failing to react when her tea was brought. Hallvar kind of wanted to rescind the invitation just to save face since the mere idea of Stella meeting Rubert invoked this reaction.
“You… should ask permission first,” she said cautiously.
Hallvar’s brows knitted together. “He won’t mind, especially if we bring housewarming gifts. I mean, house-visiting gifts? Do those have a specific term?”
The hero shrugged. “If you’re uncomfortable, of course you don’t have to go, but he’s really nice. He’s clearly a scientist or your world’s equivalent. Does a lot of research, has plenty of resources. I bet he has a great library; his specimen lab was impeccable.”
“Oh!” With a sudden sound, Hallvar went digging through their bag, pulling out the shell they found while meditating the other day.
“I thought you would like this.” The hero handed over the trinket, delicately stripes on its curling shell.
It was Stella’s turn to be befuddled. She let out a tiny gasp after examining the shell for only a few seconds. “Hallvar, I can’t accept this.”
“Why not?”
She delicately placed it on the table near Hallvar. “Your luck is at work again. It’s an extremely rare magical component, worth… I don’t know, worth a lot.”
It was rare enough that in her time at the Guild, Stella had only witnessed two requests for the material.
The hero laughed, of course.
“Do you think it’s pretty?”
Stella was taken aback, her mental calculations of price disrupted. “Yes?”
“And you can sense the neat magical aura or whatever you call it?”
“Aura is correct, and I can.”
“Does it bother you?”
“No, it feels as if the tide is lapping at me. Faint but present.”
Hallvar picked up the shell and placed it back in Stella’s hand, insistently. “Then you should keep it. You don’t need to check a box for guild paperwork; I don’t need the coin. You should keep it because you like it.”
The woman blushed, finding Hallvar’s words endearing and a tiny bit embarrassing. Of course, her mind was concerned with the literal value of the shell and not the sentimental one.
Hallvar continued, flashing their goofy grin at Stella. “And maybe one day we can have a big specimen room to rival Rubert’s.”
“We?” Stella teased.
The hero’s ears turned red but they powered through, firing back another round of sappy nonsense. “Why do you think I want you to meet Rubert?”
Stella found that hard to argue with.
Even if Hallvar’s new friend was a dragon.